“I'm Having a Little Struggle With This,Can You Help Me Out?”: Examining Impacts and Processes of a Social Capital Intervention for First‐Generation College Students

Social capital plays a key role in college and career success, and research indicates that a dearth of on‐campus connections contributes to challenges first‐generation college students face in effectively navigating the college environment. This study investigates a novel intervention that focuses on the development of skills and attitudes to empower first‐generation college students to cultivate social capital and on‐campus connections during the transition to college. A mixed methods, explanatory design was used to evaluate impacts and processes of the intervention among first‐generation college students (n = 164) in the context of an ethnically diverse, urban, public university in the Northeast. Results indicated that students who participated in the intervention demonstrated improved attitudes and behaviors around seeking support in college, closer relationships with instructors, and higher GPAs at the end of their first year in college. These results suggest the potential benefits of a relatively scalable approach to supporting the needs of first‐generation college students.     

How Economic Disadvantage Affects the Availability and Nature of Mentoring Relationships During the Transition to Adulthood

Supportive nonparental adults, particularly nonfamilial adults, provide critical support during the transition to adulthood, opening doors to educational and career paths. This study examined whether economic disadvantage shapes access to these relationships. Results showed that low‐income adolescents had reduced access to naturally occurring mentors, and the relationships they did form tended to be close bonds with family and friends, rather than nonfamilial adults. Their mentors were more likely to focus on practical support, and less likely to serve as role models or provide career advice. These effects of socioeconomic status on natural mentoring relationships remained evident, even when accounting for youth race/ethnicity. Findings suggest that networks of support differ depending on a youth's socioeconomic context in ways that could perpetuate social and economic inequalities.     

Portrayals of Intimate Partner Violence in Music Videos: Effects on Perceptions of IPV Warning Signs

The present research examined the effects of viewing music videos containing intimate partner violence (IPV) on minimization of warning signs of IPV, that is, perceiving that psychologically controlling and demeaning behaviors are not abusive. One video portrayed overt IPV in a narrative form and the other contained overt IPV but no identifiable narrative. Lyrics for both included violent content, but the music was distinctly different—one song was rap interspersed with somber singing and the other had an upbeat pop sound. The video and audio channels were combined in a 2-×-2 factorial design with an external control group so that all combinations of narrative and non-narrative video with the rap and pop music were presented to college student participants (153 participants, 53% female) in a between-subjects design. Participants showed greater minimization, that is, they were less likely to perceive the psychologically controlling and demeaning behaviors as abusive to the extent that they were transported into the video and enjoyed it. Minimizing perceptions of abuse as a function of viewing music videos that portray IPV is discussed as a negative consequence of such videos.     

Context and Perceptual Salience Influence the Formation of Novel Stereotypes via Cumulative Cultural Evolution

We use a transmission chain method to establish how context and category salience influence the formation of novel stereotypes through cumulative cultural evolution. We created novel alien targets by combining features from three category dimensions—color, movement, and shape—thereby creating social targets that were individually unique but that also shared category membership with other aliens (e.g., two aliens might be the same color and shape but move differently). At the start of the transmission chains each alien was randomly assigned attributes that described it (e.g., arrogant, caring, confident). Participants were given training on the alien‐attribute assignments and were then tested on their memory for these. The alien‐attribute assignments participants produced during test were used as the training materials for the next participant in the transmission chain. As information was repeatedly transmitted an increasingly simplified, learnable stereotype‐like structure emerged for targets who shared the same color, such that by the end of the chains targets who shared the same color were more likely to share the same attributes (a reanalysis of data from Martin et al., 2014 which we term Experiment 1). The apparent bias toward the formation of novel stereotypes around the color category dimension was also found for objects (Experiment 2). However, when the category dimension of color was made less salient, it no longer dominated the formation of novel stereotypes (Experiment 3). The current findings suggest that context and category salience influence category dimension salience, which in turn influences the cumulative cultural evolution of information.     

Belief-level markers of physical activity among young adult couples: Comparisons across couples without children and new parents

The health benefits of regular moderate–vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) are well established, yet young adults, particularly parents, often show declines in MVPA and may represent a critical population for intervention. Theory-based correlates used to guide future interventions are scant in this population. The purpose of this study was to examine theory of planned behaviour (TPB) belief-level constructs as correlates of directly assessed MVPA across cohorts of couples without children and with their first child over the initial 12?months. Participants were 238 adults (102 not expecting a child, 136 expecting first child) who completed baseline demographics, belief measures of the TPB and seven-day accelerometry, followed by assessments at 6 and 12 months. Results showed select medium-sized belief-PA correlations with sex and cohort interactions. Overall, women had larger affect-based behavioural belief associations with MVPA than men (e.g. PA relieves stress), and among new parents, mothers showed larger associations with control over MVPA than fathers. Mothers also had larger associations between control beliefs and MVPA compared to women without children (e.g. domestic duties, bad weather). Extremely high means and low variability on the behavioural beliefs show limited room for possible changes in intervention while control beliefs had low means suggesting room for change. Interventions targeting control among new mothers may be paramount for increasing MVPA, yet the TPB yielded less insight into the targets for promoting MVPA among young men.     

Change detection in the flicker paradigm: Do faces have an advantage?

Changes to a scene that occur during an eye movement, image flicker, or movie cut are difficult to detect. One way to measure change detection performance is with the flicker paradigm, where changes between two images are introduced during a brief blank screen, which causes the images to “flicker”. Ro, Russell, and Lavie (2001) presented flickering displays consisting of one face and five different common objects. They found that changes to faces were detected both more rapidly and more accurately than changes to objects and suggested that faces capture attention due to their biological significance. In the present studies, we found that changes to objects were more readily detected than changes to faces when displays consisted of an object among a number of faces. That is, a change detection advantage was observed for the “odd-one-out” in the array, regardless of its significance. Therefore, faces may not have a special status for change detection.     

Benefits of all work and no play: the relationship between neuroticism and performance as a function of resource allocation

The authors evaluate a model suggesting that the performance of highly neurotic individuals, relative to their stable counterparts, is more strongly influenced by factors relating to the allocation of attentional resources. First, an air traffic control simulation was used to examine the interaction between effort intensity and scores on the Anxiety subscale of Eysenck Personality Profiler Neuroticism in the prediction of task performance. Overall effort intensity enhanced performance for highly anxious individuals more so than for individuals with low anxiety. Second, a longitudinal field study was used to examine the interaction between office busyness and Eysenck Personality Inventory Neuroticism in the prediction of telesales performance. Changes in office busyness were associated with greater performance improvements for highly neurotic individuals compared with less neurotic individuals. These studies suggest that highly neurotic individuals outperform their stable counterparts in a busy work environment or if they are expending a high level of effort.     

Executive functions and ADHD in adults: evidence for selective effects on ADHD symptom domains

Dual-process models of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) suggest that both executive functioning and regulatory functions (e.g., processing speed) are involved and that executive function weaknesses may be associated specifically with symptoms of inattention-disorganization but not hyperactivity-impulsivity. Adults aged 18-37 (105 with ADHD, 90 controls) completed a neuropsychological battery. The ADHD group had weaker performance than did the control group (p<.01) on both executive and speed measures. Symptoms of inattention-disorganization were uniquely related to executive functioning with hyperactivity-impulsivity controlled. Inattention was associated with slower response speed, and hyperactivity-impulsivity with faster output speed. Results were not accounted for by IQ, age, gender, education level, or comorbid disorders. Findings are discussed in terms of developmental and dual-process models of ADHD leading into adulthood.