The Contribution of Individualism vs. Collectivism to Cross-national Differences in Display Rules

Despite the fact that display rules are an important concept of theories of emotion and contemporary psychology, relatively little cross-cultural research has been done on them. This study examined cross-national differences in display rules of emotion, and investigated the degree to which those differences could be attributed to Individualism and Collectivism (IC) measured on the individual level. Participants in the US, Japan, South Korea, and Russia completed a comprehensive measure of display rules assessing behavioral tendencies for seven universal emotions in four social contexts in two rating domains. They also completed Matsumoto et al .'s (1997) Individualism–Collectivism Interpersonal Assessment Inventory. The results confirmed the existence of cross-national differences in IC and display rules, and indicated that IC and display rules were correlated. Significant differences between the countries remained even after IC was controlled for, and effect size analyses comparing cross-national differences when IC was controlled and not indicated that IC accounted for approximately 30% of the effect sizes related to cross-national differences. This study is unique in that it not only used the concept of IC to explain and predict differences; it also quantitatively assessed the degree to which IC contributed to those differences. These findings are discussed in terms of the utility of the IC concept to understanding cross-cultural and cross-national differences in emotion.     

Personality Disorders in Older Adult Inpatients with Chronic Mental Illness

It has been hypothesized that some types of personality disorders tend to remit with age whereas others may become more prominent. The present study determined the prevalence and nature of 13 personality disorders with a self-report inventory (Coolidge Axis II Inventory) in an older group of chronically mentally ill inpatients (N = 30, mean age = 63 years) and a younger group of similar patients (N = 30, mean age = 39 years). All patients met DSM-IV criteria for either Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, or recurrent severe Major Depression with psychotic features. The prevalence rate of personality disorders was high for both groups: 58% for the older sample and 66% for the younger group. The younger group was more likely to be diagnosed Antisocial, Borderline, Passive-Aggressive, Sadistic, and Schizotypal, but the groups were not different in the rates of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. This study supports the hypothesis that some personality disorders remit with age. However, no evidence was found to suggest that other personality disorders become more prominent in older adult psychiatric populations. Suggestions for future research are offered.     

Influence of in utero exposure to maternal depression and natural disaster-related stress on infant temperament at 6 months: The children of Superstorm Sandy

This study examined the effects of in utero exposure to maternal depression and Superstorm Sandy, a hurricane that hit metropolitan New York in 2012, on infant temperament at 6 months. Temperament was assessed using the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised. Maternal depression was measured by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. The main effects and the interaction of maternal depression and Sandy exposure on infant temperament were examined using a multivariable generalized linear model. Results show that prenatal maternal depression was associated with lower emotion regulation and greater distress. Stratification and interaction analyses suggested that the adverse effects of prenatal maternal depression on problematic temperament were amplified by in utero Sandy exposure. This study underscores the importance of providing prenatal screening and treatment for maternal depression during pregnancy while also identifying high-risk families who may have suffered from disaster-related traumas to provide necessary services. As the frequency of natural disasters may increase due to climate change, it is important to understand the consequences of in utero stress on child development and to formulate plans for early identification.     

Modulation of physical understanding by common marmosets (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Callithrix jacchus</Emphasis>)

The understanding of physical causality in common marmosets was tested using support problems in which a pair of sheets was presented to determine whether subjects would choose the sheet that had a food item on it (i.e., the sheet was supporting the food item). In two experiments, the conditions were manipulated in terms of the length of the sheet, the distance between the sheet and the food item, the presence of a gap separating the two sheets, and the size of the food item. In Experiment 1, the marmosets had difficulty rejecting an irretrievable food item when it was located closer to them than a retrievable item. Although their performance was strongly affected by the size of the irretrievable food item, they quickly learned to reject that alternative. In contrast, no improvement was found when one sheet was divided into two pieces such that the food item could not be retrieved when its near side was pulled. A similar response tendency was observed in Experiment 2, in which the effects of the large food item were examined in three different conditions. Thus, common marmosets were influenced by the perceptual features of the food in solving the support problems, as are other non-human primates. In addition, they consistently failed to appreciate the presence of a gap and, therefore, failed to reject the distracter alternative. However, all animals rapidly learned that the size of the food item was an irrelevant variable, and some showed an elementary conceptual understanding of support. These findings suggest that marmosets’ physical understanding may improve with experience.     

Perception as evidence accumulation and Bayesian inference: insights from masked priming

The authors argue that perception is Bayesian inference based on accumulation of noisy evidence and that, in masked priming, the perceptual system is tricked into treating the prime and the target as a single object. Of the 2 algorithms considered for formalizing how the evidence sampled from a prime and target is combined, only 1 was shown to be consistent with the existing data from the visual word recognition literature. This algorithm was incorporated into the Bayesian Reader model (D. Norris, 2006), and its predictions were confirmed in 3 experiments. The experiments showed that the pattern of masked priming is not a fixed function of the relations between the prime and the target but can be changed radically by changing the task from lexical decision to a same-different judgment. Implications of the Bayesian framework of masked priming for unconscious cognition and visual masking are discussed.     

Unconscious cognition isn't that smart: modulation of masked repetition priming effect in the word naming task

Masked repetition primes produce greater facilitation in naming in a block containing a high, rather than low proportion of repetition trials. [Bodner, G. E., & Masson, M. E. J. (2004). Beyond binary judgments: Prime-validity modulates masked repetition priming in the naming task. Memory & Cognition, 32, 1-11] suggested this phenomenon reflects a strategic shift in the use of masked prime as a function of its validity. We propose an alternative explanation based on the Adaptation to the statistics of the environment (ASE) framework, which suggests the proportion effect reflects adaptation of response-initiation processes to recent trial difficulty. Consistent with ASE's prediction, (1) stimuli that produce the proportion effect also produced an "asymmetric blocking effect", showing a smaller fall in response latencies of hard items than the rise of easy items when the two item types were intermixed relative to pure blocks comprised of only one item type, and (2) manipulation of prime validity was neither necessary nor sufficient to modulate the size of masked-priming effect.     

Switch costs when reading aloud words and nonwords: Evidence for shifting route emphasis?

Reynolds and Besner (2005) examined contextual control over the use of lexical and nonlexical routes by requiring participants to alternate between reading pairs of low-frequency exception words and pairs of nonwords. Their main finding was that latencies for both words (e.g., wad) and nonwords (e.g., flad) were slower when the immediately preceding trial involved the opposite item type rather than the same item type (a switch cost). The authors interpreted this result as evidence that under certain circumstances, readers have the ability to shift emphasis between their lexical and nonlexical routes. The present research shows that these results can be replicated using Reynolds and Besner’s items; however, the switch cost for words, but not for nonwords, disappears when more easily named nonwords are used. This result suggests that Reynolds and Besner’s results were likely due to something other than shifting route emphasis.     

On the relationship between Karen Horney's tripartite neurotic type theory and personality disorder features

[Horney, 1945] and [Horney, 1950] interpersonal theory [Horney, K. (1945). Our inner conflicts. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.; Horney, K. (1950). Neurosis and human growth. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.] postulated that individuals could move toward, move against, and move away from others as manifestations of their character development. In the present studies, it was hypothesized that Horney's tripartite theory might be useful in the elucidation of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders personality disorder features. In the first study, college students (n=198) completed the Coolidge Axis II Inventory [CATI; Coolidge, F. L. (1999), Coolidge Assessment Battery Manual. Port Huron, MI: Sigma Assessment Systems and Coolidge, F. L., & Merwin, M. M. (1992). Reliability and viability of the Coolidge Axis II Inventory: a new inventory for the assessment of personality disorders. Journal of Personality Assessment, 59, 223–238] and Cohen's 1967 35-item test [Cohen, J. B. (1967). An interpersonal orientation to the study of consumer behaviour. Journal of Marketing Research, 4, 270–278] of Horney's three types: Compliant, Aggressive, and Detached. In the second study, another group of college students (n=881) completed the CATI and Coolidge's 57-item test of Horney's three types. Results showed that both scales were reliable, generally similar, and numerous predicted correlational relationships were found. The usefulness of Horney's constructs in the understanding of personality disorders was discussed.     

Influence of Deteriorating Ability of Emotional Comprehension on Interpersonal Behavior in Alzheimer-Type Dementia

This study investigated the relationship between the ability to recognize emotion and interpersonal behavior in dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT). After examining the validity and reliability of the Emotion Recognition Test (ERT), an improved version of the tasks used by Shimokawa et al. (2000), 100 patients with DAT underwent evaluation for general cognition using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and emotion recognition using the ERT. Within a week of these tests being administered, ward staff rated the patients using the Interpersonal Behavior Checklist (IBC), composed of two behavior scales: indifference to interpersonal relationships and difficulties with patient treatment/management. After investigating the validity and reliability of the scales, the correlations between the MMSE, the ERT, and the two scales of the IBC were calculated. The results suggested that the MMSE did not correlate with either of the two behavior scales, while the ERT correlated significantly with both of the scales. The study results lead to the conclusion that deteriorating emotion recognition ability, rather than deterioration of general cognition, influences the indifferent and awkward interpersonal behaviors of DAT patients.