Processing emotional category congruency between emotional facial expressions and emotional words

Facial expressions are critical for effective social communication, and as such may be processed by the visual system even when it might be advantageous to ignore them. Previous research has shown that categorising emotional words was impaired when faces of a conflicting valence were simultaneously presented. In the present study, we examined whether emotional word categorisation would also be impaired when faces of the same (negative) valence but different emotional category (either angry, sad or fearful) were simultaneously presented. Behavioural results provided evidence for involuntary processing of basic emotional facial expression category, with slower word categorisation when the face and word categories were incongruent (e.g., angry word and sad face) than congruent (e.g., angry word and angry face). Event-related potentials (ERPs) time-locked to the presentation of the word-face pairs also revealed that emotional category congruency effects were evident from approximately 170 ms after stimulus onset.     

Facilitating memory‐based lie detection in immediate and delayed interviewing: The role of mnemonics

We experimentally investigated how different mnemonic techniques employed in an interview conducted immediately after an event affected truth tellers' and liars' responses when they were interviewed again after a 2‐week delay. We also compared how verbal accounts changed over time within truth tellers and liars, and how consistent both groups were. Participants (n = 143) were shown a mock intelligence operation video and instructed either to tell the truth or lie about its contents in two interviews, one of which was immediately after watching the video and the other after a 2‐week delay. In the immediate interview, they were asked to provide a free recall and then asked to provide further information via one of three mnemonics: context reinstatement, sketch, or event‐line. In the delayed interview, they were asked to provide only a free recall. Truth tellers reported more visual, spatial, temporal, and action details than did liars both immediately and after a delay. Truth tellers experienced more of a decline in reporting details after a delay than did liars, and this decline was affected by the mnemonic used. Truth tellers thus showed, more than liars, patterns of reporting indicative of genuine memory decay. Liars produced patterns of a “stability bias” instead. Truth tellers and liars were equally consistent between their immediate and delayed statements.     

A Feasibility Trial of Mental Health First Aid First Nations: Acceptability,Cultural Adaptation,and Preliminary Outcomes

The Mental Health First Aid First Nations course was adapted from Mental Health First Aid Basic to create a community‐based, culturally safe and relevant approach to promoting mental health literacy in First Nations contexts. Over 2.5 days, the course aims to build community capacity by teaching individuals to recognize and respond to mental health crises. This feasibility trial utilized mixed methods to evaluate the acceptability, cultural adaptation, and preliminary effectiveness of MHFAFN. Our approach was grounded in community‐based participatory research principles, emphasizing relationship‐driven procedures to collecting data and choice for how participants shared their voices. Data included participant interviews (n = 89), and surveys (n = 91) from 10 groups in four provinces. Surveys contained open‐ended questions, retrospective pre‐post ratings, and a scenario. We utilized data from nine facilitator interviews and 24 facilitator implementation surveys. The different lines of evidence converged to highlight strong acceptability, mixed reactions to the cultural adaptation, and gains in participants’ knowledge, mental health first aid skill application, awareness, and self‐efficacy, and reductions in stigma beliefs. Beyond promoting individual gains, the course served as a community‐wide prevention approach by situating mental health in a colonial context and highlighting local resources and cultural strengths for promoting mental well‐being.     

Optimizing Contingency Management With Methamphetamine-Using Men Who Have Sex With Men

Among men who have sex with men (MSM), methamphetamine use is associated with multiple, overlapping syndemic conditions including increased risk for HIV seroconversion and onward HIV transmission. Contingency management (CM) is an evidence-based behavioral intervention implemented to curb methamphetamine use and optimize HIV/AIDS prevention among MSM in San Francisco since 2003. We conducted a program evaluation to document the evolution of this 12-week CM program to include delivery of brief, individual counseling incorporating motivational interviewing and behavioral skills. A drop-in group delivered concurrently with CM urine-screening visits also provides peer support as well as referrals for other social and medical services. From December 2011–October 2013, a total of 131 clients enrolled in the CM program and provided a median of 22 urine samples (Interquartile Range = 10–34) that were nonreactive for methamphetamine. Findings support the feasibility and acceptability of integrating individual and group counseling with community-based CM for methamphetamine-using MSM.     

The influence of correlations between noncritical features and reinforcement on stimulus generalization

One strategy to program for generalization is to vary noncritical features in teaching exemplars, thereby avoiding noncritical features from being highly correlated with reinforcement and thus gaining faulty stimulus control. In the current translational evaluation, 2 groups of adults of typical development were taught to respond to arbitrary stimuli with experimenter‐defined critical and noncritical features in a matching‐to‐sample task. The teaching arrangement used for 1 group programmed for low correlation between noncritical features and reinforcement; the teaching arrangement used for the other group programmed for high correlation between noncritical features and reinforcement. Participants in the former group displayed (a) faster acquisition of matching, (b) less variability in correct responding, and (c) a decreased likelihood of faulty stimulus control developing during training. The results contribute towards advancing the study of stimulus control and developing an explicit technology of generalization to better serve consumers of the application of our science.     

The Effect of PTSD Symptom Change on Suicidal Ideation in a Combined Military and Civilian Sample Engaged in Cognitive Processing Therapy

In light of the well-established relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and suicidal ideation (SI), there has been a push for treatments that simultaneously improve symptoms of PTSD and decrease SI. Using data from a randomized controlled hybrid implementation-effectiveness trial, the current study investigated the effectiveness of Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT; Resick, Monson, & Chard, 2016) on PTSD and SI. The patient sample (N = 188) was diverse in military and veteran status, gender, and comorbidity, and 73% of the sample endorsed SI at one or more points during CPT. Participants demonstrated significant improvement in SI over the course of CPT. Multilevel growth curve modeling revealed a significant association between PTSD symptom change and change in SI. Results from cross-lagged multilevel regressions indicated that PTSD symptoms predicted SI in the next session, yet SI in a given session did not predict PTSD symptoms in the next session. Potentially relevant clinical factors (i.e., military status, gender, depression diagnosis, baseline SI, study consultation condition) were not associated with the relationship between PTSD symptoms and SI. These results add to the burgeoning literature suggesting that evidence-based treatments for PTSD, like CPT, reduce suicidality in a range of individuals with PTSD, and that this reduction is predicted by improvements in PTSD symptoms.     

Together We Rise: How Social Movements Succeed

Social movements, such as Black Lives Matter, surge when support grows for their social justice goals. At their core, social movements advance when people act collectively by rising in solidarity with a shared purpose to address injustice and inequality. Drawing on insights from consumer psychology, this review investigates how social movements succeed in creating social change. We build on an established 21^st‐century framework for how social movements succeed to outline the promising practices of successful social movements. For each of these practices, we identify the consumer psychology mechanisms that motivate collective action and encourage people to transform from bystanders to upstanders, those who provide the grassroots momentum for successful social movements. We illustrate this framework with examples from the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement. Finally, we highlight insights from consumer psychology that promote an understanding of social movements, and we raise research questions to encourage more consumer psychologists to investigate how social movements succeed.     

On the adaptive function of children's and adults’ false memories

Recent research has shown that memory illusions can successfully prime both children's and adults' performance on complex, insight-based problems (compound remote associates tasks or CRATs). The current research aimed to clarify the locus of these priming effects. Like before, Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) lists were selected to prime subsequent CRATs such that the critical lures were also the solution words to a subset of the CRATs participants attempted to solve. Unique to the present research, recognition memory tests were used and participants were either primed during the list study phase, during the memory test phase, or both. Across two experiments, primed problems were solved more frequently and significantly faster than unprimed problems. Moreover, when participants were primed during the list study phase, subsequent solution times and rates were considerably superior to those produced by those participants who were simply primed at test. Together, these are the first results to show that false-memory priming during encoding facilitates problem-solving in both children and adults.     

Response of colony mice to intruders with different fighting experience

Six male mice placed in a large, moderately complex enclosure formed a stable dominance hierarchy in which two mice defended adjacent floor areas and the remaining four mice were subordinate and did not form territories. Intruder mice with winning or losing experience in prior paired encounters, or those with no fighting experience, were introduced individually into the colony for 30 minute periods. These intruders were attacked by the dominant members of the colony, and the fighting outcomes were strongly dependent upon the fighting experience of the intruder. Intruders with losing or no fighting experience engaged in little mutual fighting with residents, were easily defeated, and terminated attacks by engaging in subordinate behaviors. Intruders with winning experience fought vigorously with residents, attacked and, in many cases, defeated residents. These results suggest that relatively little winning experience gained in earlier paired encounters may be sufficient to overcome the various fighting advantages enjoyed by a dominant territorial holding member of a colony.