Religious involvement, beliefs about God, and the sense of mattering among older adults

Using data from a 2001–2002 sample of adults aged 65 and older living in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, we examine the associations among religious involvement (as measured by the frequency of attendance at religious services and praying), the belief in divine control, and the sense of mattering—a key component of the self-concept. We also assess the extent to which these patterns vary by gender, race, and education. Findings indicate indirect effects of religious attendance on mattering through divine control beliefs and the frequency of social contact. Praying increases mattering indirectly only through divine control beliefs. Moreover, divine control beliefs are more strongly associated with mattering among women, African Americans, and individuals with less education. We discuss the contribution of these findings for theory about the links between religious involvement, beliefs about God, and psychosocial resources, and the influence of core dimensions of social status and stratification.     

No role for lightness in the perception of black and white? Simultaneous contrast affects perceived skin tone, but not perceived race

Faces of individuals with African and European heritage (henceforth referred to as Black and White respectively) feature two major differences: those of skin tone and morphological characteristics. Although considerations of perceived race are important to various psychological subdisciplines, to date the relative influence of morphological versus photometric characteristics has not been investigated. We attempted to influence the perceived racial typicality of a central target face by manipulating perceived skin tone using the well-known lightness contrast illusion. As expected, ratings of skin tone were influenced by surround faces, yet ratings of perceived racial typicality were not, suggesting a dissociation between the two judgments. Surprisingly, skin tone contributes little to perceived race, leaving facial morphology as the dominant cue. These results may shed light on failures to find effects of racial typicality in studies of prejudice where judgments were based on photographs with altered skin tone alone.     

Parallel response selection in dual-task situations via automatic category-to-response translation

In contrast to the response selection bottleneck theory of dual-task performance, recent studies have demonstrated compatibility effects between secondary and primary responses on Task 1, suggesting that response information for two tasks may be generated in parallel. In two experiments, we examined the nature of Task 2 response activation in parallel with Task 1, using a psychological refractory period paradigm. Evidence of Task 2 to Task 1 response priming when each Task 2 stimulus was unique indicated that automatic parallel generation of response information occurred for Task 2 via abstract semantic category-to-response translation processes, independent of any direct stimulus-response influences. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the traditional response selection bottleneck theory of dual-task performance.     

Male Narcissism and Attitudes Toward Heterosexual Women and Men, Lesbian Women, and Gay Men: Hostility toward Heterosexual Women Most of All

The present study investigated links between heterosexual men’s narcissism and attitudes toward heterosexual and non-heterosexual women and men. Male narcissism was predicted to be associated with hostility toward heterosexual women more than toward other groups, indicating investment in patriarchal power more than in conservative gender ideology or nonspecific disdain toward all people. Hierarchical regression analyses of responses from 104 male undergraduates (95% Caucasian) from Ohio in the U.S. supported the hypothesis that men’s narcissism is related most robustly to hostility toward women, rather than to equivalent derogation of all groups. Moreover, men’s narcissism is not merely a maker of traditional gender ideology, but instead is associated with favorable attitudes toward lesbian women and is unrelated to attitudes toward gay men.     

Relatedness with teachers and peers during early adolescence: an integrated variable-oriented and person-oriented approach

The primary aims of the present longitudinal study were to examine (a) patterns of early transition relatedness with teachers and peers in 6th grade, (b) whether pre-transition behavior in 5th grade predicted early transition relatedness in 6th grade, and (c) how unique indicators of early transition relatedness with teachers and peers and patterns of early transition relatedness were associated with school adjustment among 383 rural, lower- to middle-class, White youth. Results suggest that behavioral characteristics in elementary school may contribute to early transition patterns of relatedness with teachers and peers in middle school. Findings also indicate that having a pattern of poor relationships with the primary social partners in the school context is negatively associated with adjustment above and beyond the independent indicators of relatedness. Implications for school practice are discussed.     

Involvement of shared resources in time judgment and sequence reasoning tasks

Previous research suggests that time perception is supported by the same attentional resources involved in sequence processing. The present experiment was designed to clarify this connection by examining the relation between timing and reasoning tasks that involved either sequencing or non-sequencing judgments. For the timing task, subjects produced a series of 5-s intervals. For the reasoning tasks, subjects judged whether pairs of statements describing common actions either (a) were presented in the correct temporal order (sequencing), or (b) described similar actions or objects (similarity). Subjects performed the timing and reasoning tasks both separately and concurrently in a series of 3-minute trials. Comparisons of single-task and dual-task performance assessed interference patterns between concurrent tasks. Both reasoning tasks interfered with timing by making temporal productions longer and more variable. Timing had differential effects on the two reasoning tasks. Concurrent timing caused sequencing judgments to become slower, less accurate, and less sensitive relative to sequencing-only conditions. In contrast, similarity judgments were either unaffected or affected to a lesser degree by the concurrent timing task. These results support the notion that timing and sequencing are closely related processes that rely on the same set of cognitive resources or mechanisms.