Changing brains, changing perspectives: the neurocognitive development of reciprocity

Adolescence is characterized by the emergence of advanced forms of social perspective taking and significant changes in social behavior. Yet little is known about how changes in social cognition are related to changes in brain function during adolescence. In this study, we investigated the neural correlates of social behavior during three phases of adolescence, carrying out functional magnetic resonance imaging of participants' brains while they were Player 2 in the Trust Game. We found that with age, adolescents were increasingly sensitive to the perspective of the other player, as indicated by their reciprocal behavior. These advanced forms of social perspective-taking behavior were associated with increased involvement of the left temporo-parietal junction and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In contrast, young adolescents showed more activity in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex, a region previously associated with self-oriented processing and mentalizing. These findings suggest that the asynchronous development of these neural systems may underlie the shift from thinking about self to thinking about the other.     

The Effects of Protestant Theological Conservatism and Trust on Environmental Cooperation

Recent studies indicate that Protestant theological conservatism is associated with lower levels of generalized trust. In this article, we ask: What are the implications of theological conservatives’ lower trust levels? Specifically, does their lower trust impact environmental cooperation? Past research finds that trust promotes cooperation, and we theorize that because theological conservatism undermines trust, it should negatively impact cooperation directly. Thus, we suggest an interaction between trust and theological conservatism on cooperation. We test the arguments in the context of environmental social dilemmas, including decisions about recycling, water and energy consumption, and individuals’ willingness to protect the environment, using data from the 2010 General Social Survey. Our results support the theory that trust levels among Protestant theological conservatism more acutely undermine environmental cooperation, and we further discuss the implications of these findings.     

Teaching Tradition: Diverse Perspectives on the Pilot Urban American Indian Traditional Spirituality Program

Many urban American Indian community members lack access to knowledgeable participation in indigenous spiritual practices. And yet, these sacred traditional activities remain vitally important to their reservation‐based kin. In response, our research team partnered with an urban American Indian health center in Detroit for purposes of developing a structured program to facilitate more ready access to participation in indigenous spiritual knowledge and practices centered on the sweat lodge ceremony. Following years of preparation and consultation, we implemented a pilot version of the Urban American Indian Traditional Spirituality Program in the spring of 2016 for 10 urban AI community participants. Drawing on six first‐person accounts about this program, we reflect on its success as a function of participant meaningfulness, staff support, mitigated sensitivities, and program structure. We believe that these observations will enable other community psychologists to undertake similar program development in service to innovative and beneficial impacts on behalf of their community partners.     

Women’s Perceptions and Use of “Anti-Aging” Products

Recent advances in the cosmetics industry have accelerated the availability of products marketed as “anti-aging.” Our research goals were to identify the factors that predict women’s purchase of these products, and to gain insight into women’s perceptions of the anti-aging market. Three hundred and four Canadian women were surveyed about their use of anti-aging products, body satisfaction, aging anxiety, appearance importance, sociocultural pressures and self-esteem, as well as open-ended responses about their perceptions of anti-aging products. Greater aging anxiety and higher importance of appearance were related to greater likelihood of purchasing anti-aging products. Women also described an interesting paradox whereby they report using these products while remaining critical of media messages and embracing the idea of natural aging.     

Is heavy drinking really associated with attrition from college? The alcohol-attrition paradox

Student attrition at colleges across the United States poses a significant problem for students and families, higher educational institutions, and the nation's workforce competing in the global economy. Heavy drinking is a highly plausible contributor to the problem. However, there is little evidence that it is a reliable predictor of attrition. Notably, few studies take into account indicators of collegiate engagement that are associated with both heavy drinking and persistence in college. Event-history analysis was used to estimate the effect of heavy drinking on attrition among 3,290 undergraduates at a large midwestern university during a 4-year period, and student attendance at a number of college events was included as covariates. Results showed that heavy drinking did not predict attrition bivariately or after controlling for precollege predictors of academic success. However, after controlling for event attendance (an important indicator of collegiate engagement), heavy drinking was found to predict attrition. These findings underscore the importance of the college context in showing that heavy drinking does in fact predict attrition and in considering future intervention efforts to decrease attrition and also heavy drinking.     

Attention to self-referential stimuli: can I ignore my own face?

Auto-referential materials (i.e., the own name) have been described as particularly prone to capture attention. Some recent studies have questioned this view and shown that these own name effects are temporary and appear only in specific conditions: when enough resources are available (Harris, C. R., & Pashler, H. (2004). Attention and the processing of emotional words and names: Not so special after all. Psychological Science, 15, 171-178) or when the own name is presented within the focus of attention if it is a task-irrelevant stimulus (Gronau, N., Cohen, A., & Ben-Shakhar, G. (2003). Dissociations of personally significant and task-relevant distractors inside and outside the focus of attention: A combined behavioral and psychophysiological study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 132, 512-529). In the present study, a stimulus that is unique to each individual was used: the self-face. In Experiment 1, the self-face produced a temporary distraction when presented at fixation during a digit-parity task. However, this distraction was not different from that triggered by another highly familiar face. In Experiment 2, the self-face failed to produce interference when presented outside the focus of attention. These results confirm recent findings showing that auto-referential materials do not automatically summon attention and have a distractive power only in specific conditions.     

Workforce Segregation and the Gender Wage Gap: Is “Women's” Work Valued as Highly as “Men's”?1

This study focuses on gender segregation and its implications for the salaries assigned to male‐ and female‐typed jobs. We used a between‐subjects design to examine whether participants would assign different pay to 3 types of jobs wherein the actual responsibilities and duties carried out by men and women were the same, but the job was situated in either a traditionally masculine or traditionally feminine domain. We found pay differentials between jobs defined as “male” and “female,” which suggest that gender‐based discrimination, arising from occupational stereotyping and the devaluation of the work typically done by women, influences salary allocation. The ways in which the results fit with contemporary theorizing about sexism and with the shifting standards model ( Biernat, 1995, 2003 ) are discussed.     

Implicit and explicit measures of prejudice and stereotyping: do they assess the same underlying knowledge structure?

Do implicit and explicit measures of ethnic attitudes assess the same underlying knowledge structure in long term memory? This study uses both a correlational and an experimental design (N = 133) in order to address this central question. In the first part, we suggest that self‐presentational strategies can partly explain why the relation between implicit and explicit measures is inconsistent in the existing literature. More specifically, we show that when there are strong norms against prejudice, implicit and explicit measures are significantly negatively related. In the second part, an experimental manipulation of relative gratification (RG), the opposite of relative deprivation, reveals that when the level of explicit prejudice increases (RG condition), a similar effect is also observed at the implicit level. Together, these results suggest that implicit and explicit measures assess similar knowledge structure. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social identity,relative group status and intergroup attitudes: when favourable outcomes change intergroup relations…for the worse

This study examines in a natural setting (N = 253) the effects of favourable outcomes at the individual and group levels on the relations between members of high (nondisabled) and low (disabled) status groups. Consistent with past research, the results show that, overall, high‐status group members are more likely than low‐status group members to display ingroup bias. Furthermore, as hypothesized on the basis of the role of relative gratification in intergroup relations, a favourable group outcome led high‐status group members to derogate the low‐status outgroup. On the other hand, as predicted from the assumption that outgroup favouritism reflects a strategy of individual mobility, a favourable individual outcome led low‐status group members to display an evaluative bias in favour of, and to identify with, the high‐status outgroup. The implications of these findings for the explanation of outgroup favouritism and outgroup derogation are discussed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.