When I think of you, I feel more confident about me: The relational self and self-confidence

Although much research has demonstrated the existence of relationship specific relational selves, the effects of those selves on feelings about the overall self-concept are unknown. The current research proposed that level of relational interdependent self-construal moderates the relationship between the activation of close relationship partners and self-confidence. The first study examined self-construal as a naturally occurring personality variable, whereas the second study manipulated self-construal. Both studies supported the hypothesis that those greater in relational interdependence experience greater self-confidence when close others are salient whereas those lower in relational interdependence experience lower self-confidence. The implications of the findings and linkages to past research are discussed.     

Reciprocal within-day associations between incidental affect and exercise: An EMA study

Previous research suggests that how people feel throughout the course of a day (i.e. incidental affect) is predictive of exercise behaviour. A mostly separate literature suggests that exercise can lead to more positive incidental affect.

Objective: This study examines the potential reciprocal effects of incidental affect and exercise behaviour within the same day.

Design: Fifty-nine low-active (exercise <60 min/week), overweight (BMI: 25.0–39.9) adults (ages 18–65) participated in a six-month print-based exercise promotion programme.

Main outcome measures: Ecological momentary assessment was used to record self-reported exercise sessions in real time and incidental affective valence (feeling good/bad) as assessed by the 11-point Feeling Scale at random times throughout the day.

Results: Use of a within-subjects cross-lagged, autoregressive model showed that participants were more likely to exercise on days when they experienced more positive incidental affect earlier in the day (b = .58, SE = .10, p < .01), and participants were more likely to experience more positive incidental affect on days when they had exercised (b = .26, SE = .03, p < .01), with the former association significantly stronger than the latter (t = 23.54, p < .01).

Conclusion: The findings suggest a positive feedback loop whereby feeling good and exercising are reciprocally influential within the course of a day.     

Healing from Moral Injury: A Qualitative Evaluation of the Impact of Killing Treatment for Combat Veterans

This paper evaluates the Impact of Killing (IOK) treatment—a psychological intervention designed to address moral injury and trauma associated with killing in war. Using qualitative data from interviews with 28 combat veterans, we examine IOK’s impact, how it differs from other trauma-focused treatments, and how it can be improved to better meet veterans’ needs. We found that many veterans processed their killing experiences for the first time in IOK, even though all had previously completed evidence-based treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder. Several described killing in war as the most distressing and transformative trauma of their lives, and all affirmed the value of an intervention focused directly and explicitly on moral injury and killing. IOK helped veterans to acknowledge their grief, shame, and distress; gently but critically examine their thoughts and beliefs about killing in war; and make strides toward acceptance, reconciliation, and forgiveness.     

Misrecollection prevents older adults from benefitting from semantic relatedness of the memoranda in associative memory

Memory for episodic associations declines in aging, ostensibly due to decreased recollection abilities. Accordingly, associative unitization - the encoding of associated items as one integrated entity - may potentially attenuate age-related associative deficits by enabling familiarity-based retrieval, which is relatively preserved in aging. To test this hypothesis, we induced bottom-up unitization by manipulating semantic relatedness between memoranda. Twenty-four young and 24 older adults studied pairs of object pictures that were either semantically related or unrelated. Participants subsequently discriminated between intact, recombined and new pairs. We found that semantic relatedness increased the contributions of both familiarity and recollection in young adults, but did not improve older adults' performance. Instead, they showed associative deficits, driven by increased recollection-based false recognition. This may reflect a “misrecollection” phenomenon, in which older adults make more false alarms to recombined pairs with particularly high confidence, due to poorer retrieval monitoring regarding semantically-related associative probes.     

Hypermasculinity and academic goal-setting: an exploratory study

The relation between gender-role percepts and academic goal-setting was explored. An inventory examining the aspects of masculinity that would facilitate or inhibit academic goal-setting was developed based on a literature review of how masculinity relates to academic behaviors. A diverse sample of students (120 male, 147 female, 14 not indicating sex) was measured on three aspects of sex and academic goal-setting behavior. Factor analysis confirmed the content validity of masculine factors having facilitative (Mastery Competitiveness) and inhibitory (Antisocial Competitiveness) academic properties. Regression analyses indicated that sex-role orientations (Competitiveness and Hypermasculinity) significantly predicted academic goal-setting behaviors (R2 = .136). Finally, men scored higher than women on the subscales measuring Hypermasculinity and Antisocial or Competitiveness, while there were no sex differences on the Mastery Competitiveness subscale. The implications of these findings and suggestions for research are discussed.     

Fully Committed: Suicide Bombers' Motivation and the Quest for Personal Significance

A motivational analysis of suicidal terrorism is outlined, anchored in the notion of significance quest . It is suggested that heterogeneous factors identified as personal causes of suicidal terrorism (e.g. trauma, humiliation, social exclusion), the various ideological reasons assumed to justify it (e.g. liberation from foreign occupation, defense of one's nation or religion), and the social pressures brought upon candidates for suicidal terrorism may be profitably subsumed within an integrative framework that explains diverse instances of suicidal terrorism as attempts at significance restoration , significance gain , and prevention of significance loss . Research and policy implications of the present analysis are considered.