Culture, power, authenticity and psychological well-being within romantic relationships: A comparison of European American and Mexican Americans

This study investigated possible cultural differences in the association of power, authentic self-expression, and well-being within romantic relationships. Participants (N = 314) included European American students from a central Texas university and Mexican American students from a border university. Results indicated that power inequality was associated with a lack of authentic self-expression among men and women in both populations, although a three-way interaction between sex, culture, and power indicated that Mexican American men responded differently than other groups. Results also indicated that a lack of authenticity negatively impacted psychological health, especially for Mexican Americans. Findings suggest that authentic self-expression is one of the primary ways in which power inequality impacts close interpersonal relationships, and that gender and cultural variables must be examined simultaneously when considering the link between power and authenticity.     

Are We In or Are We Out? Ingroup Prototypicality Effects in Implicit Ethnic‐American Associations

The goal of the present research was to document ingroup prototypicality effects in implicit associations between ethnic groups and the American identity. Across four studies, we compared implicit associations displayed by perceivers who either belonged to or did not belong to the target ethnic groups. In Studies 1 and 2, African, Asian, Latino, and European American participants were randomly assigned to complete an Implicit Association Test contrasting either their ingroup and an outgroup or two outgroups (third‐party perspective). Data yielded evidence for ingroup prototypicality effects in all interethnic comparisons. Studies 3 and 4 used large datasets available through Project Implicit. We examined whether ingroup prototypicality effects were restricted to U.S. residents or generalized to participants living in other regions of the world. Results showed that ingroup prototypicality effects did not presuppose immersion in the U.S. context, but at the same time patterns of implicit associations varied according to region of residence. Implicit ethnic‐American associations are at least partially the reflection of the perceivers’ positioning in interethnic comparisons.     

Women's bodies,rebirth, and Shin Buddhism: Insights and challenges for Christianity

In this article, I examine a traditional Shin teaching on women and women's bodies as they relate to rebirth in Amida's Pure Land and ask how that teaching might inform Christian doctrines on women's bodies. After an analysis of the role of women's bodies in the broader Shin teachings around Amida's compassion and rebirth in the Pure Land, I conclude by raising questions for Christianity this analysis invites and suggest further lines of inquiry that might help open up more positive understanding of women and women's bodies in contemporary Christianity.     

Fired Up by Morality: The Unique Physiological Response Tied to Moral Conviction in Politics

Studies provide mounting evidence that morally convicted attitudes elicit passionate and unyielding political responses. Questions remain, however, whether these effects occur because moral conviction is another strong, versus a distinctly moral dimension of attitude strength. Building on work in moral psychology and neuroscience, I argue that moral conviction stems from a distinctive mode of mental processing that is tied to automatic affective reactions. Testing this idea using a lab experiment designed to capture self‐reported moral conviction and physiological arousal, I find that conviction about political objects positively predicts arousal evoked by the objects, while attitude extremity and importance do not. These findings suggest that moral conviction items do tap into moral processing, helping to validate the conviction measure. They also illustrate the value of using physiological indicators to study politics, help explain why morally convicted attitudes trigger such fervent responses, and raise normative questions about political conflict and compromise.     

“Let our Apache Heritage and Culture Live on Forever and Teach the Young Ones”: Development of The Elders’ Resilience Curriculum,an Upstream Suicide Prevention Approach for American Indian Youth

The White Mountain Apache Tribe have developed an innovative curriculum that connects youth through Elders to their heritage, traditions, and culture, which has been proven to be a protective factor for native Americans. The development process took 4½ years and included community stakeholder buy‐in, Elders’ Council group formation, extensive formative work to identify content, iterative feedback between curriculum writers and Elders, and Elder training prior to implementation. Members of the Elders’ Council have been visiting the local schools to teach youth about the Apache culture, language, and way of life since February 2014 reaching over 1000 youth. This approach demonstrates a promising upstream suicide prevention strategy. We discuss the process of development, implementation, and lessons learned, as this curriculum has potential for adaptation by other Indigenous communities.     

Measuring attention in the hemispheres: the lateralized attention network test (LANT)

The attention network test (ANT) is a brief computerized battery measuring three independent behavioral components of attention: Conflict resolution (ability to overcome distracting stimuli), spatial Orienting (the benefit of valid spatial pre-cues), and Alerting (the benefit of temporal pre-cues). Imaging, clinical, and behavioral evidence demonstrate hemispheric asymmetries in these attentional networks. We constructed a lateralized version of the ANT (LANT), with brief targets flashed in one or the other visual hemifield. We also modified the tests by including invalid spatial cues in order to measure the cost component of Orienting. In a series of experiments, we investigated the efficiency of the attention networks separately in each hemisphere. Participants exhibited significant estimates of all networks measured by the LANT, comparable to the ANT. The three networks were represented in each hemisphere separately and were largely comparable across the two hemispheres. We suggest that the LANT is an informative extension of the original ANT, allowing for measurement of the three attention networks in each hemisphere separately.     

Reciprocal Associations between Boys’ Externalizing Problems and Mothers’ Depressive Symptoms

Although much has been written about the utility of applying transactional models to the study of parenting practices, relatively few researchers have used such an approach to examine how children influence maternal well-being throughout their development. Using a sample of males from predominantly low-income families, the current study explored reciprocal relations between boys' overt disruptive behavior (boys' ages 5 to 10 years) and maternal depressive symptoms. We then examined this model with youth-reported antisocial behaviors (ASB) and maternal depressive symptoms when the boys were older, ages 10 to 15. In middle childhood, evidence was found for both maternal and child effects from boys' ages 5 to 6 using both maternal and alternative caregiver report of child aggressive behavior. In the early adolescence model, consistent maternal effects were found, and child effects were evident during the transition to adolescence (boys' ages 11 to 12). The findings are discussed in reference to reciprocal models of child development and prevention efforts to reduce both maternal depression and the prevalence of child antisocial behavior.     

Overthinking skilled motor performance: Or why those who teach can’t do

Skilled athletes often maintain that overthinking disrupts performance of their motor skills. Here, we examined whether these experiences have a basis in verbal overshadowing, a phenomenon in which describing memories for ineffable perceptual experiences disrupts later retention. After learning a unique golf-putting task, golfers of low and intermediate skill either described their actions in detail or performed an irrelevant verbal task. They then performed the putting task again. Strikingly, describing their putting experience significantly impaired higher skill golfers’ ability to reachieve the putting criterion, compared with higher skill golfers who performed the irrelevant verbal activity. Verbalization had no such effect, however, for lower skill golfers. These findings establish that the effects of overthinking extend beyond dual-task interference and may sometimes reflect impacts on long-term memory. We propose that these effects are mediated by competition between procedural and declarative memory, as suggested by recent work in cognitive neuroscience.     

Brief functional anlaysis and treatment of elopement in preschoolers with autism

As a result of the impact of functional analysis methodologies in identifying maintaining variables of problem behavior, considerable research has been devoted to tailoring the methodologies to be practical for an outpatient setting. The purpose of this study was (a) to use brief functional analysis (BFA) methodologies to empirically demonstrate the function of elopement exhibited by two preschoolers diagnosed with autism and (b) to develop function‐based interventions derived from the results of the BFA. In phase one, a BFA consisting of 5‐min sessions with multiple repetitions of each condition was conducted with each participant. In phase two, the efficacy of function‐based interventions was assessed using a pairwise design. Both participants' rates of elopement were differentially lower during the implementation of the function‐based intervention relative to baseline. Collectively, these results demonstrated that brief functional methodologies could be applied successfully to the assessment and treatment of elopement. Moreover, the application of BFA and the ensuing treatment in an outpatient setting extend the existing research on functional analysis. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.