Source-constrained retrieval influences the encoding of new information

Jacoby, Shimizu, Daniels, and Rhodes (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 12, 852–857, 2005) showed that new words presented as foils among a list of old words that had been deeply encoded were themselves subsequently better recognized than new words presented as foils among a list of old words that had been shallowly encoded. In Experiment 1, by substituting a deep-versus-shallow imagery manipulation for the levels-of-processing manipulation, we demonstrated that the effect is robust and that it generalizes, also occurring with a different type of encoding. In Experiment 2, we provided more direct evidence for context-related encoding during tests of deeply encoded words, showing enhanced priming for foils presented among deeply encoded targets when participants made the same deep-encoding judgments on those items as had been made on the targets during study. In Experiment 3, we established that the findings from Experiment 2 are restricted to this specific deep judgment task and are not a general consequence of these foils being associated with deeply encoded items. These findings provide support for the source-constrained retrieval hypothesis of Jacoby, Shimizu, Daniels, and Rhodes: New information can be influenced by how surrounding items are encoded and retrieved, as long as the surrounding items recruit a coherent mode of processing.     

The Biological Roots of Complex Thinking: Are Heritable Attitudes More Complex?

ABSTRACT Are highly heritable attitudes more or less complex than less heritable attitudes? Over 2,000 participant responses on topics varying in heritability were coded for overall integrative complexity and its 2 subcomponents (dialectical complexity and elaborative complexity). Across different heritability sets drawn from 2 separate prior twin research programs, the present results yielded a consistent pattern: Heritability was always significantly positively correlated with integrative complexity. Further analyses of the subcomponents suggested that the manner in which complexity was expressed differed by topic type: For societal topics, heritable attitudes were more likely to be expressed in dialectically complex terms, whereas for personally involving topics, heritable attitudes were more likely to be expressed in elaboratively complex terms. Most of these relationships remained significant even when controlling for measurements of attitude strength. The authors discuss the genetic roots of complex versus simple attitudes, implications for understanding attitude development more broadly, and the contribution of these results to previous work on both heritability and complexity.     

Application of a CBPR Framework to Inform a Multi-level Tobacco Cessation Intervention in Public Housing Neighborhoods

African American women in urban, high poverty neighborhoods have high rates of smoking, difficulties with quitting, and disproportionate tobacco-related health disparities. Prior research utilizing conventional "outsider driven" interventions targeted to individuals has failed to show effective cessation outcomes. This paper describes the application of a community-based participatory research (CBPR) framework to inform a culturally situated, ecological based, multi-level tobacco cessation intervention in public housing neighborhoods. The CBPR framework encompasses problem identification, planning and feasibility/pilot testing, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination. There have been multiple partners in this process including public housing residents, housing authority administrators, community health workers, tenant associations, and academic investigators. The advisory process has evolved from an initial small steering group to our current institutional community advisory boards. Our decade-long CBPR journey produced design innovations, promising preliminary outcomes, and a full-scaled implementation study in two states. Challenges include sustaining engagement with evolving study partners, maintaining equity and power in the partnerships, and long-term sustainability of the intervention. Implications include applicability of the framework with other CBPR partnerships, especially scaling up evolutionary grassroots involvement to multi-regional partnerships.     

Social aggression and resource conflict across the female life-course in the Bolivian Amazon

This work explores sources of conflict among forager-horticulturalist women in Amazonian Bolivia, and applies life history theory as a tool for understanding competitive and cooperative social networking behaviors among women. In this study, 121 Tsimane women and girls were interviewed regarding current and past disagreements with others in their community to identify categories of contested resources that instigate interpersonal conflicts, often resulting in incidences of social aggression. Analysis of frequency data on quarrels (N = 334) reveals that women target several diverse categories of resources, with social types appearing as frequently as food and mates. It was also found that the focus of women's competition changes throughout the life-course, consistent with the notion that current vs. future reproduction and quantity-quality trade-offs might have different influences on competition and social conflict over resources within women's social networks across different age groups.     

Social Comparison and the ‘Circle of Objectification’

The purpose of this study was to test a new theoretical model that integrates self-objectification, objectification of others, and social comparison as contributors to the development and maintenance of body image disturbance and disordered eating behavior. Within the new theoretical model, self-objectification, objectification of others, and social comparison are conceptualized as a self-perpetuating cycle, rather than as processes that occur independently of one another. Measures of self-objectification, objectification of others, social comparison, body shame, body dissatisfaction, and eating disorder symptomatology were completed by 549 female students between the ages of 18 and 30?years from a large university in the southeastern United States. Structural equation modeling with nested model comparisons was used to examine the fit of the new theoretical model relative to less complex models which contain only relationships which have received previous attention in the research literature (e.g., the relationship between self-objectification and body shame). Results indicated that the new theoretical model demonstrates good fit for the data and that the fit of this model is significantly better than the original model suggested by the literature. This model also brings together two distinct lines of research and offers a more complete understanding of processes underlying women’s body image and eating behavior. Implications for clinical work as well as theory and measurement are discussed.     

The Effects of School Bonding on High School Seniors’ Academic Achievement

The authors examine the effects of school bonding on academic achievement (measured by math achievement scores) in a sample of 12th graders from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 ( Ingels, Pratt, Rogers, Siegel, & Stutts, 2005 ). Components of school bonding have proximal and distal effects on academic achievement. Attachment to school and school involvement had direct effects on achievement; attachment to teachers and school commitment behaviors had indirect effects on achievement through school‐related delinquency and prior achievement. Implications for counselors are discussed.     

The illusion of fame: how the nonfamous become famous

This article reports 2 experiments in which nonfamous faces were paired with famous (e.g., Oprah Winfrey) or semifamous (e.g., Annika Sorenstam) faces during an initial orienting task. In Experiment 1, the orienting task directed participants to consider the relationship between the paired faces. In Experiment 2, participants considered distinctive qualities of the paired faces. Participants then judged the fame level of old and new nonfamous faces, semifamous faces, and famous faces. Pairing a nonfamous face with a famous face resulted in a higher fame rating than pairing a nonfamous face with a semifamous face. The fame attached to the famous people was misattributed to their nonfamous partners. We discuss this pattern of results in the context of current theoretical explanations of familiarity misattributions.     

Religious Coping,Coping Resources,and Depressive Symptoms: Test of a Mediation Model

This study examined the relationships between religious coping, coping resources, and depressive symptoms. The authors tested whether coping resources explained the link between religious coping and depressive symptoms in a sample of 349 college students. Results indicated that coping resources partially mediated the relationship between negative religious coping and depressive symptoms, primarily through decreased social ease. The results offered no evidence that coping resources mediated the relationship between positive religious coping and depressive symptoms.