Saving Face: Identifying Voter Responses to Black Candidates and Female Candidates

Much of what we know about the responses of voters to Black candidates and female candidates comes from experimental research. Yet the accuracy of experimental data can be threatened by the possibility that social desirability pressures contaminate self‐reporting. We address this threat in a project that considers psychological approaches to reducing social desirability pressures. Offering participants the opportunity to explain their decisions about sensitive subjects, such as voting for a Black or female candidate, can lessen social desirability pressures. We analyze this approach across three commonly used samples: undergraduate, adult convenience, and adult national. Our results suggest that existing experimental research overestimates voter support for Black and female candidates, but these issues can be mitigated with the simple innovation presented here.     

Predicting remembering and forgetting of autobiographical memories in children and adults: a 4-year prospective study

Preservation and loss to forgetting of autobiographical memories is a focus in both the adult and developmental literatures. In both, there are comparative arguments regarding rates of forgetting. Children are assumed to forget autobiographical memories more rapidly than adults, and younger children are assumed to forget more rapidly than older children. Yet few studies can directly inform these comparisons: few feature children and adults, and few prospectively track the survival of specific autobiographical memories over time. In a 4-year prospective study, we obtained autobiographical memories from children 4, 6, and 8 years, and adults. We tested recall of different subsets of the events after 1, 2, and 3 years. Accelerated rates of forgetting were apparent among all child groups relative to adults; within the child groups, 4- and 6-year-olds had accelerated forgetting relative to 8-year-olds. The differences were especially pronounced in open-ended recall. The thematic coherence of initial memory reports also was a significant predictor of the survival of specific memories. The pattern of findings is consistent with suggestions that the adult distribution of autobiographical memories is achieved as the quality of memory traces increases (here measured by thematic coherence) and the rate of forgetting decreases.     

The Roles of Gender and Affirmative Action Attitude in Reactions to Test Score Use Methods1

The present study explored the effects of 2 variables, affirmative action (AA) attitude and gender, on reactions to 3 test score use (TSU) methods: top‐down selection. banding with random selection, and banding with preferences. In a study of 94 upper‐division and graduate business students, AA attitude was associated with different reactions to TSU methods in terms of fairness and organizational attractiveness. Moreover, women with negative AA attitudes and men rated banding with preferences lower than the other two methods, but women with positive AA attitudes did not Results are discussed in terms of applicant reactions models, implications for organizations and future research.     

Maternal and infant affect at 4 months predicts performance and verbal IQ at 4 and 7 years in a diverse population

Using existing longitudinal data from 570 infants in the Maternal Lifestyle Study, we explored the predictive value of maternal and infant affect and maternal vocalizations during 2 minutes of face‐to‐face interactions at 4 months on IQ scores at 4.5 and 7 years. After controlling for demographic factors, maternal depression, and prenatal drug exposure, maternal positive affect and maternal positive vocalizations emerged as predictors of both verbal and performance IQ at 4.5 and 7 years. Although infant positive affect during the interaction with the mother was not predictive of these outcome measures, infant positive affect towards an examiner predicted verbal but not performance IQ at 4.5 years. These results suggest that maternal positive affect may index emotional engagement in interaction that facilitates both verbal and nonverbal cognitive development, while infant social positive affect is specifically related to the acquisition of verbal reasoning abilities. These findings are significant because they are based on a discrete snapshot of observable behavior in infancy (just 2 minutes of interaction), because they extend the range of maternal behaviors and characteristics known to support positive developmental outcomes, and because they are derived from high‐risk infants where prevention efforts may be beneficial. Potential mechanisms for these associations are discussed, as are the clinical implications for identifying dyads most in need of targeted interventions.     

Young adults self-derive and retain new factual knowledge through memory integration

The present research investigated the retention of new factual knowledge derived through integration of information acquired across temporally distributed learning episodes. Young adults were exposed to novel facts as they read long lists of seemingly unrelated information, one sentence at a time. They then were presented open-ended questions, the answers to which could be self-derived through integration of pairs of facts from the list. Experiment 1 was the first test of self-derivation of new factual knowledge through integration in adults using open-ended testing (as opposed to forced-choice testing). Participants successfully self-derived integrated knowledge under these more challenging conditions. Experiment 2 was a test for long-term retention of newly self-derived information. Newly derived knowledge remained accessible after a 1-week delay. Striking individual differences were also observed, which were related to whether individuals spontaneously identified the relational structure of the learning task. Insight into the relation between explicit task knowledge and strategic processing was also revealed through examination of response speed at the time of test. Specifically, knowledge of the task structure was associated with response latencies on unsuccessful (but not successful) trials, such that participants who were aware of the opportunity to integrate spent longer when they were subsequently unsuccessful, presumably reflecting directed search strategies and heightened perseverance when those processes failed. Together, the present findings provide direct evidence for the role of memory integration in the long-term accumulation of a semantic knowledge base and have theoretical implications for our understanding of this fundamental form of learning.     

The recollective qualities of adolescents’ and adults’ narratives about a long-ago tornado

The recollective qualities of autobiographical memory are thought to develop over the course of the first two decades of life. We used a 9-year follow-up test of recall of a devastating tornado and of non-tornado-related events from before and after the storm, to compare the recollective qualities of adolescents’ (n?=?20, ages 11 years, 11 months to 20 years, 8 months) and adults’ (n?=?14) autobiographical memories. At the time of the tornado, half of the adolescents had been younger than age 6. Nine years after the event, all participants provided evidence that they recall the event of the tornado. Adults also had high levels of recall of the non-tornado-related events. Adolescents recalled proportionally fewer non-tornado-related events; adolescents younger than 6 at the time of the events recalled the fewest non-tornado-related events. Relative to adolescents, adults produced longer narratives. With narrative length controlled, there were few differences in the recollective qualities of adolescents’ and adults’ narrative reports, especially in the case of the tornado; the recollective qualities were stronger among adolescents older at the time of the events. Overall, participants in both age groups provided evidence of the qualities of recollection that are characteristic of autobiographical memory.     

E-Mental-Health

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit den Chancen und Risiken von neuen Technologien und computervermittelter Kommunikation in der psychosozialen Versorgung. Es wird zunächst ein Überblick über die technischen Voraussetzungen sowie die gesetzlichen und ethischen Bedingungen gegeben, die den Rahmen für die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen setzen. Im Anschluss daran werden exemplarisch einige Ansätze vorgestellt, die bereits der Forderung nach Evaluation nachkommen. Dabei wird zwischen Offline- und Onlineangeboten unterschieden. Es wird diskutiert, wie zukünftige Entwicklungen für eine Optimierung der Versorgung genutzt werden können, beispielsweise im Rahmen von gestuften Behandlungskonzepten. Schließlich werden Perspektiven erörtert, die der Einsatz neuer Technologien für die Psychotherapieforschung eröffnet.     

Getting explicit memory off the ground: Steps toward construction of a neuro-developmental account of changes in the first two years of life

Historically, infants and very young children were thought incapable of explicit memory. As a result of changes in theoretical perspective and methodological developments, this assumption was challenged in the latter part of the 20th century. Substantial progress was made in describing age-related changes in explicit memory in the first two years of life. These developments permitted the first steps toward construction of a neuro-developmental account of the changes. By considering the timing and course of development of the neural substrate responsible for explicit memory we are able to bring greater specificity to the question “what develops?” Thus far, behavioral and electrophysiological methods (event-related potentials: ERPs) have revealed both individual and age-related variability in encoding and in consolidation and storage processes; the variability is systematically related to variability in long-term explicit memory. Suggestions are made for additional research to further our understanding of relations between brain and behavioral development in the first years of life.