Mood regulation and relationship quality predict change in homesickness during college

Recent theorizing has implicated affect regulation as central to the experience of homesickness. Conceptualized as grief due to losing social connections with close others when relocating, homesickness is associated with poor emotional and social adjustment. The present study examined how mood regulation and relationship quality – at home and in college – predict homesickness and negative affect among college students (N = 168). We assessed 16 mood regulation strategies as well as relationship quality each week over the first college term. As predicted, time-lagged multilevel analyses demonstrate that avoidance-oriented strategies were helpful in the short term (the following week), but chronic avoidance (across the college term) predicted higher levels of homesickness. Approach-oriented regulatory strategies did not predict homesickness, however. Relationship quality demonstrated differential main effects at the between-person level but did not predict fluctuations in homesickness from week to week. Across the college term, closer ties at home predicted greater homesickness, whereas closer ties in college predicted lower homesickness. Notably, there were distinct effects of mood regulation for homesickness compared to negative affect. The present study is among the first to examine effects of mood regulation on homesickness longitudinally, suggesting it is important to consider the type of regulation strategies being used as well as the time scale.     

Gender and developmental patterns of affect, belief, and behavior in simulated injury events

This study examined the hypothesis drawn from epidemiological data that beliefs and affective reactions of male second, fifth, and eighth graders, undergraduates, and adults in response to a series of four simulated bicycle collisions would show decreased expectation and avoidance of injury in comparison to females. This study also contrasted two additional hypotheses, one suggesting an invincibility belief in teenagers, producing a curvilinear age trend, with risky cognitions increasing from second grade, peaking at eighth grade, and then decreasing in adulthood. The other hypothesis suggested that with exposure, risky beliefs increased linearly, due to desensitization to cues of risk. As predicted, female participants did expect more fear and pain, and less exhilaration, and braked sooner after seeing the hazard than male participants. Linear rather than curvilinear age patterns emerged across films, revealing that the youngest participants anticipated more fear and less exhilaration than older participants. These results parallel developmental trends in which females and younger participants who anticipate more serious consequences are at lower risk for bicycle injury than are males, older children, and adolescents. Limitations of this analogue study and potential questions for both future research and the application of injury prevention techniques are explored.     

Dual-process models of associative recognition in young and older adults: evidence from receiver operating characteristics

In 3 experiments, young and older adults studied lists of unrelated word pairs and were given confidence-rated item and associative recognition tests. Several different models of recognition were fit to the confidence-rating data using techniques described by S. Macho (2002, 2004). Concordant with previous findings, item recognition data were best fit by an unequal-variance signal detection theory model for both young and older adults. For both age groups, associative recognition performance was best explained by models incorporating both recollection and familiarity components. Examination of parameter estimates supported the conclusion that recollection is reduced in old age, but inferences about age differences in familiarity were highly model dependent. Implications for dual-process models of memory in old age are discussed.     

Experience with songs in adulthood reduces song-induced gene expression in songbird auditory forebrain

Male songbirds learn to produce song within a limited phase early in life; however they continue to learn to recognize songs in adulthood. Studies looking at Zenk activation after exposure to songs learned early in life for song production and songs learned in adulthood show opposite patterns of activation, suggesting distinct neural mechanisms may be involved in these two forms of learning. In this study, we look at IEG Zenk activation in auditory regions NCM and CMM of song sparrows (Melospiza melodia) to see whether recent exposure to song in adulthood leads to greater or decreased Zenk activation upon hearing that song versus a novel song. We found significantly lower activation in birds exposed to previously heard songs versus novel songs in vNCM but not dNCM, though further analysis suggest an overall trend in NCM. We found no significant difference in the amount of activation to previously heard songs vs. novel songs in CMM. These results support previous findings suggesting that activation is reduced to learned stimuli; we discuss possible implications of these findings in relation to song production learning early in life and song recognition learning in adulthood.     

Effects of repetition and response deadline on item recognition in young and older adults

In the present study, we examined the joint effects of aging, repetition, and response deadline in a plurality discrimination task. Young and older adults studied lists of unrelated singular and plural nouns, with half presented once (weak items) and half presented five times (strong items). Test lists contained old (same) nouns, plurality-reversed nouns (changed lures), and unstudied nouns (new lures), and the participants were asked to respond old only to same items. In Experiment 1, the participants were tested with both short and long deadlines. In Experiment 2, the tests were unpaced. In both experiments, repetition increased hit rates for young and older adults. Young adults tested with a long deadline or no deadline showed invariant (Experiment 1) or reduced (Experiment 2) false alarms to changed lures when the nouns were studied more often. Young adults tested with a short deadline and older adults tested with both long and short deadlines had increased false alarm rates for strong changed lures; without time pressure to respond, older adults did not have a significant increase in false alarms for changed lures. Implications of these results for theories of cognitive aging are explored.     

Quasi-reinforcement: control of responding by a percentage-reinforcement schedule

When a variable-interval schedule of reinforcement was segmented into small fixed-interval components, with reinforcements following some components and brief blackouts following the others, rate of responding doubled and a positively accelerated pattern within each component was obtained. Presented according to this percentage reinforcement paradigm, the blackouts approximated the functions of a food reinforcer. These effects occurred only when the behavior sequence required to produce reinforcement was identical to that required to produce blackout. The quasi-reinforcing effects of these blackout stimuli suggest that a neutral stimulus need not occasion or accompany a primary reinforcer to acquire reinforcing properties.     

Learning symbolic-experiential therapy: One approach

This paper is intended to serve as a stimulus to the thinking of students regarding ways in which they might better organize their symbolic training experiences. It illustrates how one supervisee derived a conceptual framework from the literature that made it easier to track process events and organize her training experiences. The authors believe it is important to discover ways to facilitate the learning process without operationalizing the approach.director of training and research and professor of family therapy in the same department.     

Relations of work identity,family identity,situational demands,and sex with employee work hours

This study examined relations of multiple indicators of work identity and family identity with the number of weekly hours worked by 193 married business professionals. We found that men generally worked long hours regardless of the situational demands to work long hours and the strength of their work and family identities. Women's work hours, on the other hand, were associated with their work and family identities when weak situational demands permitted discretion over their work hours. We suggest that these sex differences can be explained by the ways in which women and men construe their work and family identities.     

Design, Development, and Evaluation of a Second Generation Interactive Simulator for Engineering Ethics Education (SEEE2)

This paper describes a second generation Simulator for Engineering Ethics Education. Details describing the first generation activities of this overall effort are published in Chung and Alfred (Sci Eng Ethics 15:189?C199, 2009). The second generation research effort represents a major development in the interactive simulator educational approach. As with the first generation effort, the simulator places students in first person perspective scenarios involving different types of ethical situations. Students must still gather data, assess the situation, and make decisions. The approach still requires students to develop their own ability to identify and respond to ethical engineering situations. However, were as, the generation one effort involved the use of a dogmatic model based on National Society of Professional Engineers?? Code of Ethics, the new generation two model is based on a mathematical model of the actual experiences of engineers involved in ethical situations. This approach also allows the use of feedback in the form of decision effectiveness and professional career impact. Statistical comparisons indicate a 59 percent increase in overall knowledge and a 19 percent improvement in teaching effectiveness over an Internet Engineering Ethics resource based approach.     

Intolerance of Uncertainty and Health-Related Anxiety in Youth amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: Understanding and Weathering the Continuing Storm

The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health crisis that continues to impact individuals worldwide. While children may be less susceptible to severe medical complications, they are nonetheless vulnerable to stress and anxiety associated with the pandemic. However, current understanding of psychological functioning and potential strategies to mitigate distress amid a pandemic is naturally limited. Consequently, this article is an attempt to fill that gap. Existing literature on pandemics, health-related anxieties, intolerance of uncertainty, and psychopathological sequelae is summarized within the context of the COVID-19 outbreak. Conclusions from the empirical data and emerging theoretical models are reviewed and synthesized. Finally, several potentially engaging and effective examples of developmentally appropriate interventions targeting intolerance of uncertainty and health-related anxieties in pediatric patients during the peri- and post-pandemic periods are described.