Crossed-categorization, evaluation, and face recognition

We investigated the relationship between evaluative intergroup bias and biased errors in intergroup face recognition after crossed-categorization (the combination of two social categories in defining a target of perception). Although evaluative bias and recognition bias often operate in parallel, we draw on two previously unconnected literatures to predict a divergence between these two processes after crossed-categorization. We tested this hypothesis by assessing participants’ evaluations of and recognition of targets who shared two ingroups with participants, targets who shared only one ingroup with participants, and targets who shared neither ingroup. Consistent with predictions, targets’ shared and unshared group memberships combined additively to affect evaluation, but targets who shared two ingroup memberships were better recognized than all other category combinations. These results document the relationship between evaluative bias and recognition bias after crossed-categorization and indicate that crossed-categorization affects evaluative bias and recognition bias in different ways.     

Psychological stress and glucose metabolism in obese and normal-weight subjects: a possible mechanism for differences in stress-induced eating

Acute psychological stress has been found to impair the handling of a glucose load in normal-weight individuals and to produce a delay in gastrointestinal transit time. The present study utilized the same paradigm to compare 10 obese and 10 normal-weight subjects. All subjects participated in two counterbalanced sessions (stress and nonstress). At each session, subjects were fed a carbohydrate load, and glucose was measured 0, 30, 60, 90, and 120 min after the load. On nonstress days, subjects relaxed after the drink; on stress days, subjects participated in 30 min of competitive tasks. The stressor significantly delayed the glucose response in the normal-weight subjects but did not affect the glucose response in obese subjects. This finding may have implications for differences between obese and normal-weight individuals in stress-induced eating, possibly explaining the decreased consumption of normal-weight individuals during stress.     

Learning to “See” Less Than Nothing: Putting Perceptual Skills to Work for Learning Numerical Structure

How can children's natural perceptuo-motor skills be harnessed for teaching and learning mathematical structure? We address this question in the case of the integers. Existing research suggests that adult mental representations of integers recruit perceptuo-motor functionalities involving symmetry. Building on these findings, we designed a hands-on curriculum that emphasizes symmetry to teach integer concepts to fourth graders. Compared to two control conditions, children who went through the experimental curriculum showed evidence of incorporating symmetry into their mental representations of integers and performed higher on problems beyond the scope of instruction, including negative fractions and algebra-readiness problems. Gains did not come at the expense of basic integer computation skill. This study has direct practical implications, as current integers curricula generally omit symmetry. The research demonstrates an approach to designing instruction that involves identifying perceptuo-motor functionalities underlying numerical cognition and creating learning activities to recruit them.     

Interpersonal Functioning in Obsessive–Compulsive Personality Disorder

The core symptoms of obsessive–compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) often lead to interpersonal difficulties. However, little research has explored interpersonal functioning in OCPD. This study examined interpersonal problems, interpersonal sensitivities, empathy, and systemizing, the drive to analyze and derive underlying rules for systems, in a sample of 25 OCPD individuals, 25 individuals with comorbid OCPD and obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), and 25 healthy controls. We found that OCPD individuals reported hostile-dominant interpersonal problems and sensitivities with warm-dominant behavior by others, whereas OCPD+OCD individuals reported submissive interpersonal problems and sensitivities with warm-submissive behavior by others. Individuals with OCPD, with and without OCD, reported less empathic perspective taking relative to healthy controls. Finally, we found that OCPD males reported a higher drive to analyze and derive rules for systems than OCPD females. Overall, results suggest that there are interpersonal deficits associated with OCPD and the clinical implications of these deficits are discussed.     

Beliefs as inner causes: The (lack of) evidence

Many psychologists studying lay belief attribution and behavior explanation cite Donald Davidson in support of their assumption that people construe beliefs as inner causes. But Davidson’s influential argument is unsound; there are no objective grounds for the intuition that the folk construe beliefs as inner causes that produce behavior. Indeed, recent experimental work by Ian Apperly, Bertram Malle, Henry Wellman, and Tania Lombrozo provides an empirical framework that accords well with Gilbert Ryle’s alternative thesis that the folk construe beliefs as patterns of living that contextualize behavior.     

Gaming motivation and problematic video gaming: The role of needs frustration

Motivation is often used as a predictor of a problematic style of video game engagement, implying that individuals' gaming undermines optimal functioning. Drawing from recent advances in Self‐Determination Theory (SDT), the present study explores the links between gaming motivations, the daily frustration of basic psychological needs, and reports of problematic video gaming (PVG). A sample of 1029 participants (72.8% male; M = 22.96 years; SD = 4.13 years) completed items regarding their gaming engagement and gaming motivation as well as their experience of needs frustration and PVG symptoms. Results revealed positive associations between gaming motivations and PVG, and between daily needs frustration and PVG. Finally, after comparing several competing models, a mediational model whereby needs frustration explained the association between individuals' gaming motivation and PVG emerged as best fitting the data. The discussion addresses the theoretical and practical implications of these findings in the context of recent research.     

Adolescent Cell Phone Communications with Mothers and Fathers: Content,Patterns, and Preferences

Adolescents participated in qualitative interviews (N?=?40) and permitted researchers to check their cell phone histories (N?=?35) for the content and frequency of text and call communications with parents. Communications focused predominantly on day-to-day “managerial” aspects of parent–child relationships but also facilitated emotional connections between adolescents and parents. Adolescents preferred to use texts to engage in managerial communications and calls to connect emotionally, but logistical constraints resulted in most cell phone communications between adolescents and parents involving calls. Participants communicated more with mothers than fathers, regardless of communication content or medium. This was true regardless of family structure, although gender-of-parent differences were accentuated for adolescents in mother-only households. This pattern was explained by both greater maternal accessibility and adolescent preferences for communication with mothers. Communications with fathers tended to occur either when mothers were not available or when the communication was focused on a highly specific set of stereotypically masculine content areas.     

Support processes in same‐ and mixed‐sex relationships: Type and source matters

Research has established that social support for relationships is an important predictor of well‐being. However, the underlying assumption that social support specifically for relationships is a separate construct from general social support has not been properly tested empirically, nor has the question of whether support processes vary by source (friends vs. family). The current study (N = 1,281) used confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to address these issues. Support was found for a theoretical model in which social support specifically for relationships predicts relationship well‐being and, in turn, mental and physical health, even while controlling for general social support. Somewhat different patterns were found by source of support (family vs. friends) and by relationship type (same sex vs. mixed sex).     

Public Lab: Community-Based Approaches to Urban and Environmental Health and Justice

This paper explores three cases of Do-It-Yourself, open-source technologies developed within the diverse array of topics and themes in the communities around the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (Public Lab). These cases focus on aerial mapping, water quality monitoring and civic science practices. The techniques discussed have in common the use of accessible, community-built technologies for acquiring data. They are also concerned with embedding collaborative and open source principles into the objects, tools, social formations and data sharing practices that emerge from these inquiries. The focus is on developing processes of collaborative design and experimentation through material engagement with technology and issues of concern. Problem-solving, here, is a tactic, while the strategy is an ongoing engagement with the problem of participation in its technological, social and political dimensions especially considering the increasing centralization and specialization of scientific and technological expertise. The authors also discuss and reflect on the Public Lab’s approach to civic science in light of ideas and practices of citizen/civic veillance, or “sousveillance”, by emphasizing people before data, and by investigating the new ways of seeing and doing that this shift in perspective might provide.     

Somatic Markers and Response Reversal: Is There Orbitofrontal Cortex Dysfunction in Boys with Psychopathic Tendencies?

This study investigated the performance of boys with psychopathic tendencies and comparison boys, aged 9 to 17 years, on two tasks believed to be sensitive to amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex functioning. Fifty-one boys were divided into two groups according to the Psychopathy Screening Device (PSD, P. J. Frick & R. D. Hare, in press) and presented with two tasks. The tasks were the gambling task (A. Bechara, A. R. Damasio, H. Damasio, & S. W. Anderson, 1994) and the Intradimensional/Extradimensional (ID/ED) shift task (R. Dias, T. W. Robbins, & A. C. Roberts, 1996). The boys with psychopathic tendencies showed impaired performance on the gambling task. However, there were no group differences on the ID/ED task either for response reversal or extradimensional set shifting. The implications of these results for models of psychopathy are discussed.