Poor,Rural Women: Spirituality,Religion, and Wellness Across the Life Span

Researchers have suggested strategies in the spiritual domain for improving wellness. This study explored relationships among spirituality, religiosity, and wellness for poor, rural women in early adulthood, early–middle adulthood, and middle–later adulthood. Implications for evidence‐based strategies to improve wellness for poor, rural women across the life span are provided.     

“Insight” in pigeons: absence of means–end processing in displacement tests

The understanding of functional relations between action and consequence is a critical component of intelligence. To examine this linkage in pigeons, we investigated their understanding of the relations of the elements tested in an extension of Köhler’s box stacking task to this species. In the experiments, the pigeons had to move a spatially displaced box under an out-of-reach target. Experiment 1 successfully replicated and extended the previous finding showing that when separately trained to move a box and stand on it to peck the target, pigeons can synthesize these behaviors to solve the single-box displacement problem quickly on their first attempt. Experiment 2 tested whether pigeons, when given a simultaneous choice between two boxes with identical reinforcement histories, would selectively choose the box with the correct functional affordance (i.e., permitting standing) to solve the problem rather than a non-functional one. Their extensive, equivalent, and undirected behavior in moving both boxes during these tests suggests the pigeons did not possess a means–end understanding of the functional properties of the boxes. Instead, their results were consistent with an analysis of their earlier synthetic behavior as being due to the temporal and spatial relations of the physical elements in the task and their prior learned behaviors.     

Executive Functioning in Adolescent Depressive Disorders

Previous research on executive functioning within adolescent depression has provided somewhat inconsistent results, although the majority of research has identified at least partial evidence of executive functioning deficits in adolescent depression. The present study attempted to explore adolescent depression, specifically depressive disorder diagnoses and self-reported depressive/anxious symptoms, as well as executive functioning through the retrospective chart review of an inpatient/outpatient adolescent sample. The total sample (N = 155) was divided into four groups. The psychiatric inpatient sample was subdivided into a Major Depression Group (n = 22), Minor Depression Group (n = 28), Inpatient Control Group (n = 73) based on the discharge diagnoses. The Outpatient Control Group (n = 33) consisted of a group of adolescents who received evaluations at a neuropsychological evaluation clinic. Analyses of variance between the four clinical groups and follow-up pairwise comparisons revealed lowered executive functioning performance in major and minor depression groups compared to the outpatient control. Lowered working memory/simple attention was identified in minor and major depression, while lowered cognitive flexibility/set shifting was only identified in major depression, suggesting a continuum of executive dysfunction and depression severity. More generally, the inpatient groups displayed lower executive functioning than the outpatient control, with no identified executive functioning differences between inpatient groups. Additionally, no negative correlations were observed between self-reported depressive/anxious symptoms and executive functioning. These results are consistent with the majority of related research, and highlight the importance of executive functions in adolescent depression, and more broadly in adolescent psychopathology.     

The Complexity of Quest in Emerging Adults’ Religiosity,Well‐Being,and Identity

The construct of quest as measured by the Quest Scale raises complexities that this study addressed with online surveys measuring religiosity, ego identity, and well‐being of graduates from two Christian colleges. Intrinsic questers (those above the scale midpoint in intrinsic and quest scores but below the extrinsic midpoint) made up over half of those high in intrinsic religiosity and did not differ in Christian orthodoxy, religious identity, religious coping, or well‐being from the pure intrinsics (those high in intrinsic religiosity). Indiscriminately pro‐religious questing individuals (those high in intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity and quest) were less religious and showed poorer coping than intrinsic questers. Quest appears to be a reasonable measure of religious orientation, improving prediction of Christian orthodoxy, religious identity, and religious coping, and was more highly correlated with ego identity exploration than with stress. In association with intrinsic religiosity quest does not appear to indicate weak religiosity or poor well‐being. Instead, intrinsic questers may pursue a distinctive developmental trajectory, a path of existential searching by which emerging adults manage the demands of contemporary culture while maintaining a mature faith.     

The Role of Interruptions and Contextual Associations in Delayed‐Execute Prospective Memory

We conducted three experiments to examine the dynamics of a delayed‐execute prospective memory task involving task interruptions. In the delayed‐execute paradigm, participants must delay a response until some future condition is met. After an intention was formed to a salient cue, an interruption reduced prospective memory relative to a no‐interruption condition. Prospective memory for cues encountered during an interrupting task was worse than for cues occurring before an interruption, but the location of the cue in either the ongoing task or the interruption did not affect prospective memory. Importantly, reinstating the prevailing context after the interruption alleviated the negative influence of the interruption. Providing participants with information about the future context for making the delayed‐execute response also alleviated some of these deficits presumably because participants could encode more specific features of the performance context. These results highlight the potential importance of contextual associations and reminders in completing everyday intentions successfully. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using the MMPI–2–RF to Discriminate Psychometrically Identified Schizotypic College Students From a Matched Comparison Sample

This study investigates the extent to which the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 Restructured Form (MMPI–2–RF) profiles of 52 individuals making up a psychometrically identified schizotypes (SZT) sample could be successfully discriminated from the protocols of 52 individuals in a matched comparison (MC) sample. Replication analyses were performed with an additional 53 pairs of SZT and MC participants. Results showed significant differences in mean T-score values between these 2 groups across a variety of MMPI–2–RF scales. Results from discriminant function analyses indicate that schizotypy can be predicted effectively using 4 MMPI–2–RF scales and that this method of classification held up on replication. Additional results demonstrated that these MMPI–2–RF scales nominally outperformed MMPI–2 scales suggested by previous research as being indicative of schizophrenia liability. Directions for future research with the MMPI–2–RF are suggested.     

Perceptual grouping and detection of trial-unique emergent structures by pigeons

Animal Cognition - Detecting global patterns in the environment is essential to object perception and recognition. Consistent with this, pigeons have been shown to readily detect and locate...     

THE EFFECT OF THE AVAILABILITY OF A SIMILAR TOY ON COMPLIANCE WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO SURRENDER A TOY AMONG PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

We evaluated the effect of the availability of a similar toy on compliance with an instruction to surrender a toy among three preschool children. First, high‐preference and medium‐preference toys were identified for each participant. During the treatment evaluation, reversal designs were used to examine compliance with an instruction to surrender these toys when a toy similar to the target toy was added to the environment. The results indicated that, for two participants, the similar toy intervention increased compliance to moderate levels; a consequence‐based intervention was then added to the similar toy intervention and resulted in high levels of compliance. For the third participant, the similar toy intervention did not increase compliance. A separate consequence‐based intervention was necessary to increase compliance and to demonstrate experimental control. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A randomized experiment comparing random and cutoff-based assignment

In this article, we review past studies comparing randomized experiments to regression discontinuity designs, mostly finding similar results, but with significant exceptions. The latter might be due to potential confounds of study characteristics with assignment method or with failure to estimate the same parameter over methods. In this study, we correct the problems by randomly assigning 588 participants to be in a randomized experiment or a regression discontinuity design in which they are otherwise treated identically, comparing results estimating both the same and different parameters. Analysis includes parametric, semiparametric, and nonparametric methods of modeling nonlinearities. Results suggest that estimates from regression discontinuity designs approximate the results of randomized experiments reasonably well but also raise the issue of what constitutes agreement between the 2 estimates.     

An implicit theory of self-esteem: The consequences of perceived self-esteem for romantic desirability

The provision of information appears to be an important property of self-esteem as evidenced by previous research concerning the status-tracking and status-signaling models of self-esteem. The present studies examine whether there is an implicit theory of self-esteem that leads individuals to assume targets with higher levels of self-esteem possess more desirable characteristics than those with lower levels of self-esteem. Across 6 studies, targets with ostensibly higher levels of self-esteem were generally rated as more attractive and as more desirable relationship partners than those with lower levels of self- esteem. It is important to note, however, that this general trend did not consistently emerge for female targets. Rather, female targets with high self-esteem were often evaluated less positively than those with more moderate levels of self-esteem. The present findings are discussed in the context of an extended informational model of self-esteem consisting of both the status-tracking and status-signaling properties of self-esteem.