The Opportunity Cost of Compulsory Research Participation: Why Psychology Departments Should Abolish Involuntary Participant Pools

Science and Engineering Ethics - Psychology departments often require undergraduates to participate in faculty and graduate research as part of their course or face a penalty. Involuntary...     

The basis of Stroop interference involving the multimodal correlates of auditory pitch

A pure auditory tone has a range of multimodal qualities that are determined by its pitch. A reaction-time task was used to demonstrate that subjects respond immediately and automatically to these qualities. Subjects were required to press one of two keys depending on which word, from a limited set, appeared on a microcomputer screen. The words were antonyms that represented multimodal stimulus qualities, and they were assigned to alternative responses so that the two words that shared the same response were correlated in the same way with pitch. As an incidental stimulus, either a 50 Hz tone or a 5500 Hz tone accompanied the presentation of each word. Subjects were found to respond more slowly when the multimodal qualities of the tone were incongruent with the qualities represented by the test word. When the stimulus-response mapping rules were changed, however, the Stroop effect did not occur; suggesting that a polarised semantic code of the incidental tone, that embraces its multimodal features, accesses the same semantic register as the equivalent code for the test word itself.     

On the emotions that accompany autobiographical memories: Dysphoria disrupts the fading affect bias

Participants in two studies recalled autobiographical events and reported both the affect experienced at event occurrence and the affect associated with event recollection. The intensity of affect associated with a recalled event generally decreased, but the affective fading was greater for negative events than for positive events. The magnitude of this fading affect bias also varied with participants' dysphoria levels: Dysphorics showed a smaller fading affect bias than non-dysphorics. Additional analyses suggested that the fading affect bias is not a product of: (1) distorted retrospective memory for the affect originally accompanying events; (2) differences in the initial affect intensity of positive and negative events; or (3) differences in the ages of positive and negative events. Other variables that might be related to the fading affect bias are discussed.     

PERCEIVED FREQUENCY OF ROLE CONFLICT AND RELATIONSHIP QUALITY FOR CAREGIVING DAUGHTERS

A role-conflict approach was employed to explore the impact of perceived frequency of conflict between caregiving and other obligations on the quality of relationships between daughters and their care-receiving mothers. Frequency of conflict between caregiving and responsibilities as a wife, mother, and paid and unpaid worker was assessed. Daughters reported relatively infrequent conflict between caregiving and other obligations. A multiple regression analysis revealed that daughters who reported frequent conflict between their obligations as caregivers and their obligations as wives had poorer relationships with their mothers. The findings emphasize the importance of a supportive spouse for married caregivers.     

Perceived Discrimination and Suicide Ideation: Moderating Roles of Anxiety Symptoms and Ethnic Identity among Asian American,African American,and Hispanic Emerging Adults

Suicide is a leading cause of death for vulnerable ethnic minority emerging adults in the United States (Web‐based injury statistics query and reporting system [WISQARS], 2015). Perceived discrimination (Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 40, 2011, 1465) and anxiety symptoms (Asian American Journal of Psychology, 1, 2010, 18) are two predictors that are theoretically and conceptually related, but have yet to be examined in a simultaneous model for suicide ideation. Existing theory and research suggest that these variables activate similar pathways (American Behavioral Scientist, 51, 2007, 551). This study sought to address this gap in the literature by examining the simultaneous relationship between perceived discrimination and anxiety symptoms as predictors of suicide ideation. The moderating effect of anxiety symptoms on the relationship between perceived discrimination and suicide ideation was examined in a multiethnic sample of emerging adults. Results indicated that anxiety symptoms moderated the perceived discrimination–suicide ideation relationship for Hispanic emerging adults, but not for their Asian American and African American counterparts. Furthermore, ethnic identity has been shown to mitigate suicide risk in the face of other stressors (Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 14, 2008, 75). Ethnic identity emerged as a protective factor for Hispanic emerging adults by further interacting with perceived discrimination and anxiety symptoms to negatively predict suicide ideation. The implications of these findings are discussed.