Differences in panic psychopathology between smokers with and without asthma

Cigarette smoking is more common among individuals with asthma compared to those without, resulting in increased risk of morbidity and mortality. However, there has been little exploration of psychological factors that differ between smokers with and without asthma. Thus, the aim of the current study was to examine differences between smokers with and without asthma in terms of anxiety sensitivity, panic symptoms, lifetime history of panic attacks, and lifetime history of panic disorder. Participants were 115 smokers with asthma (55.3% male, M_age = 38.4 years, SD = 11.9) and 120 smokers without asthma (70.6% male, M_age = 37.0 years, SD = 12.8) who were administered a structured diagnostic interview and completed self-report measures. As hypothesized, after controlling for the effects of cigarettes per day, gender, race, and education, smokers with asthma reported higher levels of anxiety sensitivity and panic symptoms and were at an increased risk for having a lifetime history of panic attacks (OR = 3.01) and panic disorder (OR = 2.96) compared to smokers without asthma. Further, group differences in anxiety sensitivity and panic symptoms remained even after removing participants with a lifetime history of panic attacks or panic disorder. These findings suggest that smokers with asthma are a particularly ‘at-risk’ population for panic psychopathology and likely in need of specialized smoking-related prevention and intervention efforts.     

Little Bayesians or little Einsteins? Probability and explanatory virtue in children's inferences

Like scientists, children seek ways to explain causal systems in the world. But are children scientists in the strict Bayesian tradition of maximizing posterior probability? Or do they attend to other explanatory considerations, as laypeople and scientists – such as Einstein – do? Four experiments support the latter possibility. In particular, we demonstrate in four experiments that 4‐ to 8‐year‐old children, like adults, have a robust latent scope bias that leads to inferences that do not maximize posterior probability. When faced with two explanations equally consistent with observed data, where one explanation makes an unverified prediction, children consistently preferred the explanation that does not make this prediction (Experiment 1), even if the prior probabilities are identical (Experiment 3). Additional evidence suggests that this latent scope bias may result from the same explanatory strategies used by adults (Experiments 1 and 2), and can be attenuated by strong prior odds (Experiment 4). We argue that children, like adults, rely on ‘explanatory virtues’ in inference – a strategy that often leads to normative responses, but can also lead to systematic error.     

Reentry Needs: Men Who Are Young,Hispanic, Older,or With Mental Illness

Perceptions of the needs for successful reentry among incarcerated men from diverse backgrounds were investigated using phenomenological qualitative methods. Twenty‐nine men serving time in a northeastern U.S. correctional facility, which concentrated on treatment of substance use, participated in four focus groups. Young men found it most important to make personal changes, Hispanic men to maintain personal identity, older men to receive structural support, and men with mental illness to connect with family.     

Testing the Explanatory Power of Two Measures of Narrative Involvement: An Investigation of the Influence of Transportation and Narrative Engagement on the Process of Narrative Persuasion

Achieving a more sophisticated understanding of narrative persuasion requires an examination of how the experience of narrative involvement influences persuasive resistance. In this study, we used a multiple message design approach to test two models of narrative involvement, one with transportation and the other with narrative engagement, with programs featuring persuasive stories about sexual and reproductive topics from primetime television. Although both transportation and the narrative engagement influenced processes related to changes in participants’ (N = 362) beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions, the two scales influenced different cognitive and affective responses to the narratives. Transportation was positively related to enjoyment and the perception that the narrative topic was personally relevant. Narrative engagement predicted enjoyment and reduced reactance. Neither transportation nor narrative engagement significantly influenced cognitive elaboration or counterarguments, based on the application of a thought-listing procedure designed to measure counterarguments related to the realism of the narratives. Put together, these findings suggest that the study of narrative persuasion necessitates the use of different measurement instruments that can adequately assess the multidimensional nature and influence of narrative involvement.     

Morality Predicts Enjoyment But Not Appreciation of Morally Ambiguous Characters

Understanding the role of morally ambiguous characters such as anti-heroes in entertainment experiences has become a central concern for media researchers. Some have argued that different character schemas or tropes may vary along specific moral domains, whereas others promote a linear progression of moral violation from hero to villain. This study presents the results of survey data (N = 294) examining the perceptions of established character tropes in terms of character morality, enjoyment, and appreciation responses. Popular perceptions of character tropes drawn from the website TV Tropes did not significantly differ in terms of which moral domains they upheld or violated, but demonstrated a linear progression of moral violation across five domains of morality. Perceptions of character tropes also did not differ significantly in associations with enjoyment, appreciation, or variables drawn from character identification literature such as self-expansion, wishful identification, or homophily. When examining media responses, however, self-expansion, wishful identification, and moral violation were all strongly related to enjoyment. Unlike enjoyment, appreciation was not related to moral violation. These results are discussed in terms of hedonic and eudaimonic responses to characters.     

Source memory that encoding was self-referential: the influence of stimulus characteristics

Decades of research suggest that encoding information with respect to the self improves memory (self-reference effect, SRE) for items (item SRE). The current study focused on how processing information in reference to the self affects source memory for whether an item was self-referentially processed (a source SRE). Participants self-referentially or non-self-referentially encoded words (Experiment 1) or pictures (Experiment 2) that varied in valence (positive, negative, neutral). Relative to non-self-referential processing, self-referential processing enhanced item recognition for all stimulus types (an item SRE), but it only enhanced source memory for positive words (a source SRE). In fact, source memory for negative and neutral pictures was worse for items processed self-referentially than non-self-referentially. Together, the results suggest that item SRE and source SRE (e.g., remembering an item was encoded self-referentially) are not necessarily the same across stimulus types (e.g., words, pictures; positive, negative). While an item SRE may depend on the overall likelihood the item generates any association, the enhancing effects of self-referential processing on source memory for self-referential encoding may depend on how embedded a stimulus becomes in one’s self-schema, and that depends, in part, on the stimulus’ valence and format. Self-relevance ratings during encoding provide converging evidence for this interpretation.     

Hebb repetition effects for non-verbal visual sequences: determinants of sequence acquisition

We report four experiments premised upon the work of Horton et al. [(2008). Hebb repetition effects in visual memory: The roles of verbal rehearsal and distinctiveness. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 61(12), 1769–1777] and Page et al. [(2013). Repetition-spacing and item-overlap effects in the Hebb repetition task. Journal of Memory and Language, 69(4), 506–526], and explore conditions under which the visual Hebb repetition effect is observed. Experiment 1 showed that repetition learning is evident when the items comprising the non-repeated (filler) sequences and the repeated (Hebb) sequences are different (no-overlap). However, learning is abolished when the filler and Hebb sequences comprise the same items (full-overlap). Learning of the repeated sequence persisted when repetition spacing was increased to six trials (Experiment 2), consistent with that shown for verbal stimuli (Page et al., 2013). In Experiment 3, it was shown that learning for the repeated sequence is accentuated when the output motor response at test is also repeated for the Hebb sequence, but only under conditions of no-overlap. In Experiment 4, repetition spacing was re-examined with a repeated motor output response (a closer methodological analogue to Page et al., 2013). Under these conditions, the gradient of Hebb repetition learning for six trial repetition intervals was markedly similar to that for three trial intervals. These findings further support the universality of the Hebb repetition effect across memory and are discussed in terms of evidence for amodality within-sequence memory.     

In Search of the Caliphate

“In Search of the Caliphate” discusses the historic split between Sunni and Shi'ite Islams in religious studies textbooks, general reference resources, multi-volume reference works on Islam, and briefly suggests other resources (monographs and articles). In analyzing textbooks, the article uses a template taken from the Encyclopedia of Religion (2005) and looks for the following characteristics in the discussion: the question of authority and succession in Islam after the death of the Prophet Mohammad; esoteric knowledge and the role of the Imam (particularly in Shi'a); the assassination of Husayn (the grandson of Mohammed); and the appearance of the eschatological figure of the Madhi in Twelver Shi'a. “Twelver Shi'ism” is used as a search term to analyze the information in reference works (both general works and those devoted to Islam). The conclusion highlights the challenges in researching this topic in a university library.