The Sentence Completion Method--recent research

The present article reviews recent work with the Sentence Completion Method (SCM) and examines the method's effectiveness as an assessment instrument. Studies in which the SCM was employed in testing hypotheses concerning personality and its development, as well as reports that deal with maladaptive functioning and psychopathology are covered. Also reviewed is some work that investigates the nature of the method itself. The overall conclusion is that the SCM is flexible, readily adaptable in various research and clinical settings, and to be recommended for continuing use and application.     

Multisensory numerosity judgments for visual and tactile stimuli

To date, numerosity judgments have been studied only under conditions of unimodal stimulus presentation. It is therefore unclear whether the same limitations on correctly reporting the number of unimodal visual or tactile stimuli presented in a display might be expected under conditions in which participants have to count stimuli presented simultaneously in two or more different sensory modalities. In Experiment 1, we investigated numerosity judgments using both unimodal and bimodal displays consisting of one to six vibrotactile stimuli (presented over the body surface) and one to six visual stimuli (seen on the body via mirror reflection). Participants had to count the number of stimuli regardless of their modality of presentation. Bimodal numerosity judgments were significantly less accurate than predicted on the basis of an independent modality-specific resources account, thus showing that numerosity judgments might rely on a unitary amodal system instead. The results of a second experiment demonstrated that divided attention costs could not account for the poor performance in the bimodal conditions of Experiment 1. We discuss these results in relation to current theories of cross-modal integration and to the cognitive resources and/or common higher order spatial representations possibly accessed by both visual and tactile stimuli.     

Effects of awe on consumer preferences for healthy versus unhealthy food products

This research investigates how a discrete positive emotion (awe) impacts consumers' decisions on food choices. We probe and demonstrate that the experience of awe enhances consumer preferences for healthy versus unhealthy products. In a series of three studies, we find that awe, compared with a neutral emotion, increases consumers' likelihood to choose healthy products over unhealthy products (Study 1). Consumers' processing styles drive the observed awe effect (Study 2), whereby awe increases reliance on analytic processing, which leads to preferences for healthy products. Moreover, the experience of awe exerts a stronger influence on product choices among consumers with a chronic intuitive rather than analytic processing style (Study 3). Theoretical contributions to the research on awe, information processing, and healthy food preference, as well as practical implications for consumers and marketers, are discussed.     

Gang Fights versus Cat Fights: Urban Young Men's Gendered Narratives of Violence

Scholarly accounts of young men's violence have remained remarkably consistent over time: the use of violence emerges in response to focal concerns that strongly emphasize autonomy, respect, and the defense of reputation, and is indicative of the import of hegemonic masculinities on the streets. Yet, despite persistent gender gaps in the use of violence, recent research suggests that young women use violence more often than commonly believed, and their violence is likewise tied to concerns about status and respect. Given scholarly attention to the functions of violence for accomplishing masculinity, this raises the interesting question of whether and how young men maintain the equation of masculinity with violence when faced with the reality of young women's violence. Drawing from the sociology of accounts and research on gender, language, and discourse, we analyze in-depth interviews with 39 urban African-American young men to compare how they construct and make sense of boys' and girls' violence in the context of conversations about the nature and meanings of violence.     

累积环境风险与大学生自伤的关系:情绪调节策略的作用

通过两个子研究分别考察累积环境风险与大学生自伤行为间的关系模式,并探讨注意分散与认知重评两种情绪调节策略对高风险大学生自伤意图的缓解作用。研究1在1066名大学生中采用问卷调查,探索累积环境风险对大学生自伤行为的作用及模式。基于研究1的结果,研究2选取符合高风险背景的62名大学生为被试,采用实验室实验对两种情绪调节策略的作用予以考察。本研究结果表明：累积环境风险对男女大学生自伤行为均有显著的正向作用,且均符合非线性“正加速模式”,但男生群体随累积风险数量增加而引发的自伤行为增长速度明显快于女生。对于高环境风险背景下的大学生,注意分散和认知重评两种策略均能降低其自伤倾向性与自伤认同,但不能降低其自伤意念。这提示应重视对经历了高环境风险的大学生进行情绪调节策略等方面的干预,以减少其采取自伤行为的倾向性。     

The role of age and inhibitory efficiency in working memory processing and storage components

In this study, we examined the extent to which inhibitory efficiency accounted for age-related decline in the processing and storage components of working memory. Older and younger adults performed a sequential task, which served as an index of deletion-type inhibition (the ability to suppress no-longer-relevant information). The reading span task was used to measure working memory components by examining processing accuracy, processing time, and end-word recall of sentences presented. Reduced inhibitory efficiency, which was poorer in older adults, predicted age-related decline in recall, over and above the effects of processing speed. Similar results were observed for processing accuracy, although the age effect in this component was marginal. These results highlight the important role of deletion-type inhibition in explaining age-related decline in working memory performance, particularly in the storage component, and extend previous research by examining this relationship at a componential level.