Walking through a virtual environment improves perceived size within and beyond the walked space

Distances tend to be underperceived in virtual environments (VEs) by up to 50%, whereas distances tend to be perceived accurately in the real world. Previous work has shown that allowing participants to interact with the VE while receiving continual visual feedback can reduce this underperception. Judgments of virtual object size have been used to measure whether this improvement is due to the rescaling of perceived space, but there is disagreement within the literature as to whether judgments of object size benefit from interaction with feedback. This study contributes to that discussion by employing a more natural measure of object size. We also examined whether any improvement in virtual distance perception was limited to the space used for interaction (1–5 m) or extended beyond (7–11 m). The results indicated that object size judgments do benefit from interaction with the VE, and that this benefit extends to distances beyond the explored space.     

Is the Market Moral? Protestant Assessments of Market Society

Is the market moral? Do different Protestant traditions have competing views of “market society”? Despite the increasing diffusion of market logics in American society, scholars of religion have little empirical data on these questions. Employing discourse analysis of market-related topics in two prominent Christian periodicals over a twenty-year period, this paper compares evangelical and mainline Protestant evaluations of markets. We find that neither group views markets as redeeming, self-regulating, or value neutral, and both groups argue that markets require constraints. Evangelicals prioritize moral constraints on markets, while mainline Protestants prioritize governmental and democratic constraints. The degree of difference between the groups varies considerably by topic, however, depending on the degree of potential state intervention. We close by discussing our findings in light of recent debates over the relationship between religious conservatism and economic conservatism. We find that economic conservatism among evangelicals is driven at least as much by a commitment to collective voluntarism as by atomized individualism or free market ideology.     

Channels of Change: Contrasting Network Mechanisms in the Use of Interventions

This study informs community science, and seeks to narrow the research-to-practice gap, by examining how the interpersonal networks within a setting influence individuals' use of interventions. More specifically, it explores the role of two network mechanisms-cohesion and structural similarity-in urban elementary school teachers' use of interventions designed to improve academic and behavioral outcomes for students. Lagged regression models examine how position in advice giving networks influenced weekly use of the daily report card and peer assisted learning by kindergarten through fourth grade teachers in three schools. Results indicate that intervention use spreads among teachers with similar patterns of advice-giving relationships (i.e., via structural similarity), rather than from teachers who are sources of advice (i.e., via cohesion). These results are consistent with findings in other settings, and suggest that researchers wishing to increase the use of an intervention should select change agents based on their patterns of their relationships, rather than on their direct connections.     

Power as a Structural Phenomenon

In an effort to inform empowerment theory and research, this paper provides a structural conception of power. First, we examine the essential features present in three dominant conceptions of power in community psychology: social power, psychopolitical power, and relational power. Next, commonalities in the key features of power identified by these conceptions are explored and pared down to yield a more parsimonious conception of power that is grounded only in the structural pattern of relationships through which resources are exchanged. Drawing on social exchange theory, we offer a method for measuring this streamlined, structural conception of power that allows for its more precise examination. Finally, we discuss the implications of a structural conception and measurement of power for targeting and facilitating empowering processes and evaluating empowered outcomes.     

Clinical Decision-Making Following Disasters: Efficient Identification of PTSD Risk in Adolescents

The present study aimed to utilize a Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) approach in order to improve clinical decision-making for adolescents at risk for the development of psychopathology in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Specifically we assessed theoretically-driven individual, interpersonal, and event-related vulnerability factors to determine which indices were most accurate in forecasting PTSD. Furthermore, we aimed to translate these etiological findings by identifying clinical cut-off recommendations for relevant vulnerability factors. Our study consisted of structured phone-based clinical interviews with 2000 adolescent-parent dyads living within a 5-mile radius of tornados that devastated Joplin, MO, and northern Alabama in Spring 2011. Demographics, tornado incident characteristics, prior trauma, mental health, and family support and conflict were assessed. A subset of youth completed two behavioral assessment tasks online to assess distress tolerance and risk-taking behavior. ROC analyses indicated four variables that significantly improved PTSD diagnostic efficiency: Lifetime depression (AUC = .90), trauma history (AUC = .76), social support (AUC = .70), and family conflict (AUC = .72). Youth were 2–3 times more likely to have PTSD if they had elevated scores on any of these variables. Of note, event-related characteristics (e.g., property damage) were not related to PTSD diagnostic status. The present study adds to the literature by making specific recommendations for empirically-based, efficient disaster-related PTSD assessment for adolescents following a natural disaster. Implications for practice and future trauma-related developmental psychopathology research are discussed.     

Network Analysis in Community Psychology: Looking Back,Looking Forward

Network analysis holds promise for community psychology given the field's aim to understand the interplay between individuals and their social contexts. Indeed, because network analysis focuses explicitly on patterns of relationships between actors, its theories and methods are inherently extra‐individual in nature and particularly well suited to characterizing social contexts. But, to what extent has community psychology taken advantage of this network analysis as a tool for capturing context? To answer these questions, this study provides a review of the use network analysis in articles published in American Journal of Community Psychology . Looking back, we describe and summarize the ways that network analysis has been employed in community psychology research to understand the range of ways community psychologists have found the technique helpful. Looking forward and paying particular attention to analytic issues identified in past applications, we provide some recommendations drawn from the network analysis literature to facilitate future applications of network analysis in community psychology.     

Differences in attributions of mental illness and social distance for portrayals of four mental disorders

For individuals with mental illness, others' perceptions of mental illness often limit integration into communities. Perceptions of mental illness manifest as social stigma in the form of social distance and may depend on individuals' attributions of the origins of mental illness. 180 university students completed a survey on attribution of mental illness and social distance across several disorders (psychiatric and physical). Participants indicated greater social distance for severe mental illness (i.e., schizophrenia) than less severe mental illness and physical illness. More desire for social distance may be related to unfamiliarity with severe mental illness rather than less severe mental and physical illnesses. Greater understanding of how individuals perceive mental illness can inform efforts to educate the public.     

Maintenance Cardiac Rehabilitation Exercise Adherence: Effects of Task and Self-Regulatory Self-Efficacy

The purpose of this study was to examine whether self-efficacy functions as a determinant and outcome of maintenance cardiac rehabilitation exercise adherence. Specifically, the purpose of this prospective observational study was to examine which types of self-efficacy–task or self-regulatory–predicted maintenance exercise attendance. In addition, the relative contribution of self-efficacy to the prediction of perceived exercise intensity was examined. Self-regulatory self-efficacy was operationalized as confidence to schedule and manage exercise sessions, while task self-efficacy concerned confidence to perform aspects of the exercise session and to walk for increasing durations. Sixty-four maintenance cardiac rehabilitation participants completed social cognitive measures and provided attendance data for 4 weeks prior to and 4 weeks following assessment. Results indicated that scheduling and walking self-efficacy significantly predicted cardiac rehabilitation exercise attendance. Task self-efficacy was the best predictor of perceived exercise intensity. Past exercise attendance significantly predicted all 3 dimensions of self-efficacy. Findings are discussed with respect to self-efficacy theory and applications to the maintenance of cardiac rehabilitation exercise adherence.     

Good Guys Can Finish First: How Brand Reputation Affects Extension Evaluations

This research investigates how consumer evaluations of brand extensions are affected by two distinct types of brand reputation: a reputation for social responsibility built through commitments to societal obligations, versus a reputation for ability developed by delivering quality offerings. Through six studies, we establish that while the two reputation types equivalently influence high fit brand extensions, a reputation for social responsibility (vs. ability) leads to more favorable responses toward low fit brand extensions by inducing a desire to support and help the company that has acted to benefit consumers. Furthermore, the facilitative effect of social responsibility on low fit brand extension evaluations is more prominent among consumers who value close relationships and caring for one another's well‐being (i.e., those with high communal orientation), and tends to dissipate when social responsibility initiatives are tainted with self‐serving motives (i.e., when these initiatives are aligned with the brand's core offering).     

A phenomenology of political apathy: Scheler on the origins of mass violence

In his criticisms of the German youth movement and the emergence of fascism across Europe during the early 1920s, Max Scheler draws a distinction between the different senses of political apathy that give rise to mass political movements. Recent studies of mass apathy have tended to treat all forms of apathy as the same and as a consequence reduced the diverse expressions of mass violence to the same, stripping mass movements of any critical function. I show in this paper that Scheler’s distinction provides the means by which to locate the various origins of mass violence and the practical means by which to address this violence that preserves the liberating potential of collective political movements.