Make the manikin move: Symbolic approach–avoidance responses affect implicit and explicit face evaluations

The present research aimed to replicate and extend findings of Huijding, Muris, Lester, Field, and Joosse (2011), investigating whether symbolic approach–avoidance responses can induce implicit and explicit evaluation biases. Faces with a neutral expression were shown on a computer screen, and participants were instructed to repeatedly move a manikin towards some faces (approach) and away from other faces (avoidance). An affective priming task and a face rating task were used to assess training-compatible differences in implicit and explicit face evaluations, respectively. Results showed that the manikin training was successful: The priming task revealed more positive implicit evaluations of approached than avoided faces, and approached faces were rated more positively than avoided ones in the face rating task. These findings replicate those of Huijding and colleagues by demonstrating training effects on explicit evaluations, and they extend them by demonstrating effects on implicit evaluations.     

Preferring alphabet–keyboard compatibility: Congruency between spatial codes shapes the affective connotation of letters

When letters are encountered, two spatial stimulus codes resulting from their positions within the alphabet and on the computer keyboard are activated mentally. If these two spatial codes match, letter processing is more efficient. The present study tested whether the processing fluency gain resulting from alphabet–keyboard compatibility also enhances affective evaluations of letters. In Experiment 1, participants preferred alphabet–keyboard compatible over incompatible letters in a forced-choice preference rating. Similarly, in Experiment 2, liking ratings for alphabet–keyboard compatible letters were higher compared to incompatible letters. Moreover, in Experiment 3, preference ratings of non-words were positively correlated with the relative number of alphabet–keyboard compatible letters within these letter strings. These findings suggest that alphabet–keyboard compatibility shapes the affective connotation of letters. Moreover, this processing fluency–valence association is activated at the level of letters as well as whole letter strings.     

创造性的生理研究新进展

创造性的生理基础很复杂。关于创造性生理基础的研究集中在大脑皮质激活与脑半球不对称两个方面。研究发现,大脑皮质激活状态对创造性有影响,低水平的皮质激活,特别是低水平的前额叶激活,较有利于创造性．研究还发现,创造性和左右半球不对称活动有关,处于创造状态时,右半球相对要比左半球激活程度更高。     

Strategic differentiation–integration effort amongst the 47 prefectures of Japan

The strategic differentiation–integration effort (SD–IE) hypothesis holds that high-K (slow life history) individuals and populations are specialists with respect to domains of behavior and personality, and that the converse is true for low-K populations. Here, we examine SD–IE at the national level, amongst the 47 prefectures of Japan. Aggregate data on height, IQ, divorce, homicide rates, skin reflectance, fertility rates, income and infant mortality were used as life history indicators. Principal Axis Factor analysis revealed the presence of a K super-factor on which the first five of these loaded preferentially. A second factor loaded highly on income and fertility and a third on infant mortality. As Japan is among the highest-K countries, the extraction of three factors indicates strong underlying SD–IE. Amongst the five K super-factor variables, SD–IE confirmatory effects were recovered on all variables except IQ. The effect magnitudes were positively mediated by the K super-factor saturation of the indicators. We conclude that SD–IE appears to be highly general across different populations and measures of life-history traits. Finally, we discuss how the second and third factors appear to conform to recent social phenomena specific to the Japanese culture, namely increasing behavioral asexuality and high-quality universal health coverage.     

Organizational social context and psychopathology of youth in residential care: The intervening role of youth–caregiver relationship quality

Drawing on an ecological approach with multiple informants, this study investigated the mediating role of youth–caregiver relationship quality in associations between different features of residential care settings' organizational social context and youth's psychopathology. Participants were 378 youth aged between 12 and 25 years old, and 54 caregivers aged between 24 and 57 years old, from 29 generalist residential youth care settings in Portugal. Given the hierarchical structure of data, analyses were performed using multilevel modeling. Results revealed that organizational social contexts characterized by higher levels of engagement, stress, and centralization, as perceived by the caregivers, were associated with lower levels of youth's externalizing problems (e.g., aggressive behavior and delinquency), reported by the caregivers, via better youth–caregiver relationship quality, perceived by the youth in care. These findings highlight the relevance of creating an organizational social context in residential care settings that supports caregivers in establishing high-quality relationships with the youth in care, thereby promoting their mental health. This study contributes to the clarification of conflicting findings in previous studies of this field, by offering further empirical investigation of these issues.     

Contextual Integration in Multiparty Audience Design

Communicating with multiple addressees poses a problem for speakers: Each addressee necessarily comes to the conversation with a different perspective—different knowledge, different beliefs, and a distinct physical context. Despite the ubiquity of multiparty conversation in everyday life, little is known about the processes by which speakers design language in multiparty conversation. While prior evidence demonstrates that speakers design utterances to accommodate addressee knowledge in multiparty conversation, it is unknown if and how speakers encode and combine different types of perspective information. Here we test whether speakers encode the perspective of multiple addressees, and then simultaneously consider their knowledge and physical context during referential design in a three‐party conversation. Analyses of referential form—expression length, disfluency, and elaboration rate—in an interactive multiparty conversation demonstrate that speakers do take into consideration both addressee knowledge and physical context when designing utterances, consistent with a knowledge‐scene integration view. These findings point to an audience design process that takes as input multiple types of representations about the perspectives of multiple addressees, and that bases the informational content of the to‐be‐designed utterance on a combination of the perspectives of the intended addressees.     

The interrelatedness between infants’ communicative gestures and lexicon size: A longitudinal study

Research has shown a close relationship between gestures and language development. In this study, we investigate the cross-lagged relationships between different types of gestures and two lexicon dimensions: number of words produced and comprehended. Information about gestures and lexical development was collected from 48 typically developing infants when these were aged 0;9, 1;0 and 1;3. The European Portuguese version of the MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Gestures (PT CDI:WG) was used. The results indicated that the total number of actions and gestures and the number of early gestures produced at 0;9 and at 1;0 year predicted the number of words comprehended three months later. Actions and gestures’ predictive power of the number of words produced was limited to the 0;9–1;0 year interval. The opposite relationship was not found: word comprehension and production did not predict action and gestures three months later. These results highlight the importance of non-verbal communicative behavior in language development.     

Why is support for Jamesian actual–ideal discrepancy model so elusive? A latent-variable approach

We investigate the Actual–Ideal Discrepancy (AID) model of self-esteem determination dating back to James (1890/1963). Although intuitively appealing, this model received weak support from rigorous empirical research. We propose a multiple-item latent difference approach to AID as applied to a range of self-concept domains and sub-domains in young adolescents from two different countries (UK: N = 402; Italy: N = 250). The effects of the AID remained elusive for most domains and sub-domains; indeed, the effects of the specific AIDs were generally trivial and only appearance-AID became significant in the combined sample. Also AIDs did not substantially explain the more general self-concepts beyond what was explained by the actual domains. Even if they had been significant, AID effects would have been, at best, trivially small and detectable only using appropriate latent-variable methodologies coupled with large sample sizes; thus undermining the psychological meaning of the AID model.     

Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma-Related Distress: Maternal Betrayal Trauma,Parenting Attitudes,and Behaviors

The purpose of this study was to elucidate mechanisms involved in the intergenerational transmission of trauma-related distress. This study investigated whether betrayal trauma (BT; abuse by a person close to the victim) and specific parenting attitudes and behaviors among mothers with child abuse histories predicted internalizing and externalizing symptoms in their children. Mothers and children (ages 7–11) were recruited for a project on parenting and stress (N = 72). Maternal betrayal trauma predicted both internalizing (β = 0.33, p < .01) and externalizing symptoms (β = 0.25, p < .05) even when controlling for mothers’ trauma-related symptoms. Negative attitudes toward limit setting predicted externalizing symptoms (β = ?0.33, p < .05). Poorer communication (β = ?0.39, p < .05) but higher parenting satisfaction (β = 0.38, p < .01) predicted internalizing symptoms. These findings demonstrate the importance of assessing maternal trauma and parenting characteristics as part of interventions with symptomatic children.