Food anticipation and lever-directed activities in rats

Three experiments are described which elaborate some of the conditions under which rats will contact and manipulate a periodically presented retractable lever. Experiment 1 demonstrated that (i) initial manipulative oral and manual contact with the lever was facilitated if the rat had previous experience of food delivery in the experimental chamber; (ii) persistence in contacting the lever on successive presentations was a function of whether food continued to be presented in the experimental environment; and (iii) food satiation significantly reduced the tendency of the rat to contact the lever even though an expectancy of food had previously been established under conditions of food deprivation. Experiment 2 suggested that the tendency to approach and contact the lever was in part a function of the local moment-to-moment conditional probability of food delivery. Experiment 3 found that the probability of contacting the lever was higher during presentation of an auditory CS signaling a high rate of food delivery than during stimuli signaling no food at all. These results are interpreted as suggesting that the food-signaling aspects of an appetitive CS and that CS's ability to generate signal-directed behaviors are experimentall separable properties.     

Message from the Ecumenical Youth Gathering

This is the message of the Ecumenical Youth Gathering held in advance of the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches, which met in Karlsruhe, Germany, in August–September 2022. In their message, the youth voiced a series of laments, and recognized and prayed for justice, forgiveness, and reconciliation of the wounds the church has inflicted and continues to inflict in the world, and they called on the WCC to provide a meaningful space for an equal representation of young people in all its processes.     

Stylistic appearances and linguistic diversity

Philosophy is beginning to pay problems of linguistic justice the attention they deserve in today's heavily interconnected and migrant world. Contemporary philosophy itself, however, has a particular problem of linguistic justice that deserves metaphilosophical attention. At least in the philosophical tradition that is mainstream in much of the world today, viz., analytic philosophy, methodological and sociological mechanisms make it the case that the voices of non-(native) Anglophone philosophers are substantially less heard. Among the mechanisms responsible for this situation, argues this paper, is the emphasis given by influential philosophical institutions to linguistic style and appearances as signs of clarity, precision, and rigour in the treatment of philosophical problems. Such an emphasis is not justifiable, in part because it deprives philosophy of a wider variety of perspectives. The paper concludes by presenting and motivating a recent initiative that aims to foster greater linguistic and cultural diversity within the profession.     

How do conspiratorial explanations differ from non-conspiratorial explanations? A content analysis of real-world online articles

The present research aims to identify unique characteristics of written conspiracy theories. In two pre-registered quantitative human-coded content analyses, we compared 36 pairs of conspiratorial and non-conspiratorial online articles about various events. As predicted, conspiratorial articles—compared to non-conspiratorial articles—contained less factual, more emotional and more threat-related information. Also, we predicted and found that conspiratorial articles presented more argumentation against the opposing standpoint and that they provided explanations that were more dispositional and less falsifiable. Contrary to our predictions, we did not consistently observe that conspiratorial articles presented less argumentation for their own standpoint. Also, we did not find consistent support that conspiratorial articles provided less information about the specific process or more information about the underlying goals of the respective events, or that conspiratorial explanations attributed the events to a lesser extent to situational factors. We discuss the relevance of our findings for the understanding of conspiracy theories.     

Centering culture in the treatment of opioid use disorder with American Indian and Alaska Native Communities: Contributions from a National Collaborative Board

American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities are disproportionally impacted by the opioid overdose epidemic. There remains a dearth of research evaluating methods for effectively implementing treatments for opioid use disorder (OUD) within these communities. We describe proceedings from a 2-day Collaborative Board (CB) meeting tasked with developing an implementation intervention for AI/AN clinical programs to improve the delivery of medications to treat OUD (MOUD). The CB was comprised of Elders, cultural leaders, providers, individuals with lived experience with OUD, and researchers from over 25 communities, organizations, and academic institutions. Conversations were audio-recorded, transcribed, and coded by two academic researchers with interpretation oversight provided by the CB. These proceedings provided a foundation for ongoing CB work and a frame for developing the program-level implementation intervention using a strength-based and holistic model of OUD recovery and wellbeing. Topics of discussion posed to the CB included engagement and recovery strategies, integration of extended family traditions, and addressing stigma and building trust with providers and clients. Integration of traditional healing practices, ceremonies, and other cultural practices was recommended. The importance of centering AI/AN culture and involving family were highlighted as priorities for the intervention.     

Infant distractibility from social events mediates the relation between maternal responsiveness and infant language outcomes

Research demonstrates that contingent and appropriate maternal responsiveness to infant requests and bids for attention leads to better language outcomes. Research also indicates that infants who are less distracted by irrelevant competing stimulation and attend efficiently to audiovisual social events (e.g., faces and voices) show better language outcomes. However, few studies have assessed relations between maternal responsiveness, infant attention to faces and voices, and distractibility, and how together these factors lead to early language outcomes. A newly developed audiovisual protocol, the Multisensory Attention Assessment Protocol (MAAP; Bahrick et al., 2018), allows researchers to examine individual differences in attention to faces and voices and distractibility, and to assess relations with other variables. At 12 months, infants (n = 79) in an ongoing longitudinal study participated in the MAAP to assess intersensory matching of synchronous faces and voices and attention to an irrelevant competing visual distractor event. They also were observed in a brief play interaction to assess infant bids for attention and maternal responsiveness (accept, redirect, or ignore). At 18 months, receptive and expressive language were assessed using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning. Several noteworthy findings emerged: 1) mothers were generally responsive, accepting 74% and redirecting 14% of infant bids, 2) infants who had a greater number of their bids redirected by mothers, and who had better intersensory matching of synchronous faces and voices, showed less attention to the distractor, and 3) infants who showed less attention to the distractor had better receptive language. Findings demonstrate that maternal redirecting of infant attention by mothers who are generally responsive may promote better infant attentional control (lower distractibility) which in turn predicts better receptive language in toddlers.     

Examining awareness of privilege among midwestern college students: An analysis of race/ethnicity,gender, and religion

Dominant group members often are not aware of the privileges they benefit from due to their dominant group membership. Yet individuals are members of multiple groups and may simultaneously occupy multiple categories of dominance and marginality, raising the question of how different group memberships work in concert to facilitate or inhibit awareness of multiple forms of privilege. Examining awareness of privilege is important as awareness may be linked to action to dismantle systems of privilege that maintain oppression and inequality. Grounded in intersectional scholarship, in this study we examined how occupying intersecting categories of race/ethnicity, gender, and religion corresponded to an awareness of White, male, and Christian privilege. In a sample of 2321 Midwestern college students, we demonstrated that students from marginalized groups broadly reported greater awareness of all forms of privilege than students from dominant groups, and the difference between marginalized and dominant groups was most pronounced when the specific group category (e.g., gender) aligned with the type of privilege (e.g., male privilege). We also tested interactions among race/ethnicity, gender, and religion, only finding an interaction between race/ethnicity and religion for awareness of White and male privilege. These findings helped to clarify that multiple group memberships tended to contribute to awareness as multiple main effects rather than as multiplicative. Finally, we examined mean differences among the eight intersected groups to explore similarities and differences among groups in awareness of all types of privilege. Taken together, these findings quantitatively demonstrate the ways in which group memberships work together to contribute to awareness of multiple forms of privilege. We discuss study limitations and implications for community psychology research and practice.     

The Intergenerational Transmission of Party Preferences in Multiparty Contexts: Examining Parental Socialization Processes in the Netherlands

Research shows that parents have a strong influence on the party preferences of their children. Yet little is known about how such preferences are transmitted in multiparty systems with weak party identification and high electoral volatility. We propose a model of intergenerational transmission that includes both direct effects of parents' party preferences on those of their children, as well as indirect effects through left–right and issue positions. We test this model with original survey data of Dutch adolescents (14–20 years old) and their parents (N = 751 adolescent-parent pairs). We find two paths through which parents exert influence on the party preferences of their adolescent children. On the first path, parental party preferences function as a direct predictor of adolescent party preferences. On the second path, adolescent left–right and issue positions function as a mediator between parental left–right and issue positions and adolescent party preferences, with the effect of left–right positions being stronger than that of issue positions. The frequency with which adolescents discuss political topics with their parents moderates these effects.     

Reframing caring for parents who struggle with substance-use disorders

Nancy Suchman and the colleagues she influenced have produced ground-breaking and attitude-challenging work in understanding how parenting and substance use come together. Dr Suchman and her colleagues make the claim that there is nothing about a substance-use disorder that precludes effective and sensitive caring for children especially with interventions that focus on the parent–child relationship. Suchman's legacy is to highlight how substance use as an illness pulls individuals away from important, caring relationships and limits their giving themselves to those relationships. Restoring the salience of caring relationships and of the individual's ability to care may be as impactful on their substance use as a strict focus on the reduction of drug use and achieving abstinence.