Social and Behavioral Researchers' Experiences With Their IRBs

This article examines the responsibilities of researchers who conduct exploratory research to provide a service to vulnerable respondents. The term “service” is used to denote the provision of a tangible benefit in relation to the research question that is apart from the altruistic research benefits. This article explores what this “service” could look like, who might be responsible for providing it, and the challenges associated with such a service. The article argues that not providing a tangible benefit to vulnerable research participants is inconsistent with the principle of social justice that undergirds much of the rationale for conducting health disparities research.     

The Effects of Artist Adoration and Perceived Risk of Getting Caught on Attitude and Intention to Pirate Music in the United States and Taiwan

Piracy is the greatest threat facing the global music industry today. This study explores the effects of artist adoration and the perceived risk of being caught on the attitude and intention to engage in pirating a digital song among college students. The moderating effect of cultural environment factor is also examined. Experiments using between-group factorial designs were conducted in the United States and Taiwan. The results show that perceived risk of getting caught and cultural environment are important factors that can significantly affect the attitude and intention toward downloading unauthorized music. In addition, a two-way (Perceived Risk × Culture) and a three-way interaction in the model are also observed.     

Assessing At‐Risk Youth Using the Reynolds Adolescent Adjustment Screening Inventory With a Latino Population

Factor analyses were conducted on scores from the Reynolds Adolescent Adjustment Screening Inventory (RAASI; Reynolds, 2001 ) representing at‐risk Latino youth. The 4‐factor model of the RAASI did not exhibit a good fit. However, evidence of generalizability for Latino youth was noted.     

Simulating Personal Wealth in the Laboratory

During laboratory gambling tasks participants are not typically allowed to wager their personal wealth. Instead, wealth is simulated by telling participants they have been endowed with game tokens that will be later exchanged for money. Past research indicates that participants undervalue game tokens following this procedure, which leads to elevated risk taking compared to procedures that add saliency or realism to the monetary payoff. A between-subjects experiment tested whether showing a picture of money during the endowment instructions and repeating token-money exchange information during the session influenced participants' preference for risky and riskless options. The results showed no effect of the money picture. However, repeated token-money exchange information significantly decreased risk taking. Together with past studies, this finding suggests that endowment procedures might establish greater value in game tokens, and therefore better simulate personal wealth, when the eventual exchange between game tokens and money is made more salient to participants.     

Maternal Depressed Mood and Perceptions of Child Temperament

Research has suggested that women who experience postpartum depression are subsequently more likely to perceive their preschool-aged children as temperamentally difficult and maladjusted. However, previous studies have not controlled for the effects of concurrent depression levels on maternal ratings of child temperament or evaluated the accuracy of maternal reports. In the present study we assessed maternal and paternal ratings of child temperament 2 years after subjects had participated in a study of postpartum depression. The findings indicate that correlations between postpartum depression and subsequent child temperament ratings were accounted for statistically by concurrent levels of depression. Although fathers' ratings corroborated some aspects of maternal perceptions, levels of parental agreement were only moderately high. Moreover, discrepancies between the parents' reports were significantly associated with maternal depression, indicating that parental disagreement is more likely when the wife is dysphoric.     

Communal Versus Individual Learning of a Math-Estimation Task: African American Children and the Culture of Learning Contexts

The authors compared the performance of 78 African American 5th-grade students who studied a math-estimation task in one of two learning contexts. Learning contexts differed in the degree to which they afforded the expression of communalism. ANCOVA confirmed that posttest performance was best for students who studied in the high communal-learning context. The findings support A. W. Boykin's (1994) contention that the cultural context of learning can be a critical mediator of children's performance.     

False Memories in Individuals at Risk for Developing an Eating Disorder

In the present study, the authors used the Roediger and McDermott paradigm (H. L. Roediger & K. B. McDermott, 1995) to examine the creation of false memories in individuals at risk for developing an eating disorder. Thirty-three controls and 34 individuals at risk for eating disorders studied 6 word lists taken from the paradigm. Three lists were food related (bread, fruit, sweet), and 3 were not food related (king, doctor, black). Both groups produced false memories (i.e., recalled or recollected words that were not presented in the lists), and controls actually produced more false memories than the at-risk individuals produced in the recall of the food-related items. Groups did not differ in their recall of items not related to food.     

Psychometric properties of the Norwegian version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire in high‐risk groups

The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire ‐ Short Form (CTQ‐SF) is widely used to measure childhood abuse of all types. In the present study, we examined the psychometric properties of the Norwegian version of the instrument. The participants constituted four subsamples (n = 517): substance abusers (n = 126), psychiatric patients (n = 210), prisoners (n = 109) and adolescents in out‐of‐home placements (n = 72). Confirmatory factor analysis revealed a reasonable fit of the data to the original five‐factor structure of the CTQ‐SF. Measurement invariance was found across gender and the four subsamples. It was concluded that the Norwegian version of the CTQ‐SF has acceptable psychometric properties, with good reliability and satisfactory accuracy, to assess different dimensions of childhood trauma.     

Distinctive Preferences Toward Risk in the Substantive Domain of Sociality*

As with standard models of rationality, theorists generally treat prospect theory's demonstration of risk aversion in gains but risk tolerance in losses as domain‐general. Yet evolutionary psychology suggests that natural selection has designed a domain specific cognitive architecture—with systems specialized for some substantive domains but not others. Here we address risky choices through that lens asking whether humans' risk responses dispose them to enter social relationships even when doing so is counter to normative rationality and regardless of whether the “enter” versus “not enter” choice is framed as between gains and losses. Laboratory findings in five sites across three countries provide a positive answer to both possibilities. Participants could enter or not enter inherently risky social relationships. They were more willing to enter such relationships than rational choice models would predict and were equally so willing regardless of whether equivalent alternatives were framed as gains and as losses. With the “social context” extracted in otherwise identical games, participants' risk responses were consistent with prospect theory. The present findings suggest the possibility of adaptations designed to facilitate sociality—despite its risks and how those risks are framed.     

Examining direct and indirect pathways to health behaviour: The influence of cognitive and affective probability beliefs

This study aimed to extricate the influence of rational (e.g. ‘I think …’) and intuitive (e.g. ‘I feel …’) probability beliefs in the behavioural decision-making process regarding skin cancer prevention practices. Structural equation modelling was used in two longitudinal surveys (sun protection during winter sports [N?=?491]; sun protection during summer [N?=?277]) to examine direct and indirect behavioural effects of affective and cognitive likelihood (i.e. unmediated or mediated by intention), controlled for attitude, social influence and self-efficacy. Affective likelihood was directly related to sun protection in both studies, whereas no direct effects were found for cognitive likelihood. After accounting for past sun protective behaviour, affective likelihood was only directly related to sun protection in Study 1. No support was found for the indirect effects of affective and cognitive likelihood through intention. The findings underscore the importance of feelings of (cancer) risk in the decision-making process and should be acknowledged by health behaviour theories and risk communication practices. Suggestions for future research are discussed.