Consuming now or later? The interactive effect of timing and attribute alignability

Decisions are often temporally separated from their outcomes. Using theories of structural alignment and temporal construal, we examined how temporal distance and the associated shift in decision processes moderate susceptibility to context effects. Specifically, in two experiments (one hypothetical, one with real outcomes), we demonstrated that people attend more to nonalignable differences when the outcome of the decision is in the distant future than when it is in the near future. This shift in decision processes was found in preference and choice data, as well as coded written protocols. We further show that this temporal shift cannot be explained by differential involvement with the decision or by the feasibility and desirability of the attributes. Our findings establish temporal distance as an important moderator of structural alignment effects and also extend the implications of temporal construal theory beyond the nature of the attributes to the structural relationships among attributes.     

When is Parental Suppression of Black Children’s Negative Emotions Adaptive? The Role of Preparation for Racial Bias and Children’s Resting Cardiac Vagal Tone

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Research demonstrates that Black parents attempt to suppress children’s expressions of negative emotions (e.g., anger, fear), in part, to...     

Job Insecurity and Turnover Intentions: Gender Differences and the Mediating Role of Work Engagement

The present study tests an integrative model that considers differential gender effects for the mediating role of work engagement on the relationship between job insecurity and turnover intentions in a predominantly Muslim country. Job insecurity was divided into two aspects: general concerns about losing one’s job and concerns about losing the privileges (such as career advancement, stimulating work, competence, and pay development) that come from one’s specific job. Data were collected from 309 private banking employees (107 women, 202 men, with a mean age of 33.58) in Marmara region, Turkey. The results of multi-group path analysis partially support the hypotheses. The differential gender effects for the mediating effect of work engagement were supported only on the concerns about losing job privileges→turnover intention linkage, but not on the concerns about losing the job itself→turnover intention linkage. Moreover, the mediating effect of work engagement on the relationship between concerns about losing job privileges and turnover intention was found to be stronger for women than for men. For men, work engagement acts only as a partial mediator, suggesting that concerns about the loss of job privileges exerts its effects on turnover intentions both directly and indirectly. Although the direct effect of concerns about losing the job itself on turnover intention is significant, the indirect effect through work engagement turns out to be nonsignificant for both genders. Our findings are discussed considering the business environment in Turkey as a Muslim country.     

Effects of Illness Representation,Perceived Quality of Information Provided by the Health-Care Professional,and Perceived Social Support on Depressive Symptoms of the Caregivers of Children with Leukemia

The present study examined the effects of illness representation, perceived quality of information provided by the health-care professional, and perceived social support on the depressive symptoms of the caregivers of children with leukemia. The sample was composed of 71 caregivers of children with leukemia living in Turkey. The obtained data were analyzed by path analysis. The results show that caregivers of children with leukemia experience higher levels of depressive symptoms when they have negative illness representation and lower levels of depressive symptoms when they perceive higher levels of social support. Moreover, they perceive higher social support when they perceive high quality of information provided by health-care professionals. It can be suggested that intervention programs which aim to increase caregivers’ social support and change their illness representation in a positive way would be helpful for the caregivers showing depressive symptoms.     

Children’s Evaluation and Categorization of Transgender Children

Despite extant evidence of negative peer treatment of transgender adolescents and adults, little is known about how young children perceive transgender peers, particularly those who have socially transitioned or are living in line with their gender rather than sex at birth. Whereas children have been shown to be averse to gender nonconformity in peers, because many transgender children appear and behave in ways consistent with their expressed gender (but not their sex at birth), it is unclear how children evaluate these identities. In 2 studies, we investigated 5- to 10-year-old children’s (N_total = 113) preferences for transgender versus gender-“typical” peers who either shared their gender identity or did not. We also examined whether children categorized transgender peers by their sex or expressed gender, as it might inform their evaluations. Children preferred cisgender peers over transgender peers; however, they also liked peers of their own gender rather than the other gender (e.g., female participants preferred girls over boys), demonstrating that the oft-documented own-gender bias plays an important role even when children are reasoning about transgender peers. Children did not reliably categorize transgender peers by sex or gender; yet those who categorized transgender peers by their sex showed greater dislike of transgender peers. The current studies are the first to investigate cisgender children’s attitudes toward transgender children and suggest that perceptions of gender categorization and conformity play a role in children’s evaluations of transgender peers.     

Negotiating Plausibility: Intervening in the Future of Nanotechnology

The national-level scenarios project NanoFutures focuses on the social, political, economic, and ethical implications of nanotechnology, and is initiated by the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University (CNS-ASU). The project involves novel methods for the development of plausible visions of nanotechnology-enabled futures, elucidates public preferences for various alternatives, and, using such preferences, helps refine future visions for research and outreach. In doing so, the NanoFutures project aims to address a central question: how to deliberate the social implications of an emergent technology whose outcomes are not known. The solution pursued by the NanoFutures project is twofold. First, NanoFutures limits speculation about the technology to plausible visions. This ambition introduces a host of concerns about the limits of prediction, the nature of plausibility, and how to establish plausibility. Second, it subjects these visions to democratic assessment by a range of stakeholders, thus raising methodological questions as to who are relevant stakeholders and how to activate different communities so as to engage the far future. This article makes the dilemmas posed by decisions about such methodological issues transparent and therefore articulates the role of plausibility in anticipatory governance.     

Effects of foster care intervention and caregiving quality on the bidirectional development of executive functions and social skills following institutional rearing

Institutional rearing negatively impacts the development of children's social skills and executive functions (EF). However, little is known about whether childhood social skills mediate the effects of the foster care intervention (FCG) and foster caregiving quality following early institutional rearing on EF and social skills in adolescence. We examined (a) whether children's social skills at 8 years mediate the impact of the FCG on the development of EF at ages 12 and 16 years, and (b) whether social skills and EF at ages 8 and 12 mediate the relation between caregiving quality in foster care at 42 months and subsequent social skills and EF at age 16. Participants included abandoned children from Romanian institutions, who were randomly assigned to a FCG (n = 68) or care as usual (n = 68), and a never-institutionalized group (n = 135). At ages 8, 12, and 16, social skills were assessed via caregiver and teacher reports and EF were assessed via the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery. Caregiving quality of foster caregivers was observed at 42 months. FCG predicted better social skills at 8 years, which in turn predicted better EF in adolescence. Higher caregiver quality in foster care at 42 months predicted better social skills at 8 and 12 years, and better EF at 12 years, which in turn predicted 16-year EF and social skills. These findings suggest that interventions targeting caregiving quality within foster care home environments may have long-lasting positive effects on children's social skills and EF.     

Time Will Fly During Future Fun (But Drag Until Then)

Consumers’ lives are filled with scheduled events—both positive and negative. The current research examines how the valence of future scheduled events colors consumers’ temporal judgments in relation to such events: the time until their onset, the time during the events, and the time until their offset. We propose that the lay theory espousing “time flies when you’re having fun” leads consumers to judge that positive (vs. negative) future events of equivalent objective distance and duration are farther away and shorter. Operating in tandem, these elements produce two novel phenomena: (a) The end of positive and negative events can feel similarly far from the present, and (b) The beginning and end of positive events can feel similarly far from the present, whereby, in some circumstances, the event’s duration is effectively eliminated in the mind’s eye. Four studies provide evidence for these predictions, informing future directions regarding prospective time perception.     

Residential mobility increases motivation to expand social network: But why?

We conducted two studies to explore psychological consequences of a mobile lifestyle. In Study 1, we found that participants who were randomly assigned to think about a mobile lifestyle used more loneliness and sadness-related words and anticipated having fewer friends in the future than those who thought about a stable lifestyle (or a typical day as a control). In Study 2, we replicated this finding with a non-college sample. In addition, we found that those in the mobility condition reported being more motivated to expand their social network. Finally, the effect of mobility on the motivation to expand social networks was mediated by anticipated loneliness and sadness.     

Unstuck from the concrete: Carryover effects of abstract mindsets in intertemporal preferences

Prior research has demonstrated that individuals show decreasing levels of impatience as the delay of consumption gets longer (i.e., present-bias). We examine the psychological underpinnings of such present-biased preferences by conceptualizing timing decisions as part of a series of judgments. We propose that shifts in the abstractness of processing (focusing on details vs. broad aspects) triggered by aspects of an earlier (related or unrelated) decision systematically influence the degree of present-bias in subsequent decisions. The results of five studies show that the processing mindset (concrete vs. abstract) evoked in previous related and unrelated decisions influences the level of construal evoked in subsequent decisions and moderates the extent of present-bias without changes in affect. We further show the default mindset is concrete (displaying high present-bias) and thus the effect of construal is eliminated when the subsequent intertemporal task is inherently more abstract.