PSYC 1030 - Davison: Class Topics

A sizable literature found an inverse association between number of siblings and developmental outcomes. Little is known about this relationship during the earliest years of children's lives, a period when parental attention and resources matter greatly for cognitive development. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, a nationally representative sample of American children born in 2001, this study investigates the inter-relationships between siblings, home resources, and cognitive development during the years before formal schooling. To address unobserved differences between families, child fixed effects models were used to assess children's experiences before and after the birth of a sibling. The birth of a sibling was not significantly associated with lower cognitive development, even when the age spacing between the siblings was small. Concerning home resources, interpersonal resources mattered a great deal for young children's cognitive development, but interpersonal resources were not shaped by the presence of siblings.

ncreasing evidence suggests that cultural influences on brain activity are associated with multiple cognitive and affective processes. These findings prompt an integrative framework to account for dynamic interactions between culture, behavior, and the brain. We put forward a culture–behavior–brain (CBB) loop model of human development that proposes that culture shapes the brain by contextualizing behavior, and the brain fits and modifies culture via behavioral influences. Genes provide a fundamental basis for, and interact with, the CBB loop at both individual and population levels. The CBB loop model advances our understanding of the dynamic relationships between culture, behavior, and the brain, which are crucial for human phylogeny and ontogeny. Future brain changes due to cultural influences are discussed based on the CBB loop model. Cultural neuroscience research combines cultural psychology, brain imaging, and genetics to investigate whether and how cultural contexts/experiences interact with genes to shape the functional organization of human brain and behavior.Cultural neuroscience findings suggest indirect culture–brain interactions, through practice of behaviors, and direct culture–brain interactions, which constitute an interacting loop that provides a basis of human development.The CBB loop model of human development considers different timescales along which genes and culture interact with the brain and behavior, and highlights genetic interactions with the CBB loop.The CBB loop model can be used to predict future brain changes.

To examine the association between maternal depression and anxiety disorders (MDAD) and child development assessed during the kindergarten year.Administrative data from several health and social databases in Manitoba, Canada, were used to study 18,331 mother-child pairs. MDAD over the period from one year prior to the child's birth to the kindergarten year was defined using physician diagnoses and filled prescriptions. Child development was assessed during the kindergarten year using the Early Development Instrument (EDI) which measures vulnerability across five domains of development. Structural equation modeling was used to examine associations between timing, recurrence and severity of MDAD and child outcomes. Health at Birth (preterm, low birth weight, neonatal intensive care stay and long birth hospitalization), Family Context (teen mother, lone parent, socio-economic status (SES)), child age and child sex were covariates.MDAD had a modest negative association with child EDI scores across all models tested, particularly for social, emotional and physical development. Prenatal MDAD had a stronger negative association with outcomes than other time periods; however, recurrent MDAD had a stronger negative association with outcomes than any specific time period or MDAD severity. The influence of MDAD was mediated by Family Context, which had a strong, negative association with outcomes, particularly language and cognitive development.The number of time periods a child was exposed to MDAD in early childhood was more negatively associated with five areas of child development than timing or severity. Prenatal exposure may be more sensitive to MDAD than other time periods. The familial context (teen mother, lone parenthood and low SES) had a stronger influence on child outcomes than MDAD. Findings can be used to inform interventions which address maternal mental health from the prenatal period onward, and to support disadvantaged families to encourage healthy birth outcomes, early childhood development and school readiness.

Alongside the exponential flourish of research on age-related trajectories of human brain development during childhood and adolescence in the past two decades, there has been an increase in the body of work examining the association between pubertal development and brain maturation. This review systematically examines empirical research on puberty-related structural and functional brain development in humans, with the aim of identifying convergent patterns of associations. We emphasize longitudinal studies, and discuss pervasive but oft-overlooked methodological issues that may be contributing to inconsistent findings and hindering progress (e.g., conflating distinct pubertal indices and different measurement instruments). We also briefly evaluate support for prominent models of adolescent neurodevelopment that hypothesize puberty-related changes in brain regions involved in affective and motivational processes. For the field to progress, replication studies are needed to help resolve current inconsistencies and gain a clearer understanding of pubertal associations with brain development in humans, knowledge that is crucial to make sense of the changes in psychosocial functioning, risk behavior, and mental health during adolescence.

Childhood and adolescence are important developmental phases which influence health and well-being across the life span. Social relationships are fundamental to child and adolescent development; yet studies have been limited to children’s relationships with other humans. This paper provides an evidence review for the potential associations between pet ownership and emotional; behavioural; cognitive; educational and social developmental outcomes. As the field is in the early stages; a broad set of inclusion criteria was applied. A systematic search of databases and grey literature sources found twenty-two studies meeting selection criteria. The review found evidence for an association between pet ownership and a wide range of emotional health benefits from childhood pet ownership; particularly for self-esteem and loneliness. The findings regarding childhood anxiety and depression were inconclusive. Studies also showed evidence of an association between pet ownership and educational and cognitive benefits; for example, in perspective-taking abilities and intellectual development. Evidence on behavioural development was unclear due to a lack of high quality research. Studies on pet ownership and social development provided evidence for an association with increased social competence; social networks; social interaction and social play behaviour. Overall, pet ownership and the significance of children’s bonds with companion animals have been underexplored; there is a shortage of high quality and longitudinal studies in all outcomes. Prospective studies that control for a wide range of confounders are required.

Adolescence is a time when youth are faced with multiple tasks that intersect and influence one another, e.g., increased desire for autonomy, salience of identity issues, peer orientation, self-focus and self-consciousness, and a continuing need for a safe environment in which to explore autonomy and identity. These all occur in a dynamic ecosystemic environment, which in the past would have mostly included family, peers, and school, but today also includes cyberspace as both a system, and a means to interact with many other systems through the use of multiple forms of information technology (IT). This paper uses the voices and experiences of 128 adolescents, captured in qualitative interviews, to look at autonomy and identity in the digital age as they talk about their parents vis à vis their use of IT. Thematic analysis revealed two major themes: 1) Adolescents spoke of their expertise. In particular they commented on their knowledge to repair equipment, ability to use IT well, their sense of pride in their own ability and their parents' acknowledgement of this ability. 2) Subjects perceived little need for their own supervision, but assessed that other adolescents and younger children needed to be watched closely by their parents. Implications of this work are discussed.

Abstract This chapter identifies the most robust conclusions and ideas about adolescent development and psychological functioning that have emerged since Petersen's 1988 review. We begin with a discussion of topics that have dominated recent research, including adolescent problem behavior, parent-adolescent relations, puberty, the development of the self, and peer relations. We then identify and examine what seem to us to be the most important new directions that have come to the fore in the last decade, including research on diverse populations, contextual influences on development, behavioral genetics, and siblings. We conclude with a series of recommendations for future research on adolescence.

Although compensatory strategies can offset regulatory losses that occur in later adulthood, they often break down under conditions of over-activation. Two emotion regulation tasks examined compensatory effects related to attachment classification (AC). Study 1 examined emotional Stroop performance in young (17–39) and old adults (60–89). Among the elder, participants with dismissing AC showed increased response times (RTs) for anger and fear words, whereas participants with secure AC showed increased RTs for joy words. Participants with anxious AC responded slowest overall. In Study 2, heart rate (HR) was monitored while adult (25–82) mother–daughter pairs discussed three emotion events (conflict, neutral, happy). During conflict discussion, older dismissing women had highest initial HR and slowest recovery, whereas anxious older women had lowest initial HR and fastest recovery. Results suggest that in old age protective functions of dismissing AC break down under over-activation, whereas anxious AC may serve a protective role.

Social touch is a powerful force in human development, shaping social reward, attachment, cognitive, communication, and emotional regulation from infancy and throughout life. In this review, we consider the question of how social touch is defined from both bottom-up and top-down perspectives. In the former category, there is a clear role for the C-touch (CT) system, which constitutes a unique submodality that mediates affective touch and contrasts with discriminative touch. Top-down factors such as culture, personal relationships, setting, gender, and other contextual influences are also important in defining and interpreting social touch. The critical role of social touch throughout the lifespan is considered, with special attention to infancy and young childhood, a time during which social touch and its neural, behavioral, and physiological contingencies contribute to reinforcement-based learning and impact a variety of developmental trajectories. Finally, the role of social touch in an example of disordered development –autism spectrum disorder—is reviewed.

Adult cognitive neuroscience has guided the study of human brain development by identifying regions associated with cognitive functions at maturity. The activity, connectivity, and structure of a region can be compared across ages to characterize the developmental trajectory of the corresponding function. However, developmental differences may reflect both the maturation of the function and also its organization across the brain. That is, a function may be present in children but supported by different brain regions, leading its maturity to be underestimated. Here we test the presence, maturity, and localization of adult functions in children using shared response modeling, a machine learning approach for functional alignment. After learning a lower-dimensional feature space from fMRI activity as adults watched a movie, we translated these shared features into the anatomical brain space of children 3–12 years old. To evaluate functional maturity, we correlated this reconstructed activity with children’s actual fMRI activity as they watched the same movie. We found reliable correlations throughout cortex, even in the youngest children. The strength of the correlation in the precuneus, inferior frontal gyrus, and lateral occipital cortex predicted chronological age. These age-related changes were driven by three types of developmental trajectories: emergence from absence to presence, consistency in anatomical expression, and reorganization from one anatomical region to another. We also found evidence that the processing of pain-related events in the movie underwent reorganization across childhood. This data-driven, naturalistic approach provides a new perspective on the development of functional neuroanatomy throughout childhood.

In this study we explore the possibility that maternal depressive symptomatology and personality would influence parenting practices which would in turn influence their offspring's socio-emotional and cognitive-motor development. We used a large representative sample of Uruguayan children and their mothers. The Big Five Inventory (BFI), subscales of the Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME), Ages & Stages Questionnaires – third edition (n = 3596), Child Behavior Checklist (n = 3750), and a sociodemographic (SES) questionnaire were administered. We found that favorable scores in child development measures were correlated with maternal openness, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, low neuroticism, depressive symptomatology, positive parenting practices and high income households. We then elaborated pathway models that allowed us to account for covariance between relevant variables. We found that openness was indirectly associated with aspects of both socioemotional and cognitive motor development via parenting practices and maternal depressive symptomatology. The association between SES and both child development outcomes was fully explained by intermediary variables. Collectively, our results provide support for Belsky’s model of child development and can be used by professionals to better target interventions geared at infants and young children and their mothers.

Adolescents are constantly connected to their devices, and concerns have been raised that this connectivity is damaging their development more generally, and their mental health in particular. Recent narrative reviews and meta-analyses do not support a strong linkage between the quantity of adolescents’ digital technology engagement and mental health problems. Instead, it appears that offline vulnerabilities tend to mirror and shape online risks in ways that may further amplify mental health inequalities among youth. New approaches for supporting youth mental health, especially for vulnerable youth and those typically excluded from traditional services, are now both possible and required.

Human functioning and development are shaped by sociocultural contexts and by the historical changes that occur in these contexts. Over the last century, sociocultural changes such as increases in early life education have profoundly reshaped normative developmental sequences. In this article, we first briefly review how history-graded changes have influenced levels of objective performance and subjective evaluations among older adults and conclude that old age in countries such as the United States and Germany is getting younger, both on behavioral measures and in people’s own perception. Second, we put these findings in a larger perspective and note some of the 'presumed' causes driving historical change. Third, we identify key aspects of change that need to be further described, including history-graded change in (a) the formative role of experiences made across adulthood; (b) within-person trajectories of adult development and aging, including rates of change, patterns of variation, and causal influence; (c) the structure of very old age and the end of life; and (d) what may be expected in the forthcoming decades. We suggest a number of reasons why the rosy picture of historical change obtained for older adults over the last century may not necessarily continue in the future. In a final step, we outline promising methods that might be used to discover and test mechanisms driving history-graded changes, and to inform projection and optimization of functioning and development in future generations of older adults.

This article views adult development through the lens of daily life experiences and recent historical changes in these experiences. In particular, it examines whether theories that postulate general linear increases in well-being throughout adulthood still hold during times of less prosperity and more uncertainty. Descriptive analyses of the National Study of Daily Experiences chart show how stress in the daily lives of Americans may have changed from the 1990s (N = 1,499) to the 2010s (N = 782). Results revealed that adults in the 2010s reported experiencing stressors on 2% more days than in the 1990s, which translates to an additional week of stressors across a year. Participants in the 2010s also reported that stressors were more severe and posed more risks to future plans and finances and that they experienced more distress. These historical changes were particularly pronounced among middle-aged adults (e.g., proportion of stressor days increased by 19%, and perceived risks to finances and to future plans rose by 61% and 52%, respectively). As a consequence, age-related linear increases in well-being observed from young adulthood to midlife in the 1990s were no longer observed in the 2010s. If further studies continue to replicate our findings, traditional theories of adult well-being that were developed and empirically tested during times of relative economic prosperity may need to be reevaluated in light of the changes in middle adulthood currently observed in this historic period.

Chronic overeating can lead to weight gain and obesity. Sensory system function may play a role in the types of foods people select and the amount of food people eat. Several studies have shown that the orosensory components of eating play a strong role in driving food intake and food selection. In addition, previous work has shown that motivation to get food, or the reinforcing value of food, is a predictor of energy intake. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that higher detection thresholds and lower suprathreshold intensity ratings of sweet and fat stimuli are associated with greater reinforcing value of food. In addition, we sought to determine if the sensory ratings of the stimuli would differ depending on whether they were expectorated or swallowed. The reinforcing value of food was measured by having participants perform operant responses for food on progressive ratio schedules of reinforcement. Taste detection thresholds and suprathresholds for solutions containing varied concentrations of sucrose and fat were also measured in two different Experiments. In Experiment 1, we found that sucrose, but not fat, detection predicted the reinforcing value of food with the reinforcing value of food increasing as sucrose detection threshold increased (indicating poorer detection). In Experiment 2, we found that lower suprathreshold ratings of expectorated fat and sucrose predicted greater reinforcing value of food. In addition, higher detection thresholds for fat stimuli (indicating poorer detection) were associated with greater reinforcing value of food. When taken together, these studies suggest that there is a relationship between taste detection and perception and reinforcing value of food and that these relationships vary based on whether the stimulus is swallowed or expectorated.

A recent study using displays that are ambiguous for motion direction demonstrates that the current perceptual interpretation of such a stimulus is encoded in the highest areas of visual cortex whereas earlier areas encode only its sensory properties. This finding implies that cortical processing pathways perform a transition from a sensory representation to a representation that emphasizes the input's perceptual interpretation and ultimately the organism's behavioral state.

In individuals with chronic pain harmless bodily sensations can elicit anticipatory fear of pain resulting in maladaptive responses such as taking pain medication. Here, we aim to broaden the perspective taking into account recent evidence that suggests that interoceptive perception is largely a construction of beliefs, which are based on past experience and that are kept in check by the actual state of the body. Taking a Bayesian perspective, we propose that individuals with chronic pain display a heightened prediction of pain (prior probability p(pain)), which results in heightened pain perception (posterior probability p(pain|sensation)) due to an assumed link between pain and a harmless bodily sensation (p(sensation│pain)). This pain perception emerges because their mind infers pain as the most likely cause for the sensation. When confronted with a mismatch between predicted pain and a (harmless bodily) sensation, individuals with chronic pain try to minimize the mismatch most likely by active inference of pain or by an attentional shift. The active inference results in activities that produce a stronger sensation that will match with the prediction, allowing subsequent perceptual inference of pain. Here, we depict heightened pain perception in individuals with chronic pain by reformulating and extending the assumptions of the interoceptive predictive coding model from a Bayesian perspective. The review concludes with a research agenda and clinical considerations.

In recent work Thomas et al (under review) examined the subjective effects of action observation on sensory perception. They found that when we watch the actions of an actor, subjective sensory experience is enhanced at the equivalent location on the subject's body. In the present study we looked at whether this sensory transfer might also occur for more specific sensations such as roughness/unpleasantness and softness/pleasantness. We found that when participants watched another person being stroked with a soft/pleasant object (eg, velvet), their sensation of pleasantness was increased when they were simultaneously stimulated with more pleasant (ie,, higher frequency) stimuli on the corresponding area of their own body. We concluded that seeing a person being touched with stimuli perceived as pleasant or unpleasant amplifies judgements about stimuli when they are presented to the same body location on another person, and therefore suggests a cross modal interaction between vision and touch. This mechanism might allow transfer of affective dimensions of touch, a mechanism we suggest could impact on the nature of advertising and influence how organisations produce and market their products.

Following on from ecological theories of perception, such as the one proposed by [Gibson, J. J. (1966). The senses considered as perceptual systems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin] this paper reviews the literature on the multisensory interactions underlying the perception of flavor in order to determine the extent to which it is really appropriate to consider flavor perception as a distinct perceptual system. We propose that the multisensory perception of flavor may be indicative of the fact that the taxonomy currently used to define our senses is simply not appropriate. According to the view outlined here, the act of eating allows the different qualities of foodstuffs to be combined into unified percepts; and flavor can be used as a term to describe the combination of tastes, smells, trigeminal, and tactile sensations as well as the visual and auditory cues, that we perceive when tasting food.

Coordinating spatial perception between body space and its external surrounding space is essential to adapt behaviors to objects, especially when they are noxious. Such coherent multisensory representation of the body extended into external space is conceptualized by the notion of peripersonal reference frame, mapping the portion of space in which somatic and extra-somatic inputs interact closely. Studies on crossmodal interactions between nociception and vision have been scarce. Here we investigated how the perception of visual stimuli, especially those surrounding the body, can be impacted by a nociceptive and potentially harmful stimulus inflicted on a particular body part. In two temporal order judgment tasks, participants judged which of two lateralized visual stimuli, presented either near or far from the body, had been presented first. Visual stimuli were preceded by nociceptive stimuli, either applied unilaterally (on one single hand) or bilaterally (on both hands simultaneously). In Experiment 1 participants' hands were always placed next to the visual stimuli presented near the trunk, while in Experiment 2 they could also be placed next to the visual stimuli presented far from the trunk. In Experiment 1, the presence of unilateral nociceptive stimuli prioritized the perception of visual stimuli presented in the same side of space as the stimulated hand, with a significantly larger effect when visual stimuli were presented near the body than when presented farther away. Experiment 2 showed that these visuospatial biases were related to the spatial congruency between the hand on which nociceptive stimuli were applied and the visual stimuli, independently of the relative distance of both the stimulated hand and the visual stimuli from the trunk. Indeed, nociceptive stimuli mostly impacted the perception of the closest visual stimuli. It is hypothesized that these crossmodal interactions may rely on representations of the space directly surrounding specific body parts.

In this paper, it is argued that Jakob von Uexküll’s “search image” notion, the original version of this notion within ethology, is still of use. A search image, in Uexküll’s sense, is an imagined object that an organism has in mind when it searches for something. Uexküll’s conception of the search image is useful both for understanding the theoretical context of contemporary notions of search images, and with an eye to envisioning possible future developments of the idea. Uexküll’s classical notion differs from contemporary versions in that it has a wider application, and is therefore of greater relevance to theoretical biology and cognitive science. It constituted an integral part of his ground-breaking Umwelt theory, stressing the fundamental plasticity of the Umwelt, the subjective lifeworld of an animal or human subject. In a contemporary development of Umwelt theory, expressed by the tripartite Umwelt model, the search image notion represents a key connection between the directly experienced core Umwelt and the mediated Umwelt. However, the key function that schemata have in cognitive processes is also the starting point for mistakes in perception. This article details both the constructive function search images have in animal and human perception, and the mismatches in perception they can lead to. It also explains how the existence of search images can help explain puzzles concerning subjective and neural time in contemporary cognitive science.

This film first presents Freud's major ideas about the unconscious mind before showing some of the most common criticisms of such. The film then considers Lacan's modifications to Freudian theory and demonstrates how he thus solves some key problems with the original concepts, most particularly the Oedipus complex. 30 minutes
***Viewer discretion is advised. Some content in this video may be objectionable. Some language in this video may be offensive. This video contains mature themes. This video contains nudity.

The notion of a level of consciousness is a key construct in the science of consciousness. Not only is the term employed to describe the global states of consciousness that are associated with post-comatose disorders, epileptic absence seizures, anaesthesia, and sleep, it plays an increasingly influential role in theoretical and methodological contexts. However, it is far from clear what precisely a level of consciousness is supposed to be. This paper argues that the levels-based framework for conceptualizing global states of consciousness is untenable and develops in its place a multidimensional account of global states.

Insomnia, difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking earlier than desired, is often associated with complaints of nonrestorative sleep, but these complaints can occur independently. Fragmented sleep and nonrestorative sleep relate to one's mood, ability to process their own or others' emotions, and can lead to changes in cognitions and behaviors. Personality traits related to increases in anxiousness may play a role in the development and maintenance of sleep disorders and associated daytime impairment of nonrestorative sleep. Relations between sleep disturbance, personality traits, and trait emotional intelligence are underrepresented and findings are mixed. This study addressed inconsistencies by identifying associations between the Big Five personality traits, trait emotional intelligence, complaints of nonrestorative sleep, and disrupted sleep associated with insomnia using a sample of university students. We predicted that neuroticism would relate to poorer sleep, and that conscientiousness and trait emotional intelligence would be associated with better sleep. Openness to experience, extraversion, and agreeableness are rarely discussed in the literature, but were expected to associate similarly to conscientiousness. Results provided support that trait characteristics are associated with insomnia severity and restorative sleep quality.

Objective
The aim of this study was to test whether a cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness-based group sleep intervention would improve behavior problems in at-risk adolescents, and whether these improvements were specifically related to improvements in sleep.
Method
Secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial conducted with 123 adolescent participants (female = 60%; mean age = 14.48, range 12.04–16.31 years) who had high levels of sleep problems and anxiety symptoms. Participants were randomized into either a sleep improvement intervention (n = 63) or an active control “study skills” intervention (n = 60). Participants completed sleep and behavior problems questionnaires, wore an actiwatch and completed a sleep diary for five school nights, both before and after the intervention.
Results
Parallel multiple mediation models showed that postintervention improvements in social problems, attention problems, and aggressive behaviors were specifically mediated by moderate improvements in self-reported sleep quality on school nights, but were not mediated by moderate improvements in actigraphy-assessed sleep onset latency or sleep diary-measured sleep efficiency on school nights.
Conclusion
This study provides evidence, using a methodologically rigorous design, that a cognitive-behavioral and mindfulness-based group sleep intervention improved behavior problems in at-risk adolescent by improving perceived sleep quality on school nights. These findings suggest that sleep interventions could be directed towards adolescents with behavior problems.

Sleep enhances integration across multiple stimuli, abstraction of general rules, insight into hidden solutions and false memory formation. Newly learned information is better assimilated if compatible with an existing cognitive framework or schema. This article proposes a mechanism by which the reactivation of newly learned memories during sleep could actively underpin both schema formation and the addition of new knowledge to existing schemata. Under this model, the overlapping replay of related memories selectively strengthens shared elements. Repeated reactivation of memories in different combinations progressively builds schematic representations of the relationships between stimuli. We argue that this selective strengthening forms the basis of cognitive abstraction, and explain how it facilitates insight and false memory formation.

In this article, dreams are seen as stories within a self-narrative. Dream stories, like all other stories, are told in an effort to make sense of experiences. Here, dream content is linked to current concerns, some aspects of which are not given voice in waking. Dreams depict restricting themes but also openings in self-narratives. Several examples are provided of how dreams can be linked to early, middle, and late therapy phases associated with recognizing, challenging, revising, and maintaining a revising stance. It is further suggested that dream stories can be used to trace, facilitate, and evaluate the process of reconstructing self-narratives. Finally, a number of therapeutic interventions are briefly presented to facilitate the work of narrative-informed family therapists working with individuals, families, and groups.

In this paper four different schools of dream analysis—classical, object relations, modern psychoanalytic, and self-psychological—are described, compared, and contrasted. Each approach is then applied to an analysis of the first dream reported by a patient. As each interpretations is accurate and useful in understanding this patient's psyche, it is concluded that an integrated framework should be used in dream analysis.

In this article, we present results from an interdisciplinary research project aimed at assessing consciousness in dreams. For this purpose, we compared lucid dreams with normal non-lucid dreams from REM sleep. Both lucid and non-lucid dreams are an important contrast condition for theories of waking consciousness, giving valuable insights into the structure of conscious experience and its neural correlates during sleep. However, the precise differences between lucid and non-lucid dreams remain poorly understood. The construction of the Lucidity and Consciousness in Dreams scale (LuCiD) was based on theoretical considerations and empirical observations. Exploratory factor analysis of the data from the first survey identified eight factors that were validated in a second survey using confirmatory factor analysis: INSIGHT, CONTROL, THOUGHT, REALISM, MEMORY, DISSOCIATION, NEGATIVE EMOTION, and POSITIVE EMOTION. While all factors are involved in dream consciousness, realism and negative emotion do not differentiate between lucid and non-lucid dreams, suggesting that lucid insight is separable from both bizarreness in dreams and a change in the subjectively experienced realism of the dream.

Sleep improvement is a promising target for preventing and modifying many health problems. Hypnosis is considered a cost-effective and safe intervention with reported benefits for multiple health conditions. There is a growing body of research assessing the efficacy of hypnosis for various health conditions in which sleep was targeted as a primary or secondary outcome. This review aimed to investigate the effects of hypnosis interventions on sleep, to describe the hypnotic procedures, and to evaluate potential adverse effects of hypnosis. We reviewed studies (prior to January 2017) using hypnosis in adults for sleep problems and other conditions comorbid with sleep problems, with at least one sleep outcome measure. Randomized controlled trials and other prospective studies were included. One hundred thirty-nine nonduplicate abstracts were screened, and 24 of the reviewed papers were included for qualitative analysis. Overall, 58.3% of the included studies reported hypnosis benefit on sleep outcomes, with 12.5% reporting mixed results, and 29.2% reporting no hypnosis benefit; when only studies with lower risk of bias were reviewed the patterns were similar. Hypnosis intervention procedures were summarized and incidence of adverse experiences assessed. Hypnosis for sleep problems is a promising treatment that merits further investigation. Available evidence suggests low incidence of adverse events. The current evidence is limited because of few studies assessing populations with sleep complaints, small samples, and low methodological quality of the included studies. Our review points out some beneficial hypnosis effects on sleep but more high-quality studies on this topic are warranted.

Hypnosis is a unique form of top-down regulation in which verbal suggestions are capable of eliciting pronounced changes in a multitude of psychological phenomena. Hypnotic suggestion has been widely used both as a technique for studying basic science questions regarding human consciousness but also as a method for targeting a range of symptoms within a therapeutic context. Here we provide a synthesis of current knowledge regarding the characteristics and neurocognitive mechanisms of hypnosis. We review evidence from cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychopathology, and clinical psychology regarding the utility of hypnosis as an experimental method for modulating consciousness, as a model for studying healthy and pathological cognition, and as a therapeutic vehicle. We also highlight the relations between hypnosis and other psychological phenomena, including the broader domain of suggestion and suggestibility, and conclude by identifying the most salient challenges confronting the nascent cognitive neuroscience of hypnosis and outlining future directions for research on hypnosis and suggestion.

No one did more to draw neurosdentists' attention to the problem of consciousness in the twentieth century than Francis Crick, who may be better known as the co-discoverer (with James Watson) of the structure of DNA. Crick focused his research on visual awareness and based his analysis on the progress made over the last fifty years in uncovering the neural mechanisms underlying visual perception. Because much of what happens in our brains occurs below the level of consciousness and many of our intuitions about unconscious processing are misleading, consciousness remains an elusive problem. In the end, when all of the brain mechanisms that underlie consciousness have been identified, will we still be asking: "What is consciousness?" Or will the question shift, just as the question "What is life?" is no longer the same as it was before Francis Crick?

Time and space are the basic building blocks of nature. As a unique existent in nature, our brain exists in time and takes up space. The brain’s activity itself also constitutes and spreads in its own (intrinsic) time and space that is crucial for consciousness. Consciousness is a complex phenomenon including different dimensions: level/state, content/form, phenomenal aspects, and cognitive features. We propose a Temporo-spatial Theory of Consciousness (TTC) focusing primarily on the temporal and spatial features of the brain activity. We postulate four different neuronal mechanisms accounting for the different dimensions of consciousness: (i) “temporo-spatial nestedness” of the spontaneous activity accounts for the level/state of consciousness as neural predisposition of consciousness (NPC); (ii) “temporo-spatial alignment” of the pre-stimulus activity accounts for the content/form of consciousness as neural prerequisite of consciousness (preNCC); (iii) “temporo-spatial expansion” of early stimulus-induced activity accounts for phenomenal consciousness as neural correlates of consciousness (NCC); (iv) “temporo-spatial globalization” of late stimulus-induced activity accounts for the cognitive features of consciousness as neural consequence of consciousness (NCCcon).

Males and females learn and remember differently at different times in their lives. These differences occur in most species, from invertebrates to humans. We review here sex differences as they occur in laboratory rodent species. We focus on classical and operant conditioning paradigms, including classical eyeblink conditioning, fear-conditioning, active avoidance and conditioned taste aversion. Sex differences have been reported during acquisition, retention and extinction in most of these paradigms. In general, females perform better than males in the classical eyeblink conditioning, in fear-potentiated startle and in most operant conditioning tasks, such as the active avoidance test. However, in the classical fear-conditioning paradigm, in certain lever-pressing paradigms and in the conditioned taste aversion, males outperform females or are more resistant to extinction. Most sex differences in conditioning are dependent on organizational effects of gonadal hormones during early development of the brain, in addition to modulation by activational effects during puberty and adulthood. Critically, sex differences in performance account for some of the reported effects on learning and these are discussed throughout the review. Because so many mental disorders are more prevalent in one sex than the other, it is important to consider sex differences in learning when applying animal models of learning for these disorders. Finally, we discuss how sex differences in learning continue to alter the brain throughout the lifespan. Thus, sex differences in learning are not only mediated by sex differences in the brain, but also contribute to them.

In the first of three articles, Roger Cocks examines the theoretical basis of classical conditioning.

In part 1 of this series of articles, on pages 2-5 of this issue of PSYCHOLOGY REVIEW, Roger Cocks outlines the theoretical basis underlying classical conditioning. In part 2, he considers the complementary learning theory of instrumental and operant conditioning.

Classical fear conditioning is perhaps the premier model system used to study the neurobiological basis of memory formation. Prior work has resulted in a good understanding of both the molecular mechanisms and neural circuits supporting this form of learning. However, much of what is known about these mechanisms comes from studies in which fear memory is acquired using a single, isolated training session. Given that we cannot divorce the acquisition of new information from the backdrop on which it occurs, studies are needed to determine how the acquisition of fear memory is affected by other learning events. Here, we used rats to describe the time course by which auditory fear conditioning can facilitate learning to a different fear learning event, which alone is insufficient to support long-term fear memory. First, we replicated previous findings showing that although a single trial of light and shock produces little evidence of memory, two identical trials spaced 60 min or 24 h apart support long-term memory. Next, we report that a typical auditory fear conditioning session facilitated memory formation when rats were subsequently exposed to a single trial of light and shock 60 min or 24 h, but not 4 min, later. Finally, we show that learning can be enhanced retroactively if auditory fear conditioning occurs 60 min, but not 24 h, after a single light-shock pairing. These data demonstrate that a weak fear conditioning trial can be enhanced by prior and subsequent fear conditioning depending on the timing between training events.

The role of family influences on preschool and school age cognitive development has received considerable empirical attention from cognitive developmental psychology researchers in the last few decades. As a result of the interest, investigators have focused their attention on developing coding/observational systems to capture the interactions occurring between mothers and their young children. This paper reviews a select body of research on parent child cognitive learning interactions with the goal of determining how the researchers have operationalized the behaviors that occur within learning interactions. The paper concludes with a discussion of the suggestions on next steps for conducting parent child cognitive learning interaction research in the future.

Taking tests enhances learning. But what happens when one cannot answer a test question—does an unsuccessful retrieval attempt impede future learning or enhance it? The authors examined this question using materials that ensured that retrieval attempts would be unsuccessful. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were asked fictional general-knowledge questions (e.g., 'What peace treaty ended the Calumet War?'). In Experiments 3–6, participants were shown a cue word (e.g., whale) and were asked to guess a weak associate (e.g., mammal); the rare trials on which participants guessed the correct response were excluded from the analyses. In the test condition, participants attempted to answer the question before being shown the answer; in the read-only condition, the question and answer were presented together. Unsuccessful retrieval attempts enhanced learning with both types of materials. These results demonstrate that retrieval attempts enhance future learning; they also suggest that taking challenging tests—instead of avoiding errors—may be one key to effective learning.

The present research investigated whether test-enhanced learning can be used to promote transfer. More specifically, 4 experiments examined how repeated testing and repeated studying affected retention and transfer of facts and concepts. Subjects studied prose passages and then either repeatedly restudied or took tests on the material. One week later, they took a final test that had either the same questions (Experiment 1a), new inferential questions within the same knowledge domain (Experiments 1b and 2), or new inferential questions from different knowledge domains (Experiment 3). Repeated testing produced superior retention and transfer on the final test relative to repeated studying. This finding indicates that the mnemonic benefits of test-enhanced learning are not limited to the retention of the specific response tested during initial learning but rather extend to the transfer of knowledge in a variety of contexts.

Reward-prediction errors track the extent to which rewards deviate from expectations, and aid in learning. How do such errors in prediction interact with memory for the rewarding episode? Existing findings point to both cooperative and competitive interactions between learning and memory mechanisms. Here, we investigated whether learning about rewards in a high-risk context, with frequent, large prediction errors, would give rise to higher fidelity memory traces for rewarding events than learning in a low-risk context. Experiment 1 showed that recognition was better for items associated with larger absolute prediction errors during reward learning. Larger prediction errors also led to higher rates of learning about rewards. Interestingly we did not find a relationship between learning rate for reward and recognition-memory accuracy for items, suggesting that these two effects of prediction errors were caused by separate underlying mechanisms. In Experiment 2, we replicated these results with a longer task that posed stronger memory demands and allowed for more learning. We also showed improved source and sequence memory for items within the high-risk context. In Experiment 3, we controlled for the difficulty of reward learning in the risk environments, again replicating the previous results. Moreover, this control revealed that the high-risk context enhanced item-recognition memory beyond the effect of prediction errors. In summary, our results show that prediction errors boost both episodic item memory and incremental reward learning, but the two effects are likely mediated by distinct underlying systems.

A large body of research has explored how the time between two events affects judgments of causal strength between them. In this article, we extend this work in 4 experiments that explore the role of temporal information in causal structure induction with multiple variables. We distinguish two qualitatively different types of information: The order in which events occur, and the temporal intervals between those events. We focus on one-shot learning in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, we explore how people integrate evidence from multiple observations of the same causal device. Participants’ judgments are well predicted by a Bayesian model that rules out causal structures that are inconsistent with the observed temporal order, and favors structures that imply similar intervals between causally connected components. In Experiments 3 and 4, we look more closely at participants’ sensitivity to exact event timings. Participants see three events that always occur in the same order, but the variability and correlation between the timings of the events is either more consistent with a chain or a fork structure. We show, for the first time, that even when order cues do not differentiate, people can still make accurate causal structure judgments on the basis of interval variability alone.

Many words are associated with more than a single meaning. Words are sometimes 'ambiguous,' applying to unrelated meanings, but the majority of frequent words are 'polysemous' in that they apply to multiple related meanings. In a preregistered design that included 2 tasks, we tested adults’ and 4.5- to 7-year-old children’s ability to learn 4 novel polysemous words or 4 novel ambiguous words. Both children and adults demonstrated a polysemy over ambiguity learning advantage on each task after exposure, showing better learning of novel words with multiple related meanings than novel words with unrelated meanings. Stimuli in the polysemy condition were designed and then normed to guard against learners relying on a simple definition to distinguish the multiple target meanings for each word from foils. We retested available participants after a week-long delay without providing additional exposure and found that adults’ performance remained strong in the polysemy condition in 1 task, and children’s performance remained strong in the polysemy condition in both tasks. We conclude that participants are adept at learning polysemous words that vary along multiple dimensions. Current results are consistent with the idea that ambiguous meanings of a word compete, but polysemous meanings instead reinforce one another.

Normal aging is usually accompanied by greater memory decline for associations than for single items. Though associative memory is generally supported by recollection, it has been suggested that familiarity can also contribute to associative memory when stimuli can be unitized and encoded as a single entity. Given that familiarity remains intact during healthy aging, this may be one route to reducing age-related associative deficits. The current study investigated age-related differences in associative memory under conditions that were expected to differentially promote unitization, in this case by manipulating the spatial arrangement of two semantically unrelated objects positioned relative to each other in either spatially implausible or plausible orientations. Event-related potential (ERP) correlates of item and associative memory were recorded whilst younger and older adults were required to discriminate between old, recombined and new pairs of objects. These ERP correlates of item and associative memory did not vary with plausibility, whereas behavioral measures revealed that both associative and item memory were greater for spatially plausible than implausible pair arrangements. Contrary to predictions, older adults were less able to take advantage of this memory benefit than younger participants. Potential reasons for this are considered, and these are informed by those lines of evidence which indicate older participants were less sensitive to the bottom-up spatial manipulation employed here. It is recommended that future strategies for redressing age-related associative deficits should take account of the aging brain’s increasing reliance on pre-existing semantic associations.

Behavioral research has shown that spatial cues that orient attention toward task relevant items being maintained in visual short-term memory (VSTM) enhance item memory accuracy. However, it is unknown if these retrospective attentional cues (“retro-cues”) enhance memory beyond typical short-term memory delays. It is also unknown whether retro-cues affect the spatial information associated with VSTM representations. Emerging evidence suggests that processes that affect short-term memory maintenance may also affect long-term memory (LTM) but little work has investigated the role of attention in LTM. In the current event-related potential (ERP) study, we investigated the duration of retrospective attention effects and the impact of retrospective attention manipulations on VSTM representations. Results revealed that retro-cueing improved both VSTM and LTM memory accuracy and that posterior maximal ERPs observed during VSTM maintenance predicted subsequent LTM performance. N2pc ERPs associated with attentional selection were attenuated by retro-cueing suggesting that retrospective attention may disrupt maintenance of spatial configural information in VSTM. Collectively, these findings suggest that retrospective attention can alter the structure of memory representations, which impacts memory performance beyond short-term memory delays.

Maladaptive self-criticism has been associated with diminished goal-progress. The present study examined the impact of failure and success experiences on performance on working memory measures, in order to gauge goal-directed performance. Participants with varying levels of self-criticism completed a baseline working memory task, a randomly assigned success or failure feedback manipulation on a separate task, followed by a second working memory measure. Results demonstrated varying feedback-dependent test-retest performance across levels of self-criticism. While low self-critics did not differ in test-retest scores across feedback conditions, failure resulted in a decrease of performance in moderate self-critics, and an increased performance in high self-critics. Conversely, after success, moderate self-critics displayed an increase, while high self-critics displayed a decrease in performance at retest. Findings shed light on varying perceptions and responses to failure versus success across levels of self-criticism, which has important implications for factors that impact motivation and goal-directed performance.

Purpose: The relationship between short-term memory for phonology and pitch was explored by examining accuracy scores for typically developing children for 5 experimental tasks: immediate nonword repetition (NWR), nonword repetition with an 8-s silent interference (NWRS), pitch discrimination (PD), pitch discrimination with an 8-s silent interference (PDS), and pitch matching (PM). Method: Thirty-six 7- and 8-year-old children (21 girls, 15 boys) with normal hearing, language, and cognition were asked to listen to and repeat nonsense words (NWR, NWRS), make a same versus different decision between 2 tones (PD, PDS), and listen to and then vocally reproduce a tone (PM). Results: Results showed no significant correlations between tasks of phonological memory and tests of pitch memory, that participants scored significantly better on nonword repetition tasks than PD and PM tasks, and that participants performed significantly better on tasks with no silent interference. Discussion: These findings suggest that, for typically developing children, pitch may be stored and rehearsed in a separate location than phonological information. Because of fundamental task differences, further research is needed to corroborate these data and determine the presence of developmental effects and neuroanatomical locations where a potential language/music overlap is occurring in children.

The beneficial effect of retrieval practice on memory is a well-established phenomenon. Despite the wealth of research on this testing effect, it is unclear whether the benefits of testing extend beyond the tested information to include memory for the context in which the memoranda were encountered. Three experiments examined the effect of testing on memory for context using a standard variant of a traditional item-context memory task, in which cue-target word pairs (the items) were presented on the computer screen in varying locations (the contexts). All experiments revealed an enhancement to memory for context following retrieval practice of the items, regardless of whether that retrieval took place in a neutral (Experiments 1 and 2) or in an interfering (Experiment 3) location. These results support the view that retrieval practice elicits retrieval of relatively comprehensive prior episodes, rather than of only semantic aspects of the prior episodes relevant to the practice cues.

In two experiments the dynamic nature of strategic search from long-term memory was examined. Participants retrieved exemplars from various categories over several minutes. Periodically during retrieval participants were presented with a probe asking what strategies, if any, they were currently using to retrieve the desired information. This novel thought probe technique allowed for insights into the nature of in-the-moment retrieval strategies. Across both experiments it was found that participants reported using a variety of strategies, but depending on the task certain strategies were used more often than others. In particular, some strategies were used more frequently in one task than another, whereas other strategies seemed to cut across tasks. Furthermore, examining the time course of strategies suggested that participants often started off using one strategy, but then switched to using other strategies during the retrieval period. Finally, individual differences in general retrieval abilities were shown to be due to unique and joint contributions of search strategies and working memory capacity. These results provide evidence for the notion that when retrieving information from long-term memory, participants use various search strategies that are tailored to the task at hand and these strategies dynamically change throughout the retrieval period.

The speed–accuracy trade-off (SAT) procedure was used to investigate the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and the dynamics of temporal order memory retrieval. High- and low-span participants (HSs, LSs) studied sequentially presented five-item lists, followed by two probes from the study list. Participants indicated the more recent probe. Overall, accuracy was higher for HSs compared to LSs. Crucially, in contrast to previous investigations that observed no impact of WMC on speed of access to item information in memory (e.g., Öztekin & McElree, 2010), recovery of temporal order memory was slower for LSs. While accessing an item’s representation in memory can be direct, recovery of relational information such as temporal order information requires a more controlled serial memory search. Collectively, these data indicate that WMC effects are particularly prominent during high demands of cognitive control, such as serial search operations necessary to access temporal order information from memory.

Retrieving memories renders related memories less accessible. This phenomenon, termed retrieval - induced forgetting (RIF), is thought to be the result of processes that resolve interference during competitive retrieval. In several studies, researchers have manipulated the level of interference to test different theoretical accounts of RIF (e.g., inhibitory vs. noninhibitory). However, the nature of how interference and RIF are related has not been systematically investigated. Here, we introduce a design that allows for assessing interference during competitive retrieval by measuring the recall RTs associated with target recall. Using such a design, we found that RIF occurred only when interference during competitive retrieval reached moderate levels, but not when it was too low or too high. This finding might indicate that low levels of interference do not trigger interference resolution, whereas interference resolution might fail when the interference reaches extremely high levels.

Rationale
Cannabis use is widespread and has previously been associated with memory impairments. However, the role of cannabis in relation to false memory production, i.e., memories of events that were not experienced, is less well-understood.
Objective
The aim of the current field study was to examine the impact of cannabis use on false memory production.
Methods
The Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm was used to induce false memories. In this paradigm, participants study word lists that are associatively related to a non-presented word, termed the critical lure. In a later memory test, true recognition rates and false alarm rates toward critical lures and unrelated items are assessed. Memory performance was compared between three groups: regular cannabis consumers who were acutely intoxicated (n = 53), regular cannabis consumers who were sober (n = 50), and cannabis-naïve controls (n = 53). The participants were approached in Dutch coffee shops (cannabis outlets) and cafes and asked to participate in our study. After collecting general information on their cannabis use, they were subjected to the DRM procedure.
Results
Although false memory rates for critical lures did not statistically differ between groups, both intoxicated and sober cannabis consumers falsely recognized more unrelated items than control participants. Also, individuals without a history of cannabis use demonstrated higher memory accuracy compared with the intoxicated group.
Conclusion
It is concluded that cannabis intoxication and history of cannabis use induce a liberal response criterion for newly presented words for which the level of association with previously learned words is low and uncertainty is high.

Recent research has found that maintaining an item in working memory improves subsequent long-term memory performance. The present study explored the role of working memory consolidation in long-term recognition. Participants completed a stimuli-identification task followed by a surprise delayed recognition task. Participants first identified which one of four stimuli matched a target stimulus. The target item was presented either just before or simultaneously with the response set. This manipulation requires the participant to consolidate the target into working memory in the before presentation condition but not in the simultaneous presentation condition. Delayed recognition for the target items was then tested. Despite a slight performance advantage for the simultaneous presentation condition in the stimuli-identification task, long-term recognition performance was considerably better for target items presented in the before presentation condition. These results suggest that consolidation into working memory and not simply attending to an item improves long-term memory performance.

Chunking is the recoding of smaller units of information into larger, familiar units. Chunking is often assumed to help bypassing the limited capacity of working memory (WM). We investigate how chunks are used in WM tasks, addressing three questions: (a) Does chunking reduce the load on WM? Across four experiments chunking benefits were found not only for recall of the chunked but also of other not-chunked information concurrently held in WM, supporting the assumption that chunking reduces load. (b) Is the chunking benefit independent of chunk size? The chunking benefit was independent of chunk size only if the chunks were composed of unique elements, so that each chunk could be replaced by its first element (Experiment 1), but not when several chunks consisted of overlapping sets of elements, disabling this replacement strategy (Experiments 2 and 3). The chunk-size effect is not due to differences in rehearsal duration as it persisted when participants were required to perform articulatory suppression (Experiment 3). Hence, WM capacity is not limited to a fixed number of chunks regardless of their size. (c) Does the chunking benefit depend on the serial position of the chunk? Chunks in early list positions improved recall of other, not-chunked material, but chunks at the end of the list did not. We conclude that a chunk reduces the load on WM via retrieval of a compact chunk representation from long-term memory that replaces the representations of individual elements of the chunk. This frees up capacity for subsequently encoded material.

Attentional refreshing allows the maintenance of information in working memory and has received growing interest in recent years. However, it is still ill-defined and several proposals have been put forward to account for its functioning. Among them, some proposals suggest that refreshing relies on the retrieval of knowledge from semantic long-term memory. To examine such a proposal, the present study examined the impact on refreshing of two effects known to affect the retrieval from semantic long-term memory: word frequency and lexicality. In working memory span tasks, participants had to maintain memoranda varying in either frequency, or lexicality while performing concurrent tasks. By examining recall performance in complex span tasks and response times for the concurrent task in Brown-Peterson tasks, the present study provided evidence that long-term memory effects (a) affected recall without interacting with manipulation of refreshing and (b) did not affect refreshing speed. These findings challenge the idea that refreshing acts through the retrieval of knowledge from semantic long-term memory. Different WM models are discussed to account for these findings.

There is a long-standing debate over whether the passage of time causes forgetting from working memory, a process called trace decay. Researchers providing evidence against the existence of trace decay generally study memory by presenting familiar verbal memory items for 1 s or more per memory item, during the study period. In contrast, researchers providing evidence for trace decay tend to use unfamiliar nonverbal memory items presented for 1 s or less per memory item, during the study period. Taken together, these investigations suggest that familiar items may not decay while unfamiliar items do decay. The availability of verbal rehearsal and the time to consolidate a memory item into working memory during presentation may also play a role in whether or not trace decay will occur. Here we explore these alternatives in a series of experiments closely modeled after studies demonstrating time-based forgetting from working memory, but using familiar verbal memory items in place of the unfamiliar memory items used to observe decay in the past. Our findings suggest that time-based forgetting is persistent across all of these factors while simultaneously challenging prominent views of trace decay.

Psychometric g is the largest, most general, and most predictive factor underlying individual differences across cognitive tasks included in intelligence tests. Given that the overall score from intelligence tests is interpreted as an index of psychometric g, we examined the correlations between general factors extracted from individually administered intelligence tests using data from five samples of children and adolescents (n = 83 to n = 200) who completed at least two of six intelligence tests. We found strong correlations between the general factors indicating that these intelligence tests measure the same construct, psychometric g. A total of three general-factor correlations exceeded .95, but two other correlations were somewhat lower (.89 and .92). In addition, specific ability factors correlated highly across tests in most (but not all) cases. School psychologists and other professionals should know that psychometric g and several specific abilities are measured in remarkably similar ways across a wide array of intelligence tests.

BACKGROUND: The ability to accurately assess the intelligence of other persons finds its place in everyday social interaction and should have important evolutionary consequences. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We used static facial photographs of 40 men and 40 women to test the relationship between measured IQ, perceived intelligence, and facial shape. Both men and women were able to accurately evaluate the intelligence of men by viewing facial photographs. In addition to general intelligence, figural and fluid intelligence showed a significant relationship with perceived intelligence, but again, only in men. No relationship between perceived intelligence and IQ was found for women. We used geometric morphometrics to determine which facial traits are associated with the perception of intelligence, as well as with intelligence as measured by IQ testing. Faces that are perceived as highly intelligent are rather prolonged with a broader distance between the eyes, a larger nose, a slight upturn to the corners of the mouth, and a sharper, pointing, less rounded chin. By contrast, the perception of lower intelligence is associated with broader, more rounded faces with eyes closer to each other, a shorter nose, declining corners of the mouth, and a rounded and massive chin. By contrast, we found no correlation between morphological traits and real intelligence measured with IQ test, either in men or women. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that a perceiver can accurately gauge the real intelligence of men, but not women, by viewing their faces in photographs; however, this estimation is possibly not based on facial shape. Our study revealed no relation between intelligence and either attractiveness or face shape.

Intelligence quotient (IQ) is a standardized measure of human intellectual capacity that takes into account a wide range of cognitive skills (1). IQ is generally considered to be stable across the lifespan, with scores at one time point used to predict educational achievement and employment prospects in later years (1). Neuroimaging allows us to test whether unexpected longitudinal fluctuations in measured IQ are related to brain development. Here we show that verbal and non-verbal IQ can rise or fall in the teenage years, with these changes in performance validated by their close correlation with changes in local brain structure. A combination of structural and functional imaging showed that verbal IQ changed with grey matter in a region that was activated by speech, whereas non-verbal IQ changed with grey matter in a region that was activated by finger movements. By using longitudinal assessments of the same individuals, we obviated the many sources of variation in brain structure that confound cross-sectional studies. This allowed us to dissociate neural markers for the two types of IQ and to show that general verbal and non-verbal abilities are closely linked to the sensorimotor skills involved in learning. More generally, our results emphasize the possibility that an individual's intellectual capacity relative to their peers can decrease or increase in the teenage years. This would be encouraging to those whose intellectual potential may improve, and would be a warning that early achievers may not maintain their potential.

The potential relationship between Internet addiction and certain cognitive function problems has been suggested by several studies. However, few or no studies have examined the differences in cognitive functioning between persons addicted to the Internet and persons not addicted using a standard neuropsychological test. This study screened 253 middle school students and 389 high school students for Internet addiction and compared 59 Internet-addicted students with 43 non-addicted students using an IQ test. The Internet-addicted group had comprehension sub-item scores that were significantly lower than those of the non-addicted group. As the comprehension item reflects ethical judgement and reality testing, there may be a relationship between Internet addiction and weak social intelligence. Earlier onset of Internet addiction and longer addiction duration were associated with lower participant performance in areas related to attention. As this study is a cross-sectional study, it is not clear whether the persons who display weak cognitive functioning are susceptible to Internet addiction or if Internet addiction causes cognitive problems. However, as brain development remains active during adolescence, the possibility that Internet addiction adversely affects the cognitive functioning of adolescents cannot be ruled out.

Experts on intelligence, cognitive ability and student achievement were surveyed for their opinions on the causes of the 20th century rise in intelligence test results called the “FLynn effect”, on the causes of a possible end of the FLynn effect and on the future development of IQ in different world regions. Ratings from N = 75 experts attributed the secular IQ rise to better health and nutrition, more and better education and rising standards of living. Genetic changes were seen as not important. A possible stagnation or retrograde of the FLynn effect was attributed to asymmetric fertility (genetic and socialization effects), migration, declines in education and the influence of media. Experts expected 21st century IQ increases in currently on average low-ability regions (+ 6 to + 7 IQ points, in Latin America, Africa, India) and in East Asia (+ 7 IQ), but not in the West (a stagnation, below + 1 IQ), with a small decline in the US (− 0.45 IQ). Similar results were obtained for all experts and experts on the FLynn effect itself (mean r = 0.90 to 0.97; N = 17). The results correlated strongly with and confirmed a recent meta-analysis on the causes of the FLynn effect (r = 0.65 to 0.71; Pietschnig & Voracek, 2015).

Intelligence has been linked to antisocial, violent, and criminal behaviors. Surprisingly, however, there is a lack of research examining whether intelligence differentially affects the risk for personal victimization. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by examining whether adolescent levels of verbal intelligence are related to the odds of personal victimization in adolescence and adulthood. This study analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). The results revealed a statistically significant and consistent association between intelligence and victimization. Persons with lower intelligence were more likely to report being victimized even after controlling for the effects of violent criminal behavior. Future research would benefit by examining more closely the association between IQ score and the risk for victimization over the life course.

Marijuana is one of the most commonly used drugs in the United States, and use during adolescence—when the brain is still developing—has been proposed as a cause of poorer neurocognitive outcome. Nonetheless, research on this topic is scarce and often shows conflicting results, with some studies showing detrimental effects of marijuana use on cognitive functioning and others showing no significant long-term effects. The purpose of the present study was to examine the associations of marijuana use with changes in intellectual performance in two longitudinal studies of adolescent twins (n = 789 and n = 2,277). We used a quasiexperimental approach to adjust for participants’ family background characteristics and genetic propensities, helping us to assess the causal nature of any potential associations. Standardized measures of intelligence were administered at ages 9–12 y, before marijuana involvement, and again at ages 17–20 y. Marijuana use was self-reported at the time of each cognitive assessment as well as during the intervening period. Marijuana users had lower test scores relative to nonusers and showed a significant decline in crystallized intelligence between preadolescence and late adolescence. However, there was no evidence of a dose–response relationship between frequency of use and intelligence quotient (IQ) change. Furthermore, marijuana-using twins failed to show significantly greater IQ decline relative to their abstinent siblings. Evidence from these two samples suggests that observed declines in measured IQ may not be a direct result of marijuana exposure but rather attributable to familial factors that underlie both marijuana initiation and low intellectual attainment.

from The Psychology of Human Thought
Choose PDF Viewer under the image of the book, then use the table of contents on the left to find chapter 14.

The article discusses how brain's structure and activity is related to intelligence. It mentions about a research conducted by political scientist James Flynn of the University of Otago in New Zealand on broad intelligence gains in multiple human populations over time.; and performance related to mental tasks and health.

The concept of intelligence has been debated since its introduction in the early 1900s. Despite criticism that it lacks empirical validity, multiple intelligences (MI) theory (Gardner, 1983), has had sustained interest on the part of educators worldwide. MI theory was one of the first formulations of intelligence to be based on neuroscientific evidence. This investigation reviewed 48 resting-state functionally connected (rsFC) cognitive neuroscience studies. Evidence from whole-brain, model-free studies were compared with region-of-interest, model-dependent studies. Seven to 15 neural networks were found to be well aligned with seven of the eight multiple intelligences as well as general intelligence. These coherent neural networks include many of the same neural regions previously identified by task-based research into the neural bases for the multiple intelligences (Shearer & Karanian, 2017). Accumulating evidence supports the contention that human intelligence is best characterized as being multiple rather than merely singular. These results demonstrate that each person possesses unique and coherent latent neural potentials to process information aligned with the multiple intelligences. Implications for educational cognitive neuroscience are discussed along with suggestions for the personalization of classroom instruction to maximize achievement.

Several previous studies reported relationships between speed of information processing as measured with the drift parameter of the diffusion model (Ratcliff, 1978) and general intelligence. Most of these studies utilized only few tasks and none of them used more complex tasks. In contrast, our study (N = 125) was based on a large battery of 18 different response time tasks that varied both in content (numeric, figural, and verbal) and complexity (fast tasks with mean RTs of ca. 600 ms vs. more complex tasks with mean RTs of ca. 3,000 ms). Structural equation models indicated a strong relationship between a domain-general drift factor and general intelligence. Beyond that, domain-specific speed of information processing factors were closely related to the respective domain scores of the intelligence test. Furthermore, speed of information processing in the more complex tasks explained additional variance in general intelligence. In addition to these theoretically relevant findings, our study also makes methodological contributions showing that there are meaningful interindividual differences in content specific drift rates and that not only fast tasks, but also more complex tasks can be modeled with the diffusion model.

There is significant variation in lay people’s beliefs about the nature of intelligence: Some believe that intelligence is relatively fixed and innate, whereas others view intelligence as more malleable and affected by experience. However, most studies in this domain do not explicitly define intelligence when probing about beliefs about intelligence and aptitude. Thus, variation in beliefs may reflect variation in how intelligence is defined. To address this issue, we conducted 3 studies examining individuals’ beliefs about fluid versus crystallized intelligence. Study 1 used a modified version of Dweck’s (1999) mindset questionnaire and found that people have more fixed views about fluid intelligence than either crystallized intelligence or intelligence in general. Study 2 used a switched-at-birth paradigm and found that individuals hold more essentialist beliefs about fluid intelligence than crystallized intelligence. Study 3 added a survey that probed participants’ beliefs about mathematics achievement. It found that when reasoning about mathematics achievements, participants’ attributions of ability and effort were differentially associated with their crystallized and fluid mindset beliefs. Specifically, mindsets of fluid intelligence were more associated with effort for professional-level mathematics achievements, whereas mindsets of crystallized intelligence were more associated with elementary-level mathematics achievements. Together, the present studies highlight the importance of considering the definition of intelligence when assessing related beliefs about malleability, inheritance, and achievement.

Concepts of motivation are vital to progress in behavioral neuroscience. Motivational concepts help us to understand what limbic brain systems are chiefly evolved to do, i.e., to mediate psychological processes that guide real behavior. This article evaluates some major motivation concepts that have historic importance or have influenced the interpretation of behavioral neuroscience research. These concepts include homeostasis, setpoints and settling points, intervening variables, hydraulic drives, drive reduction, appetitive and consummatory behavior, opponent processes, hedonic reactions, incentive motivation, drive centers, dedicated drive neurons (and drive neuropeptides and receptors), neural hierarchies, and new concepts from affective neuroscience such as allostasis, cognitive incentives, and reward ‘liking’ versus ‘wanting’.

For each of the 5 needs in Maslow's motivational hierarchy (physiological, safety-security, belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization), operational definitions were developed from Maslow's theory of motivation. New measures were created based on the operational definitions (1) to assess the satisfaction of each need, (2) to assess their expected correlations (a) with each of the other needs and (b) with four social and personality measures (i.e., family support, traditional values, anxiety/worry, and life satisfaction), and (3) to test the ability of the satisfaction level of each need to statistically predict the satisfaction level of the next higher-level need. Psychometric tests of the scales conducted on questionnaire results from 386 adult respondents from the general population lent strong support for the validity and reliability of all 5 needs measures. Significant positive correlations among the scales were also found; that is, the more each lower-level need was satisfied, the more the next higher-level need was satisfied. Additionally, as predicted, family support, traditional values, and life satisfaction had significant positive correlations with the satisfaction of all 5 needs, and the anxiety/worry facet of neuroticism had significant negative correlations with the satisfaction of all the needs. Multiple regression analyses revealed that the satisfaction of each higher-level need was statistically predicted by the satisfaction of the need immediately below it in the hierarchy, as expected from Maslow's theory.

Even though it has been over 20 years since Spence and Robbins (1992) first showed perfectionism and workaholism to be closely related, the relationship between perfectionism and workaholism is still under-researched. In particular, it has remained unclear why perfectionism is linked to workaholism. Using data from 131 employees, this study—examining self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism—investigated whether intrinsic–extrinsic work motivation could explain the positive relationship between perfectionism and workaholism. Whereas socially prescribed perfectionism was unrelated to workaholism, self-oriented perfectionism showed a positive correlation with workaholism. Furthermore autonomous (integrated and identified regulation) and controlled (introjected and external regulation) work motivation showed positive correlations. However, when all predictors were entered in a regression analysis, only self-oriented perfectionism, identified regulation, and introjected regulation positively predicted workaholism. In addition, a mediation analysis showed that identified and introjected regulation fully mediated the effect of self-oriented perfectionism on workaholism. The findings suggest that high levels of work motivation explain why many self-oriented perfectionists are workaholic.

This investigation examined the psychometric properties of the Sexual Motivation Scale (SexMS), a scale measuring the different types of self-regulation proposed by SDT in the context of sexual relationships: Intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation. We analyzed the construct validity of the SexMS in two studies (Study 1: N = 1070, Study 2: N = 575). Results from a confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the SexMS can adequately reproduce the correlated six-factor structure posited by SDT. Findings from measurement invariance analyses as a function of gender and relationship type (i.e., casual and committed), tests for internal consistency, and correlational analyses all provided support for the reliability and the validity of the SexMS. Importantly, self-determined sexual regulation was associated to positive sexual health and well-being outcomes, whereas the inverse was found for non-self-determined sexual regulation. Additionally, participants who scored within the problematic range of sexual function showed a greater endorsement of non-self-determined sexual regulation and a lower endorsement of self-determined sexual regulation than those who scored in the non-problematic range. Overall, the SexMS provides a valuable tool to investigate sexuality within a SDT framework and a fine-grained measurement for the examination of the motivational processes associated with sexual health and well-being.

Little is known about why people differ in their levels of academic motivation. This study explored the etiology of individual differences in enjoyment and self-perceived ability for several school subjects in nearly 13,000 twins aged 9–16 from 6 countries. The results showed a striking consistency across ages, school subjects, and cultures. Contrary to common belief, enjoyment of learning and children’s perceptions of their competence were no less heritable than cognitive ability. Genetic factors explained approximately 40% of the variance and all of the observed twins’ similarity in academic motivation. Shared environmental factors, such as home or classroom, did not contribute to the twin’s similarity in academic motivation. Environmental influences stemmed entirely from individual specific experiences.

Food cue reactivity is a strong motivation to eat, even in the absence of hunger. Therefore, food cue reactivity might sabotage healthy eating, induce weight gain and impede weight loss or weight maintenance. Food cue reactivity can be learned via Pavlovian appetitive conditioning: It is easily acquired but the extinction of appetitive responding seems to be more challenging. Several properties of extinction make it fragile: extinction does not erase the original learning and extinction is context-dependent. These properties threaten full extinction and increase the risk of full relapse. Extinction procedures are discussed to reduce or prevent the occurrence of rapid reacquisition, spontaneous recovery, renewal and reinstatement after extinction. A translation to food cue exposure treatment is made and suggestions are provided, such as conducting the exposure in relevant contexts, using occasional reinforcement and targeting expectancy violation instead of habituation. A new hypothesis proposed here is that the adding of inhibition training to strengthen inhibition skills that reduce instrumental responding, might be beneficial to improve food cue exposure effects.

The authors reflect on the article "The Puzzle of Male Chronophilias" by Michael C. Seto. They comment on differences between sexual orientation and sexual motivation and mention the role of repeated co-occurence of stimuli and sexual satisfaction which can result in a conditioned stimulus and fetish. They mention cultural differences and their influence on sexual motivation. They talk about pedophilia and consider body schemas which explain various sexual attractions.

Differences in motivation during adolescence relative to childhood and adulthood in autism was tested in a cross-sectional study. 156 Typically developing individuals and 79 individuals with autism ages 10–30 years of age completed a go/nogo task with social and non-social cues. To assess age effects, linear and quadratic models were used. Consistent with prior studies, typically developing adolescents and young adults demonstrated more false alarms for positive relative to neutral social cues. In autism, there were no changes in attention across age for social or non-social cues. Findings suggest reduced orienting to motivating cues during late adolescence and early adulthood in autism. The findings provide a unique perspective to explain the challenges for adolescents with autism transitioning to adulthood.

Highlights
• Autonomously motivated physical activity was associated with positive affect.
• Being pressured/forced to do physical activity was associated with negative affect.
• Physical activity during travel and PE was less autonomous than during leisure-time.
• Peer judgment and embarrassment in PE were perceived to lead to negative affect.
• Experiencing a sense of belonging in PE was perceived to lead to positive affect.

This review takes a historical perspective on concepts in the psychology of motivation and emotion, and surveys recent developments, debates and applications. Old debates over emotion have recently risen again. For example, are emotions necessarily subjective feelings? Do animals have emotions? I review evidence that emotions exist as core psychological processes, which have objectively detectable features, and which can occur either with subjective feelings or without them. Evidence is offered also that studies of emotion in animals can give new insights into human emotions. Beyond emotion, motivation concepts have changed over decades too, and debates still continue. Motivation was once thought in terms of aversive drives, and reward was thought of in terms of drive reduction. Motivation-as-drive concepts were largely replaced by motivation-as-incentive concepts, yet aversive drive concepts still occasionally surface in reward neuroscience today. Among incentive concepts, incentive salience is a core motivation process, mediated by brain mesocorticolimbic systems (dopamine-related systems) and sometimes called ‘wanting’ (in quotation marks), to distinguish it from cognitive forms of desire (wanting without quotation marks). Incentive salience as ‘wanting’ is separable also from pleasure ‘liking’ for the same reward, which has important implications for several human clinical disorders. Ordinarily, incentive salience adds motivational urgency to cognitive desires, but ‘wanting’ and cognitive desires can dissociate in some conditions. Excessive incentive salience can cause addictions, in which excessive ‘wanting’ can diverge from cognitive desires. Conversely, lack of incentive salience may cause motivational forms of anhedonia in depression or schizophrenia, whereas a negatively-valenced form of ‘fearful salience’ may contribute to paranoia. Finally, negative ‘fear’ and ‘disgust’ have both partial overlap but also important neural differences.

The motivation to care for the welfare of others, or communal motivation, is a crucial component of satisfying interpersonal relationships and personal well-being. The current meta-analysis synthesized 100 studies (Ntotal = 26,645) on communal motivation to establish its associations with subjective personal well-being (e.g., life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect) and relationship well-being (e.g., relationship satisfaction, partner-oriented positive affect, and partner-oriented negative affect) for both the person providing communal care and their partner. Three types of communal motivation were examined, including general, partner-specific (for children, parents, romantic partners, and friends), and unmitigated (i.e., devoid of agency and self-oriented concern). Results revealed positive associations between all three forms of communal motivation and relationship well-being for the self (.11 ≤ rs ≤ .44) and relationship partners (.11 ≤ rs ≤ .15). However, only general and partner-specific communal motivation, and not unmitigated communal motivation, were linked with greater personal well-being for both the self (.12 ≤ rs ≤ .16) and relationship partners (.04 ≤ rs ≤ .09). These associations were generally consistent across gender, relationship length, publication status, and lab. Finally, relationship partners were similar in partner-specific (r = .26) and unmitigated (r = .15) communal motivation only. Findings from the current meta-analysis suggest that care for the welfare of others is linked to greater relationship well-being for both members of a relationship. However, communal care is only linked to personal well-being insofar as it is mitigated by a degree of self-oriented concern. We provide theoretical and power recommendations for future research.

Procrastination is among the most common of motivational failures, putting off despite expecting to be worse off. We examine this dynamic phenomenon in a detailed and realistic longitudinal design (Study 1) as well as in a large correlational data set (N = 7400; Study 2). The results are largely consistent with temporal motivation theory. People’s pacing style reflects a hyperbolic curve, with the steepness of the curve predicted by self-reported procrastination. Procrastination is related to intention-action gaps, but not intentions. Procrastinators are susceptible to proximity of temptation and to the temporal separation between their intention and the planned act; the more distal, the greater the gap. Critical self-regulatory skills in explaining procrastination are attention control, energy regulation and automaticity, accounting for 74% of the variance. Future research using this design is recommended, as it provides an almost ideal blend of realism and detailed longitudinal assessment.

Research from psychology, neurobiology and behavioral economics indicates that a binary view of motivation, based on approach and avoidance, may be too reductive. Instead, a literature review suggests that at least seven distinct motives are likely to affect human decisions: “consumption/resource seeking,” “care,” “affiliation,” “achievement,” “status-power,” “threat approach” (or anger), and “threat avoidance” (or fear). To explore the conceptual distinctness and relatedness of these motives, we conducted a semantic categorization task. Here, participants were to assign provided words to one of the motives. By applying principal component analysis to the categorization assignments we represent the semantic inter-relations of these motives on a two-dimensional space, a “semantic atlas.” This atlas suggests that, while care and affiliation are conceptually close, affiliation is closer to threat avoidance (or fear); opposite to these motives we find achievement, consumption and power, with the latter lying closer to threat approach (or anger). In a second study, we asked participants to rate how well the motive-specific words obtained in the first study described their currently experienced feelings. We find that semantically close motives are also more likely to be experienced together, that is, we replicate most of the semantic relations in the “subjective atlas.” We discuss our findings in comparison to other multi-dimensional models of motivation, which show clear similarities. In addition to these motivational atlases, we provide a database of motive-specific words, together with the valence and arousal scores. These can be used for future research on the influence of motives on decision making.

The current research examined the role of two emotion regulation processes, cognitive reappraisal and emotion suppression, on maladaptive victimisation coping following school-based peer-victimisation in late childhood (n = 443). The relationship between emotion regulation and maladaptive coping was also tested for serial mediation effects, linking peer-victimisation and school loneliness. Results showed that poor emotion regulation in children was positively associated with maladaptive peer-victimisation coping. Moreover, the relationship between cognitive reappraisal and maladaptive coping was found to mediate the relationship between peer-victimisation experiences and school loneliness. These findings have implications for the development of school-based peer-victimisation intervention strategies that focus on improving children's emotional competencies.

Prioritizing positivity, which reflects the extent to which individuals organize their lives in ways that would maximize their experience of happiness, has been found to be associated with higher levels of well-being via positive emotions. However, previous research on this construct has been cross-sectional in nature which has made the temporal sequence of effects ambiguous. Moreover, previous studies have not explored the reciprocal relations among key constructs. In this study, we addressed these gaps using a three-wave longitudinal study which assessed the extent to which prioritizing positivity relates with positive emotion and life satisfaction among 408 Filipino secondary school students. Cross-lagged analysis indicated that T1 prioritizing positivity positively predicted T2 positive emotions which in turn predicted T3 life satisfaction after controlling for autoregressor effects. Notably, T2 positive emotions mediated the relations between T1 prioritizing positivity and T3 life satisfaction. We also found evidence of reciprocal effects with prior positive emotions predicting subsequent prioritizing positivity. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Sensitive responding to others’ emotions is essential during social interactions among humans. There is evidence for the existence of subcortically mediated emotion discrimination processes that occur independent of conscious perception in adults. However, only recently work has begun to examine the development of automatic emotion processing systems during infancy. In particular, it is unclear whether emotional expressions impact infants’ autonomic nervous system regardless of conscious perception. We examined this question by measuring pupillary responses while subliminally and supraliminally presenting 7-month-old infants with happy and fearful faces. Our results show greater pupil dilation, indexing enhanced autonomic arousal, in response to happy compared to fearful faces regardless of conscious perception. Our findings suggest that, early in ontogeny, emotion discrimination occurs independent of conscious perception and is associated with differential autonomic responses. This provides evidence for the view that automatic emotion processing systems are an early-developing building block of human social functioning.

Background and objectives Interpersonal difficulties are common in depression, but their underlying mechanisms are not yet fully understood. The role of depression in the identification of mixed emotional signals with a direct interpersonal value remains unclear. The present study aimed to clarify this question. Methods: A sample of 39 individuals reporting a broad range of depression levels completed an emotion identification task where they viewed faces expressing three emotional categories (100% disgusted and 100% happy faces, as well as their morphed 50% disgusted -- 50% happy exemplars). Participants were asked to identify the corresponding depicted emotion as "clearly disgusted", "mixed", or "clearly happy". Results Higher depression levels were associated with lower identification of positive emotions in 50% disgusted -- 50% happy faces. Limitations The study was conducted with an analogue sample reporting individual differences in subclinical depression levels. Further research must replicate these findings in a clinical sample and clarify whether differential emotional identification patterns emerge in depression for different mixed negative-positive emotions (sad-happy vs. disgusted-happy). Conclusions Depression may account for a lower bias to perceive positive states when ambiguous states from others include subtle signals of social threat (i.e., disgust), leading to an under-perception of positive social signals.

Humans skillfully reason about others’ emotions, a phenomenon we term affective cognition. Despite its importance, few formal, quantitative theories have described the mechanisms supporting this phenomenon. We propose that affective cognition involves applying domain-general reasoning processes to domain-specific content knowledge. Observers’ knowledge about emotions is represented in rich and coherent lay theories, which comprise consistent relationships between situations, emotions, and behaviors. Observers utilize this knowledge in deciphering social agents’ behavior and signals (e.g., facial expressions), in a manner similar to rational inference in other domains. We construct a computational model of a lay theory of emotion, drawing on tools from Bayesian statistics, and test this model across four experiments in which observers drew inferences about others’ emotions in a simple gambling paradigm. This work makes two main contributions. First, the model accurately captures observers’ flexible but consistent reasoning about the ways that events and others’ emotional responses to those events relate to each other. Second, our work models the problem of emotional cue integration—reasoning about others’ emotion from multiple emotional cues—as rational inference via Bayes’ rule, and we show that this model tightly tracks human observers’ empirical judgments. Our results reveal a deep structural relationship between affective cognition and other forms of inference, and suggest wide-ranging applications to basic psychological theory and psychiatry.

Appraisal theories of emotion have two fundamental assumptions: (a) that there are regularities to be discovered between situations and components of emotional episodes, and (b) that the influence of these situations on these components is causally mediated by a mental process called appraisal. Appraisal theories come in different flavors, proposing different to-be-explained phenomena and different underlying mechanisms for the influence of appraisal on the other components.

Attachment relationships serve as contexts within which children develop emotional capacities. This meta-analytic review assessed the strength of associations of parent–child attachment patterns with the experience and regulation of emotion in children under age 18 years. In a series of meta-analyses (k = 72 studies, N’s ranged from 87 to 9,167), we examined children’s positive and negative affective experiences (assessed either globally or elicited in specific contexts), emotion regulation ability, and coping strategies. More securely attached children experienced more global positive affect and less global negative affect, expressed less elicited negative affect, were better able to regulate emotions, and more often used cognitive and social support coping strategies. More avoidantly attached children experienced less global positive affect, were less able to regulate emotions, and were less likely to use cognitive or social support coping strategies. By contrast, more ambivalently attached children experienced more global and more elicited negative affect, and were less able to regulate emotions. More disorganized children experienced less global positive affect and more global negative affect. These robust findings provide evidence that attachments to parents have implications for children’s emotional development, although more research is needed on whether insecure attachment patterns are associated with distinct emotion profiles.

Is higher social class associated with greater happiness? In a large nationally representative U.S. sample (N = 1,519), we examined the association between social class (household income) and self-reported tendencies to experience 7 distinct positive emotions that are core to happiness: amusement, awe, compassion, contentment, enthusiasm, love, and pride. Consistent with past research indicating that social class underlies differential patterns of attending to the self versus orienting to others, higher social class was associated with greater self-oriented feelings of contentment and pride, and with greater amusement. In contrast, lower social class was associated with more other-oriented feelings of compassion and love, and with greater awe. There were no class differences in enthusiasm. We discuss that individuals from different social class backgrounds may exhibit different patterns of emotional responding due to their distinct social concerns and priorities. Whereas self-oriented emotions may follow from, foster, and reinforce upper class individuals’ desire for independence and self-sufficiency, greater other-oriented emotion may enable lower class individuals to form more interdependent bonds to cope with their more threatening environments.

Over the last few decades, work in affective neuroscience has increasingly investigated the neural basis of emotion. A central debate in the field, when studying individuals with brain damage, has been whether emotional processes are lateralized or not. This review aims to expand this debate, by considering the need to include a hierarchical dimension to the problem. The historical journey of the diverse literature is presented, particularly focusing on the need to develop a research program that explores the neural basis of a wide range of emotional processes (perception, expression, experience, regulation, decision making, etc.), and also its relation to lateralized cortical and deep-subcortical brain structures. Of especial interest is the study of the interaction between emotional components; for example, between emotion generation and emotion regulation. Finally, emerging evidence from lesion studies is presented regarding the neural basis of emotion-regulation strategies, for which the issue of laterality seems most relevant. It is proposed that, because emotion-regulation strategies are complex higher-order cognitive processes, the question appears to be not the lateralization of the entire emotional process, but the lateralization of the specific cognitive tools we use to manage our feelings, in a range of different ways.

Depression is characterized by increased levels of negative affect and decreased levels of positive affect. Prior research shows that individual differences in emotion regulation play an important role in understanding sustained negative affect within the disorder; yet, much less is known about the regulation of positive emotion in depression. The current paper utilizes emotion regulation models that synthesizes multiple emotion processes, including what people want to feel (emotion preferences) and the ways in which people typically respond to emotion (habitual use of emotion regulation strategies), to increase our understanding of positive emotion in depression. In doing so, we propose that depression is associated with relative reductions in the preference for positive emotion; these reductions may therefore increase the habitual use of emotion regulation strategies that serve to down-regulate positive emotion and decrease the use of strategies that serve to up-regulate positive emotion. Dysfunction in habitual emotion regulation strategy use may, in turn, contribute to the relatively low levels of positive emotion within the disorder. The paper also discusses important empirical gaps in the extant literature on emotion preferences and emotion regulation in depression and highlights novel treatment targets (e.g., emotion preferences) for interventions aimed at improving emotion dysfunction in depression.

Social media applications have become popular methods of online communication, interaction, and social networking. Many people use social media websites and mobile applications, such as Twitter, to create and post personal expressions in public online forums. This online content presents opportunities for using social media as a data source with the potential to improve evaluation of theoretical models of emotional and stressful experiences across various topics and subfields of psychology science and practice. In this article, we discuss emerging information retrieval and analytic methods using social media for ecological momentary assessments of emotion. We describe 2 specific methods we have developed in the context of Twitter and their use in a broader study investigating relationships among people’s emotional experiences, their expressions of experiences in social media, their daily geospatial movements and locations, and their stress experiences. We conclude with a discussion of potential applications and ethical considerations for these methods in professional psychology practice and science.

Emotion regulation (ER) refers to attempts to influence emotions in ourselves or others. Over the past several decades, ER has become a popular topic across many subdisciplines within psychology. One framework that has helped to organize work on ER is the process model of ER, which distinguishes 5 families of strategies defined by when they impact the emotion generation process. The process model embeds these ER strategies in stages in which a need for regulation is identified, a strategy is selected and implemented, and monitoring occurs to track success. Much of the research to date has focused on a strategy called cognitive reappraisal, which involves changing how one thinks about a situation to influence one’s emotional response. Reappraisal is thought to be generally effective and adaptive, but there are important qualifications. In this article, we use reappraisal as an example to illustrate how we might consider 4 interrelated issues: (a) the consequences of using ER, either when instructed or spontaneous; (b) how ER success and frequency are shaped by individual and environmental determinants; (c) the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms that make ER possible; and (d) interventions that might improve how well and how often people use ER.

Emotional intelligence (EI) should relate to people’s emotional experiences. We meta-analytically summarize associations of felt affect with ability EI branches (perception, facilitation, understanding, and management) and total scores (k = 7–14; N = 1,584–2,813). We then use experience sampling (N = 122 undergraduates over 5 days, 24 beeps) to test whether EI predicts emotion dynamics and complexity. Meta-analyses show that EI correlates significantly with lower negative affect (NA; ρ = −.21) but not higher positive affect (PA; ρ = .05). PA (but not NA) shows a significantly stronger relationship with emotion management (ρ = .23) versus other EI branches (ρ = −.01 to .07). In the experience sampling study, only management significantly related to higher PA, whereas lower NA was significantly related to total EI, perception, facilitation, and management. After controlling for mean affect: (a) only understanding significantly predicted NA dynamics whereas only management and facilitation significantly predicted PA dynamics; (b) management and facilitation predicted lower PA differentiation (EI was unrelated to NA differentiation); and (c) perception and facilitation predicted greater bipolarity. Results show that EI predicts affect, emotion dynamics, and emotion complexity. We discuss the importance of distinguishing between different branches of ability EI.

As humans, we have a unique capacity to reflect on our experiences, including emotions. Over time, we develop beliefs about the nature of emotions, and these beliefs are consequential, guiding how we respond to emotions and how we feel as a consequence. One fundamental belief concerns the controllability of emotions: Believing emotions are uncontrollable (entity beliefs) should reduce the likelihood of trying to control emotional experiences using effective regulation strategies like reappraisal; this, in turn, could negatively affect core indices of psychological health, including depressive symptoms. This model holds particular relevance during youth, when emotion-related beliefs first develop and stabilize and when maladaptive beliefs could contribute to emerging risk for depression. In the present investigation, a pilot diary study (N = 223, aged 21–60) demonstrated that entity beliefs were associated with using reappraisal less in everyday life, even when controlling for possible confounds (i.e., self-efficacy, pessimism, stress exposure, stress reactivity). Then, two studies examined whether entity beliefs and associated impairments in reappraisal may set youths on a maladaptive trajectory: In a cross-sectional study (N = 136, aged 14–18), youths with stronger entity beliefs experienced greater depressive symptoms, and this link was mediated by lower reappraisal. This pattern was replicated and extended in a longitudinal study (N = 227, aged 10–18), wherein youth- and parent-reported depressive symptoms were assessed 18 months after assessing beliefs. These results suggest that entity beliefs about emotion constitute a risk factor for depression that acts via reappraisal, adding to the growing literature on emotion beliefs and their consequences for self-regulation and health.

Parents’ behaviors—particularly their emotion socialization behaviors (ESBs)—drive children’s emotion socialization (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998). We propose that a major next step in the effort to promote healthy emotional development is to improve the field’s understanding of the most proximal contributor to parent ESBs: parents’ own experience and regulation of emotions in the context of caregiving. As an initial step, this paper integrates Eisenberg and colleagues’ model of emotion socialization with theoretical and empirical work on parental emotion. We review the literature on the emotionally evocative nature of parenting, which influences parental ESBs, including parents’ expressions of emotions and their responses to children’s emotions. However, whereas parental emotions influence behavior, they do not necessarily determine it; parents may regulate their emotions to engage in optimal ESBs. Thus, parental regulation contributes to emotion socialization not only by modeling emotion regulation strategies for children, but also by influencing the quality of parents’ ESBs. From a clinical perspective, parental emotion regulation is of utmost importance due to the degree of parental involvement in interventions for childhood emotional and behavioral disorders, which are often aimed at promoting child self-regulation. To illustrate practical applications of Eisenberg’s model, we discuss evidence-based practices that include enhancement of parent emotion regulation as a primary target, with the ultimate goal of promoting child emotional development. Ultimately, we aim to spur future theoretical, empirical, and translational work in this area.

Emotion perception, the ability to detect and categorize the emotions of others, is an important component of social competence. The basic emotion theory and constructed emotion theory remain controversial over the role of emotional semantic information in the processing of facial expressions. In the present study, in order to explore the mechanism of emotional semantic information in different processing stages of facial expressions, we used the ERPs to investigate the effects of emotion-label words (e.g., happy, disgusted) and emotion-laden words (e.g., flower, maggot) on the perception of happy and disgusted faces. The results showed that disgusted faces were more susceptible to emotion words, and there were differences between word types and consistency conditions in the N170 component. More importantly, disgusted faces showed a significant N400 effect in the emotion-label words condition, that is, the amplitude in the emotion inconsistent condition was negative compared with that in the emotion consistent condition. The processing of happy faces was not significantly affected by the emotional information of words, and no significant effects related to consistency or to word types were found. These results found that disgusted faces exhibited emotional semantic conflict in the inconsistent emotion-label words condition, suggesting that emotion words moderated the perception of disgusted faces, supporting the hypothesis that emotional semantic information influenced the perception of facial expressions.

Loneliness is a risk factor for mental disorders and is a significant and growing public health issue, but to date, loneliness interventions have had limited success. We propose that an emotion regulation perspective might be useful for understanding loneliness and for suggesting new treatment targets. In this study, our aim was to test the basis for this proposal by examining whether individual differences in emotion regulation strategy use can explain significant variance in loneliness, and to establish what profile of strategy use might characterize loneliness. We administered a comprehensive battery of loneliness and emotion regulation questionnaires to 501 adults. In a regression model, emotion regulation strategy use accounted for over half (52.2%) the variance in loneliness. A latent profile analysis revealed four profiles, with the “high loneliness” profile characterized cognitively by greater use of rumination, catastrophising, blame-attribution, and lesser use of cognitive reappraisal type strategies. Behaviorally, loneliness was characterised by greater use of expressive suppression, and regulating emotions by actively rejecting or withdrawing from others. We conclude that individual differences in emotion regulation may play an important role in explaining loneliness, and could therefore represent a promising treatment target.

Rationale
Past research has shown that personality traits relate to body weight, but this relationship may be confounded by unobserved family-level characteristics such as genetic endowments.
Objective
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the association between personality traits, as measured by the Big Five taxonomy, and body weight among young adults is spurious owing to shared family background.
Methods
Participants were drawn from the full (n = 14,366) and family (n = 2813) samples of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). The study employed family-fixed effects to eliminate shared family background factors that might affect personality traits and body weight simultaneously.
Results
Among the Big Five personality traits, only conscientiousness showed a robust association with body weight, including body mass index (BMI) and obesity risk. These results were robust to adjustments for family-fixed effects, which indicates that the association between conscientiousness and body weight is generally not confounded by unobserved family-level characteristics shared by siblings. A one-standard-deviation increase in conscientiousness was associated with a decrease in BMI by 0.89 (equivalent to a 2.5 kg decrease in weight for an individual with an average height of the sample) and a 12% reduction in the probability of being obese. This study also found some suggestive evidence of gender and racial/ethnic differences. The association between conscientiousness and obesity was larger and statistically significant only for women, and conscientiousness was most strongly associated with obesity among Hispanic people.
Conclusion
Conscientiousness is associated with decreased body weight net of unobserved background characteristics that are shared by siblings. The results suggest that interventions that develop personality traits may have “spillover effects”; in other words, they may also help reduce obesity.

The goal of the present study was to examine the motivational underpinnings of helping behavior by looking at self-regulatory demands in relation to pro-social personality traits. Across two experiments, we explored the idea that helping behavior is easier or more intrinsically motivated for those high in pro-social traits, and requires more effortful regulation for those low in pro-social traits. We reasoned that helping behavior may be less sensitive to fatigue, and less fatiguing, for pro-social people in an ego-depletion paradigm. Specifically, in Study 1 (n = 79), we hypothesized that people high in pro-social traits would show better Stroop task performance, following an initial helping task. In Study 2 (n = 91), we expected to find higher helping rates for those high on pro-social traits following a difficult Stroop task manipulation. Contrary to our predictions, Study 1 suggested that those high in pro-social traits were more cognitively depleted following helping, compared to those low in pro-social traits; in Study 2 high pro-social trait scores were associated with less persistence on a helping task following depletion. Overall, our findings suggest that helping behavior is more difficult or effortful for the dispositionally pro-social. Discussion focuses on possible explanations of and degree of confidence in this suggestion.

Parental burnout is an emotional disorder related to the context of parenthood (Roskam, Raes, & Mikolajczak, 2017). Personality differences in parental burnout were explored. One thousand seven hundred twenty-three parents, age 20 to 75 years, responded to a questionnaire. Results indicated that three personality traits are linked to this syndrome. A high level of neuroticism, a low level of conscientiousness, and a low level of agreeableness were all found to be risk factors for parental burnout. Parents who have difficulty initiating and maintaining positive affective relations with their child(ren) (high neuroticism), identifying and responding to their child(ren)’s needs (low agreeableness), or providing their child(ren) with a structured and coherent environment (low conscientiousness) are more likely to experience parental burnout syndrome.

In this paper, we evaluate the Five Factor Theory (FFT; McCrae & Costa, 1999) and Social Investment ( Helson, Kwan, John, & Jones, 2002; Roberts & Wood, in press) explanations of normative personality trait development in adulthood. FFT theory proposes that personality trait development is largely a genetic phenomenon, whereas the Social Investment theory proposes that it is largely the result of experiences in universal social roles in young adulthood. A review of cross-cultural, longitudinal, and behavior genetics studies reveals little support for the FFT position and provisional support for the Social Investment theory.

Personality assessment helps us to predict how people behave under various circumstances or how well a person might perform within certain roles. However, there are reasons to question the supposed ‘construct validity’ of tests designed to assess various personality attributes including dispositional traits. To demonstrate this, the paper first discusses a realist account of test validity where validity requires that both the attribute exist and that changes in the attribute are causally related to changes in test scores. The paper demonstrates that the validity for tests of dispositional traits is questionable given conceptual problems with traits existing as within-person attributes capable of causing changes in test scores. The widespread reliance on Likert-style response formats is then discussed in relation to the assumed quantitative structure of personality attributes. Based on a realist view of measurement, the uncritical adoption of a representational theory of measurement within personality research means that the validity of all personality tests claiming to ‘measure’ personality attributes is questionable. Suggestions for addressing test validity in personality assessment are then discussed in terms of paying greater critical attention to personality theory itself and adopting a realist theory of assessment and measurement.

Do others perceive the personality changes that take place between the ages of 14 and 29 in a similar fashion as the aging person him- or herself? This cross-sectional study analyzed age trajectories in self- versus other-reported Big Five personality traits and in self–other agreement in a sample of more than 10,000 individuals from the myPersonality Project. Results for self-reported personality showed maturation effects (increases in extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and emotional stability), and this pattern was generally also reflected in other-reports, albeit with discrepancies regarding timing and magnitude. Age differences found for extraversion were similar between the self- and other-reports, but the increase found in self-reported conscientiousness was delayed in other-reports, and the curvilinear increase found in self-reported openness was slightly steeper in other-reports. Only emotional stability showed a distinct mismatch with an increase in self-reports, but no significant age effect in other-reports. Both the self- and other-reports of agreeableness showed no significant age trends. The trait correlations between the self- and other-reports increased with age for emotional stability, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness; by contrast, agreement regarding extraversion remained stable. The profile correlations confirmed increases in self–other agreement with age. We suggest that these gains in agreement are a further manifestation of maturation. Taken together, our analyses generally show commonalities but also some divergences in age-associated mean level changes between self- and other-reports of the Big Five, as well as an age trend toward increasing self–other agreement.

Many negatively connoted personality traits (often termed 'dark traits') have been introduced to account for ethically, morally, and socially questionable behavior. Herein, we provide a unifying, comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding dark personality in terms of a general dispositional tendency of which dark traits arise as specific manifestations. That is, we theoretically specify the common core of dark traits, which we call the Dark Factor of Personality (D). The fluid concept of D captures individual differences in the tendency to maximize one’s individual utility—disregarding, accepting, or malevolently provoking disutility for others—accompanied by beliefs that serve as justifications. To critically test D, we unify and extend prior work methodologically and empirically by considering a large number of dark traits simultaneously, using statistical approaches tailored to capture both the common core and the unique content of dark traits, and testing the predictive validity of both D and the unique content of dark traits with respect to diverse criteria including fully consequential and incentive-compatible behavior. In a series of four studies (N > 2,500), we provide evidence in support of the theoretical conceptualization of D, show that dark traits can be understood as specific manifestations of D, demonstrate that D predicts a multitude of criteria in the realm of ethically, morally, and socially questionable behavior, and illustrate that D does not depend on any particular indicator variable included.

The current study is among the first to examine rank-order stability and mean-level change across college in both broad Big Five personality trait domains (e.g., Neuroticism) and the narrower facets underlying these domains (i.e., self-reproach, anxiety, and depression). In addition, the current study tests longitudinal associations between Big Five domains and facets and 3 aspects of adjustment: self-esteem, academic adjustment, and social adjustment in college. Specifically, the study examines codevelopment (correlated change), personality effects on later changes in adjustment, and adjustment effects on later changes in personality. Two large longitudinal samples from different countries were employed. Results suggested that rank-order stabilities of facets were generally large (i.e., >.50) across samples, and comparable with those observed for trait domains. Mean-level findings were largely in line with the maturity principle: levels of neuroticism and (most of) its facets decreased, whereas levels of the other domains and facets were either stable or increased. However, patterns sometimes slightly differed between facets of the same trait domain. All 3 types of longitudinal associations between personality and adjustment were found, but unlike mean-level change often varied by facet. The Extraversion facet of positive affect and the Conscientiousness facets of goal-striving and dependability were positively associated with all 3 adjustment indicators in both samples, whereas the Neuroticism facets of depression and self-reproach were consistently negatively associated with adjustment. In sum, our findings demonstrate that considering Big Five trait facets may be useful to reveal the nuanced ways in which personality develops in tandem with adjustment in college.

This meta-analytic review addresses whether the major dimensions of trait personality relate to components of human sexuality. A comprehensive literature search identified 137 studies that met inclusion criteria (761 effect sizes; total n = 420,595). Pooled mean effects were computed using inverse-variance weighted random effects meta-analysis. Mean effect sizes from 100 separate meta-analyses provided evidence that personality relates to theoretically predicted components of sexuality and sexual health. Neuroticism was positively related to sexual dissatisfaction (r+ = .18), negative emotions (r+ = .42), and symptoms of sexual dysfunction (r+ = .16). Extraversion was positively related to sexual activity (r+ = .17) and risky sexual behavior (r+ = .18), and negatively related to symptoms of sexual dysfunction (r+ = −.17). Openness was positively related to homosexual orientation (r+ = .16) and liberal attitudes toward sex (r+ = .19). Agreeableness and conscientiousness were negatively related to sexually aggressive behavior (r+ = −.20; r+ = −.14) and sexual infidelity (r+ = −.18; r+ = −.17). Less robust evidence indicated that extraversion related negatively, and neuroticism positively, to child sexual abuse, and that openness related negatively to homophobic attitudes. Random effects metaregression identified age, gender, and study quality as important moderators of pooled mean effects. These findings might be of interest to health care professionals developing health care services that aim to promote sexually healthy societies.

Structural approaches to personality have brought about considerable progress in description and prediction of interindividual differences in thoughts, feelings, and behavior. However, in order to move towards personality psychology as an explanatory science, we argue that structural, process-oriented and developmental approaches to personality have to be integrated. We summarize the main propositions of a theoretical framework published in a target article in the European Journal of Personality (Baumert et al., 2017a), and highlight the resulting challenges for future personality research.

We performed a quantitative review of associations between the higher order personality traits in the Big Three and Big Five models (i.e., neuroticism, extraversion, disinhibition, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness) and specific depressive, anxiety, and substance use disorders (SUD) in adults. This approach resulted in 66 meta-analyses. The review included 175 studies published from 1980 to 2007, which yielded 851 effect sizes. For a given analysis, the number of studies ranged from three to 63 (total sample size ranged from 1,076 to 75,229). All diagnostic groups were high on neuroticism (mean Cohen's d = 1.65) and low on conscientiousness (mean d = −1.01). Many disorders also showed low extraversion, with the largest effect sizes for dysthymic disorder (d = −1.47) and social phobia (d = −1.31). Disinhibition was linked to only a few conditions, including SUD (d = 0.72). Finally, agreeableness and openness were largely unrelated to the analyzed diagnoses. Two conditions showed particularly distinct profiles: SUD, which was less related to neuroticism but more elevated on disinhibition and disagreeableness, and specific phobia, which displayed weaker links to all traits. Moderator analyses indicated that epidemiologic samples produced smaller effects than patient samples and that Eysenck's inventories showed weaker associations than NEO scales. In sum, we found that common mental disorders are strongly linked to personality and have similar trait profiles. Neuroticism was the strongest correlate across the board, but several other traits showed substantial effects independent of neuroticism. Greater attention to these constructs can significantly benefit psychopathology research and clinical practice.

In this paper, we examine the relationships between three of the Big 5 personality traits (conscientiousness, openness to experience, and agreeableness) and willingness to justify unethical behavior. We also consider the moderating relationship of four of the GLOBE cultural dimensions (institutional collectivism, humane orientation, performance orientation, and assertiveness) on the above relationship. We tested our propositions on a sample of 38,655 individuals from 23 different countries obtained from the latest data available from the World Values Survey Group's survey (WVS 2014). We found that conscientiousness and agreeableness were both negatively associated with willingness to justify unethical behavior. We also conducted Hierarchical Linear Modeling and found significant interaction effects of selected GLOBE cultural dimensions (humane orientation, assertiveness, institutional collectivism, and performance orientation) on the relationships between personality traits and willingness to justify unethical behavior. We provide managerial implications of our findings, as well as suggestions for future research.

Performance on achievement tests is characterized by an interplay of different individual attributes such as personality traits, motivation or cognitive styles. However, the prediction of individuals’ performance from classical self–report personality measures obtained during large and comprehensive aptitude assessments is biased by, for example, subjective response tendencies. This study goes beyond by using behavioural data based on two different types of tasks, requiring different conscientious–related response behaviours. Moreover, a typological approach is proposed, which includes different behavioural indicators to obtain information on complex personality characteristics.

People actively select their environments, and the environments they select can alter their psychological characteristics in the moment and over time. Such dynamic person–environment transactions are likely to play out in the context of daily life via the places people spend time in (e.g., home, work, or public places like cafes and restaurants). This article investigates personality–place transactions at 3 conceptual levels: stable personality traits, momentary personality states, and short-term personality trait expressions. Three 2-week experience sampling studies (2 exploratory and 1 confirmatory with a total N = 2,350 and more than 63,000 momentary assessments) were used to provide the first large-scale evidence showing that people’s stable Big Five traits are associated with the frequency with which they visit different places on a daily basis. For example, extraverted people reported spending less time at home and more time at cafés, bars, and friends’ houses. The findings also show that spending time in a particular place predicts people’s momentary personality states and their short-term trait expression over time. For example, people reported feeling more extraverted in the moment when spending time at bars/parties, cafés/restaurants, or friends’ houses, compared with when at home. People who showed preferences for spending more time in these places also showed higher levels of short-term trait extraversion over the course of 2 weeks. The findings make theoretical contributions to environmental psychology, personality dynamics, as well as the person–environment transactions literature, and highlight practical implications for a world in which the places people visit can be easily captured via GPS sensors.

Over the last few decades, most personality psychology research has been focused on assessing personality via scores on a few broad traits and investigating how these scores predict various behaviours and outcomes. This approach does not seek to explain the causal mechanisms underlying human personality and thus falls short of explaining the proximal sources of traits as well as the variation of individuals’ behaviour over time and across situations. On the basis of the commonalities shared by influential process–oriented personality theories and models, we describe a general dynamics of personality approach (DPA). The DPA relies heavily on theoretical principles applicable to complex adaptive systems that self–regulate via feedback mechanisms, and it parses the sources of personality in terms of various psychological functions relevant in different phases of self–regulation. Thus, we consider personality to be rooted in individual differences in various cognitive, emotional–motivational, and volitional functions, as well as their causal interactions. In this article, we lay out 20 tenets for the DPA that may serve as a guideline for integrative research in personality science.

Decades of research document individual differences in prosocial behavior using controlled experiments that model social interactions in situations of interdependence. However, theoretical and empirical integration of the vast literature on the predictive validity of personality traits to account for these individual differences is missing. Here, we present a theoretical framework that identifies 4 broad situational affordances across interdependent situations (i.e., exploitation, reciprocity, temporal conflict, and dependence under uncertainty) and more specific subaffordances within certain types of interdependent situations (e.g., possibility to increase equality in outcomes) that can determine when, which, and how personality traits should be expressed in prosocial behavior. To test this framework, we meta-analyzed 770 studies reporting on 3,523 effects of 8 broad and 43 narrow personality traits on prosocial behavior in interdependent situations modeled in 6 commonly studied economic games (Dictator Game, Ultimatum Game, Trust Game, Prisoner’s Dilemma, Public Goods Game, and Commons Dilemma). Overall, meta-analytic correlations ranged between −.18 ≤ ρ̂ ≤ .26, and most traits yielding a significant relation to prosocial behavior had conceptual links to the affordances provided in interdependent situations, most prominently the possibility for exploitation. Moreover, for several traits, correlations within games followed the predicted pattern derived from a theoretical analysis of affordances. On the level of traits, we found that narrow and broad traits alike can account for prosocial behavior, informing the bandwidth-fidelity problem. In sum, the meta-analysis provides a theoretical foundation that can guide future research on prosocial behavior and advance our understanding of individual differences in human prosociality.

Individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) or generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) are at risk for not utilizing mental health treatment. The purpose of this research was to examine barriers to treatment in a sample of adults with clinically significant SAD or GAD. Participants were 226 nontreatment-seeking adults with SAD or GAD who underwent semistructured diagnostic interview and received a clinician assessment of symptom severity as part of a clinical research study. Participants completed a self-report measure of barriers to treatment. Individual and combined associations of demographic and symptom severity variables with number of perceived barriers to treatment were examined. Individuals with GAD or SAD endorsed a similar number of overall barriers to treatment. Shame and stigma were the highest cited barriers followed by logistical and financial barriers. Both groups also endorsed not knowing where to seek treatment at high rates. Individuals with greater symptom severity reported more barriers to treatment. Racial and ethnic minorities reported more barriers to treatment even after controlling for symptom severity. Among individuals with GAD or SAD, increased education and culturally sensitive outreach initiatives are needed to reduce barriers to mental health treatment.

This study explored how people with anxiety disorders responded to the TV series Monk, about a homicide investigator with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). Respondents were 44 individuals with OCD or another anxiety disorder who were recruited from online mental health support sites. They completed an online survey that elicited open-ended responses as well as supplemental ratings of the series/lead character. Their evaluations of the portrayal of mental illness on Monk were mixed, with both favorable and critical assessments offered. Many respondents suggested that the series challenged stereotypes by showing a character with mental illness who was successful and lived a productive life, yet others argued that the show reinforced some stereotypes of OCD. Respondents offered varied responses to the use of humor in relation to mental illness, but were relatively critical of the accuracy/realism of the depiction of OCD and the portrayal of Adrian Monk’s mental health treatment. The measures of perceived influence on respondents’ own and others’ attitudes toward mental illness offered insight into the potential impact of the series on public stigma and self-stigma. Implications for the study of media and mental illness stigma are discussed.

Objective: Comorbidity is the rule and not the exception among veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Examining comorbidities in a veteran population allows us to better understand veterans’ symptoms and recognize when mental health treatment may need to be tailored to other co-occurring issues. This article evaluates comorbid mood and anxiety disorders and PTSD symptom severity in a large sample of veterans from multiple eras of service, including the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Method: The current study used data from veterans who sought treatment for PTSD at a VA PTSD Clinical Team from 2005 to 2013. Veterans were assessed for PTSD, mood, and anxiety disorders using a structured clinical interview and completed self-report symptom measures as part of the PTSD clinic intake procedure. A total of 2,460 veterans were evaluated, and 867 met diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Results: Veterans with PTSD were significantly more likely than those without PTSD to be diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and obsessive–compulsive disorder, but significantly less likely to be diagnosed with depression. In addition, veterans who had at least one comorbid diagnosis in addition to PTSD reported significantly higher PTSD symptom severity than veterans with PTSD alone. PTSD symptom severity also varied by era of service. Conclusion: These results suggest that among veterans seeking treatment for PTSD, comorbid mood and anxiety disorders may be associated with greater severity of PTSD symptoms. Future work is needed to determine the impact of specific comorbidities on trauma-focused treatment outcomes.

Objective: Internet-based cognitive–behavioral treatments (ICBT) have shown promise for various mental disorders, including social anxiety disorder (SAD). Most of these treatments have been delivered on desktop computers. However, the use of smartphones is becoming ubiquitous and could extend the reach of ICBT into users’ everyday life. Only a few studies have empirically examined the efficacy of ICBT delivered through a smartphone app and there is no published study on mobile app delivered ICBT for SAD. This three-arm randomized-controlled trial (RCT) is the first to compare the efficacy of guided ICBT for smartphones (app) and conventional computers (PC) with a wait list control group (WL). Method: A total of 150 individuals meeting the diagnostic criteria for SAD were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions. Primary endpoints were self-report measures and diagnostic status of SAD. Results: After 12 weeks of treatment, both active conditions showed superior outcome on the composite of all SAD measures (PC vs. WL: d = 0.74; App vs. WL: d = 0.89) and promising diagnostic response rates (NNTPC = 3.33; NNTApp = 6.00) compared to the WL. No significant between-groups effects were found between the two active conditions on the composite score (Cohen’s d = 0.07). Treatment gains were maintained at 3-month follow-up. Program use was more evenly spread throughout the day in the mobile condition, indicating an integration of the program into daily routines. Conclusions: ICBT can be delivered effectively using smartphones.

Objective: Panic disorder (PD) is associated with significant personal, social, and economic costs. However, little is known about specific interpersonal dysfunctions that characterize the PD population. The current study systematically examined these interpersonal dysfunctions. Method: The present analyses included 194 patients with PD out of a sample of 201 who were randomized to cognitive–behavioral therapy, panic-focused psychodynamic psychotherapy, or applied relaxation training. Interpersonal dysfunction was measured with the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems–Circumplex (Horowitz, Alden, Wiggins, & Pincus, 2000). Results: Individuals with PD reported greater levels of interpersonal distress than that of a normative cohort (especially when PD was accompanied by agoraphobia), but lower than that of a cohort of patients with major depression. There was no single interpersonal profile that characterized PD patients. Symptom-based clusters (with vs. without agoraphobia) could not be discriminated on core or central interpersonal problems. Rather, as revealed by cluster analysis based on the pathoplasticity framework, there were 2 empirically derived interpersonal clusters among PD patients that were not accounted for by symptom severity and were opposite in nature: domineering–intrusive and nonassertive. The empirically derived interpersonal clusters appear to be of clinical utility in predicting alliance development throughout treatment: Although the domineering–intrusive cluster did not show any changes in the alliance throughout treatment, the nonassertive cluster showed a process of significant strengthening of the alliance. Conclusions: Empirically derived interpersonal clusters in PD provide clinically useful and nonredundant information about individuals with PD.

A lack of adequate access to autobiographical knowledge has been related to psychopathology. More specifically, patients suffering from depression or a history of trauma have been found to be characterized by overgeneral memory, in other words, they show a relative difficulty in retrieving a specific event from memory located in time and place. Previous studies of overgeneral memory have not included patients with dissociative disorders. These patients are interesting to consider, as they are hypothesized to have the ability to selectively compartmentalize information linked to negative emotions. This study examined avoidance and overgeneral memory in patients with dissociative identity disorder (DID; n = 12). The patients completed the autobiographical memory test (AMT). Their performance was compared with control groups of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients (n = 26), healthy controls (n = 29), and DID simulators (n = 26). Specifically, we compared the performance of separate identity states in DID hypothesized to diverge in the use of avoidance as a coping strategy to deal with negative affect. No significant differences in memory specificity were found between the separate identities in DID. Irrespective of identity state, DID patients were characterized by a lack of memory specificity, which was similar to the lack of memory specificity found in PTSD patients. The converging results for DID and PTSD patients add empirical evidence for the role of overgeneral memory involved in the maintenance of posttraumatic psychopathology.

The current study examined perceptions about depression among a sample of men from a midwestern university in the United States (N = 366). Specifically, a randomized analogue design with a series of vignettes about men with depression was used to identify: (a) what constellations of symptoms men identify as depression (i.e., conventional diagnostic criteria, gender-specific diagnostic criteria, or a combination of traditional and gender-specific diagnostic criteria) and how these constellations influence perceptions of severity and (b) men’s beliefs about the masculinity and femininity of men experiencing depression. Results of this study indicate that men identified symptoms of male-type depression as 'depression' at lower rates than symptoms of major depressive disorder or a combination of male-type depression and major depressive disorder. Symptoms of male-type depression are also perceived as less severe than other symptom constellations. Furthermore, participants in the study perceived men with traditional symptoms of depression as less masculine and more feminine than men reporting no symptoms of depression, symptoms of male-type depression, or traditional symptoms coinciding with externalizing behaviors. The current study begins to fill gaps in our understanding of men’s perceptions of what symptoms constitute depression, the degree to which these symptom constellations reflect severity of depression, and perceptions of the masculinity and femininity of other men with depression.

A major barrier to the understanding of emotion dynamics in borderline personality disorder (BPD) lies in its substantial comorbidity with major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BD). Whereas BPD has often been characterized in terms of dynamic emotional processes, including instability, reactivity, and inertia, its substantial comorbidity with MDD and BD makes it difficult to discern the specificity of these dynamics. To differentiate the emotion dynamics of BPD from those of MDD and BD, an experience sampling study of 38 participants with BPD, 15 participants with MDD, 14 participants with BD, and 62 healthy controls obtained reports of interpersonal challenges and emotions 5 times daily for 2 weeks. Interpersonal challenges included rejection, betrayal, abandonment, offense, disappointment, and self-image challenge; emotions included anger, excitement, guilt, happiness, irritability, and shame. Multilevel analyses revealed that heightened interpersonal reactivity of guilt and shame and heightened inertia of shame were relatively specific to BPD. These findings could not be accounted for by the presence of current MDD or BD. By contrast, heightened instability of anger and irritability and heightened inertia of irritability appeared to be largely transdiagnostic. Implications for clinical assessment, research, and theory are discussed.

Smoking prevalence is unevenly distributed in the U.S. population, with those with mental illness, other substance use disorders, and lower socioeconomic status being especially vulnerable. Less research has been conducted on the association between these same vulnerabilities and smokeless tobacco (ST) use. The present study examined cigarette and ST use among adolescents and adults who met diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder in the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). Utilizing the most recent (2011) NSDUH, we compared odds for current cigarette smoking and ST use among adolescents and adults meeting criteria for past-year major depressive disorder to the general population, after adjusting for potential confounding influences of sociodemographic and other substance use characteristics. Analyses were conducted to examine sex as a moderator of the relation between major depressive disorder and tobacco use. Odds for current cigarette smoking among those classified with major depressive disorder were increased among adolescents (OR = 1.33, 95% CI [1.05, 1.69], p = .021) and adults (OR = 1.70, 95% CI [1.47, 1.97], p < .0005), and odds for current ST use did not differ among adolescents (OR = 0.90, 95% CI [0.54, 1.49], p = .678) and were lower among adults (OR = 0.68, 95% CI [0.51, 0.91], p = .010). Sex was not a significant moderator in adolescents or adults. Major depressive disorder is associated with increased risk for smoking but not ST use among adolescents and adults further demonstrating heterogeneity in predictors of vulnerability to use of different tobacco products.

People with schizophrenia show marked reductions in their emotional expressiveness, generally known as blunted affect. In this study, we tested whether interaction partners would evaluate community-dwelling participants with schizophrenia less favorably than healthy controls and whether this difference would be explained by reduced smiling behavior related to schizophrenia. We also tested whether deficient affect recognition would predict reduced smiling. We created 3 study groups, consisting of 28 participants each, participants with schizophrenia (SZ), healthy controls (HC), and naive healthy interaction partners (IP). IP engaged in 2 separate same-sex dyadic interactions with matched members of each of the other 2 groups, SZ and HC, in a repeated-measures study design. During the interactions, we assessed the amount of smiling and mimicry of smiling via electromyography. After the interactions, IP rated their willingness for future interactions with SZ and HC, respectively. IP indicated less willingness for future interactions with SZ than with HC participants (d = −0.72) but SZ and HC did not differ with respect to smiling or affect recognition. Better affect recognition predicted more smiling; more smiling predicted more favorable social evaluations. Within SZ participants, disorganization symptoms but no other symptom dimensions were associated with the social evaluations. In conclusion, community-dwelling people with schizophrenia face social challenges that go beyond the adverse effects of stigmatization. Future work needs to clarify the role of different symptom dimensions and behavioral aspects contributing to the interpersonal costs of schizophrenia to derive interventions targeted at social reintegration.

Social support is positively associated with individual well-being, particularly if an intimate partner provides that support. However, despite evidence that individuals with bipolar disorder (BPD) are at high risk for relationship discord and are especially vulnerable to low or inadequate social support, little research has explored the relationship between social support and relationship quality among couples in which a partner has BPD. The current study addresses this gap in the literature by examining the association between social support and relationship satisfaction in a weekly diary study. Thirty-eight opposite-sex couples who were married or living together for at least one year and in which one partner met diagnostic criteria for BPD completed up to 26 weekly diaries measuring social support and relationship satisfaction, as well as psychiatric symptoms. Results revealed that greater social support on average was associated with higher average relationship satisfaction for individuals with BPD and their partners, and that more support than usual in any given week was associated with higher relationship satisfaction that week. The converse was also true, with greater-than-average relationship satisfaction and more satisfaction than usual associated with greater social support. The results emphasize the week-to-week variability of social support and relationship satisfaction and the probable reciprocal relationship between support and satisfaction among couples in which a partner has BPD. Thus, social support may be important for maintaining relationship satisfaction and vice versa, even after controlling for concurrent mood symptoms.

Objective: Internet (eHealth) and smartphone-based (mHealth) approaches to self-management for bipolar disorder are increasingly common. Evidence-based self-management strategies are available for bipolar disorder and provide a useful framework for reviewing existing eHealth/mHealth programs to determine whether these strategies are supported by current technologies. This review assesses which self-management strategies are most supported by technology. Method: Based on 3 previous studies, 7 categories of self-management strategies related to bipolar disorder were identified, followed by a systematic literature review to identify existing eHealth and mHealth programs for this disorder. Searches were conducted by using PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews for relevant peer-reviewed articles published January 2005 to May 2015. eHealth and mHealth programs were summarized and reviewed to identify which of the 7 self-management strategy categories were supported by eHealth or mHealth programs. Results: From 1,654 publications, 15 papers were identified for inclusion. From these, 9 eHealth programs and 2 mHealth programs were identified. The most commonly supported self-management strategy categories were 'ongoing monitoring,' 'maintaining hope,' 'education,' and 'planning for and taking action'; the least commonly supported categories were 'relaxation' and 'maintaining a healthy lifestyle.' eHealth programs appear to provide more comprehensive coverage of self-management strategies compared with mHealth programs. Conclusions and Implications for Practice: Both eHealth and mHealth programs present a wide range of self-management strategies for bipolar disorder, although individuals seeking comprehensive interventions might be best served by eHealth programs, while those seeking more condensed and direct interventions might prefer mHealth programs.

Objective: To determine if a treatment for interepisode bipolar disorder I patients with insomnia improves mood state, sleep, and functioning. Method: Alongside psychiatric care, interepisode bipolar disorder I participants with insomnia were randomly allocated to a bipolar disorder–specific modification of cognitive behavior therapy for insomnia (CBTI-BP; n = 30) or psychoeducation (PE; n = 28) as a comparison condition. Outcomes were assessed at baseline, the end of 8 sessions of treatment, and 6 months later. This pilot was conducted to determine initial feasibility and generate effect size estimates. Results: During the 6-month follow-up, the CBTI-BP group had fewer days in a bipolar episode relative to the PE group (3.3 days vs. 25.5 days). The CBTI-BP group also experienced a significantly lower hypomania/mania relapse rate (4.6% vs. 31.6%) and a marginally lower overall mood episode relapse rate (13.6% vs. 42.1%) compared with the PE group. Relative to PE, CBTI-BP reduced insomnia severity and led to higher rates of insomnia remission at posttreatment and marginally higher rates at 6 months. Both CBTI-BP and PE showed statistically significant improvement on selected sleep and functional impairment measures. The effects of treatment were well sustained through follow-up for most outcomes, although some decline on secondary sleep benefits was observed. Conclusions: CBTI-BP was associated with reduced risk of mood episode relapse and improved sleep and functioning on certain outcomes in bipolar disorder. Hence, sleep disturbance appears to be an important pathway contributing to bipolar disorder. The need to develop bipolar disorder–specific sleep diary scoring standards is highlighted.

Borderline personality disorder (PD) has historically been cast as an unabating condition. Longitudinal data, however, support a more variable time course marked by remission and relapse. In the present study, we tested the possibility that borderline PD has both stable (i.e., consistently present across time and situation, as modern diagnostic systems stipulate) and dynamic (i.e., episodic and situational) elements. Participants were 668 patients from the Collaborative Longitudinal Personality Disorders Study who were administered semistructured diagnostic interviews 5 times over a decade. Trait–state-occasion modeling dissected borderline pathology into time-invariant (i.e., trait) and time-varying (i.e., state) components. Contradicting traditional views of PD intransigence, less than half of borderline PD variability (approximately 45%) was time-invariant (i.e., perfectly stable) over the study timeframe. Furthermore, we found that the time-invariant component of borderline pathology, which we termed borderline proneness, was very closely related (r = .81) to a previously validated Five Factor Model trait composite of borderline features. Moreover, the trait versus state components showed a clear pattern of discriminant validity in relation to several putative causal agents for borderline PD (i.e., environmental pathogens, temperament dimensions). We conclude that borderline pathology contains a stable core and sizable situational components, and that both elements relate systematically to normative personality dimensions and known risk factors. These findings have key implications for etiological research, prognosis, and treatment for borderline PD.

Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) features may be unaware of or unwilling to report their own personality or maladaptive behaviors, which complicates the assessment of BPD. Informants who know the individuals with BPD features may be uniquely suited to aid in the personality assessment of these individuals. The present study analyzed the comparative ability of individuals (targets) and informants to report BPD features across the continuum of BPD severity. The sample consisted of 1387 targets, ages 55 to 65 (56% women), who were recruited for an epidemiological longitudinal study examining the effects of PDs on health and social functioning. Each target nominated an informant who provided information about the target’s personality. Results indicated relatively low levels of agreement between perspectives and that informants reported BPD symptoms with more precision and at lower levels of BPD severity than targets. The benefits of including an informant perspective when measuring the BPD continuum are discussed; these benefits may include gains in reliability and improvement in the prediction of outcomes.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a form of evidence-based talking therapy that emphasises the importance of behaviour and conscious thoughts in shaping our emotional experiences. As pain becomes increasingly accepted as not only a sensory but also an emotional experience, success in using CBT to treat emotional disorders has resulted in the incorporation of cognitive-behavioural principles into the management of chronic pain. Outcomes of CBT-informed interdisciplinary pain management programmes are modest at best, despite rapid methodological improvements in trial design and implementation. Whilst the field searches for new treatment directions, a hybrid CBT approach that seeks to simultaneously tackle pain and its comorbidities shows promise in optimising treatment effectiveness and flexibility. This article provides a brief description of the core characteristics of CBT and the transformation this therapeutic model has brought to our understanding and management of chronic pain. Current evidence on efficacy of CBT for chronic pain is then reviewed, followed by a critical consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of the new hybrid treatment approach that conceptualises and treats chronic pain in connection with its comorbidities. Recent progress made in the area of pain and insomnia is highlighted as an example to project therapeutic innovations in the near future.

Modeling and prediction of psychological disorders is a hot topic in current research. Neural networks are very important factors in improving the accuracy and precision ratios of the models which are developed for the prediction of the psychological disorders. An upgraded neural network prediction model of psychological diseases was suggested in order to attain an optimum prediction effect of psychological disorders. First, it analyzes the current progress in predicting the psychological barrier, finds the current limitations of various psychological barrier forecast model, collects the historical data of psychological barriers, and introduces the chaos algorithm of mental disorder history data preprocessing, psychological barriers to better mining change characteristic, and then, after pretreatment using neural network to the psychological barriers to learning history data, introduce the grain subgroup algorithm to improve the problems existing in the neural network, establish a prediction model of the optimal psychological barriers, and finally, through the contrast test and other psychological obstacle prediction model, the results depict enhanced neural network psychological barrier prediction accuracy of more than 95%, compared with the contrast model. Precision is improved by more than 5%. At the same time, the psychological barrier modeling time is shorter, improving the psychological barriers to predict. The efficiency has a higher practical application value.

This video, from the Milton H. Erickson Foundation, features Christine Padesky and Martin Seligman discussing cognitive behavioral therapy and positive psychology at the 2013 Evolution in Psychotherapy conference.

Interpersonal depression theories posit that excessive submissiveness in social interactions perpetuates negative mood. Correspondingly, many psychotherapies postulate that improvement can be facilitated by patient−therapist interactions. However, few studies have tested in-session patient and therapist behaviors that should, in theory, associate with depression reduction. Addressing this gap, the present study examined such associations in interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT). We hypothesized that decreases in patients’ submissive interpersonal impacts on their therapist would be associated with greater depression reduction, as would increases in therapists’ friendly submissive impacts on their patient; theoretically, such therapist behavior would pull for patients to complement it with adaptive assertiveness, thereby disrupting their submissive tendencies. Data derived from an open trial of 16 IPT sessions for adults with major depression. Patients (N = 119) and therapists (N = 39) rated the others’ interpersonal impacts at Sessions 3 and 16 via the Impact Message Inventory. Patients rated their depression on the Beck Depression Inventory—Second Edition after each session. As predicted, multilevel modeling revealed that decreases in patients’ submissive impacts were associated with greater concurrent depression reduction (p = .03) and lower posttreatment depression level (p = .03). Also, although therapists did not differ in their change in friendly submissive impacts, thus precluding a test of the influence of such change on outcome, a greater average level of therapist friendly submissiveness related to lower posttreatment depression (p = .008). Results support interpersonal depression theories and the therapeutic benefit of specific patient and therapist change processes in IPT.

Objective: Internet-based cognitive–behavioral treatments (ICBT) have shown promise for various mental disorders, including social anxiety disorder (SAD). Most of these treatments have been delivered on desktop computers. However, the use of smartphones is becoming ubiquitous and could extend the reach of ICBT into users’ everyday life. Only a few studies have empirically examined the efficacy of ICBT delivered through a smartphone app and there is no published study on mobile app delivered ICBT for SAD. This three-arm randomized-controlled trial (RCT) is the first to compare the efficacy of guided ICBT for smartphones (app) and conventional computers (PC) with a wait list control group (WL). Method: A total of 150 individuals meeting the diagnostic criteria for SAD were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions. Primary endpoints were self-report measures and diagnostic status of SAD. Results: After 12 weeks of treatment, both active conditions showed superior outcome on the composite of all SAD measures (PC vs. WL: d = 0.74; App vs. WL: d = 0.89) and promising diagnostic response rates (NNTPC = 3.33; NNTApp = 6.00) compared to the WL. No significant between-groups effects were found between the two active conditions on the composite score (Cohen’s d = 0.07). Treatment gains were maintained at 3-month follow-up. Program use was more evenly spread throughout the day in the mobile condition, indicating an integration of the program into daily routines. Conclusions: ICBT can be delivered effectively using smartphones.

An individual with schizophrenia, and her therapist of 30 years, came to feel strongly that it is important for professionals to hear a patient’s view of the therapy experience and for them to have the opportunity to question both patient and therapist. This article is based on their panel at the American Psychological Association Division of Psychoanalysis meeting in New York, April 25, 2014, which included a discussion facilitated by Diana Diamond, which follows this article. The patient described how her relationship with her therapist and her own understanding of transference have grown and how these have affected her life, including the development of more complex images of herself and others and her relationships with internal and external figures and a stronger sense of self. The therapist describes and discusses her approach to the therapy, and Dr. Diamond comments on changes in object representations over time and on the process of change in psychotherapy.

The recovery movement has challenged long-standing pessimism associated with the prospects for persons with schizophrenia and has identified self-direction as a central and necessary element in recovery and recovery-oriented treatment services. Despite important contributions in this regard, 1 concern is that the conditions and interventions that might best promote self-direction have not yet been fully addressed. In particular, there are some necessary conditions that enable self-direction as well as aspects of the experience of schizophrenia that may imperil these. The authors suggest a basic framework of key tasks for self-direction and identify 5 complicating factors that might imperil self-directed recovery. Following this, a potential role for psychotherapy in the promotion of self-directed recovery is posited, and the authors explore an integrative practice element of recovery-oriented psychotherapy intended to optimize self-direction and self-determination in the treatment of schizophrenia.

Patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) display disturbances in self and other understanding, which is also evident when they narrate events from their own and significant others’ lives. In a recent study, we found that patients described both their own and their parents’ life stories as more negative and with fewer themes of agency and communion fulfillment. Hence, we examined whether 12 months of psychotherapy would change how patients described their own and their parents’ life stories. At baseline, 30 BPD patients and 30 matched control participants described and answered questions about their personal and their parents’ life stories. At follow-up, 23 patients and 23 control participants repeated the same procedure after patients had completed 12 months of psychotherapy. At both baseline and follow-up, the life stories were coded for complexity and themes of agency, communion, communion fulfillment, and self−other confusion. BPD patients’ personal life stories increased significantly in agency from baseline to follow-up compared with the control group, whereas other aspects of personal and parents’ life stories did not change significantly after therapy. Development of agency through the reconstruction of personal life stories may be a crucial mechanism in psychotherapy with BPD patients.

This article addresses the complex process of termination in psychoanalysis. Implicit in self-consciousness is the knowledge of death; similarly, one begins treatment knowing that it must end. It is argued that the end is always present in the beginning of treatment and, conversely, termination leads back to the onset of analysis. It is also proposed that termination issues, rather than represent a phase in the treatment, are present throughout the analysis. Terminations are different from endings in that terminations are inevitably incomplete. A case is offered to illustrate these points and to show some of the challenges encountered even when termination is mutually planned and agreed upon. Although the word termination implies finality, artful termination involves transcending the need for the analytic relationship while continuing the work of insight and relational transformation.

This paper examines changes in the way psychoanalytic aims have been formulated over the years. I claim that these changes are, at least partly, the result of wide cultural and social processes that took place in Western society, seen here through shifts in the prevailing worldview (Weltanschauung). Following in the steps of the philosopher Charles Taylor (2007), this study describes 3 fundamental worldviews—the religious, the secular–humanist, and the postmodern—and claims that psychoanalysis adapts itself to shifts in the dominance of these perspectives. I demonstrate how, as each worldview gained ascendancy, a corresponding analytic mode appeared or gained credence, assimilating ideals of the 'life worth living' as prescribed by that particular worldview and translating them into analytic aims. The modes described are classical psychoanalysis, relational theories, and a new emerging spiritually-sensitive psychoanalysis. The contributions made by each worldview to the development of psychoanalysis are discussed, as well as the ways each worldview hindered such development.

This paper argues that psychoanalysis should open itself more to dialogue with the humanities. It shows why this is the case and analyzes the forces that go against such openness. It explores the affinities of psychoanalysis and the humanities and their common interests. It begins by addressing the direct contributions of specific research in the humanities on psychoanalysis. It then looks at the more general benefits possible were there improved dialogue with the humanities and, finally, at psychoanalysis’ affinity with a specific part of the humanities, namely, its critical ethos.

Objective: To compare the effectiveness of individual cognitive–behavioral therapy (ICBT) and group CBT (GCBT) for referred children with anxiety disorders within community mental health clinics. Method: Children (N = 165; ages 7–13 years) referred to 5 clinics in Norway because of primary separation anxiety disorder (SAD), social anxiety disorder (SOC), or generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text rev.) criteria participated in a randomized clinical trial. Participants were randomized to ICBT, GCBT, or wait list (WL). WL participants were randomized to 1 of the 2 active treatment conditions following the wait period. Primary outcome was loss of principal anxiety disorder over 12 weeks and 2-year follow-up. Results: Both ICBT and GCBT were superior to WL on all outcomes. In the intent-to-treat analysis, 52% in ICBT, 65% in GCBT, and 14% in WL were treatment responders. Planned pairwise comparisons found no significant differences between ICBT and GCBT. GCBT was superior to ICBT for children diagnosed with SOC. Improvement continued during 2-year follow-up with no significant between-groups differences. Conclusions: Among anxiety disordered children, both individual and group CBT can be effectively delivered in community clinics. Response rates were similar to those reported in efficacy trials. Although GCBT was more effective than ICBT for children with SOC following treatment, both treatments were comparable at 2-year follow-up. Dropout rates were lower in GCBT than in ICBT, suggesting that GCBT may be better tolerated. Response rates continued to improve over the follow-up period, with low rates of relapse.

Insomnia, characterized by difficulty falling or staying asleep and associated daytime impairments, is experienced by approximately 30–50% of the general population and is associated with significant negative physical, psychological, and financial outcomes. Insomnia is highly comorbid with other psychological and medical disorders (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder) and typically persists after successful treatment of the other complaint. Clearly, insomnia is a significant problem that should be addressed by providers treating individuals with other psychological complaints, yet sleep problems are frequently ignored or improperly treated, and current treatments of most comorbid psychological and medical disorders do not directly address insomnia. The emergence of sleep psychology interventions for insomnia (e.g., cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia [CBT-I]) has provided a promising route to efficacious treatment of insomnia that avoids the drawbacks of hypnotic medications. Moreover, contemporary research studies are testing the integration of the sleep psychotherapies previously validated in pure primary insomnia into comorbid populations as well as new settings, populations, and delivery methods. The goal of this special section was to publish new, innovative, and cutting-edge approaches to CBT-I, which would serve to significantly improve the science as well as the care of those with comorbid insomnia. Two articles examining future directions of CBT-I and sleep psychology broadly are published here. The existing body of evidence, as well as the articles in this special section, provides compelling evidence for practitioners, regardless of their primary theoretical orientation, to engage in technical eclecticism as a matter of best practice for treatment of insomnia.

This meta-analysis examines temporal changes (time trends) in the effects of group cognitive–behavioral therapy (GCBT) as a treatment for unipolar depression. In this exploratory study, 37 studies (comprising 1,016 patients) conducted between 1980 and 2015 were included, and their effect sizes (ESs) were quantified as Hedge’s g based on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD). In the main analyses, within-group (prepost) comparisons (k = 35 for the BDI, and k = 14 for the HRSD) and controlled (between group) comparisons (k = 16 for the BDI) were conducted. The average within-group ES was 1.33 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.16–1.19) for the BDI and 1.56 for the HRSD (95% CI = 1.20–1.90). The publication year of each study was examined as a linear metaregression predictor of ES. The results showed a significant increase in effect sizes for GCBT over time, with the BDI as outcome measure. However, this was not found for the HRSD as outcome measure. Subgroup analyses were performed on selected moderator variables to determine whether there was any covariation with effect sizes. These analyses revealed that in trials conducted without following a set manual, effect sizes increased with time—an association not found for trials using a manual. Potential causes and implications are discussed.

Cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) is a system of psychotherapy in which an individualized case formulation drives the strategic delivery of therapeutic interventions that target cognition, emotion, behavior, and the therapeutic relationship. It has the potential to be effective for women who have experienced pregnancy loss, as pregnancy loss often carries profound meaning that disrupts many layers of a woman’s belief system, and the associated emotional consequences cannot always be managed using their typical repertoire of coping skills. The distinctive features of CBT are described, as well as 3 typical intervention strategies (i.e., behavioral activation, cognitive restructuring, and mindfulness and acceptance) that are often delivered during the course of CBT with patients who have experienced pregnancy loss. Throughout the article, emphasis is placed on balancing attention to the therapeutic relationship and affective experiencing with the implementation of cognitive and behavioral change strategies.

This is a commentary on 5 articles that illustrate some of the very different ways in which clinical practitioners, researchers, and theorists have attempted to integrate aspects of the existential-humanistic orientation into their model and practice of psychotherapy. One paper describes the integration of mindfulness practice with the psychoanalytic concept of mentalizing. These 2 concepts suggest a common factor shared by the 3 major schools of psychotherapy, namely, the acceptance of one’s unwanted internal experience. Three papers describe an integration of some aspects of the existential-humanistic orientation with cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). The last paper reverses this trend by assimilating aspects of CBT into a well-developed model of existential psychotherapy. The commentary highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each approach to integration.

The article investigates the relationship between crucial concepts and understandings in gestalt therapy and cognitive therapy aiming at discussing if and how they can be mutually enriching when considered as complementary parts in a more encompassing integrative therapeutic approach. It is argued that gestalt therapy, defined as a field-theoretical approach to the study of gestalt formation process, can complement the schema-based understanding and practice in cognitive therapy. The clinical benefits from a complementary view of the two approaches will be a wider scope of awareness toward individual and contextual aspects of therapeutic change processes, toward different levels of memory involved in these processes, and toward the relationship between basic needs, sensation and cognition in therapeutic work. Further, a dialogue between the two approaches will pave the way for addressing the connection between fundamental awareness work in gestalt therapy and the tendency within cognitive therapy toward incorporating mindfulness as a therapeutic tool. In the conclusion of the article, additional complementary points between the two approaches are outlined.

This program features excerpts from Three Approaches to Psychotherapy in which the client "Gloria" has sessions with Carl Rogers, Albert Ellis, and Frederick (Fritz) Perls. Psychologist Dr. Everett Shostrum, producer of the famed series, analyzes the styles of each of the therapists, contrasting them and describing their unique contributions. He then describes how his theory of actualization therapy attempts to integrate these three approaches into a working unity.

The process of contracting for change in the initial session will be described and discussed. Methods of targeting goals will be compared and contrasted.

To evaluate the efficacy of adjunct music therapy on patients with schizophrenia, we conducted a meta-analysis of currently available randomized controlled trials and controlled clinical trials. Eight electronic databases (CNKI, PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Psychology and behavioural Sciences Collection, and Medline) were systematically searched from inception to January 2020. Standard mean difference (SMD) with 95% confidence interval (CI) values were used to evaluate the effects of music therapy. Finally, we selected eighteen studies comprising 1,212 participants comparing with control conditions. The meta-analysis demonstrated that adjunct music therapy significantly improved total symptoms (SMD = -0.48, 95%CI: -0.74 to -0.22), negative symptoms (SMD=-0.56, 95%CI: -0.72 to -0.40), depression symptoms (SMD = -0.35, 95% CI: -0.54 to -0.17), and quality of life (SMD = 0.35, 95%CI: 0.07 to 0.62) in people with schizophrenia compared with the control group. In addition, the meta-analysis indicated no publication bias for total symptoms, negative symptoms, and positive symptoms. The sensitivity analysis showed that the result was reliable. But the quality of evidence is still low, more well-designed studies with larger sample size and high quality are needed to confirm the efficiency of adjunct music therapy in treating schizophrenia.

The unprecedented changes in our society because of COVID-19 and the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) shows that our healthcare system and the medical approach to psychotherapy can no longer meet the mental health needs of society. This paper first described the negative impact of COVID-19 and 4IR on our mental health. Then, following a brief critique of the medical model, this paper proposes that the future of psychotherapy needs to be based on the more inclusive and integrative framework of existential positive psychology (PP 2.0), which emphasizes flourishing through suffering. Finally, the paper emphasizes Viktor Frankl's cure and Wong's integrative meaning therapy. It concludes that integrative meaning therapy represents the future of psychotherapy, because it is situated in the area of interactions of at least three traditions: Clinical psychology, existential psychology, and positive psychology. This integrative model is holistic, recognising humans as bio-psycho-social-spiritual beings and considers several theoretical perspectives in both diagnosis and treatment.

Gupta explains how stress impacts health; prolonged stress is linked to heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure. Hall shares techniques for lowering stress. Thurman uses yoga to keep PTSD at bay, and he teaches a class at the Pentagon where his journey began.

Among people exposed to major psychological stressors in early life, there are elevated rates of morbidity and mortality from chronic diseases of aging. The most compelling data come from studies of children raised in poverty or maltreated by their parents, who show heightened vulnerability to vascular disease, autoimmune disorders, and premature mortality. These findings raise challenging theoretical questions. How does childhood stress get under the skin, at the molecular level, to affect risk for later diseases? And how does it incubate there, giving rise to diseases several decades later? Here we present a biological embedding model, which attempts to address these questions by synthesizing knowledge across several behavioral and biomedical literatures. This model maintains that childhood stress gets 'programmed' into macrophages through epigenetic markings, posttranslational modifications, and tissue remodeling. As a consequence these cells are endowed with proinflammatory tendencies, manifest in exaggerated cytokine responses to challenge and decreased sensitivity to inhibitory hormonal signals. The model goes on to propose that over the life course, these proinflammatory tendencies are exacerbated by behavioral proclivities and hormonal dysregulation, themselves the products of exposure to early stress. Behaviorally, the model posits that childhood stress gives rise to excessive threat vigilance, mistrust of others, poor social relationships, impaired self-regulation, and unhealthy lifestyle choices. Hormonally, early stress confers altered patterns of endocrine and autonomic discharge. This milieu amplifies the proinflammatory environment already instantiated by macrophages. Acting in concert with other exposures and genetic liabilities, the resulting inflammation drives forward pathogenic mechanisms that ultimately foster chronic disease.

The present report meta-analyzes more than 300 empirical articles describing a relationship between psychological stress and parameters of the immune system in human participants. Acute stressors (lasting minutes) were associated with potentially adaptive upregulation of some parameters of natural immunity and downregulation of some functions of specific immunity. Brief naturalistic stressors (such as exams) tended to suppress cellular immunity while preserving humoral immunity. Chronic stressors were associated with suppression of both cellular and humoral measures. Effects of event sequences varied according to the kind of event (trauma vs. loss). Subjective reports of stress generally did not associate with immune change. In some cases, physical vulnerability as a function of age or disease also increased vulnerability to immune change during stressors.

This study examined whether chronic stress impairs the immune system's capacity to respond to hormonal signals that terminate inflammation. Fifty healthy adults were studied; half were parents of cancer patients, and half were parents of healthy children. Parents of cancer patients reported more psychological distress than parents of healthy children. They also had flatter diurnal slopes of cortisol secretion, primarily because of reduced output during the morning hours. There was also evidence that chronic stress impaired the immune system's response to anti-inflammatory signals: The capacity of a synthetic glucocorticoid hormone to suppress in vitro production of the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-6 was diminished among parents of cancer patients. Findings suggest a novel pathway by which chronic stress might alter the course of inflammatory disease.

Objective: Long-term psychological stress is associated with BMI increases in children as they transition to adulthood, whereas long-term maintenance of physical activity can slow excess weight gain. We hypothesized that in addition to these main effects, long-term physical activity mitigates the relationship between long-term stress and BMI increase. Method: The NHLBI Growth and Health Study enrolled 2,379 10-year-old Black and White girls, following them annually for 10 measurement points. Growth curve modeling captured the dynamics of BMI, measured yearly, and stress and physical activity, measured at varying years. Results: At average levels of activity and stress, with all covariates remaining fixed, average BMI at baseline was 19.74 (SE = 0.38) and increased 0.64 BMI (SE = 0.01, p < .001) units every year. However, this increase in BMI significantly varied as a function of cumulative stress and physical activity. Slower BMI gain occurred in those girls who were less stressed and more active (0.62 BMI units/year, SE = .02, p < .001), whereas the most rapid and largest growth occurred in girls who were more stressed and less active (0.92 BMI units/year, SE = .02, p < .001). Racial identification did not alter these effects. Conclusions: As hypothesized, in girls who maintained long-term activity, BMI growth was mitigated, even when reporting high long-term stress, compared with less physically active girls. This study adds to a converging literature in which physical activity, a modifiable prevention target, functions to potentially limit the damaging health effects of long-term psychological stress.

Research on coping mechanisms among Black Americans is robust, yet there is a dearth of studies that use qualitative approaches to examine coping specifically among young Black men. The current and historical landscape of race relations in the United States calls for additional concern and exploration of this topic. To fill gaps in this area, this study uncovered the ways Black college men cope with various stressors that impact their mental health. Eleven qualitative interviews were conducted with 18- to 25-year-old Black men enrolled at a college in the Midwest who participated in the Young Black Men, Masculinities, and Mental Health (YBMen) project. Data were analyzed using a rigorous and accelerated data reduction technique that involved transferring transcript data onto spreadsheets, reducing the data, and conducting a rigorous content analysis to generate themes and subthemes. Participants reported that Black college men cope with stress by discussing their issues with members of their social support networks, engaging in physical activities, and relying on themselves. Some respondents reported that they intentionally avoided dealing with their mental health, whereas others attempted to make sense of their problems. Substance use, violence, and anger were all identified as markers of unaddressed stressors. Stigma emerged as a barrier to seeking help. Study findings highlight within-group differences among Black college men. Mental health researchers must continue to develop creative ways to examine stress and coping so that resources can become more culturally relevant and readily available both within and outside of the spaces Black men occupy.

Despite the substantial attention paid to stress management in the extant coping literature, media use has been surprisingly overlooked as a strategy worthy of close examination. Although media scholars have suggested media use may be driven by a need to relax, related research has been sporadic and, until recently, disconnected from the larger conversation about stress management. The present research aimed to determine the relative value of media use within the broader range of coping strategies. Based on surveys of both students and breast cancer patients, media use emerged as one of the most frequently selected strategies for managing stress across a range of personality and individual difference variables. Further, heavier television consumers and those with higher perceived stress were also more likely to use media for coping purposes. Finally, those who choose media for stress management reported it to be an effective tool, although perhaps not as effective as other popular strategies. This research not only documents the centrality of media use in the corpus of stress management techniques, thus highlighting the value of academic inquiry into media-based coping, but it also offers evidence supporting the positive role media use can play in promoting psychological well-being.

Objective: Marital quality impacts inflammatory processes. Dyadic coping, a spousal support process in which members of a couple work together to cope with the stressors that 1 or both partners are facing, is associated with higher marital satisfaction and reduced psychological distress. The goal of the present study was to evaluate whether dyadic coping is also related to systemic inflammation among individuals facing chronic parenting stress. Method: Forty-four parents of children with an autism spectrum disorder completed self-report questionnaires on dyadic coping, marital satisfaction, perceived social support, and caregiving burden. They also provided a blood sample for C-reactive protein (CRP) analysis, a marker of systemic inflammation. Results: Higher positive dyadic coping was significantly associated with lower circulating CRP, while negative dyadic coping was unrelated to CRP. After adjusting for individual differences in marital satisfaction, perceived social support, and caregiving burden, positive dyadic coping became marginally associated with CRP. Conclusion: Positive dyadic coping is a specific interpersonal process that may modulate systemic inflammation among individuals exposed to chronic stress.

The increasing incidence of occupational stress is recognized as a global phenomenon that is having a detrimental impact on both individuals and organizations. This study aims to identify whether men and women adopt different stress and coping processes when subjected to stress in a work context. A total of 258 workers of various professions (males = 106, females = 152) participated in the study. Results indicated that men and women differ in their stress and coping processes, forming two very distinct groups and adopting specific process models when encountering a stressful situation at work. Limitations and implications from this study are discussed.

Objective: Emerging theory and research suggest that self-compassion promotes the practice of health behaviors, and implicates self-regulation as an explanatory factor. However, previous investigations focused only on behavior intentions or health risk behaviors, and did not investigate the role of emotions. This study expands on this research using a small-scale meta-analysis approach with our own data sets to examine the associations of self-compassion with a set of health-promoting behaviors, and test the roles of high positive affect and low negative affect as potential explanatory mechanisms. Method: Fifteen independent samples (N = 3,252) with correlations of self-compassion with the frequency of self-reported health-promoting behaviors (eating habits, exercise, sleep behaviors, and stress management) were meta-analyzed. Eight of these samples completed measures of positive and negative affect. Results: Self-compassion was positively associated with the practice of health-promoting behaviors across all 15 samples. The meta-analysis revealed a small effect size (average r = .25; p < .001) of self-compassion and health behaviors, with low variability. Tests of the indirect effects of self-compassion on health behaviors through positive and negative affect with multiple mediator analyses revealed small effects for each. Separate meta-analyses of the indirect effects (IE) were significant for positive (average IE = .08; p < .001) and negative affect (average IE = .06; p < .001), and their combined indirect effects (average IE = .15; p < .0001). Conclusion: Self-compassion may be an important quality to cultivate for promoting positive health behaviors, due in part to its association with adaptive emotions.

Objective: To describe behavioral and genetic beliefs about developing hypertension (HTN) by sociodemographic factors and self-reported HTN status, and among those with a history of HTN, evaluate associations between HTN-related causal beliefs and behavior change attempts. Method: Data from the 2014 Health Information National Trends Survey were evaluated. HTN causal beliefs questions included (a) 'How much do you think health behaviors like diet, exercise, and smoking determine whether or not a person will develop high blood pressure/HTN?'; and (b) 'How much do you think genetics, that is characteristics passed from one generation to the next, determine whether or not a person will develop high blood pressure/HTN?' Multivariate logistic regressions evaluated associations between HTN causal beliefs and behavior change attempts including diet, exercise, and weight management. Results: Approximately 1,602 out of 3,555 respondents with nonmissing data (33% weighted) reported ever having HTN. In logistic regression models, results show that the more strongly people believed in the impact of behavior on developing HTN, the higher their odds for behavior change attempts. Beliefs about genetic causes of HTN were not associated with behavior change attempts. Women had higher odds of attempts to increase fruit and vegetable intake, reduce soda intake, and lose weight compared to men. Blacks and Hispanics were significantly more likely than Whites to report attempts to lose weight. Conclusions: Beliefs about behavioral causes of HTN, but not genetic, were associated with behavior change attempts. Health messages that incorporate behavioral beliefs and sociodemographic factors may enhance future prohealth behavior changes.

Objective: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) results in substantial disability, including increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Poor health behaviors are major risk factors for initial and recurrent CVD events. Therefore, this study investigated whether PTSD is associated with poor health behaviors in patients with CVD. Method: Cross-sectional study of 1,022 men and women with CVD. PTSD was assessed with the Computerized Diagnostic Interview Schedule for DSM–IV. Physical activity, medication adherence and smoking history were determined by self-report questionnaires. Multivariate logistic and linear regression models were used to evaluate the association of PTSD with health behaviors. Results: Of the 1,022 participants, 95 (9%) had PTSD. PTSD was associated with significantly higher rates of physical inactivity in terms of overall exercise (OR 1.6, 95% CI [1.0–2.6]; p = .049), light exercise (OR 1.7, 95% CI [1.0–2.9]; p = .045), and self-rated level of exercise compared to others of their age and sex (OR 1.8, 95% CI [1.0–3.0]; p = .047). Participants with PTSD were more likely to report medication nonadherence, including forgetting medications (OR 1.8, 95% CI [1.0–3.3]; p = .04) or skipping medications (OR 1.7, 95% CI [1.1–2.9]; p = .03). Participants with PTSD also reported a greater smoking history (β 6.4 pack years, 95% CI [1.8–10.9]; p = .006), which remained significant after adjustment for depression and income. Conclusions: Among patients with heart disease, those with PTSD were more likely to report physical inactivity, medication nonadherence and smoking. The majority of these associations were explained by adjustment for comorbid depression and lower income.

The objective of this study was to examine the link between systemic and general psychosocial stress and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in a group of U.S. Latinos as a function of acculturation and education within the blended guiding conceptual framework of the biopsychosocial model of the stress process plus the reserve capacity model. We analyzed data from self-identifying Mexican-origin adults (n = 396, 56.9% female, M.sub.age = 58.2 years, 55.5% < 12 years of education, 79% U.S.-born) from the Texas City Stress and Health Study. We used established measures of perceived stress (general stress), neighborhood stress and discrimination (systemic stress) to capture psychosocial stress, our primary predictor. We used the atherosclerotic CVD calculator to assess 10-year CVD risk, our primary outcome. This calculator uses demographics, cholesterol, blood pressure, and history of hypertension, smoking, and diabetes to compute CVD risk in the next 10 years. We also created an acculturation index using English-language use, childhood interaction, and preservation of cultural values. Participants reported years of education. Contrary to expectations, findings showed that higher levels of all three forms of psychosocial stress, perceived stress, neighborhood stress, and perceived discrimination, predicted lower 10-year CVD risk. Acculturation and education did not moderate the effects of psychosocial stress on 10-year CVD risk. Contextualized within the biopsychosocial and reserve capacity framework, we interpret our findings such that participants who accurately reported their stressors may have turned to their social networks to handle the stress, thereby reducing their risk for CVD. We highlight the importance of examining strengths within the sociocultural environment when considering cardiovascular inequities among Latinos.

Forty decades of sociological stress research offer five major findings. First, when stressors (negative events, chronic strains, and traumas) are measured comprehensively, their damaging impacts on physical and mental health are substantial. Second, differential exposure to stressful experiences is a primary way that gender, racial-ethnic, marital status, and social class inequalities in physical and mental health are produced. Third, minority group members are additionally harmed by discrimination stress. Fourth, stressors proliferate over the life course and across generations, widening health gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged group members. Fifth, the impacts of stressors on health and well-being are reduced when persons have high levels of mastery, self-esteem, and/or social support. With respect to policy, to help individuals cope with adversity, tried and true coping and support interventions should be more widely disseminated and employed. To address health inequalities, the structural conditions that put people at risk of stressors should be a focus of programs and policies at macro and meso levels of intervention. Programs and policies also should target children who are at lifetime risk of ill health and distress due to exposure to poverty and stressful family circumstances.

Growing evidence indicates that self-compassion is associated with better physical health, but the pathways that mediate this relationship are not well understood. This study tested a serial mediation model that linked self-compassion, perceived stress, health behaviors, and a comprehensive index of physical health. A sample of 176 individuals completed an online survey posted on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Self-compassion had an indirect effect on physical health via both mediators and through the sequential pathway, suggesting that taking a kind, accepting and mindful stance toward one’s flaws and failures may have benefits for reducing stress and promoting health behaviors.

Psychosocial work stress, and shift and night work are considered risk indicators for impaired health. Using the effort-reward (ER) model, it was possible to examine which relationships exist for shift workers between clusters (CL) of different levels of psychosocial work stress and overcommitment (OC) and cardiovascular or psychological health indicators, and which predictive value is evident in individual health indicators to explain the clusters. The data were collected as part of an occupational health prevention program. The analysis sample consisted of 199 shift workers from alternating shift systems with and without night work (43%) (average age: 40 ± 12 years, men: 47%). Psychosocial work stress was recorded using the ER imbalance (ERI) questionnaire. To determine the clusters, ERI and OC were entered into a cluster analysis. Blood pressure, body mass index, waist-hip ratio, PROCAM score (risk of a heart attack within the next 10 years), sporting activity, and smoking were included as cardiovascular indicators, psychological wellbeing (GHQ-12) and inability to recovery (IR) (FABA) as psychological health indicators. Shift system, sex, and age were entered into the statistical analyses as control variables. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to identify health-related predictors to explain the ER-OC clusters. Three different ER-OC clusters emerged: low-stress: 36%, normal: 44%, risk: 20%. While normal psychosocial work stress is present in the low-stress and the normal CL, in the risk CL 28% of the shift workers show a health-endangering ERI and 48% show an excessive OC. No significant cluster-specific differences were determined for the cardiovascular health indicators. Rather, the known sex and age effects were confirmed and the shift system had no significant effect. Significantly more shift workers in the risk CL had impaired psychological health (18 vs. 1/6%) and an IR (52 vs. 0/12%) than in the low-stress and normal CL. IR turned out to be the strongest predictor of the explanation for the ER-OC clusters (49%). IR could be assigned an independent diagnostic value for the assessment of psychosocial work stresses and discussed as a new component of occupational health screening concepts for shift workers. Independently of this, the health indicators signal an urgent need for occupational health prevention and care.

Does familiarity promote attraction? Prior research has generally suggested that it does, but a recent set of studies by Norton, Frost, and Ariely (2007) challenged that assumption. Instead, they found that more information about another person, when that information was randomly selected from lists of trait adjectives, using a trait evaluation paradigm, promoted perceptions of dissimilarity and, hence, disliking. The present research began with the assumption that natural social interaction involves contexts and processes not present in Norton et al.'s research or in the typical familiarity experiment. We theorized that these processes imply a favorable impact of familiarity on attraction. Two experiments are reported using a live interaction paradigm in which two previously unacquainted same-sex persons interacted with each other for varying amounts of time. Findings strongly supported the 'familiarity leads to attraction' hypothesis: The more participants interacted, the more attracted they were to each other. Mediation analyses identified three processes that contribute to this effect: perceived responsiveness, increased comfort and satisfaction during interaction, and perceived knowledge.

A series of field studies focused on the role of similarity as niche construction in friendships. Using a free-range dyad harvest method, we collected 11 independent samples with 1,523 interacting pairs, and compared dyad members’ personality traits, attitudes, values, recreational activities, and alcohol and drug use. Within-dyad similarity was statistically significant on 86% of variables measured. To determine whether similarity was primarily attributable to niche construction (i.e., selection) or social influence, we tested whether similarity increased as closeness, intimacy, discussion, length of relationship, and importance of the attitude increased. There were no effects on similarity of closeness, relationship length, or discussion of the attitude. There were quite modest effects of intimacy, and a reliable effect of the shared importance of the attitude. Because relationship length, intimacy, closeness, and discussion can all serve as markers of opportunity for, or potency of social influence, these data are consistent with the 'niche construction' account of similarity. In 2 follow-up controlled longitudinal field studies, participants interacted with people they did not know from their large lecture classes, and at a later time completed a survey of attitudes, values, and personality traits. Interacting pairs were not more similar than chance, but for the 23% of dyads that interacted beyond the first meeting, there was significant similarity within dyad members. These 2 lines of inquiry converge to suggest that similarity is mainly due to niche construction, and is most important in the early stages of a relationship; its importance to further relationship development wanes.

Theoretical perspectives on mating differentially emphasize whether (and why) romantic partner selection and maintenance processes derive from stable features of individuals (e.g., mate value, mate preferences, relationship aptitude) and their environments (e.g., social homogamy) rather than adventitious, dyad-specific, or unpredictable factors. The current article advances our understanding of this issue by assessing how people’s actual romantic partners vary on constructs commonly assessed in evolutionary psychology (Study 1), sociology (Study 2), and close relationships (Study 3). Specifically, we calculated the extent to which the past and present partners of a focal person (i.e., the person who dated all of the partners) cluster on various measures. Study 1 investigated consistency in the observable qualities of the romantic partners, revealing substantial evidence for clustering on coder-rated attributes like attractiveness and masculinity. Study 2 examined qualities self-reported by romantic partners themselves in a demographically diverse sample and found modest evidence for clustering on attributes such as IQ and educational aspirations; however, clustering in this study was largely due to demographic stratification. Study 3 explored target-specific ratings by partners about the focal person and found little evidence for clustering: The ability to elicit high romantic desirability/sexual satisfaction ratings from partners was not a stable individual difference. The variables that affect mating may differ considerably in the extent to which they serve as stable versus unpredictable factors; thus, the fields of evolutionary psychology, sociology, and close relationships may reveal distinct depictions of mating because the constructs and assessment strategies in each differ along this underappreciated dimension.

Do romantic partners see each other realistically, or do they have overly positive perceptions of each other? Research has shown that realism and positivity co-exist in romantic partners’ perceptions (Boyes & Fletcher, 2007). The current study takes a novel approach to explaining this seemingly paradoxical effect when it comes to physical attractiveness—a highly evaluative trait that is especially relevant to romantic relationships. Specifically, we argue that people are aware that others do not see their partners as positively as they do. Using both mean differences and correlational approaches, we test the hypothesis that despite their own biased and idiosyncratic perceptions, people have 2 types of partner-knowledge: insight into how their partners see themselves (i.e., identity accuracy) and insight into how others see their partners (i.e., reputation accuracy). Our results suggest that romantic partners have some awareness of each other’s identity and reputation for physical attractiveness, supporting theories that couple members’ perceptions are driven by motives to fulfill both esteem- and epistemic-related needs (i.e., to see their partners positively and realistically).

Three studies explored whether cognitive dissonance in smokers is reduced immediately or remains constant due to the perceived health risk. Because dissonance-reducing strategies might occur very quickly and previous research has focused only on ratings concerning health risk, we additionally analyzed response latencies and psychophysiological arousal as more implicit measurements. In Study 1, 2, and 3, participants rated their smoking-related health risks twice for different diseases. Ratings, response latencies (Study 1, 2), and psychophysiological arousal (Study 3) differed during the first testing. Differences in response latencies and psychophysiological arousal diminished during the second testing, whereas ratings did not change. The results are discussed in terms of implicit methods as measurements for cognitive dissonance and in terms of prevention and intervention programs.

Objective: Body image and eating disorder interventions based on cognitive dissonance have been shown to be effective among girls and women aged 14 and above. This article reports a preliminary examination of whether a dissonance intervention is also effective when delivered in a school setting to 12- and 13-year-old girls in the United Kingdom Method: Girls (N = 106, mean age = 12.07 years, SD = .27) were allocated to the intervention condition or a waitlist control. Results: In contrast to the control group, girls in the intervention condition reported significant reductions in body dissatisfaction and internalization of a thin body ideal post-intervention. There was no significant change in self-reported dietary restraint for either condition. In addition, compared with the control group, girls in the intervention condition showed increased resilience to negative media effects 1-month post-intervention. Conclusions: Results suggests that dissonance based programs can reduce body dissatisfaction, internalization and negative media effects among a younger group of girls than previously examined and in a United Kingdom school setting.

We examined the effect of presenting unknown policy statements on German parties’ election posters. Study 1 showed that participants inferred the quality of a presented policy from knowledge about the respective political party. Study 2 showed that participants’ own political preferences influenced valence estimates: policy statements presented on campaign posters of liked political parties were rated significantly more positive than those presented on posters of disliked political parties. Study 3 replicated the findings of Study 2 with an additional measure of participants’ need for cognition. Need for cognition scores were unrelated to the valence transfer from political parties to policy evaluation. Study 4 replicated the findings of Studies 2 and 3 with an additional measure of participants’ voting intentions. Voting intentions were a significant predictor for valence transfer. Participants credited both their individually liked and disliked political parties for supporting the two unknown policies. However, the credit attributed to the liked party was significantly higher than to the disliked one. Study 5 replicated the findings of Studies 2, 3, and 4. Additionally, participants evaluated political clubs that were associated with the same policies previously presented on election posters. Here, a second-degree transfer emerged: from party valence to policy evaluation and from policy evaluation to club evaluation. Implications of the presented studies for policy communications and election campaigning are discussed.

Much research has found that positive affect facilitates increased reliance on heuristics in cognition. However, theories proposing distinct evolutionary fitness-enhancing functions for specific positive emotions also predict important differences among the consequences of different positive emotion states. Two experiments investigated how six positive emotions influenced the processing of persuasive messages. Using different methods to induce emotions and assess processing, we showed that the positive emotions of anticipatory enthusiasm, amusement, and attachment love tended to facilitate greater acceptance of weak persuasive messages (consistent with previous research), whereas the positive emotions of awe and nurturant love reduced persuasion by weak messages. In addition, a series of mediation analyses suggested that the effects distinguishing different positive emotions from a neutral control condition were best accounted for by different mediators rather than by one common mediator. These findings build upon approaches that link affective valence to certain types of processing, documenting emotion-specific effects on cognition that are consistent with functional evolutionary accounts of discrete positive emotions.

International students provide many benefits to colleges and universities, but the campus climate they encounter is not always welcoming. The present study used a theoretical framework guided by predictors of prejudice to investigate a key aspect of climate: domestic students’ prejudice against internationals on campus. In a sample (N = 389) of domestic students attending a university with a large international student population, university identity, socialization with internationals, standardized college-admission test scores, and positive stereotypes predicted lower negative attitudes toward internationals (i.e., less prejudice against them). In contrast, negative stereotypes, conservatism, and support for President Trump predicted higher negative attitudes toward internationals. Whites held higher negative attitudes toward internationals than non-Whites. In a simultaneous regression analysis, university identity, standardized college-admission test scores, stereotypes, and Trump support all uniquely predicted negative attitudes toward internationals, suggesting that such attitudes are multiply determined. Moderational analyses revealed that for those most likely to hold negative attitudes toward internationals, greater socialization with internationals was related to lower negative attitudes toward them. Results suggest that colleges and universities may lower prejudice against internationals by boosting university identity and increasing high-quality interaction between international and domestic students.

Objectives: We explored the moderating role of observed skin color in the association between prejudice and concurrent and lagged psychological functioning (i.e., depression, ingroup/outgroup psychological connectedness). We further aimed to understand gender differences in these processes. Method: Data from 821 Asian American undergraduate students (57.5% female and 42.5% male) were drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshman. Cross-sectional and longitudinal regression-based moderation models were conducted with PROCESS 2.13 for SPSS. Results: Lighter skin color nullified the association between prejudice and recent depression for Asian American females. This moderating effect did not hold over time with regards to depression symptoms 1 year later. Additionally, prejudice predicted psychological distance to other Asian students 1 year later among females rated as lighter in skin color, whereas prejudice was tied to psychological closeness for females with darker skin ratings. Conclusions: Results highlight skin color as a pertinent factor relevant to the short-term and long-term mental health and social experiences of Asian American women in particular.

Objectives: The purpose of the current study was to test age as a moderator of the effects of types of racism on psychological symptoms for a sample of 184 African American women. Method: We hypothesized that increased age would be associated with greater severity in psychological symptoms in relation to exposure to types of racism. Moderated hierarchical regression analyses were performed to test our hypothesis. Results: Findings revealed significant interactions between institutional racism and age in predicting anxiety. Younger women experienced more severe anxiety in relation to greater exposure to institutional racism compared to older African American women. Conclusions: Findings suggest that older age may function as a buffer to psychological outcomes related to racism exposure. Additional studies are needed to understand the ways in which older African American adults cope with racism-related experiences.

Multiracial people are often lauded as evidence of the waning significance of race and racism in the United States. In reality, the experiences of multiracial people illuminate the ways that racism still exists and efforts to classify people based on assumed racial characteristics for the purposes of inclusion and exclusion are alive and well. Multiracial individuals experience racism from multiple sources and in various forms, which has the potential to negatively impact their development and well-being. Thus, scholars and practitioners must better understand how the growing population of multiracial individuals learns to cope with such racism. The central aim of this qualitative interview study was to shed light on the ways in which multiracial individuals of African descent in the United States cope with and respond to racism. Findings are organized around 5 broad conceptual themes for coping with and addressing racism: avoidance and internalization, anger and violence, education and advocacy, seeking culture and community, and chameleon identities. Findings of this study speak to the dynamic nature of strategies used to cope with racism and hold implications for practices and programs designed to support positive racial identity development among multiracial individuals of African descent.

We need teams in nearly every aspect of our lives (e.g., hospitals, schools, flight decks, nuclear power plants, oil rigs, the military, and corporate offices). Nearly a century of psychological science has uncovered extensive knowledge about team-related processes and outcomes. In this article, we draw from the reviews and articles of this special issue to identify 10 key reflections that have arisen in the team literature, briefly summarized here. Team researchers have developed many theories surrounding the multilayered aspects of teams, such that now we have a solid theoretical basis for teams. We have recognized that the collective is often stronger than the individual, initiating the shift from individual tasks to team tasks. All teams are not created equal, so it is important to consider the context to understand relevant team dynamics and outcomes, but sometimes teams performing in different contexts are more similar than not. It is critical to have teamwork-supportive organizational conditions and environments where psychological safety can flourish and be a mechanism to resolve conflicts, ensure safety, mitigate errors, learn, and improve performance. There are also helpful teamwork competencies that can increase effectiveness across teams or tasks that have been identified (e.g., coordination, communication, and adaptability). Even if a team is made up of experts, it can still fail if they do not know how to cooperate, coordinate, and communicate well together. To ensure the improvement and maintenance of effective team functioning, the organization must implement team development interventions and evaluate relevant team outcomes with robust diagnostic measurement. We conclude with 3 main directions for scientists to expand upon in the future: (a) address issues with technology to make further improvements in team assessment, (b) learn more about multiteam systems, and (c) bridge the gap between theory and practice. In summary, the science of teams has made substantial progress but still has plenty of room for advancement.

Counterbalancing the narrative of youth as either helpless victims or ruthless perpetrators, a new generation of research in conflict settings focuses on their peace-building potential, including constructs such as prosocial behaviors and civic engagement. Previous research on the impact of political violence on prosocial behaviors in mixed, finding both positive and negative links. This study examines this relation using a launch and ambient approach, which helps to disentangle these effects over time. To do so, the article prospectively examines trajectories of adolescent prosocial behaviors (N = 999; Time 1: Mage = 12.18 years, SD = 1.82, range = 10–20) over 6 consecutive years in Belfast, Northern Ireland, a setting of on-going sectarian conflict. A dual change model, which combines the strengths of auto-regressive and latent growth curves approaches, found an initial shallow decrease in prosocial behaviors that dropped more sharply in later adolescence. Exposure to sectarianism related to an accelerated decrease in prosocial behaviors. Trajectories of prosocial behaviors positively related to later social and political engagement. Intervention implications address how to promote youth prosocial behaviors and civic engagement amid protracted political conflict. This type of research is needed because participation in civic life is a good indicator of youth agency and has positive implications for society.

Past research has suggested that engaging in prosocial acts enhances the well-being of the helper, but does prosocial behavior benefit some individuals more than others? The current study implements a daily diary design to test associations between adolescents’ daily prosocial behaviors toward relationally close others and mood. The main goal was to investigate whether daily help-giving has unique benefits for adolescents experiencing greater emotional distress. For 10 days, a diverse sample of youth (N = 99; Mage = 18.01) reported on their prosocial behaviors toward friends and romantic partners as well as their mood; depressive symptoms were assessed in a prior lab visit. Multilevel models showed that participants experienced increased positive mood on days that they were more prosocial, even when controlling for received support; this association was strongest among those reporting higher depressive symptoms. The findings highlight the unique benefits of prosociality in adolescents’ daily lives, suggesting that everyday help-giving behaviors may fulfill social and emotional needs of depressed youth.

Objectives: We hypothesized that parental and peer support, empathy-related traits, and prosocial moral reasoning would positively predict altruistic prosocial behaviors, and negatively predict selfish-motivated prosocial behaviors, in U.S. Latino youth. Method: Three-hundred and 6 U.S. Latina/o adolescents (M age = 15.50 years; SD = .42 years; 46% girls; 81.0% self-identified as U.S. Mexican) from communities in the Northern Great Plains completed measures of parental and peer support, perspective taking and empathic concern, prosocial moral reasoning, and two types of prosocial behaviors. Results: In general, parental support was directly and indirectly related to empathic traits, prosocial moral reasoning, and prosocial behaviors. Peer support was indirectly related to prosocial behaviors via perspective taking, empathic concern, and prosocial moral reasoning. Conclusions: Discussion focuses on the generalizability of traditional models of moral socialization and prosocial development to U.S. Latina/o youth from communities in the Northern Great Plains.

Many failed replications in social psychology have cast doubt on the validity of the field. Most of these replication attempts have focused on findings published from the 1990s on, ignoring a large body of older literature. As some scholars suggest that social psychological findings and theories are limited to a particular time, place, and population, we sought to test whether a classical social psychological finding that was published nearly half a century ago can be successfully replicated in another country on another continent. To this end, we directly replicated Cialdini et al.’s (1975) door-in-the-face (DITF) technique according to which people’s likelihood to comply with a target request increases after having turned down a larger request. Thereby, we put the reciprocal concessions theory—the original process explanation of the DITF technique—to a critical test. Overall, compliance rates in our replication were similarly high as those Cialdini et al. (1975) found 45 years ago. That is, participants were more likely to comply with a target request after turning down an extreme request than participants who were exposed to the target request only or to a similarly small request before being exposed to the target request. These findings support the idea that reciprocity norms play a crucial role in DITF strategies. Moreover, the results suggest that at least some social psychological findings can transcend a particular time, place, and population. Further theoretical implications are discussed.

Research in clinical psychology and social psychiatry has highlighted the importance of social factors for outcomes following trauma. In this review, we speak to this issue in two ways. First, we highlight the value of a social identity framework for understanding the experience and impact of psychological trauma. Second, we draw on the Social Identity Model of Identity Change (SIMIC) to understand reactions to trauma. Specifically, we show (a) that negative responses to trauma are more apparent where trauma serves to undermine valued social identities; (b) that people prove more resilient in the face of trauma when valued social identities can be maintained or new social identities developed; and (c) that where old or new positive identities are reinvigorated or extend the self, this can be a basis for post-traumatic growth. We conclude by discussing the implications of this model for practice, and emphasise the importance of social identity management in the aftermath of trauma.

Social psychological research is increasingly interested in the cognitive and affective processes underlying human behavior in social environments. To match this emerging interest, social psychology is embracing new methodological approaches. We identify eye-tracking as an unobtrusive, direct and fine-grained process tracing technique with promising implications for these new developments. In particular, eye-tracking helps researchers avoid relying on self-report measures alone and otherwise necessary interruptions of the processes they aim to observe and understand. In order to enable social psychologists to effectively use eye-tracking, we provide a systematic review of commonly used measures. Following an introduction of the basic principles and assumptions underlying the use of eye-tracking generally, we review eye-tracking measures addressing concepts of interest for many core theories of social psychology. Specifically, we introduce options to measure processing depth and decision effort, information weighting, search strategies, cognitive load and arousal. We showcase potential uses in exemplary research questions, providing a starting point for how to select appropriate measures and tailor designs to future applications of eye-tracking to social psychology. Further, we critically discuss the limitations and auxiliary assumptions on which the introduced measures are based. Finally, we illustrate the use of eye-tracking with examples from contemporary psychological research with relevance for social psychology, and conclude with an outlook for potential benefits of the use of eye-tracking methods in core topics of social psychology.

Living with cultural, religious, and ideological diversity inevitably creates situations where people are confronted with beliefs, values, or practices that they disapprove of. In such situations, people may consider reasons to nevertheless tolerate what they disapprove of (i.e., forbearance tolerance), or reject these (i.e., intolerance). In the current review, we consider empirical research on the processes of intergroup tolerance and consider different manifestations of (in)tolerance. Then we discuss recent work on the dual process model of tolerance, which considers intuitive versus deliberative objections to cultural, religious, and ideological differences, and how these can be overridden to produce tolerance. We then review literature on the boundaries of tolerance including the role of moralization and moral values, before considering individual difference factors and situations of threat that can hamper intergroup tolerance. We conclude by considering five areas ripe for future exploration on the social psychology of intergroup tolerance and intolerance.

There have been limited studies analyzing the causes of construction workers' unsafe behaviour from the social psychology perspective. Based on a Grounded Theory approach, this study first identified and defined seven coded categories related to workers' dangerous behaviour on construction sites. The original qualitative data were obtained from individual site interviews conducted with 35 construction professionals. These main categories were found connected to workers' status of safety awareness and sense of danger, which affected the type of unsafe behaviours, i.e., proactive, passive, or reactive behaviour. By further integrating social cognitive psychology theories into workers' behavioural decision-making process, the formation mechanism framework and diagram were developed to describe construction workers' unsafe behaviours based on the dynamic process of balancing the individual desires and perceived safety risks. This study advances the body of knowledge in construction safety behavioural management by performing in-depth theoretical analysis regarding workers' internal desires, activated by external scenarios and intervened by a personal safety cognition system, which could result in different motivations and various behavioural outcomes. It is argued that safety cognition serves as a mediated moderation system affecting behavioural performance. Practical suggestions on developing a proper safety management system incorporating safety education in guiding construction workers' site behaviours are presented.

Decades of social psychology research has established the importance of similarity in leading to attraction. However, in response to early social psychology experiments demonstrating the similarity effect, Rosenbaum proposed the repulsion hypothesis, arguing that similarity does not lead to liking, but rather, dissimilarity leads to repulsion. Research to address whether dissimilarity carries more weight than similarity has generally involved participants’reactions to sterile information about a bogus other whom they never meet. In contrast, in this study (N = 150), individuals first greeted another participant over Skype before they received manipulated (bogus) information on similarity or dissimilarity. In support of the similarity-attraction hypothesis, the two-step experimental design indicated that the participants in the similarity condition experienced an increase in liking and other positive reactions from before to after the receipt of the bogus similarity information. Participants in the dissimilarity condition, however, experienced no change (i.e., no repulsion effect).