It is commonly understood that as we age, memory tends to decline. Memory failures can have severe consequences for older adults if they forget important things, such as taking daily medication. Recently, researchers have found that younger and older adults tend to remember forgotten information as having been less important than remembered information (Castel et al., 2012; Witherby, Tauber, Rhodes, & Castel, in prep). This effect is called the forgetting bias. In the present experiment, we investigated why older and younger adults show the forgetting bias.
Older and younger adults studied words that were assigned a value indicating the importance of remembering the word. Following study, they took a free-recall test. After repeating the study-test procedure four times, participants took a surprise test. On the test, they were shown each word and asked (1) if they remembered it on the free-recall test and (2) to recall the point value assigned to it during the study phase. Younger and older adults used their memory judgment on the surprise test as an anchor for recalling the value. Specifically, words that were judged as remembered were given high values, whereas words judged as forgotten were given low values. Thus, one reason why both older and younger adults show the forgetting bias is because they rely on their memory of past test performance. Future work is needed to examine whether a forgetting bias is shown with more meaningful information as well as ways to eliminate the bias.

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that overt or covert echoic responding in the presence of an image is necessary for learning new verbal labels from exposure to contiguous presentations of words and images. (Horne & Lowe, 1996). This hypothesis predicts that seeing an image after hearing the associated verbal label leads to superior recall compared to seeing the image only before the verbal label is heard. Four children (3-6 years old) participated in a single-case design study that used an alternating-treatments design to evaluate the effects of stimulus presentation arrangement on subsequent recall of verbal labels. Each participant was exposed to six sessions that alternated across two conditions; word-first and image-first. In each session, the participants observed 20 pictures of four novel birds paired with their spoken names. In the word-first condition, the word and image were presented simultaneously but the image remained on the screen after the offset of the verbal stimulus. In the image-first condition, the image was initially displayed by itself, followed by the verbal label and the simultaneous offset of both. After each session received test for both verbal recall and recognition of the bird names. Compared to a prior experiment that was identical except that there was no overlap between image and word presentation, participants in the current experiment performed with slightly greater accuracy on the recall and recognition tests, but typically recalled only one or two labels after each session, with no difference between the image-first and the word-first condition.

Introduction: When faced with a potential stressor, such as having a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), individuals use coping strategies to adjust to the situation. Certain coping strategies are more adaptive, such as positive reframing, which is related to lower levels of depression for parents of children with ASD (Hastings et al., 2005). However, there are differences in coping between mothers and fathers, and possibly between non-Hispanic White and Hispanic parents as a result of cultural differences (Hastings et al., 2005; Willis et al., 2016). Therefore, the goal of the current study was to investigate which adaptive coping strategies moderated the relationship between child symptom severity and parent mental health for both non-Hispanic White and Hispanic fathers of children with ASD.

Method: Participants were 75 fathers of children (M = 6.64 years, SD = 2.29 years) with ASD, and were either Hispanic (n = 43; M = 41.77 years, SD = 6.75) or non-Hispanic White (n = 31; M = 44.35 years, SD = 6.25). All fathers completed the current version of the Social Communication Questionnaire regarding their child’s symptom profile. They also completed the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, a measure of adult depressive symptoms, and the Brief COPE, a measure of frequency of coping strategy use. Separate moderated regression models were entered in the PROCESS macro for SPSS for fathers of each ethnicity with each of the following coping strategies: positive reframing, active coping, planning, instrumental use of social support, and religious coping.

Results: For non-Hispanic White fathers, there was a significant interaction (i.e., moderation) between the effects of child symptom severity and use of positive reframing on the parent’s depressive symptoms, b = -.43 (SE = .17), p = .02. The interaction accounted for an additional 15.6% percent of variance in depressive symptoms. For fathers who infrequently used positive reframing, there was a significant positive relationship between child symptoms and parent depression, b = 1.01 (SE = .36), p = .01, but the relationship was non-significant for those who used high levels of positive reframing, p > .05. Moderation was also found with instrumental support coping, b = -.38 (SE = .11), p = .003, R2 = .26, and religious coping, b = -.46 (SE = .14), p = .004, R2 = .26. However, neither active coping nor planning coping were significant moderators for non-Hispanic White fathers, ps > .05. For Hispanic fathers, none of the aforementioned coping strategies served as a moderator of the relationship between child symptoms and parent depression, ps > .05.
Discussion: Results suggest that using adaptive coping strategies frequently serves as a protective factor for non-Hispanic White fathers’ mental health. Therefore, teaching those fathers adaptive coping strategies may improve their functioning. Previous interventions increased use of adaptive coping strategies in parents of children with ASD and may be applicable in the case of fathers, as well (Samadi, McConkey, & Kelly, 2013). However, it may be that there is some other factor besides coping strategy use, which serves as the best protective factor for Hispanic fathers. For instance, future research may investigate the importance of family functioning, given the importance of familism in Hispanic culture.

References:
Hastings, R. P., Kovshoff, H., Brown, T., Ward, N. J., Degli Espinosa, F., & Remington, B.
(2005). Coping strategies in mothers and fathers of preschool and school-age children
with autism. Autism, 9, 377-391. doi: 10.1177/1362361305056078

Samadi, S. A., McConkey, R., & Kelly, G. (2013). Enhancing parental well-being and coping
through a family-centred short course for Iranian parents of children with an autism
spectrum disorder. Autism, 17, 27-43. doi: 10.1177/1362361311435156

Willis, K., Timmons, L., Pruitt, M., Schneider, H. L., Alessandri, M., & Ekas, N. V. (2016). The
relationship between optimism, coping, and depressive symptoms in Hispanic mothers and fathers of children with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46, 2427-2440. doi: 10.1007/s10803-016-2776-7

The importance of cannabinoid receptors has risen in recent years due to the increasing number of states that have legalized marijuana; 28 states allow the usage of medical marijuana and 7 states allow recreational use ("28 Legal," 2017). Previous research from our lab has explored coping with multiple instances of reward loss when exposed to large, chronic doses of cannabinoid agonist WIN 55, 212-2 (WIN, 10 mg/kg). When chronically exposed rats received a consummatory successive negative contrast (cSNC) downshift of 32% to 4% sucrose, they were less able to cope with the subsequent autoshaping downshift of 12 pellets to 2 pellets. Additional autoshaping research from our lab has shown multiple downshifts in autoshaping to be successful in obtaining contrast effects. The present research combined this procedure with occasional acute doses of WIN (1 mg/kg) to determine if only one kind of downshift experience, autoshaping, was sufficient to produce less coping efficacy if repeated. Rats were randomly assigned to either WIN or vehicle control groups, and then trained in acquisition with discrete lever presentations where one lever was always followed by the delivery of 12 pellets, and a second lever was always followed by 2 pellets. After acquisition, rats received downshift sessions once per week, wherein the lever previously associated with 12 pellets was downshifted to only be followed by 2 pellets. Prior to each of 4 downshift sessions, rats received intraperitoneal injections of either WIN or vehicle solution. Lever presses to each lever during discrete “forced choice” and simultaneous “free choice” trials and head entries into the cup where food was delivered, or “goal entries,” were both recorded to assess preference and explore downshift effects. Although acute WIN administration did not affect lever preference relative to vehicle controls, it did result in decreased lever pressing in favor of goal tracking during the downshift. Therefore, WIN seems to encourage rats to be more focused on the outcome instead of responding to signals for the outcome, which may have implications for reducing impulsive behavior despite extensive training.

Prior work has found that religious individuals experience greater concerns about mortality when thinking about Jesus taking human form (Arrowood & Cox, 2018). Building on this, the present research examined how intrinsic religiosity (i.e., a more “mature” form of religion with a development for a deeper, more meaningful relationship with God) would moderate these effects. Christian individuals were asked to complete the Religious Orientation Scale, followed by reading an essay that either described Jesus as being fully human or a description of His lost years (i.e., neutral condition). The dependent variable consisted of people’s fear of mortality. The results revealed that low intrinsic individuals experienced a heightened fear of death following a creaturely Jesus prime. High intrinsic individuals, however, did not differ from neutral conditions. This study suggests that intrinsically valuing religion can serve as a buffer against existential anxieties stemming from humanistic concerns.

Anxiety disorders are a widespread and serious health concern currently affecting approximately 18% of the adult population per year (Kessler, et al., 2005); thus, there is a strong need to develop and improve therapeutic treatments for anxiety. Moreover, because sex differences in the prevalence of affective disorders in humans are well documented, this study involves both male and female rats. Vocalizations allow for a dynamic assessment of an animal’s emotional state. The ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) of rats are produced at frequencies above the level of human hearing. USVs are often used as a tool to assess the emotional state of rats. Previous research has identified two main call types for rats: 22 kHz (related to strongly negative emotion) and 50 kHz. 50 kHz calls can then be further broken down into constant frequency (CF) and frequency modulated (FM) subtypes. FM calls are produced with a bandwidth greater than 15 kHz; these calls are related to positive emotional states. Whereas, CF calls are produced with a constant frequency and a bandwidth less than 10 kHz. Our lab hypothesizes that CF 50 kHz calls are expressions of anxiety in rats. Our lab has previously explored the vocalizations of rats across a continuum of negative affective state (i.e., from anxiety to fear) within a single testing session using a sequence of temporally consistent mild footshocks. The current experiment explores USV production in male and female rats when the temporal predictability was reduced by randomizing the time between footshocks. We utilized an unpredictable footshock paradigm with the goal of increasing or prolonging a state of anxiety as compared to our previous procedure. In this paradigm, shocks were administered across three successive days: on Day 1, mild footshocks were administered in a pseudo-randomized pattern, on Day 2, subjects were returned to the same context but did not receive footshocks, and on Day 3, a single reinstatement shock was administered. Differences in USV calling behavior across test days will be explored in male and female rats. In addition to USVs, rearing and freezing behavior were also recorded and used to assess anxiety and fear. These results will enhance our understanding of vocal expression of emotional states in rats, which improves the dominant animal model used to study anxiety disorders and potential therapeutic interventions.

Discrimination learning involves responses (e.g., cheering for TCU) that are rewarded under some conditions (e.g., at a TCU football game) but not others (e.g., in the library). Occasion setting involves a higher-order discrimination in which one stimulus (i.e., the occasion setter) signals whether response to a second stimulus (i.e., a discriminative stimulus) will be rewarded (e.g., followed by food) or not. In the current experiments, pigeons were trained in a spatial occasion setting task in which an occasion setter (i.e., a colored background) provided information about if and where to respond relative to a discriminative stimulus that served as a landmark (i.e., a colored box embedded within the occasion setter). These experiments examined the effect of spatial ambiguity on occasion setting. In Experiment 1, pigeons were trained on a task in which spatially stable occasion setters gave information about where to respond relative to spatially unstable landmarks (←YB, ZB→, ←WA, XA→, ←C→). In Experiment 2, a different set of pigeons were trained with both a spatially unstable and two spatially stable occasion setters paired with landmarks that were spatially unstable (←WA, WB→, ←XA, YB→, ←C→). Transfer tests showed that the stable occasion setters were able to control responding to spatially unstable landmarks that they had not been paired with in training.

In a delayed serial same-different discrimination procedure, one stimulus is followed by either the same or a different stimulus after a brief delay. To receive reinforcement (e.g., food), the subject must respond “same” when the two stimuli match and a “different” response when they differ. The individual stimuli change across trials, so it is the relation between stimuli that signals the correct response. A differential outcomes procedure has been shown to facilitate learning of some discriminations but had not been tested with rats in a relational discrimination. In a differential outcomes procedure, one reinforcer (e.g., pellets) follows one response (e.g., a correct “same” response) and a different reinforcer (e.g., sucrose) follows another correct response (e.g., a correct “different” response). In the control condition, the same reinforcer follows a correct “same” and “different” response. In the current experiment, half of the rats were trained on a serial same-different discrimination using a differential outcomes procedure and the other half were in the control group. Stimuli were presented and responses recorded on an iPad mounted at the rear of an operant box. After the rat touched the sample stimulus (i.e., the first stimulus) it was removed for a delay of 500, 1500, 3000, or 6000 ms before the rats were presented with the comparison stimulus (i.e., the second stimulus). After touching the comparison stimulus, a response button appeared on each side of it. One button represented a “same” response and the button on the other side a “different” response. After training, rats were tested to determine if learning of the same-different relation would transfer to novel stimuli. The results showed no transfer of learning, and a decrement in performance on trials with the original training stimuli.

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) tend to have difficulties with emotional and social interactions (e.g., Stone & Caro-Martinez, 1990). It is possible that they also have deficits in their ability to monitor their learning of social and emotional information. If so, this could have negative downstream effects on their later memory. In the present experiment, we investigated the influence of social and emotional pictures on adolescents’ (with and without ASD) monitoring of learning and memory performance. To do so, participants studied 60 pictures that were positive or neutral and that either had a social component (e.g., a couple at their wedding, a child reading a book) or did not (e.g., ice cream, screwdriver). After studying each image, participants made a judgment of learning (JOL) predicting the likelihood that they would remember that picture on a later test. Finally, participants took a free-recall test. Overall, adolescents with ASD provided lower JOLs and demonstrated lower memory performance than did adolescents without ASD. In addition, all participants gave higher JOLs to positive pictures than to neutral pictures, and recall was also superior for positive relative to neutral pictures. Finally, participants gave higher JOLs to pictures with a social component than to pictures without a social component, although this dimension did not influence their memory. These results suggest that monitoring of learning is not impaired in adolescents with ASD. Thus, although adolescents with ASD tend to remember less than adolescents without ASD, this finding does not appear to be caused by monitoring deficits.

Birdsong, like human speech, is a vocal behavior that requires birds to precisely coordinate the activation of respiratory and vocal organ motor systems in order to generate sufficient subsyringeal air pressure for phonation. In both juvenile and adult songbirds, ablation or inactivation of HVC (proper name) neural activity disrupts temporal features of song. Consistent with the role of respiration in controlling song tempo, we have previously demonstrated that HVC contributes to song respiratory features in adult male Bengalese finches (Lonchura striata domestica, Urbano & Cooper, 2015). Here we further explored these findings by recording subsyringeal air sac pressure in singing birds prior to, during, and following recovery from HVC inactivation. Dialysis probes were implanted into either left or right HVC in adult male Bengalese finches (N=5), allowing for reversible suppression of neural activity (muscimol, 1.5 mg/mL, 1.125mg/mL, 0.75 mg/mL, 0.375 mg/mL). In all animals, mean air sac pressure and initial (10 ms) slope of song-related expiratory pulses (EPs) dropped significantly during HVC inactivation and recovered (Amplitude: F(2,8) = 12.8, p = 0.003; Slope: F(2,8) = 15.3, p = 0.002). We observed that, independent of the drug concentration, peak song EP amplitude exhibited a similar pattern of non-linear recovery over time while muscimol remained in the dialysis probe and continued to diffuse into HVC. In a subset of the data, we used an already established measure of efficacy (Beggs & Dobrovolny 2015) to model the change in peak song EP amplitude during HVC inactivation and we were able to produce consistent estimates for the variables in our model. We then ran a Monte Carlo simulation and parameter stability analysis to determine that the chosen model is robust and truth-conducive in predicting future values for peak EP amplitude under continued diffusion of muscimol into the tissue. We tested this model against simpler models to rule out alternative explanations. These results suggest that prolonged exposure to muscimol (4-6 h) induces mechanisms that reduce the efficacy of muscimol and result in gradual recovery of peak song EP amplitude.

Abstract: Problem: Although the current political landscape is divisive, some politicians have adopted the strategy of delivering the message of hope in their speeches. For instance, conservatives are striving to make America great again, implying a temporal return to some idyllic moment in American history. Conversely, liberals are more focused on moving forward by echoing the appeals of change to be a better country in the future. The current study was interested in whether these thematic differences in speech could influence nostalgic thinking, predict candidate support for both real and fake political candidates, whether it would matter if it was a liberal or conservative was giving the speech, and whether political nostalgia would interact with frame of reference and speech type to predict candidate support for the current election. Method: Participants consisted of both undergraduate students as well as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (mTurk) workers. Persons completed individual difference measures such as self-compassion, nostalgia proneness, national nostalgia, religious fundamentalism, and social dominance. Participants then received a speech excerpt from a fake gubernatorial candidate in the upcoming election who was either a Democrat or Republican. The speech itself was either past or future oriented in language style. Individuals then rated their state nostalgia, support for the fake candidate, filled out some additional political questions, and then indicated their support for both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Data analysis plan: Data will be analyzed using moderated regression in SPSS to look at potential interactions between political reference, speech, nostalgia, and one’s political party on candidate support. Differences between the fake candidate and real candidates are expected in the same direction. Interestingly, preliminary analyses of the results are demonstrating that Republican participants express greater feelings of nostalgia in response to a past-orientated speech from a Republican candidate; whereas, Democrats experience more nostalgia in response to a future-orientated Republican candidate’s speech. Conclusion: It is hypothesized that past oriented speeches will be capable of producing increases in nostalgic thinking. These predicted results would be the first to demonstrate the interaction between political preferences and nostalgic thinking. Additionally, if nostalgic thought is more tied to conservative support and future oriented speeches are linked with liberal support, this would importantly demonstrate that liberals and conservatives rely on different temporal modes of thinking about America values. These findings would be important for future political campaigns and by elucidating the different psychological strategies that can be utilized to motive candidate support among liberals and conservatives respectively.

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease associated with memory loss and cognitive decline (Borlikova et al., 2013). AD is marked by the accumulation of amyloid-beta (A) protein deposits throughout the brain (Miklossy, 2008). The presence of soluble A oligomers alters synaptic formations and implicates cognitive dysfunction (Cleary et al., 2005). Furthermore, established research indicates intracerebroventricular (ICV) injections of human A potentiate cognitive deficits associated with learning and memory retrieval. (Amini et al., 2015; Borlikova et al., 2013; Freir et al., 2011). While the importance of synaptic formations in the learning process has been affirmed in existing literature, the specific phases of learning affected by human and murine A infusions is not fully understood. Here we sought to explore how A oligomer infusions impact associative learning at different points of time. Using a contextual fear-conditioning (CFC) paradigm, two experiments were carried out to disentangle which phase of learning, consolidation and/or retrieval is impacted in the presence of A oligomers. In Experiment 1, animals received an injection of A or sterile saline immediately after training and were tested 48 hours later. Results indicate that A infusions immediately after training resulted in decreased freezing behavior, indicating that A disrupted the consolidation and/or retrieval of the context shock pairing. In Experiment 2, animals were trained in CFC and received injections of A or sterile saline 46 hours later. Two hours following infusions, freezing was assessed. Results from Experiment 2 revealed that A infusions 46 hours post-training had no impact on freezing behavior. Together these results indicate that A is disrupting the consolidation of new memories and is not impacting the recovery of previously consolidated information.

Life history theory predicts that exposure to extrinsic mortality threats early in life leads to a faster life history strategy characterized by preference for present versus future outcomes. The condition of one's body also determines the probability of survival. With this in mind, we predicted that a marker of damage to one's body, levels of the proinflammatory cytokine IL-1β, would also promote preference for present over delayed outcomes.
We found that levels of serum IL-1β predicted more reported impulsivity, less preference for delaying gratification, and a more present temporal orientation. Additonal analyses suggest that environmental stress may partially exert its effect on temporal focus through somatic damage.

From the perspective of Terror Management Theory (TMT), humans hold the potential to experience paralyzing terror due to the understanding of our eventual death. This terror results from the effort to reconcile death awareness and the evolutionary struggle to survive. While TMT research has accumulated many significant findings since its origination, basic assumptions of this theory have recently been challenged. Some critics are pointed out that there is no direct evidence for the experience of “terror” within the TMT literature (Marten & van den Bos ,2014) as mortality salience (MS) effects have been largely observed through the use of self-reported questionnaires and a terror after MS manipulation is mostly inferred. The current study attempts to address these concerns by seeking to obtain the confirmation of unconscious terror to mortality salience measured via salivary cortisol response.

Songbirds are an appealing animal model for speech acquisition partially due to the fact that they are also vocal learners, meaning they acquire their vocalizations through imitation (Doupe & Kuhl, 1999). Birdsong is defined as a "chain of discrete acoustic elements arranged in a particular temporal order" (Berwick et al. 2011). While Bengalese finches (Lonchura striata domestica) have a repertoire of 8-12 syllables (i.e. acoustic elements), the sequence of these syllables can vary according to set patterns and rules. Song sequence stereotypy, linearity and consistency are measures of syntax. The Bengalese finch song is semi-variable. Some syllable-to-syllable combinations are fixed, whereas some syllables (hereafter, “branching syllables) can be followed by multiple syllables (hereafter, “branching points”). In the avian brain, two different neural pathways are responsible for song acquisition and production, and both pathways are controlled by the avian premotor nucleus, HVC (proper name). Previously, we have found that male Bengalese finches show initial acoustic impairment and gradual recovery over the course of seven days after small, unilateral HVC microlesions (right hemisphere = 4, left hemisphere = 4). Here we explore whether HVC contributes to maintaining and recovering song syntax, as well as potential differential effects of lefts versus right HVC microlesions. To answer these two questions, we analyzed the syntax of previously collected songs at three different time points: baseline (pre-surgery), post-surgery day 4 (PSD4), and post-surgery day 7(PSD7). Each syllable was assigned a unique label, however, due to the extent of song degradation at PSD4, we did could not “match” syllables across days. Using an online java applet, the Songinator (Zevin, Seidenberg & Bottjer, 2004), we computed scores for stereotypy, linearity and consistency. Using a 2 x 3 repeated-measures ANOVA, we did not find any significant differences across time points for stereotypy (F(1.09, 6.53) = 0.18, p = 0.40), linearity (F(2,12) = 0.94, p = 0.42), or consistency (F(2, 12) = 0.63, p = 0.55). We also did not find an interaction effect for stereotypy (F(1.09, 6.53) = 0.84, p = 0.41), linearity (F(2, 12) = 1.25, p = 0.32), or consistency (F(2, 12) = 0.27, p = 0.77). However, we observed that right HVC microlesions exhibited increased linearity over time (Pre: 0.29 ± 0.02, PSD4: 0.31 ± 0.02, PSD7: 0.34 ± 0.01) . We examined this finding in more detail by computing the a change ratio (PSD4/pre-surgery) for the number of syllables and the average number of branching points per syllable. We found that HVC damage increased the number of unique syllables in both groups. Interestingly, there was also an increase in the number of branching points, but only in the left HVC group, compared to the right HVC microlesion (t(6) = 1.853, p = 0.057, one-tailed). These results support previous findings that HVC lesions disrupt vocal production and suggest novel syllables are the result of impaired motor control. These results also suggest that control of song syntax is somewhat lateralized. Left HVC microlesions initially impair the birds’ ability to produce a stereotyped song by making syllable transitions more variable. Therefore, the right HVC controls song variability, and left HVC song stereotypy.

Terror management theory suggests that when mortality concerns are salient, religion can serve as a defense in an attempt to boost self-esteem and shield against the potential for anxiety. Interestingly, however, very little research has been conducted on people who actively question their religious beliefs in order to attain a better understanding (i.e., quest religiosity). Recent research suggests that quest religiosity moderated the effects of mortality salience in that participants who were high in quest religiosity experienced a decrease in self-esteem following reminders of death. Building on these findings, the current studies further examined quest religiosity to extend to underlying death cognitions and fear of death. Study 1 found that individuals who were high in quest religiosity experienced a greater accessibility of death-related thoughts. Additionally, Study 2 demonstrated that quest religiosity fully mediated the relationship between fear of death and well-being among religious individuals. Specifically, high fear of death predicted greater quest religiosity that, in turn, predicted lower well-being. These results suggest an associative link between fear of death and quest. Importantly, religion can serve as a buffer for existential terror but questioning these beliefs lowers their efficacy and impacts well-being.

Previous research suggests that individuals pursue close relationships because they help people cope with mortality awareness (Mikulincer, Florian, & Hirschberger, 2003). Further, there is some evidence to suggest that individuals achieve a sense of death transcendence through the prospect of parenthood. For example, following reminders of death, people have a greater desire for children (e.g., Wisman & Goldenberg, 2005), have more vivid and accessible parenthood-related cognitions (Yaakobi, Mikulincer, & Shaver, 2014), and are more negative toward strict birth-control policies and more positive toward younger family members (Zhou, Liu, Chen, & Yu, 2008). However, no prior work has examined parenting behaviors directly. For this reason, the purpose of the present research was to examine whether people display more behaviors associated with responsive caregiving following reminders of mortality. Participants were exposed to a mortality salience manipulation in which they were randomly assigned to complete items relating to their fear of death or public speaking (the control condition). Following this, everyone took part in a simulated baby paradigm to assess participants’ responses to a simulated infant doll that was programmed (wirelessly) to begin crying inconsolably (Rutherford, Goldberg, Luyten, Bridgett, & Mayes, 2013). The extent to which participants engaged in caregiver-based touching behaviors (i.e., holding the baby in a meaningful way in an attempt to calm or soothe the baby) toward the simulated crying infant served as the dependent variable. The results revealed that, in comparison to the control condition, reminders of death led participants to engage in a greater degree of caregiver-based touching behaviors while interacting with a simulated crying infant. Overall, these initial findings suggest that reminders of death influence actual caregiving behaviors and suggest that people may display more optimal parenting behavior in the real world when thoughts of death are salient.

Background: There is significant variation in toddlers’ abilities to suppress dominant responses and perform subdominant responses, an aspect of temperament known as effortful control. Effortful control emerges relatively late in infancy, beginning around 12 months of age and surging around 24 months of age. This late pattern of development allows for earlier-developing factors to influence the development of effortful control, like the parent-infant attachment relationship and other temperamental constructs. While the importance of the parent-infant attachment relationship is widely supported by research, one noteworthy limitation of this body of work is the underwhelming amount of research on the father-infant attachment relationship (Hoffman, 2000; Lounds, Borkowski, Whitman, Maxwell, & Weed, 2005). Evidence suggests that father-child interactions provide children with unique experiences that may not occur with their mothers (Grossmann, et al., 2002). For this reason, the current study examines both parent-infant attachment relationships. Previous research has also shown that one aspect of temperament can moderate the expression of other aspects of temperament (Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003; Kochanska, 1993; Rothbart, Ahadi, & Evans, 2000). With each dimension of temperament emerging at different times, it is important to understand which temperamental constructs predict a greater capacity for effortful control.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine whether secure mother-infant and father-infant attachment relationships at 12 months predicted high levels of effortful control at 3 years of age. A second line of interest was to examine whether infant levels of negative affectivity and surgency/extraversion at 6 months predicted high levels of effortful control at 3 years of age.

Methods: 33 toddlers (age in years, M = 3.16) and their parents (32 mothers; 32 fathers) participated in the current study. Parents completed the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ), a parent-report measure of infant temperament, when the infant was 6 months old. Mothers and infants returned to the laboratory when the infant was 12 months old and participated in the strange situation procedure, a measure of parent-infant attachment. Fathers and infants returned to the laboratory when the infant was 13 months old and completed the same strange situation procedure. When the child reached 3 years of age, mother, father, and child returned to the laboratory and completed a battery of tasks measuring effortful control.

Results: The relationship between effortful control and parent-infant attachment was investigated using a Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. Preliminary analyses were preformed to ensure no violation of the assumptions of normality, linearity, and homoscedascity. Attachment was investigated using infant attachment behaviors measured in the strange situation procedure. There was a moderate, positive correlation between infant resistant behaviors (M = 2.33, SE = .272) with dad and effortful control scores (M = .105, SE = .065), r = .310, n = 30, p = .048, with high resistance behaviors associated with higher levels of effortful control. Additionally, there was a moderate, negative correlation between infant contact maintenance behaviors (M = 1.34, SE = .151) with mom and effortful control scores, r = -.338, n = 30, p = .034, with high contact maintenance associated with lower levels of effortful control. The relationship between effortful control and temperament was investigated using Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. Preliminary analyses were performed to ensure no violation of the assumptions of normality, linearity, and homoscedasticity. Temperament was investigated using parental reports on the Infant Behavior Questionnaire. There was a moderate, positive correlation between the low pleasure dimension (M =5.50, SE = .152) of temperament and effortful control (M = .105, SE = .065), r = .354, n = 31, p = .025, with high scores in low pleasure associated with higher scores of effortful control.

Conclusion: These results suggest that the father-infant attachment relationship is unique from the mother-infant attachment relationship, as different interaction behaviors with mom and dad are associated with effortful control. Interestingly, infant resistant behaviors with dad at 12 months are associated with higher levels of effortful control. Secondly, infant contact maintenance behaviors with mom are associated with lower levels of effortful control. These results could be explained by the fact that these interaction behaviors displayed by an infant exist on a continuum. It could be argued that children who exhibit high levels of resistant behavior towards mom are also able to resist a dominant response and initiate a subdominant response easily, indicating high level of effortful control. Similarly, while some contact maintenance is a component of secure attachment, too much contact maintenance could indicate an insecure attachment relationship, as the child could be too dependent on their parents and fail to explore the environment.

Context effects within attitude research are well documented; however, recent developments in evolutionary psychology (e.g., fundamental motives framework) offer new possibilities for the study of attitudes. The Fundamental Motives Framework states that we have motives which reflect evolutionary goal relevant to survival and reproduction, and these motives weave their way through human life, guiding behavior to satisfy goals. These motives interact with behavior in several ways, but research remains to be done in certain areas. In two studies, we examined how fundamental motives interact with women’s attitudes of potential (male) partners. In two studies, we examined two separate fundamental motives and a number of attitude items. We predicted in Study 1 that women would have more positive attitude toward a cold, but competent man when primed with resource scarcity (as compared to a control. In Study 2, we predicted that women would have a more positive attitude toward a cold but dominant man when primed with disease threat. In both studies, we found that women’s attitudes toward our two “real” men were affected by fundamental motives. In Study 1, women expressed less of a preference of the warm over the cold (but competent) man when primed with resource scarcity, and in Study 2 women expressed less of a preference of the warm over the cold (but dominant) man when primed with resource scarcity. We discuss potential mediators, though found no evidence to support a mediator at this time.

When do people self-radicalize? When and how, for instance, do so-called “lone wolves” go from mild dislike for a target group to extreme hatred, all without any negative additional information? The evidence gathered about recent lone wolf terror attacks around the world suggests that the attackers all too often sat in a room somewhere and simply “thought” themselves into extremely negative attitudes. Attitude Representation Theory (Lord & Lepper, 1999) suggests that self-radicalization can happen to anyone, and describes how the process of self-radicalization might work. Self-radicalization, defined as adopting a more negative attitude toward a stimulus at time 2 than at time 1 without any additional external information, can occur through self-generated thoughts that, in the interval, increase the probability of more negative associations to the attitude object. What might those intervening self-generated thoughts be? One possibility is that they might consist of generalization. People generalize all the time. Especially when we know little about them, we tend to assume that others who misbehave in one situation will do so in other situations.

To test whether generalization might polarize negative attitudes toward a social group, we gave MTurk workers (of many different ages and backgrounds) information about 14 members of a fictitious group, who called themselves choosy, aggressive, wordy, blunt, tense, dissatisfied, restless, rebellious, demanding, strict, argumentative, cunning, and anxious. Then a randomly selected half of the participants were asked to generalize, by writing in a text box for 5 minutes detailed descriptions of how members of VSG#62 might display the 14 traits in both work and social situations. After that, all participants completed a battery of demographic and individual difference questionnaires, tried to recall the initial 14 traits attributed to members of VSG#62, and reported for the second time how much they liked or disliked the group. As predicted, participants who did math problems continued to dislike the VSG#62 group, but no more than they had previously. Participants who were encouraged to generalize, in contrast, reported disliking the VSG#62 group more intensely than they had before. We discuss the sample, and potential individual differences that might influence these effects.

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia and is currently estimated to affect over 5 million Americans. There is no treatment for AD, and the incidence is expected to increase, as our population grows older. Many risk factors for AD have been identified, several of which involve stress and inflammation. Repeated injections of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a bacterial endotoxin, have previously been shown in our laboratory to exacerbate AD pathology, i.e. increase amyloid-beta (A-beta) levels and cognitive dysfunction. Our study aims to explore the connection between early-life stress and AD pathology in adulthood. Furthermore, we seek to understand how inflammation interacts with previous stress exposure. Using a non-transgenic mouse line, maternal separation (MS) was implemented daily from post-natal day 2 (PND 2) to the time of weaning (PND 21) to model developmental stress. After weaning, all animals were housed under regular conditions until adulthood. At 5 months of age, animals were administered LPS for 3 or 7 days , modeling an acute stress event. Following LPS administration, cognition was assessed using a contextual fear-conditioning (CFC) paradigm. Tissue was then collected and A-beta levels were quantified. Current results demonstrate that cognition was impaired in animals exposed to early-life stress, but this effect was not potentiated by LPS administration. Additionally, MS alone was insufficient to increase A-beta levels, but MS interacted with 3 days of LPS exposure to exacerbate A-beta accumulation in the hippocampus. Overall, results suggest that early-life stress exacerbates inflammation-induced AD pathologies. Further studies are needed to identify the specific mechanisms involved in inducing these changes.

The pace of children’s vocabulary learning reaches a peak between the ages of 8 and 10 years; however, little research has focused children’s acquisition of new vocabulary after toddlerhood. The purpose of this study was to contrast two theories that address how contiguous presentation of words and images produces object naming. The Naming Hypothesis predicts an advantage to hearing the name before seeing the image (Horne & Lowe,1996), whereas accounts based on perceptual conditioning may predict an advantage to observing the image first (Greer & Longano, 2010). Children between the ages of 4 and 7 years participated. Each child received six training sessions, each consisting of 20 presentations of images of four novel birds paired with their spoken names. In the word-first condition (three sessions), the bird name was played before the image appeared on the screen, and in the bird-first condition (three sessions), the bird image was shown ahead of the auditory stimulus. After each session, the participants were tested for recall of bird names. Results are pending completion of data collection.

For years, animal researchers have demonstrated that animals living in crowded environments diversify both body and behavior, opening new resource niches for exploitation. Two studies tested the hypothesis that crowding should also lead to diversity in human psychology, illustrated by increases in creative thinking. Increased creativity would help secure new opportunities for resource acquisition in environments filled with competitors. In both studies, participants viewed a crowding or control prime, then completed measures of creativity. In Study 1, participants completed a measure of openness, a trait positively associated with creativity. Individuals exposed to crowding cues reported more openness than those exposed to the control. In study 2, participants completed self-report and behavioral measures of creativity, followed by measures of resource concern and early environment. Analyses using conditional process revealed that crowding led to increases in creativity, with these effects being mediated by increases in resource concerns and moderated by childhood environment.

Previous work has demonstrated that nostalgia, a sentimental longing for the past, is associated with several psychological, emotional, and social benefits. More recently, research has found that nostalgic reflection can improve individuals’ physical health (Kersten, Cox, & Van Enkevort, 2016). Building on this, the current studies examined the relationship between nostalgic reverie and the experience of physical pain. In Study 1, a community sample of participants (Amazon’s Mechanical Turk; mTurk) reported their level of pain severity and then completed a measure of nostalgia proneness. In Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to a pain induction (versus a balance task; the control condition) and then everyone completed a measure assessing feelings of state-level nostalgia. Finally, participants were randomly assigned to write about either a nostalgic or ordinary event and were then either exposed to a painful procedure (i.e., algometer task; Study 3) or asked to rate their perceived pain severity (Study 4). The findings demonstrate that individuals who experience chronic pain are more prone to nostalgic thought (Study 1), and eliciting pain in participants results in greater feelings of nostalgia (Study 2). Further, in comparison to the control condition, nostalgic reverie led participants to report lower pain sensitivity (Study 3). Lastly, the current research examined whether nostalgic thinking helps to reduce the perceived severity of physical pain among chronic pain sufferers (Study 4). Collectively, these findings demonstrate the interventional potential of nostalgic reverie by being the first to show how nostalgia can be a potential mechanism to offset physical distress.

Introduction: Relational aggression refers to behaviors that are intended to harm others through the manipulation of relationships, social status, and/or feelings of belonging (Crick, 1996; Grotpeter, 1995). It is important to understand the factors that might predict why some individuals engage in relational aggression. Heightened reactivity to witnessing relational aggression may promote feelings of discomfort and deter the individual from engaging in this type of aggression (Wagner & Abaied, 2016). Other characteristics may also influence not only participation in but also reactivity to relational aggression. Studies have found that parenting styles are a predictor of relational aggression during emerging adulthood (Jordan, 2007). A person’s attachment to his or her parent sets a working model for future relationships. Therefore, it is possible that attachment working models may influence engagement in relational aggression. Finally, self-esteem is another factor that influences aggression (e.g., Baumeister et al., 1996; Donnellan et al., 2005; Golmaryami & Barry, 2010). The current study asks if attachment representations, parenting styles, and self-esteem impact female engagement in, and physiological responses to, relational aggression.

Method: For this study, 90 college female students between 17–23 years of age participated. Prior to the visit, participants filled out questionnaires about their demographics, their experiences with their parents (CRPBI; Margolies & Weintraub, 1977), their attachment style (ECR; Brennan et al., 1998), their self-esteem (RSES; Rosenberg, 1995), and their participation in relational aggression (SRASBM; Linder, Crick, & Collins, 2002) Participants’ physiological response was measured with galvanic skin sensors while they watched a video clip from Mean Girls depicting relational aggression and also participated in an interview about social stressors and experiences.

Results: The results revealed a significant influence of attachment anxiety, b = -.666 (SE = .322), p = .041, R2 = .23, on relational aggression. Additionally, greater maternal autonomy had a significant effect on relational aggression, b = .122 (SE = .051), t = 2.39, p = .019, R2 = .23. Maternal firm control, b = -.111 (SE = .058), t = -1.92, p = .058, R2 = .12, had a marginally significant effect on relational aggression as well. Attachment anxiety had a significant influence, b = .180 (SE = .075), t = 2.40, p = .018, R2 = .28, on proactive relational aggression. Attachment anxiety also had a significant effect on reactive relational aggression, b = .223 (SE = .068), t = 3.26, p = .002, R2 = .26. Maternal autonomy had a significant influence on proactive relational aggression, b = -.036 (SE = .011), t = -3.23, p = .002, R2 = .28. Additionally, there was a marginally significant influence of maternal autonomy, b = -.020 (SE = .011), t = -1.80, p = .075, R2 = .26, on reactive relational aggression.

Discussion: It appears that parenting and attachment influence both reactivity to and engagement in relational aggression. Good parenting serves as a protective factor against relational aggression. On the other hand, insecure attachments appear to be a risk factor for engaging in relational aggression. This research helps with understanding the mechanisms behind relational aggression and ways to support and help emerging adults so that they do not engage in relational aggression.