Validation of the Brief Perceived Ethnic Discrimination Questionnaire-Community Version in American Indians.

OBJECTIVE: The Brief Perceived Ethnic Discrimination Questionnaire-Community Version (PEDQ-CVB) is a widely used, multidimensional measure of exposure to ethnic/racial discrimination. The PEDQ-CVB has not been previously validated for use with American Indians, who have endured a unique history of colonization, cultural oppression, and ongoing discrimination. This study examined the measurement invariance of the PEDQ-CVB in American Indians (AIs) and 4 other groups. Additional analyses assessed the scale's convergent and discriminant validity and provided initial evidence of associations with mental and physical health in AIs. METHOD: Primary data were collected from a community sample of urban-dwelling AIs (n = 222), which included measures of ethnic/racial identity, other life stressors, and mental and physical health, along with the PEDQ-CVB. These were supplemented by secondary analysis of PEDQ-CVB data from African Americans (n = 1176), Latinos (n = 564), East Asian Americans (n = 274), and South Asian Americans (n = 242). RESULTS: The PEDQ-CVB demonstrated measurement invariance across the 5 ethnic/racial groups and convergent and discriminant validity in AIs. The PEDQ-CVB was significantly associated with depressive symptoms and physical limitations in AIs, after controlling for relevant demographics. CONCLUSION: This study provides strong evidence that the PEDQ-CVB behaves consistently for AIs and other underrepresented ethnic/racial groups. As such, the PEDQ-CVB allows for documentation of the experiences of different ethnic/racial groups and provides a means to test theoretical models of the antecedents and consequences of perceived discrimination within and across groups. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Experiments with More Than One Random Factor: Designs, Analytic Models, and Statistical Power.

Traditional methods of analyzing data from psychological experiments are based on the assumption that there is a single random factor (normally participants) to which generalization is sought. However, many studies involve at least two random factors (e.g., participants and the targets to which they respond, such as words, pictures, or individuals). The application of traditional analytic methods to the data from such studies can result in serious bias in testing experimental effects. In this review, we develop a comprehensive typology of designs involving two random factors, which may be either crossed or nested, and one fixed factor, condition. We present appropriate linear mixed models for all designs and develop effect size measures. We provide the tools for power estimation for all designs. We then discuss issues of design choice, highlighting power and feasibility considerations. Our goal is to encourage appropriate analytic methods that produce replicable results for studies involving new samples of both participants and targets.

Modeling stimulus variation in three common implicit attitude tasks.

We explored the consequences of ignoring the sampling variation due to stimuli in the domain of implicit attitudes. A large literature in psycholinguistics has examined the statistical treatment of random stimulus materials, but the recommendations from this literature have not been applied to the social psychological literature on implicit attitudes. This is partly because of inherent complications in applying crossed random-effect models to some of the most common implicit attitude tasks, and partly because no work to date has demonstrated that random stimulus variation is in fact consequential in implicit attitude measurement. We addressed this problem by laying out statistically appropriate and practically feasible crossed random-effect models for three of the most commonly used implicit attitude measures-the Implicit Association Test, affect misattribution procedure, and evaluative priming task-and then applying these models to large datasets (average N = 3,206) that assess participants' implicit attitudes toward race, politics, and self-esteem. We showed that the test statistics from the traditional analyses are substantially (about 60 %) inflated relative to the more-appropriate analyses that incorporate stimulus variation. Because all three tasks used the same stimulus words and faces, we could also meaningfully compare the relative contributions of stimulus variation across the tasks. In an appendix, we give syntax in R, SAS, and SPSS for fitting the recommended crossed random-effects models to data from all three tasks, as well as instructions on how to structure the data file.

Power anomalies in testing mediation.

Two rather surprising anomalies relating to statistical power occur in testing mediation. First, in a model with no direct effect for which the total effect and indirect effect are identical, the power for the test of the total effect can be dramatically smaller than the power for the test of the indirect effect. Second, when there is a direct effect of a causal variable on the outcome controlling for the mediator, the power of the test of the indirect effect is often considerably greater than the power of the test of the direct effect, even when the two are of the same magnitude. We try to explain the reasons for these anomalies and how they affect practice.

Categorisation salience and ingroup bias: the buffering role of a multicultural ideology.

The current work sought to test the moderating role of a multicultural ideology on the relationship between categorisation salience and ingroup bias. Accordingly, in one experimental study, we manipulated categorisation salience and the accessibility of a multicultural ideology, and measured intergroup attitudes. Results show that categorisation salience only leads to ingroup bias when a multiculturalism (MC) ideology is not made salient. Thus, MC ideology attenuates the negative effects of categorisation salience on ingroup bias. These results pertain to social psychology in general showing that the cognitive processes should be construed within the framework of ideological contexts.

Intervention and mediation effects of target processes in a randomized controlled trial of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for anxious cancer survivors in community oncology clinics.

OBJECTIVE: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a promising psycho-oncological intervention, but its mechanisms in real-world settings are not fully understood. This study examined core theorized ACT and broader ACT-consistent target processes as mediators of ACT versus minimally-enhanced usual care within a randomized trial for anxious cancer survivors in a community oncology setting. METHOD: Two core theorized ACT target processes (experiential avoidance and values-aligned behavior, each measured with two instruments) and two broader ACT-consistent target processes (emotional approach coping and self-compassion) were analyzed at pre- and post-intervention as mediators of general anxiety symptoms, cancer-related trauma symptoms, and fear of cancer recurrence (N = 134). RESULTS: ACT led to greater increases on emotional approach coping (ps ≤ .001) and one measure of values-aligned behavior (ps ≤ .031), and marginal or greater improvement on self-compassion (ps ≤ .055), but not other core ACT target processes. Self-compassion and emotional approach coping mediated ACT's effects on cancer-related trauma symptoms (ps ≤ .037). Additionally, self-compassion, emotional approach coping, and values-aligned behavior marginally mediated fear of recurrence and general anxiety symptoms improvement (ps ≤ .088). CONCLUSION: ACT reduced cancer survivors' anxiety-related symptoms, and especially cancer-related trauma symptoms, most consistently by promoting self-compassion and emotional approach coping.

Randomized trial of acceptance and commitment therapy for anxious cancer survivors in community clinics: Outcomes and moderators.

OBJECTIVE: Anxiety symptoms are common among cancer survivors. This study evaluated whether an acceptance-based group intervention delivered by social workers in community oncology clinics improved anxiety and related symptoms, and healthcare use, relative to enhanced usual care (EUC). METHOD: This multi-site trial included 135 survivors of various cancers with moderate to high anxiety about cancer/survivorship, 1.5-24 months after treatment. Participants were randomized 1:1 to a 7-session acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)-based group (Valued Living) or EUC (access to onsite supportive care plus resource list). Questionnaires were administered at baseline, 1, 2, 5, and 8 months post-randomization, diagnostic interviews at baseline, 2, and 8 months, and healthcare use tracked throughout. Outcomes included anxiety symptoms (primary), related symptoms, and healthcare use. Putative moderators included age, anxiety, and avoidance. RESULTS: In intent-to-treat comparisons to EUC, Valued Living (VL) showed a nonsignificant pattern of greater improvement on anxiety symptoms (p = .08), improved significantly more on cancer-related post-traumatic stress (p = .002), fear of recurrence (p = .003), and energy/fatigue (p = .02), and missed significantly fewer medical appointments (p < .05). Conditions improved similarly on depressive symptoms, sense of meaning, and most severe anxiety or depressive disorder. Effects were moderated: VL participants with higher baseline anxiety or avoidance (+1SD) improved more on anxiety, meaning (ps ≤ .01), and disorder severity (p = .05) than their EUC counterparts. CONCLUSIONS: An acceptance-based group intervention delivered in community oncology clinics enhanced psychological recovery and energy levels, and reduced missed medical appointments for anxious cancer survivors, with stronger effects for more distressed participants. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Avoid Cohen's 'Small', 'Medium', and 'Large' for Power Analysis.

One of the most difficult and important decisions in power analysis involves specifying an effect size. Researchers frequently employ definitions of small, medium, and large that were proposed by Jacob Cohen. These definitions are problematic for two reasons. First, they are arbitrary, based on non-scientific criteria. Second, they are inconsistent, changing dramatically and illogically as a function of the statistical test a researcher plans to use (e.g., t-test versus regression). These problems may be unknown to many researchers, but they have a huge impact on power analyses. Estimates of the required n may be inappropriately doubled or cut in half. For power analyses to have any meaning, these definitions of effect size should be avoided.

Reduction of opioid withdrawal and potentiation of acute opioid analgesia by systemic AV411 (ibudilast).

Morphine-induced glial proinflammatory responses have been documented to contribute to tolerance to opioid analgesia. Here, we examined whether drugs previously shown to suppress glial proinflammatory responses can alter other clinically relevant opioid effects; namely, withdrawal or acute analgesia. AV411 (ibudilast) and minocycline, drugs with distinct mechanisms of action that result in attenuation of glial proinflammatory responses, each reduced naloxone-precipitated withdrawal. Analysis of brain nuclei associated with opioid withdrawal revealed that morphine altered expression of glial activation markers, cytokines, chemokines, and a neurotrophic factor. AV411 attenuated many of these morphine-induced effects. AV411 also protected against spontaneous withdrawal-induced hyperactivity and weight loss recorded across a 12-day timecourse. Notably, in the spontaneous withdrawal study, AV411 treatment was delayed relative to the start of the morphine regimen so to also test whether AV411 could still be effective in the face of established morphine dependence, which it was. AV411 did not simply attenuate all opioid effects, as co-administering AV411 with morphine or oxycodone caused three-to-five-fold increases in acute analgesic potency, as revealed by leftward shifts in the analgesic dose response curves. Timecourse analyses revealed that plasma morphine levels were not altered by AV411, suggestive that potentiated analgesia was not simply due to prolongation of morphine exposure or increased plasma concentrations. These data support and extend similar potentiation of acute opioid analgesia by minocycline, again providing converging lines of evidence of glial involvement. Hence, suppression of glial proinflammatory responses can significantly reduce opioid withdrawal, while improving analgesia.

A question of compensation: the social life of the fundamental dimensions of social perception.

This research examines the impact of the compensation effect between the fundamental dimensions of warmth and competence on behavioral confirmation. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with 2 groups that varied on 1 of the 2 dimensions and asked to select the questions that they wanted to pose to learn more about the groups. Participants preferred to ask negative (positive) questions about the unmanipulated dimension to the high (low) group. In Experiment 2, participants rated the 2 groups on the basis of naïve people answers to those questions. As predicted, compensation emerged. Experiment 3 involved interactions among 3 participants, 1 interviewing the other 2 using the questions selected in Experiment 1. Ratings of targets' reactions again showed compensation.

Stereotyping based on voice in the presence of individuating information: vocal femininity affects perceived competence but not warmth.

In two experiments the authors examined the effect of vocal cues on warmth and competence judgments when other competing information was concurrently available. In Experiment 1, using male and female speakers posing as job applicants, the authors investigated how applicants' vocal cues and résumé information impacted judgments of competence and warmth. Results showed competence was solely affected by vocal femininity-applicants with masculine voices were rated as more competent than applicants with feminine voices, regardless of applicant gender or résumé information. Warmth was predominantly affected by résumés-applicants with feminine résumés were rated as warmer than applicants with masculine résumés. In Experiment 2, the potent effect of vocal femininity on competence was replicated even under conditions where the competing background information was directly diagnostic of warmth and competence. Furthermore, the authors found that the impact of vocal femininity on competence was largely due to the overlap between perceptions of vocal femininity and babyishness.

The unappreciated heterogeneity of effect sizes: Implications for power, precision, planning of research, and replication.

Repeated investigations of the same phenomenon typically yield effect sizes that vary more than one would expect from sampling error alone. Such variation is even found in exact replication studies, suggesting that it is not only because of identifiable moderators but also to subtler random variation across studies. Such heterogeneity of effect sizes is typically ignored, with unfortunate consequences. We consider its implications for power analyses, the precision of estimated effects, and the planning of original and replication research. With heterogeneity and an interest in generalizing to a population of studies, the usual power calculations and confidence intervals are likely misleading, and the preference for single definitive large-N studies is misguided. Researchers and methodologists need to recognize that effects are often heterogeneous and plan accordingly. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Proinflammatory cytokines oppose opioid-induced acute and chronic analgesia.

Spinal proinflammatory cytokines are powerful pain-enhancing signals that contribute to pain following peripheral nerve injury (neuropathic pain). Recently, one proinflammatory cytokine, interleukin-1, was also implicated in the loss of analgesia upon repeated morphine exposure (tolerance). In contrast to prior literature, we demonstrate that the action of several spinal proinflammatory cytokines oppose systemic and intrathecal opioid analgesia, causing reduced pain suppression. In vitro morphine exposure of lumbar dorsal spinal cord caused significant increases in proinflammatory cytokine and chemokine release. Opposition of analgesia by proinflammatory cytokines is rapid, occurring < or =5 min after intrathecal (perispinal) opioid administration. We document that opposition of analgesia by proinflammatory cytokines cannot be accounted for by an alteration in spinal morphine concentrations. The acute anti-analgesic effects of proinflammatory cytokines occur in a p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase and nitric oxide dependent fashion. Chronic intrathecal morphine or methadone significantly increased spinal glial activation (toll-like receptor 4 mRNA and protein) and the expression of multiple chemokines and cytokines, combined with development of analgesic tolerance and pain enhancement (hyperalgesia, allodynia). Statistical analysis demonstrated that a cluster of cytokines and chemokines was linked with pain-related behavioral changes. Moreover, blockade of spinal proinflammatory cytokines during a stringent morphine regimen previously associated with altered neuronal function also attenuated enhanced pain, supportive that proinflammatory cytokines are importantly involved in tolerance induced by such regimens. These data implicate multiple opioid-induced spinal proinflammatory cytokines in opposing both acute and chronic opioid analgesia, and provide a novel mechanism for the opposition of acute opioid analgesia.

Compensation versus halo: the unique relations between the fundamental dimensions of social judgment.

Recent work on the relations between the two dimensions of social judgment, that is, warmth and competence, evidenced compensation such that a group seen more positively than another group on one dimension is seen less positively on the second. The authors examine the status of this compensatory relation by introducing a third dimension in the judgment context. Experiment 1 extends earlier work in a different population, comparing compensation as a function of whether warmth or competence is manipulated and competence or warmth is the unmanipulated dimension. Experiments 2 and 3 use healthiness as the unmanipulated dimension and reveal the presence of halo rather than compensation between warmth or competence on one hand and healthiness on the other. These findings suggest that compensation may not only stem from a concern for distributive justice but may also derive from the unique structural and functional relations between the two fundamental dimensions of social judgment.

New recommendations for testing indirect effects in mediational models: The need to report and test component paths.

In light of current concerns with replicability and reporting false-positive effects in psychology, we examine Type I errors and power associated with 2 distinct approaches for the assessment of mediation, namely the component approach (testing individual parameter estimates in the model) and the index approach (testing a single mediational index). We conduct simulations that examine both approaches and show that the most commonly used tests under the index approach risk inflated Type I errors compared with the joint-significance test inspired by the component approach. We argue that the tendency to report only a single mediational index is worrisome for this reason and also because it is often accompanied by a failure to critically examine the individual causal paths underlying the mediational model. We recommend testing individual components of the indirect effect to argue for the presence of an indirect effect and then using other recommended procedures to calculate the size of that effect. Beyond simple mediation, we show that our conclusions also apply in cases of within-participant mediation and moderated mediation. We also provide a new R-package that allows for an easy implementation of our recommendations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Across the thin blue line: police officers and racial bias in the decision to shoot.

Police officers were compared with community members in terms of the speed and accuracy with which they made simulated decisions to shoot (or not shoot) Black and White targets. Both samples exhibited robust racial bias in response speed. Officers outperformed community members on a number of measures, including overall speed and accuracy. Moreover, although community respondents set the decision criterion lower for Black targets than for White targets (indicating bias), police officers did not. The authors suggest that training may not affect the speed with which stereotype-incongruent targets are processed but that it does affect the ultimate decision (particularly the placement of the decision criterion). Findings from a study in which a college sample received training support this conclusion.

What the voice reveals: within- and between-category stereotyping on the basis of voice.

The authors report research that attempts to shift the traditional focus of visual cues to auditory cues as a basis for stereotyping. Moreover, their approach examines whether gender-signaling vocal cues lead not only to between-category but also to within-category gender stereotyping. Study 1 showed that both men and women vary within category in how feminine their voices sound and that perceptions of vocal femininity are highly consensual. Furthermore, the measured acoustic characteristics that differed between gender were also related to perceptions of within-gender femininity. Subsequent studies demonstrated that variability in vocal femininity affects gender stereotyping when the targets are all of the same gender (Study 2) and when the targets are of different genders (Study 3). In the latter case, evidence of both category-based and feature-based stereotyping was found. Mediation analyses showed that the relationship between acoustics and stereotyping was in part due to femininity.

A cross-national analysis of measurement invariance of the Satisfaction With Life Scale.

Measurement invariance of the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) was examined in probability samples of adults 50-79 years of age living in the United States, England, and Japan. Confirmatory factor analysis modeling was used to test for multigroup measurement invariance of a single-factor structure of the SWLS. Results support a single-factor structure of the SWLS across the 3 countries, with tests of measurement invariance of the SWLS supporting its configural invariance and metric invariance. These results suggest that the SWLS may be used as a single-factor measure of life satisfaction in the United States, England, and Japan, and that it is appropriate to compare correlates of the SWLS in middle-aged and older adults across these 3 countries. However, results provided evidence for only partial scalar invariance, with the intercept for SWLS Item 4 varying across countries. Cross-national comparisons of means revealed a lower mean at the latent variable level for the Japanese sample than for the other 2 samples. In addition, over and above the latent mean difference, the Japanese sample also manifested a significantly lower intercept on Item 4. Implications of the findings for research on cross-national comparisons of life satisfaction in European American and East Asian countries are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record