Cross-situational consistency of trait expressions and injunctive norms among Asian Canadian and European Canadian undergraduates.

OBJECTIVE: In the current paper, we sought to clarify when and why Asian Americans/Canadians and European Americans/Canadians differ in self-consistency (the consistency of personality traits across situations). METHOD: European Canadian (n = 220) and second-generation Asian Canadian (n = 166) undergraduates (Mage = 19 years) described the traits they expressed and the traits others wanted them to express (i.e., injunctive norms, or injunctions) in four different social situations (i.e., with parents, with friends, with siblings, and with professors). RESULTS: Self-consistency was greater among European Canadians than Asian Canadians, but only when comparing behavior with parents versus with peers (i.e., friends and siblings). The same pattern was found for injunctive consistency (cross-situational consistency of trait injunctions). Injunctions strongly predicted the behavior of both Asian and European Canadians, but because the injunctions from parents versus peers diverged more for Asian Canadians, so did their behaviors. Controlling for the effect of inconsistent injunctions across situations eliminated the ethnic difference in self-consistency. Finally, Asian Canadians who perceived their immigrant parents as embracing a Canadian identity were as cross-situationally consistent as European Canadians because they tended to behave-and believe their parents approved of their behaving-with parents similarly to how they behaved with peers (e.g., more carefree and outspoken). CONCLUSION: Contrary to previous theorizing, cultural influences on broad cognitive or motivational dispositions (e.g., dialecticism, collectivism) alone cannot explain the observed pattern of ethnic differences in consistency. To understand when bicultural individuals are less consistent across situations also requires an understanding of the specific situations across which they tend to encounter divergent social norms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Gestures and social-emotional communicative development in chimpanzee infants.

Communicative skills of chimpanzees are of significant interest across many domains, such as developmental psychology (how does communication emerge in prelinguistic beings?), evolution (e.g., did human language evolve from primate gestures?), and in comparative psychology (how does the nonverbal communication of chimpanzees and humans compare?). Here we ask about how gestures develop in chimpanzee infants (n = 16) that were raised in an interactive program designed to study skill development. Data on socio-communicative development were collected following 4 hr of daily interaction with each infant, longitudinally from birth through the first year of life. A consistent and significant developmental pattern was found across the contexts of tickle play, grooming, and chase play: Infant chimpanzees first engaged in interactions initiated by others, then they initiated interactions, and finally, they requested others to join them in the interaction. Gestures were documented for initiating and requesting tickle play, for initiating and requesting grooming, and for initiating and requesting chase play. Gestural requests emerged significantly later than gestural initiations, but the age at which gestures emerged was significantly different across contexts. Those gestures related to hierarchical rank relations, that is, gestures used by subordinates in interaction with more dominant individuals, such as wrist presenting and rump presenting, did not emerge in the same manner as the other gestures. This study offers a new view on the development of gestures, specifically that many develop through interaction and communicate socio-emotional desires, but that not all gestures emerge in the same manner.

Building Authentic Science Experiences: Students' Perceptions of Sequential Course-Based Undergraduate Research.

Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) are attractive solutions for scaling undergraduate research experiences at primarily undergraduate teaching institutions, where resources for faculty research activities can be limited. The Sustainable Interdisciplinary Research to Inspire Undergraduate Success (SIRIUS) project is a unique program that integrates CUREs, coordinated around a local real-world problem, throughout a biology department's curricula. The CUREs are scaffolded to provide all biology majors with multiple opportunities to engage in scientific investigations as they advance through introductory, intermediate, and advanced courses. In this mixed methods, cross-sectional study, we explore students' perceptions of the authenticity of their experiences as they progress through the SIRIUS CUREs. Triangulated data collected from two instruments indicated that students in advanced courses recognized more involvement in research activities and perceived greater authenticity in the science they were performing compared with introductory and intermediate students. Intermediate and advanced students perceived more opportunities for independence; however, experiences with failure and the influence these experiences had on the perceptions of authenticity was primarily observed with advanced students. This study contributes to the growing literature on CUREs with a focus on students from a primarily undergraduate institution with multiple minority-serving designations.

Ten tips for developing a more inviting syllabus.

In higher education, syllabi have traditionally served as written contracts between instructors and their students, providing first-hand information about the course and expectations. Reading the syllabus may provide students with first impressions or mental images of the instructor, thereby initiating a student-instructor relationship even before any interaction has occurred. Instructors can use syllabi to directly communicate values and practices of equity and inclusion, but students can perceive indirect messages through tone and language that may support or contradict stated values. Here, we share empirically derived recommendations for improving the tone of syllabi with inviting language and stylistic features that promote relationship-building with students.

Provincial variation in colorectal cancer screening adherence in Canada; evidence from the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow's Health.

Introduction: Although colorectal cancer (CRC) screening program is proven to reduce CRC incidence and mortality, understanding patterns and predictors of suboptimal adherence in screening program requires further investigation in Canada. Methods: We used self-reported data from five regional cohorts of the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow's Health (CanPath), namely the BC Generations Project (BCGP), Alberta's Tomorrow Project (ATP), the Ontario Health Study (OHS), Quebec's CARTaGENE, and the Atlantic Partnership for Tomorrow's Health Study (Atlantic PATH). We stratified participants into the following four risk categories: 1) age 50-74 years, 2) family history in a first-degree relative, 3) personal history of chronic inflammatory bowel disease and/or polyps, and 4) co-existence of personal risk and family history. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify predictors of adherence to the screening guidelines. Results: Adherence to CRC screening varied considerably between regions, ranging from 16.6% in CARTaGENE to 47.7% in OHS. Compared to the largest cohort OHS, the likelihood of non-adherence to CRC screening was significantly higher in BCGP (OR 1.15, 95% CI 1.11-1.19), the Atlantic PATH (OR 1.90, 95% CI 1.82-1.99) and CARTaGENE (OR 5.10, 95% CI 4.85-5.36). Low physical activity, current smoking, presence of personal risk, family history of CRC significantly reduced the likelihood of adherence to screening recommendations. Discussion/conclusion: Compared to the national target of ≥ 60% for participation in CRC screening, adherence to regular CRC screening was suboptimal in this cohort of Canadians and varied by region. Further efforts are needed to identify the specific barriers to screening adherence in different provinces and across risk categories.

Hardiness and Burnout in Adult U.S. Workers.

OBJECTIVE: Burnout is a costly problem, and it appears to be getting worse due to COVID-related stressors. It is thus important for organizations to find better tools to prevent and mitigate worker burnout. METHODS: Conditional PROCESS path analysis was used to assess the relation of hardiness to burnout in a representative sample of U.S. workers, with sex and age as potential moderators. RESULTS: Hardiness is associated with reduced burnout symptoms. Sex did not moderate this relation. A moderating effect for age was observed, with more burnout appearing in younger, less hardy workers. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest hardiness operates similarly for men and women as a buffer against burnout, and that older workers are less vulnerable to burnout. Training programs to increase stress appraisals and coping skills used by more experienced, hardy workers may be beneficial in reducing burnout.

Student Anxiety and Engagement with Online Instruction across Two Semesters of COVID-19 Disruptions.

The sudden shift to online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic left many instructors wondering how to minimize anxiety while keeping students engaged in their virtual courses. In this study, we explored (i) specific online instructional tasks that caused students to experience anxiety, (ii) factors that hindered student engagement with online instruction, and (iii) changes in student anxiety and engagement between spring 2020 and fall 2020. Students enrolled in STEM classes were surveyed at the end of spring 2020 (N = 425) and fall 2020 (N = 347) semesters. Our results show that the majority of student respondents had more anxiety in fall 2020 than in spring 2020 with online learning in general, and less anonymous class activities tended to cause the greatest anxiety. Distractions from the environment and personal technologies commonly prevented engagement in both semesters, but no significant differences were observed between the spring and fall. In contrast, more students reported that health-related stress, work-related stress, and issues with technology prevented participation in fall 2020 than in spring 2020. As institutions consider expanding their online course offerings post-pandemic, these data provide valuable insight into the challenges students experienced with online instruction that can inform future pedagogical choices.

Hardiness moderates the effects of COVID-19 stress on anxiety and depression.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to sharp increases in mental health problems around the world, most notably in anxiety and depression. The present study examines hardiness and age as potential protective factors against the mental health effects of COVID-related stress. A sample of Canadians balanced across age and gender, completed an online survey including measures of COVID related stressors, hardiness, depression, and anxiety, along with age, gender, and other demographics. Conditional PROCESS analysis showed that COVID stressors led to significant increases in anxiety and depression. Hardiness moderated these relations, with those high in hardiness showing less anxiety and depression. Age was negatively related to anxiety and depression, with highest levels observed among the younger respondents. At the same time, a moderating effect of age was found with respect to depression, with older people showing sharper increases in depression as COVID-related stress goes up. Gender was not a significant factor in any of these relations, meaning that the results apply equally well to both women and men. This study provides evidence that younger people who are also low in hardiness are most vulnerable to developing anxiety and depression while under COVID stress, and so would likely benefit from preventive intervention strategies. While anxiety and depression symptoms are highest among the young, older age groups appear more vulnerable to increasing rates of depression symptoms related to COVID stress. Clinicians and practitioners should thus be especially vigilant for COVID related increases in depression among older people, and those low in psychological hardiness.

Spatiotemporal analysis of auditory "what" and "where" working memory.

Goal-directed attention to sound identity (what) and sound location (where) has been associated with increased neural activity in ventral and dorsal brain regions, respectively. In order to ascertain when such segregation occurs, we measured event-related potentials during an n-back (n = 1, 2) working memory task for sound identity or location, where stimuli selected randomly from 3 semantic categories (human, animal, music) were presented at 3 possible virtual locations. Accuracy and reaction times were comparable in both "what" and "where" tasks, albeit worse for the 2-back than for the 1-back condition. The partial least squares analysis of scalp-recorded and source waveform data revealed domain-specific activity beginning at about 200-ms poststimulus onset, which was best expressed as changes in source activity near Heschl's gyrus, and in central medial, occipital medial, right frontal and right parietal cortex. The effect of working memory load emerged at about 400-ms poststimulus and was expressed maximally over frontocentral scalp region and in sources located in the right temporal, frontal and parietal cortices. The results show that for identical sounds, top-down effects on processing "what" and "where" information is observable at about 200 ms after sound onset and involves a widely distributed neural network.

Neural encoding of sound duration persists in older adults.

Speech perception depends strongly on precise encoding of the temporal structure of sound. Although behavioural studies suggest that communication problems experienced by older adults may entail deficits in temporal acuity, much is unknown about the effects of age on the neural mechanisms underlying the encoding of sound duration. In this study, we measured neuromagnetic auditory evoked responses in young, middle-aged and older healthy participants listening to sounds of various durations. The time courses of cortical activity from bilateral sources in superior temporal planes showed specific differences related to the sound offsets indicating the neural representation of onset and offset markers as one dimension of the neural code for sound duration. Model free MEG source analysis identified brain areas specifically responding with an increase in activity to increases in sound duration in the left anterior insula, right inferior frontal, right middle temporal, and right post-central gyri in addition to bilateral supra-temporal gyri. Sound duration-related changes in cortical responses were comparable in all three age groups despite age-related changes in absolute response magnitudes. The results demonstrated that early cortical encoding of the temporal structure of sound presented in silence is little or not affected by normal aging.

Noise-induced increase in human auditory evoked neuromagnetic fields.

Noise is usually detrimental to auditory perception. However, recent psychophysical studies have shown that low levels of broadband noise may improve signal detection. Here, we measured auditory evoked fields (AEFs) while participants listened passively to low-pitched and high-pitched tones (Experiment 1) or complex sounds that included a tuned or a mistuned component that yielded the perception of concurrent sound objects (Experiment 2). In both experiments, stimuli were embedded in low or intermediate levels of Gaussian noise or presented without background noise. For each participant, the AEFs were modeled with a pair of dipoles in the superior temporal plane, and the effects of noise were examined on the resulting source waveforms. In both experiments, the N1m was larger when the stimuli were embedded in low background noise than in the no-noise control condition. Complex sounds with a mistuned component generated an object-related negativity that was larger in the low-noise condition. The results show that low-level background noise facilitates AEFs associated with sound onset and can be beneficial for sorting out concurrent sound objects. We suggest that noise-induced increases in transient evoked responses may be mediated via efferent feedback connections between the auditory cortex and lower auditory centers.

Recommendations for Effective Integration of Ethics and Responsible Conduct of Research (E/RCR) Education into Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences: A Meeting Report.

Advancement of the scientific enterprise relies on individuals conducting research in an ethical and responsible manner. Educating emergent scholars in the principles of ethics/responsible conduct of research (E/RCR) is therefore critical to ensuring such advancement. The recent impetus to include authentic research opportunities as part of the undergraduate curriculum, via course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), has been shown to increase cognitive and noncognitive student outcomes. Because of these important benefits, CUREs are becoming more common and often constitute the first research experience for many students. However, despite the importance of E/RCR in the research process, we know of few efforts to incorporate E/RCR education into CUREs. The Ethics Network for Course-based Opportunities in Undergraduate Research (ENCOUR) was created to address this concern and promote the integration of E/RCR within CUREs in the biological sciences and related disciplines. During the inaugural ENCOUR meeting, a four-pronged approach was used to develop guidelines for the effective integration of E/RCR in CUREs. This approach included: 1) defining appropriate student learning objectives; 2) identifying relevant curriculum; 3) identifying relevant assessments; and 4) defining key aspects of professional development for CURE facilitators. Meeting outcomes, including the aforementioned E/RCR guidelines, are described herein.

Age-related differences in neuromagnetic brain activity underlying concurrent sound perception.

Deficits in parsing concurrent auditory events are believed to contribute to older adults' difficulties in understanding speech in adverse listening conditions (e.g., cocktail party). To explore the level at which aging impairs sound segregation, we measured auditory evoked fields (AEFs) using magnetoencephalography while young, middle-aged, and older adults were presented with complex sounds that either had all of their harmonics in tune or had the third harmonic mistuned by 4 or 16% of its original value. During the recording, participants were asked to ignore the stimuli and watch a muted subtitled movie of their choice. For each participant, the AEFs were modeled with a pair of dipoles in the superior temporal plane, and the effects of age and mistuning were examined on the amplitude and latency of the resulting source waveforms. Mistuned stimuli generated an early positivity (60-100 ms), an object-related negativity (ORN) (140-180 ms) that overlapped the N1 and P2 waves, and a positive displacement that peaked at approximately 230 ms (P230) after sound onset. The early mistuning-related enhancement was similar in all three age groups, whereas the subsequent modulations (ORN and P230) were reduced in older adults. These age differences in auditory cortical activity were associated with a reduced likelihood of hearing two sounds as a function of mistuning. The results reveal that inharmonicity is rapidly and automatically registered in all three age groups but that the perception of concurrent sounds declines with age.

Curricular Activities that Promote Metacognitive Skills Impact Lower-Performing Students in an Introductory Biology Course.

This study explores the impacts of repeated curricular activities designed to promote metacognitive skills development and academic achievement on students in an introductory biology course. Prior to this study, the course curriculum was enhanced with pre-assignments containing comprehension monitoring and self-evaluation questions, exam review assignments with reflective questions related to study habits, and an optional opportunity for students to explore metacognition and deep versus surface learning. We used a mixed-methods study design and collected data over two semesters. Self-evaluation, a component of metacognition, was measured via exam score postdictions, in which students estimated their exam scores after completing their exam. Metacognitive awareness was assessed using the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) and a reflective essay designed to gauge students' perceptions of their metacognitive skills and study habits. In both semesters, more students over-predicted their Exam 1 scores than under-predicted, and statistical tests revealed significantly lower mean exam scores for the over-predictors. By Exam 3, under-predictors still scored significantly higher on the exam, but they outnumbered the over-predictors. Lower-performing students also displayed a significant increase in exam postdiction accuracy by Exam 3. While there was no significant difference in students' MAI scores from the beginning to the end of the semester, qualitative analysis of reflective essays indicated that students benefitted from the assignments and could articulate clear action plans to improve their learning and performance. Our findings suggest that assignments designed to promote metacognition can have an impact on students over the course of one semester and may provide the greatest benefits to lower-performing students.

Cross-Situational Self-Consistency in Nine Cultures: The Importance of Separating Influences of Social Norms and Distinctive Dispositions.

We assessed self-consistency (expressing similar traits in different situations) by having undergraduates in the United States ( n = 230), Australia ( n = 220), Canada ( n = 240), Ecuador ( n = 101), Mexico ( n = 209), Venezuela ( n = 209), Japan ( n = 178), Malaysia ( n = 254), and the Philippines ( n = 241) report the traits they expressed in four different social situations. Self-consistency was positively associated with age, well-being, living in Latin America, and not living in Japan; however, each of these variables showed a unique pattern of associations with various psychologically distinct sources of raw self-consistency, including cross-situationally consistent social norms and injunctions. For example, low consistency between injunctive norms and trait expressions fully explained the low self-consistency in Japan. In accord with trait theory, after removing normative and injunctive sources of consistency, there remained robust distinctive noninjunctive self-consistency (reflecting individuating personality dispositions) in every country, including Japan. The results highlight how clarifying the determinants and implications of self-consistency requires differentiating its distinctive, injunctive, and noninjunctive components.

A Lot Can Happen in a Few Minutes: Examining Dynamic Patterns Within an Interaction to Illuminate the Interpersonal Nature of Personality Disorders.

Although problematic interpersonal tendencies have often been characterized as a traitlike excess of a particular interpersonal style, the interpersonal nature of personality disorders may have more to do with patterns of variability in interpersonal behavior and the relation of this variability to the varying behavior of interaction partners. Indeed, problematic interpersonal tendencies may often be evident as patterns within even one interaction. A useful methodology for examining moment-to-moment patterns within the course of an interaction is the computer joystick technique. To illustrate the potential of this new approach for studying problematic interpersonal patterns, the authors provide joystick-based analyses of the videoed session between Dr. Donald Meichenbaum and the client, Richard (Shostrom, 1986a). The authors show how to examine the association between concurrent levels of dominance and affiliation within a person, patterns of covariation between partners, and the moderation of such entrainment patterns. They also discuss how these indices could illuminate disordered interpersonal patterns.

Aging: a switch from automatic to controlled processing of sounds?

In this article, the authors show that aging differentially affects peoples' ability to automatically and voluntarily process auditory information. Young, middle-aged, and older adults matched behaviorally in an auditory discrimination task showed similar patterns of neural activity indexing the voluntary and conscious detection of deviant (i.e., target) stimuli. In contrast, a negative wave indexing automatic processing (the mismatch negativity) was elicited only in young adults for near-threshold stimuli. These results indicate that aging affects the ability to automatically register small changes in a stream of homogeneous stimuli. However, this age-related decline in automatic detection of small change in the auditor environment can be compensated for by top-down controlled processes.

Aging and the processing of sound duration in human auditory cortex.

Age-related declines in coding the fine temporal structure of acoustic signals is proposed to play a critical role in the speech perception difficulties commonly observed in older individuals. This hypothesis was tested by measuring auditory evoked potentials elicited by sounds of various durations in young, middle-aged and older adults. All stimuli generated N1 and P2 waves that peaked at about 104 and 200 ms post-stimulus onset. The N1 amplitude increased linearly with increases in the tonal duration in young, middle-aged, and older adults. The P2 amplitude also increased linearly with signal duration, but only in young and middle-aged adults. The results demonstrate that the N1 and P2 waves can resolve duration differences as short as 2-4 ms and that normal aging decreases the temporal resolving power for processing small differences in sound duration.

Analysis of regional recurrence after negative sentinel lymph node biopsy for head and neck melanoma.

BACKGROUND: The head and neck have a rich lymphatic drainage and complex anatomy, which complicate sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy for melanoma. The incidence of regional recurrence after a negative SLN biopsy has been shown to be higher than that at other sites. Compounding factors in this scenario were analyzed to determine their impact on both SLN status and survival. METHODS: A retrospective review of a prospective database of 315 patients who underwent SLN biopsy for head and neck melanoma from 1994 to 2009 was performed. A false-negative SLN biopsy was defined as a regional recurrence in a previously mapped nodal basin. RESULTS: In all, 267 patients (84.8%) were SLN negative (SLN-) and 48 patients (15.2%) were SLN positive (SLN+). The false-negative SLN biopsy occurred in 17 patients (6.4%). The mean follow-up was 37.6 months (3-152 months). The false-negative SLN and SLN+ patients were similar with respect to patient age and sex and primary melanoma tumor thickness and ulceration. The site of the primary melanoma and the lymphatic drainage patterns did not influence the false-negative biopsy rate. The mean survival was SLN- 119.3 months (95% confidence interval [CI], 106.1-132.5, p < .001), SLN+ 73.4 months (95% CI, 52.3-94.4), and the false-negative SLN 70.7 months (95% CI, 54.2-87.1). CONCLUSIONS: The risk of a false-negative SLN biopsy in head and neck melanoma is independent of primary site and lymphatic drainage pattern. Patients with head and neck melanoma who have a regional recurrence after a negative SLN biopsy do not have a worse survival than that of patients who are initially SLN positive.