Influence of diagnosis threat and illness cognitions on the cognitive performance of people with acquired brain injury.

Illness cognitions - cognitive representations of illness - have been found to influence health outcomes in chronic diseases: more adaptive illness cognitions generally lead to better outcomes. Concomitantly, diagnosis threat (DT) is a phenomenon whereby participants with acquired brain injury (ABI) underperform on neuropsychological tasks due to stereotype activation. This randomised study examined the impact of illness cognitions and DT on cognitive performance. People with ABI completed the Illness Cognitions Questionnaire and were then exposed to either a DT condition or a reduced DT condition (in which stereotype cues were reduced). They then completed memory and attentional tasks. Control participants performed only the tasks under one of the two conditions. Under the reduced DT condition, higher adaptive illness cognitions were associated with better memory and attentional performance. However, the DT condition diminished memory (but not attentional) performance in participants with a high level of adaptive illness cognitions, often leading to performance at the pathological level. This study confirms the detrimental impact of DT in people with ABI and highlights the necessity for clinicians to consider psychosocial influences when assessing and treating this population.

Implicit Belittlements Call for Implicit Measures: Emotional Reactions to Youth Paternalistic Stereotypes.

Age discrimination at work can potentially affect every worker. Indeed, like 'old' workers, young ones hired in their first job elicit the idea that they have quite interesting social abilities but lack of competence, which constitutes a case of paternalistic stereotypes (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002). Generally, the negative (incompetence) facet of such stereotypes is not blatantly expressed, but is subtly conveyed behind an apparently positive discourse. Consequently, it is considered as being generally under-detected, while harmful. In this paper, we examine whether paternalistic stereotyping's under-detection is real or if it is due to the use of inadequate measures. Based on a study showing that targets feel that something is wrong (Dardenne, Dumont, & Bollier 2007), we rely on affective measures to investigate whether the detection of the subtly conveyed negative facet of paternalistic stereotypes calls for subtle, implicit measures. In Study 1, explicit self-reports of targets' affective states after a meeting with a paternalistic boss revealed mainly positive affect. In Study 2, an implicit emotional measure however revealed the presence of a negative affective state. The last Study, using a more ecological affective measure, demonstrates that paternalistic stereotypes trigger an ambivalent affective reaction. Altogether, the three studies suggest that the negative facet of paternalistic stereotypes is not as under-detected as we thought.

The Role of Self-Transcendence and Cognitive Processes in the Response Expectancy Effect.

Neuropsychological assessment is known to be influenced by expectancy effects, which can either enhance (placebo) or diminish (nocebo) cognitive performance. Research suggests that the response expectancy effect is influenced by various individual and situational factors and that the placebo effect results in an increase in monitoring processes as measured indirectly. However, the impact on monitoring processes has not yet been studied by direct measures such as Judgement Of Learning (JOL). This study aimed to investigate the response expectancy effect on various neuropsychological tasks, including a task that directly assesses monitoring capacities (JOL). In addition to determining which cognitive functions are influenced by the expectancy effect, this study examined the moderating role of the self-transcendence dimension of personality. Eighty healthy subjects were exposed to three bogus conditions presented as allegedly having a positive, negative, or no impact on cognitive capacities. Then they completed, in random order, three blocks of tasks (executive, attentional, and memory), one in each condition. Results showed an effect of negative instructions on flexibility (poorer performance) and memory (better performance) scores. Furthermore, positive instructions led to better explicit monitoring capacities (JOL) than the neutral condition. These effects were moderated by self-transcendence, as only participants with moderate or high self-transcendence exhibited these effects. Overall, our results showed that the response expectancy effect emerges from a combination of individual and cognitive factors.

Intergroup Reconciliation between Flemings and Walloons: The Predictive Value of Cognitive Style, Authoritarian Ideology, and Intergroup Emotions.

Testifying to the gap in fundamental research on positive intergroup outcomes, we investigated reconciliation attitudes in a non-violent intergroup context (i.e., the linguistic conflict in Belgium). By incorporating both important predictors of negative outgroup attitudes (i.e., individual differences in rigid cognitive styles and authoritarian ideologies), and important predictors of reconciliation (i.e., intergroup emotions), we aimed to contribute to a more comprehensive theoretical framework for the analysis of intergroup relations. We recruited one Flemish (N = 310) and one Walloon (N = 365) undergraduate students sample to test the proposed model. Structural equation analyses with maximum likelihood estimation were conducted using the Lavaan package. In both samples, similar patterns were found. More in particular, the need for cognitive closure appeared to be the basic predictor of right-wing attitudes (i.e., right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation) and essentialist thinking, which were then associated with less outgroup empathy and trust, and more outgroup anger. Furthermore, outgroup trust and empathy were positively related to reconciliation. Interestingly, some differences between the Flemish and Walloon sample were found, such as the direct effects of need for closure and social dominance orientation in the first sample, and the non-significant effects of essentialism in the latter sample. Considering the ongoing public and political debate about the linguistic conflict in Belgium, these findings shed a new light on how individual differences relate to specific outgroup emotions, and how these are associated with important intergroup outcomes in the face of intergroup conflict.

Moral Decision-Making in Trolley Problems and Variants: How Do Participants' Perspectives, Borderline Personality Traits, and Empathy Predict Choices?

The aim of the present study was to demonstrate and extend the causal effect of participants' perspectives on moral decision-making using trolley problems and variants. Additionally, we investigated whether empathy and borderline (BDL) personality traits predicted participants' choices in these scenarios. We used both a classical trolley problem (a causing harm scenario) and an everyday trolley-like problem (a causing inconvenience scenario). Participants (N = 427, women: 54%) completed BDL traits and empathy questionnaires and, randomly, the two types of trolley problems, presenting both three different perspectives. Our study provided strong evidence that the perspective from which participants were enrolled in the trolley problem caused significant changes in their moral decision-making. Furthermore, we found that affective empathy and BDL traits significantly predicted participants' decisions in the causing inconvenience scenario, while only BDL traits predicted choices in the causing harm scenario. This study was original in providing new experimental materials, causal results, and highlighting the significant influence of BDL traits and affective empathy on moral decision-making. These findings raised fundamental questions, which are further developed in the discussion section.

Relationships between Green Space Attendance, Perceived Crowdedness, Perceived Beauty and Prosocial Behavior in Time of Health Crisis.

An emergent body of evidence shows the impact of exposure to nature on prosocial attitudes and interpersonal relationships. This study examines relationships between green space (GS) attendance, perceived beauty of the space, perceived crowdedness of the space, and prosocial behavior. A cross-sectional study with snowball sampling was conducted in April 2020. All participants (N = 1206) responded to an online survey that included a French version of the social value orientation slider measure (used as a proxy for prosocial behavior), questions about the lockdown, and their GS attendance. After retaining only participants who had visited a GS at least once since the beginning of their lockdown (N = 610), multiple linear regressions showed that social orientation scores demonstrated associations with the interaction between GS attendance and perceived crowdedness of the GS, suggesting that attending low crowded GS is linked to increasing prosociality. These results provide insight into the roles that GS can have during a health crisis and suggest some practical implications.

Impact of Diagnosis Threat on Neuropsychological Assessment of People with Acquired Brain Injury: Evidence of Mediation by Negative Emotions.

OBJECTIVE: Some studies have shown that diagnosis threat (DT) could negatively impact the cognitive performance of undergraduate students who had sustained a mild traumatic brain injury. This study was designed to examine DT in people with acquired brain injury (ABI). As a second goal, we investigated the effect of stereotype lift as a way to overcome DT's harmful impact. The purpose of this study was also to examine the mechanisms mediating stereotype effects. METHOD: People with ABI and control participants were assigned to one of three conditions: DT, cognitive-neutral (in which the cognitive status of participants with ABI and the cognitive characteristics of the tasks were deemphasized), and stereotype lift (in which a downward comparison was made with another neurological group). Participants then completed neuropsychological tasks. Negative emotions, intrusive thoughts, task expectancy, and self-efficacy were assessed for mediation analyses. RESULTS: Instructions impacted the performance of people with ABI, but not control participants. Compared to the cognitive-neutral condition, participants with ABI in the DT condition performed worse on memory and executive tasks (but not on attention tasks). These effects were mediated by negative emotions. There was no increase in performance in the stereotype lift condition compared to the DT condition. CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that DT can aggravate the cognitive difficulties of people with ABI during neuropsychological assessment. The mediating role of negative emotions and the selective impact of DT on tasks that rely heavily on executive functioning are discussed in the light of the stereotype threat model.

Overdiagnosis of ADHD in boys: Stereotype impact on neuropsychological assessment.

There is vigorous debate regarding the possibility that ADHD is overdiagnosed in boys. We investigated the impact of the gender stereotype depicting boys as inattentive and impulsive on neuropsychological assessment (observation of psychology students and child's cognitive performance). In experiment 1, after the stereotype was activated, psychology students rated a "boy," a "girl," or a "child" on a behavioral assessment scale. In experiment 2, 103 children (boys and girls) completed neuropsychological tasks under stereotype threat or neutral conditions. The gender stereotype led psychology students to assess a child's behaviors more negatively if they thought the child was a boy. Boys' performance on one cognitive score declined following stereotype threat. Regression path analyses suggested moderation by stigma consciousness. Additionally, there were mediating and suppressing (through stereotype endorsement) effects. Our results suggest that the gender stereotype might contribute to the overdiagnosis of ADHD in boys.

Interactions between stereotype threat, subjective aging, and memory in older adults.

This study examined whether the effects of stereotype threat on memory and subjective age were moderated by positive age stereotypes and self-perceptions of aging among older adults. Perceived threat as a mechanism underlying these effects was also explored. Results showed that stereotype threat (high vs. low threat) did not affect the dependent variables. Moreover, self-perceptions of aging did not moderate the effect of stereotype threat on the dependent variables. However, for people with more positive age stereotypes, older people under highthreat perceived more threat than people under low threat. This could be explained by an effect of age stereotypes in the high-threat group: the more positive age stereotypes held by participants, the more they perceived threat, which in turn decreased their memory performance and made them feel mentally older. We hypothesized that age group identity is stronger in people with more positive age stereotypes, which increase perceived threat.

Diagnosis threat and underperformance: The threat must be relevant and implicit.

INTRODUCTION: The diagnosis threat (DT) phenomenon shows that, in some cases, reminding people with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) about their past neurological history diminishes subsequent cognitive performance. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of personal relevance (i.e., domain identification) and type of threat (i.e., implicit vs. explicit) as moderating variables. We investigated intrusive thoughts as a potential mediator. METHOD: Control (non-mTBI) and mTBI participants were recruited and completed a domain identification questionnaire. Under either an implicit or an explicit DT condition, they completed neuropsychological tasks assessing working memory, episodic memory, and executive processing, as well as measures of intrusive thoughts. RESULTS: As expected, the main results showed that, for working memory and episodic memory, high identifier mTBI participants scored worse in the implicit DT condition than in the explicit condition. The implicit DT condition also led high identifier mTBI participants to score worse than low identifiers for working memory. Conversely, the explicit DT condition led high identifier mTBI participants to perform better than low identifiers for both working and episodic memory. Unexpectedly, low identifier mTBI participants scored better on working memory tasks in the implicit DT condition than in the explicit condition. We found no evidence of mediation by intrusive thoughts. CONCLUSIONS: Domain identification and the explicit or implicit nature of the DT must be taken into account, as they can impact mTBI participants' cognitive performance. This study suggests the influence of DT as a factor biasing neuropsychological assessment.

Insidious dangers of benevolent sexism: consequences for women's performance.

Four experiments found benevolent sexism to be worse than hostile sexism for women's cognitive performance. Experiments 1-2 showed effects of paternalist benevolent sexism and ruled out explanations of perceived sexism, context pleasantness, and performance motivation. Experiment 3 showed effects of both paternalist and complementary gender differentiation components of benevolent sexism. Benevolent sexism per se (rather than the provision of unsolicited help involved in paternalism) worsened performance. Experiment 4 showed that impaired performance due to benevolent sexism was fully mediated by the mental intrusions women experienced about their sense of competence. Additionally, Experiment 4 showed that gender identification protected against hostile but not benevolent sexism. Despite the apparently positive and inoffensive tone of benevolent sexism, our research emphasizes its insidious dangers.

The role of parental anxiety sensitivity and learning experiences in children's anxiety sensitivity.

This study evaluated the impact of the mother's and father's anxiety sensitivity (AS) and learning experiences on children's AS, and the influence of two moderators: the children's femininity orientation and the children's emotional intelligence (EI). The sample comprised 200 non-clinical children, aged 9-13 years, and their parents (mothers and fathers). Results revealed that the effect of parental AS on children's AS is moderated by the children's EI for maternal AS and by their femininity traits for paternal AS. Learning experiences following somatic sensations influenced the children's level of AS. More specifically, special attention by parents following a child's somatic sensations (reinforcement and transmission of information) was associated with high AS in children. Parental reactions of fear following a parent's somatic sensations (modelling) seem to predict higher scores for AS when the link is moderated by the child's femininity orientation. The implications of these findings are discussed. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject The influence of parental factors in child's AS has been demonstrate, but these studies are limited. Specific mechanisms might condition the relationship between child's AS and parental factors. What does this study add? Learning experiences and parental AS influence the child's level of AS. It is important to consider the influence of mothers and fathers in child's AS. Child's emotional intelligence and expressive traits may moderate the effect of parental factors.

Stereotype contrast effect on neuropsychological assessment of contact-sport players: The moderating role of locus of control.

INTRODUCTION: Diagnosis threat has been shown to produce detrimental effects on neuropsychological performance in individuals with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). Focusing on contact-sport players who are at great risk of mTBI, our study was designed to examine the moderating role of internal locus of control. Specifically, we predicted that following diagnosis threat (reminder of their risk of sustaining mTBI and of its consequences), low-internal contact-sport players would underperform (assimilation to the stereotype), while their high-internal counterparts would outperform (contrast effect). We predicted that effort and anxiety would mediate these effects. METHOD: Contact-sport players and non-contact-sport players ("control" group) were randomly assigned to one condition (diagnosis threat or neutral) and then completed attention, executive, episodic memory, and working memory tasks. Regarding mediating and moderating variables, participants rated their effort and anxiety (self-report measures) and completed the Levenson (1974) locus of control scale. Regression-based path analyses were carried out to examine the direct and indirect effects. RESULTS: As expected, there was no effect of condition on the control group's performance. Contact-sport players with moderate and high levels of internal control outperformed (contrast effect) on executive and episodic memory tasks following diagnosis threat compared to the neutral condition. Additionally, the less anxiety moderate- and high-internal contact-sport participants felt, the better they performed on episodic memory and executive tasks. However, contact-sport players low in internal control did not underperform (assimilation effect) under diagnosis threat. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that diagnosis threat instructions may have challenged moderate- and high-internal contact-sport participants, leading them to outperform compared to the neutral condition. Individuals who have moderate and high levels of internal locus of control may have higher performance under diagnosis threat compared to the neutral condition because of their feeling of control over their cognitive performance.

[Formula: see text]The effect of stereotype threat on older people's clinical cognitive outcomes: investigating the moderating role of dementia worry.

OBJECTIVE: Numerous studies have shown that stereotype threat (ST) reduces older people's cognitive performance, but few have studied its impact on clinical cognitive outcomes. Our study was designed to further examine the impact of ST on the clinical assessment of older subjects' cognitive functioning, as well as the moderating role of fear of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) (or 'dementia worry'). METHOD: Seventy-two neurologically normal (MMSE > 26) participants aged between 59 and 70 completed a set of neuropsychological tasks in either an ST or a positive condition (condition in which negative stereotypes were invalidated). RESULTS: Regression-based path analyses showed that only participants who expressed moderate or high fear of AD underperformed on executive tasks in the ST condition compared to their counterparts in the positive condition. Moreover, in the ST condition, participants' performance on executive tasks was more impaired (relative to normative data) than in the positive condition. However, ST had no effect on memory and attention performance. DISCUSSION: Our results showed that ST can cause older people to perform at pathological levels on executive tasks. Results highlight the need for clinicians to be cautious when conducting neuropsychological assessments of older people who express high levels of dementia worry.

The link between self-perceptions of aging, cancer view and physical and mental health of older people with cancer: A cross-sectional study.

OBJECTIVES: Older people may suffer from stigmas linked to cancer and aging. Although some studies suggested that a negative view of cancer may increase the level of depression, such an association has never been studied in the elderly population. Similarly, even though it is established that a negative self-perception of aging has deleterious consequences on mental and physical health in normal aging, the influence in pathological contexts, such as oncology, has not been studied. The main aim of this study is thus to analyze the effect of these two stigmas on the health of elderly oncology patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 101 patients suffering from a cancer (breast, gynecological, lung or hematological) were seen as soon as possible after their diagnosis. Their self-perception of age, cancer view and health (physical and mental) was assessed. RESULTS: Multiple regressions showed that patients with a more negative self-perception of aging and/or more negative cancer view reported poorer global health. We also observed that negative self-perception of aging was associated with worse physical and mental health, whereas negative cancer views were only linked to worse mental health. No interaction was observed between these two stigmas, suggesting that their action is independent. CONCLUSION: Older patients with cancer face double stigmatization, due to negative self-perception of aging and cancer, and these stigmas have impacts on global and mental health. Self-perception of aging is also linked to physical health. Longitudinal studies will be necessary to analyze the direction of the association between this double stigmatization and health.

Benevolent Ideology and Women's Economic Decision-Making: When Sexism Is Hurting Men's Wallet.

Can ideology, as a widespread "expectation creator," impact economic decisions? In two studies we investigated the influence of the Benevolent Sexism (BS) ideology (which dictates that men should provide for passive and nurtured women) on women's economic decision-making. In Study 1, using a Dictator Game in which women decided how to share amounts of money with men, results of a Generalized Linear Mixed Model analysis show that higher endorsement of BS and contextual expectations of benevolence were associated with more very unequal offers. Similarly, in an Ultimatum Game in which women received monetary offers from men, Study 2's Generalized Linear Mixed Model's results revealed that BS led women to reject more very unequal offers. If women's endorsement of BS ideology and expectations of benevolence prove contrary to reality, they may strike back at men. These findings show that BS ideology creates expectations that shape male-female relationships in a way that could be prejudicial to men.

Similarities between the target and the intruder in naturally occurring repeated person naming errors.

The present study investigated an intriguing phenomenon that did not receive much attention so far: repeatedly calling a familiar person with someone else's name. From participants' responses to a questionnaire, these repeated naming errors were characterized with respect to a number of properties (e.g., type of names being substituted, error frequency, error longevity) and different features of similarity (e.g., age, gender, type of relationship with the participant, face resemblance and similarity of the contexts of encounter) between the bearer of the target name and the bearer of the wrong name. Moreover, it was evaluated whether the phonological similarity between names, the participants' age, the difference of age between the two persons whose names were substituted, and face resemblance between the two persons predicted the frequency of error. Regression analyses indicated that phonological similarity between the target name and the wrong name predicted the frequency of repeated person naming errors. The age of the participant was also a significant predictor of error frequency: the older the participant the higher the frequency of errors. Consistent with previous research stressing the importance of the age of acquisition of words on lexical access in speech production, results indicated that bearer of the wrong name was on average known for longer than the bearer of the target name.

Benevolent sexism alters executive brain responses.

Benevolence is widespread in our societies. It is defined as considering a subordinate group nicely but condescendingly, that is, with charity. Deleterious consequences for the target have been reported in the literature. In this experiment, we used functional MRI (fMRI) to identify whether being the target of (sexist) benevolence induces changes in brain activity associated with a working memory task. Participants were confronted by benevolent, hostile, or neutral comments before and while performing a reading span test in an fMRI environment. fMRI data showed that brain regions associated previously with intrusive thought suppression (bilateral, dorsolateral, prefrontal, and anterior cingulate cortex) reacted specifically to benevolent sexism compared with hostile sexism and neutral conditions during the performance of the task. These findings indicate that, despite being subjectively positive, benevolence modifies task-related brain networks by recruiting supplementary areas likely to impede optimal cognitive performance.