Negative urgency as a state-level process.

OBJECTIVE: Test whether global self-reports of urgency moderated the within-person associations of affect and impulsive behaviors. BACKGROUND: Negative urgency is a personality trait that is a risk factor for a range of psychopathology. Although it is assumed that global self-reports of urgency measure individual tendencies to act more impulsively in the face of negative emotions, evidence from ecological momentary assessment studies is mixed. METHOD: In this Registered Report, we used ecological momentary assessment data from a large sample of young adults (n = 496, age 18-22, 5 surveys per day for 40 days). RESULTS: All forms of momentary impulsivity were impaired in moments when people reported more intense negative emotions, but global self-reports of urgency did not explain individual differences in this association. Moreover, averaged affective states, rather than specific dimensions, affective circumplex, or appraisals, best predicted impulsive states. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that face-valid interpretations of global self-report of urgency are inaccurate, and it may be important to understand how some people come to understand themselves as high on urgency rather than assuming that people's self-reports of their motivations are accurate. Momentary experiences of emotions globally impact multiple weakly to moderately associated impulsive behaviors, and future research should seek to understand both when and for whom these associations are strongest.

Null regions: a unified conceptual framework for statistical inference.

Ruling out the possibility that there is absolutely no effect or association between variables may be a good first step, but it is rarely the ultimate goal of science. Yet that is the only inference provided by traditional null hypothesis significance testing (NHST), which has been a mainstay of many scientific fields. Reliance on NHST also makes it difficult to define what it means to replicate a finding, and leads to an uncomfortable quandary in which increasing precision in data reduces researchers' ability to perform theory falsification. To solve these problems, in recent years several alternatives to traditional NHST have been proposed. However, each new test is described using its own terminology and practiced in different fields. We describe a simple, unified framework for conceptualizing all these tests so that it is not necessary to learn them separately. Moreover, the framework allows researchers to conduct any of these tests by asking just one question: is the confidence interval entirely outside the null region(s)? This framework may also help researchers choose the test(s) that best answers their research question when simply ruling out 'no effect at all' is not enough.

No evidence for trait- and state-level urgency moderating the daily association between negative affect and subsequent alcohol use in two college samples.

It remains unclear whether the negative reinforcement pathway to problematic drinking exists, and if so, for whom. One idea that has received some support recently is that people who tend to act impulsively in response to negative emotions (i.e. people high in negative urgency) may specifically respond to negative affect with increased alcohol consumption. We tested this idea in a preregistered secondary data analysis of two ecological momentary assessment studies using college samples. Participants (N = 226) reported on their current affective state multiple times per day and also the following morning reported alcohol use of the previous night. We assessed urgency both at baseline and during the momentary affect assessments. Results from our Bayesian model comparison procedure, which penalises increasing model complexity, indicate that no combination of the variables of interest (negative affect, urgency, and the respective interactions) outperformed a baseline model that included two known demographic predictors of alcohol use. A non-preregistered exploratory analysis provided some evidence for the effect of daily positive affect, positive urgency, as well as their interaction on subsequent alcohol use. Taken together, our results suggest that college students' drinking may be better described by a positive rather than negative reinforcement cycle.

How Candidates' Age and Gender Predict Voter Preference in a Hypothetical Election.

Are preferences for political candidates influenced by how old they appear to be? Amazon Mechanical Turk workers and undergraduate students were shown photos of 93 state legislators as candidates in hypothetical elections. Other information about the candidates (e.g., party affiliation) was held constant, randomized, or not presented. For very young candidates (< 35 years old), participants favored women over men. However, participants' intention to vote for male candidates increased with age until candidates were about 45 years old and then slightly decreased. In contrast, participants' intention to vote for female candidates consistently decreased with candidates' age. Perceived attractiveness and warmth accounted for some of the gender differences in the effect of candidates' perceived age.

Predicting mid-life capital formation with pre-school delay of gratification and life-course measures of self-regulation.

How well do pre-school delay of gratification and life-course measures of self-regulation predict mid-life capital formation? We surveyed 113 participants of the 1967-1973 Bing pre-school studies on delay of gratification when they were in their late 40's. They reported 11 mid-life capital formation outcomes, including net worth, permanent income, absence of high-interest debt, forward-looking behaviors, and educational attainment. To address multiple hypothesis testing and our small sample, we pre-registered an analysis plan of well-powered tests. As predicted, a newly constructed and pre-registered measure derived from preschool delay of gratification does not predict the 11 capital formation variables (i.e., the sign-adjusted average correlation was 0.02). A pre-registered composite self-regulation index, combining preschool delay of gratification with survey measures of self-regulation collected at ages 17, 27, and 37, does predict 10 of the 11 capital formation variables in the expected direction, with an average correlation of 0.19. The inclusion of the preschool delay of gratification measure in this composite index does not affect the index's predictive power. We tested several hypothesized reasons that preschool delay of gratification does not have predictive power for our mid-life capital formation variables.

A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of a Web-Based Growth Mindset Intervention to Enhance the Effectiveness of a Smartphone App for Smoking Cessation.

BACKGROUND: Although smartphone apps have shown promise for smoking cessation, there is a need to enhance their low engagement rates. This study evaluated the application of the growth mindset theory, which has demonstrated the potential to improve persistence in behavior change in other domains, as a means to improve engagement and cessation. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore the feasibility, utility, and efficacy of a Web-based growth mindset intervention for addiction when used alongside a smoking cessation app. METHODS: Daily smokers (N=398) were all recruited on the Web and randomly assigned to receive either a cessation app alone or the app plus a Web-delivered growth mindset intervention. The primary outcome was engagement, that is, the number of log-ins to the smoking cessation app. The secondary outcome was 30-day point prevalence abstinence at 2-month follow-up collected through a Web-based survey. RESULTS: The 2-month outcome data retention rate was 91.5% (364/398). In addition, 77.9% (310/398) of the participants in the experimental arm viewed at least 1 page of their growth mindset intervention, and 21.1% (84/398) of the group viewed all the growth mindset intervention. The intention-to-treat analysis did not show statistically significant differences between the experimental and comparison arms on log-ins to the app (19.46 vs 21.61; P=.38). The experimental arm had cessation rates, which trended higher than the comparison arm (17% vs 13%; P=.10). The modified intent-to-treat analysis, including only participants who used their assigned intervention at least once (n=115 in experimental group and n=151 in the control group), showed that the experimental arm had a similar number of log-ins (32.31 vs 28.48; P=.55) but significantly higher cessation rates (21% vs 13%; P=.03) than the comparison arm. CONCLUSIONS: A growth mindset intervention for addiction did not increase engagement rates, although it may increase cessation rates when used alongside a smartphone app for smoking cessation. Future research is required to refine the intervention and assess efficacy with long-term follow-up to evaluate the efficacy of the mindset intervention. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03174730; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03174730.

Addiction Mindsets and Psychological Processes of Quitting Smoking.

BACKGROUND: Lay belief systems about the malleability of human attributes have been shown to impact behavior change in multiple domains. Addiction mindset-i.e., beliefs about the permanence (vs. malleability) of addiction - may affect cigarette smokers' ability to quit, but this has never been examined. OBJECTIVES: The aims of the present research were to develop a measure of addiction mindset (study 1) and examine its associations with various psychological aspects of quitting smoking (study 2). METHODS: In Study 1, using factor analysis of current smokers' and nonsmokers' (n = 600) responses to 22 items designed to measure addiction mindset, we developed a reliable six-item Addiction Mindset Scale (AMS). In Study 2, adult smokers (n = 200) completed the AMS, and measures of a number of psychological processes related to smoking. RESULTS: Higher scores on the AMS, indicative of the belief that addiction is malleable (referred to as a growth mindset), were positively and significantly associated with greater motivation to quit, greater commitment to quitting, greater self-efficacy to abstain, less attribution of failure to lack of ability to change addiction, and fewer self-reported barriers to cessation (all p's < .05). CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study show a relationship between the beliefs about the permanence of addiction and psychological processes relevant to quitting smoking. The findings underscore the potential of future research exploring how addiction mindsets relate to successful smoking cessation as well as other types of addictive behavior and how they can be applied to change people's behavior.

Expanding the interpretive power of psychological science by attending to culture.

A lack of interpretive power (i.e., the ability to understand individuals' experiences and behaviors in relation to their cultural contexts) undermines psychology's understanding of diverse psychological phenomena. Building interpretive power requires attending to cultural influences in research. We describe three characteristics of research that lacks interpretive power: normalizing and overgeneralizing from behaviors and processes of people in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) contexts; making non-WEIRD people and processes invisible; and misapplying WEIRD findings in non-WEIRD contexts. We also describe research in which leveraging interpretive power prevented these negative consequences. Finally, using the culture-cycle framework, we outline a vision for creating culture change within psychology by implementing culture-conscious practices to guide the formation of research questions, empirical design, and data analysis and interpretation.

Cohort effects in children's delay of gratification.

In the 1960s at Stanford University's Bing Preschool, children were given the option of taking an immediate, smaller reward or receiving a delayed, larger reward by waiting until the experimenter returned. Since then, the "Marshmallow Test" has been used in numerous studies to assess delay of gratification. Yet, no prior study has compared the performance of children across the decades. Common wisdom suggests children today would wait less long, preferring immediate gratification. Study 1 confirmed this intuition in a survey of adults in the United States (N = 354; Mdn age = 34 years). To test the validity of this prediction, Study 2 analyzed the original data for average delay-of-gratification times (out of 10 min) of 840 typically developing U.S. children in three birth cohorts from similar middle-high socioeconomic backgrounds in the late 1960s, 1980s, and 2000s, matched on age (3 to 5 years) at the time of testing. In contrast to popular belief, results revealed a linear increase in delay over time (p < .0001, ηp2 = .047), such that children in the 2000s waited on average 2 min longer than children in the 1960s, and 1 min longer than children in the 1980s. This pattern was robust with respect to age, sex, geography and sampling effects. We posit that increases in symbolic thought, technology, preschool education, and public attention to executive function skills have contributed to this finding, but caution that more research in diverse populations is needed to examine the generality of the findings and to identify causal factors. (PsycINFO Database Record

Constraints on generality statements are needed to define direct replication.

Whether or not a replication attempt counts as "direct" often cannot be determined definitively after the fact as a result of flexibility in how procedural differences are interpreted. Specifying constraints on generality in original articles can eliminate ambiguity in advance, thereby leading to a more cumulative science.

Constraints on Generality (COG): A Proposed Addition to All Empirical Papers.

Psychological scientists draw inferences about populations based on samples-of people, situations, and stimuli-from those populations. Yet, few papers identify their target populations, and even fewer justify how or why the tested samples are representative of broader populations. A cumulative science depends on accurately characterizing the generality of findings, but current publishing standards do not require authors to constrain their inferences, leaving readers to assume the broadest possible generalizations. We propose that the discussion section of all primary research articles specify Constraints on Generality (i.e., a "COG" statement) that identify and justify target populations for the reported findings. Explicitly defining the target populations will help other researchers to sample from the same populations when conducting a direct replication, and it could encourage follow-up studies that test the boundary conditions of the original finding. Universal adoption of COG statements would change publishing incentives to favor a more cumulative science.

Enhancing Stress Management Coping Skills Using Induced Affect and Collaborative Daily Assessment.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the use of induced affect (IA) and collaborative (therapeutic) assessment (CA) as components of Cognitive-Affective Stress Management Training (CASMT). IA is a technique for rehearsing cognitive and physical relaxationcoping skills under conditions of high affective arousal, which has been shown to result in high levels of coping self-efficacy. CA provides diary-based feedback to clients about the processes underlying theirstress experiences and helps identify affect-arousing experiences to be targeted by IA. We include descriptions of the IA technique and anonline stress and coping daily diary, as well as sample transcripts illustrating how CA is integrated into CASMT and how IA evokes high affective arousal and skills rehearsal. To illustrate idiographic assessment, we also describe threetreatment cases involving female clients between the ages of 20 and 35 with anxiety symptoms who participated in six weeks of CASMT and reported their daily stress and coping experiences (before, during, and following the intervention)for a total of ten weeks. The resulting time series data, analyzed using Simulation Modeling Analysis (SMA), revealed that all clients reported improved negative affect regulation over the course of treatment, yet they exhibited idiographic patterns of change on other outcome and coping skills variables. These results illustrate how IA and CA may be used to enhance emotional self-regulation and how time-series analyses can identify idiographic aspects of treatment response that would not be evident in group data.

Observation-Oriented Modeling: Going Beyond "Is It All a Matter of Chance"?

An alternative to null hypothesis significance testing is presented and discussed. This approach, referred to as observation-oriented modeling, is centered on model building in an effort to explicate the structures and processes believed to generate a set of observations. In terms of analysis, this novel approach complements traditional methods based on means, variances, and covariances with methods of pattern detection and analysis. Using data from a previously published study by Shoda et al., the basic tenets and methods of observation-oriented modeling are demonstrated and compared with traditional methods, particularly with regard to null hypothesis significance testing.

An approach to test for individual differences in the effects of situations without using moderator variables.

The effects of situations may vary importantly across people. If the relevant individual difference variables are known, moderation analyses can test for this possibility. But what if the moderators are not measured or are unknown? We demonstrated how a Highly-Repeated Within-Person (HRWP) design can be used to answer this question, by examining the effect of support seekers' expressions of distress separately for each participant. Although on average, participants' willingness to provide social support increased as a function of support seekers' levels of distress, the opposite was true for some participants; their willingness to provide support significantly decreased as support seekers' expressed distress increased. These findings underscore the importance of examining reliable individual differences in the effects of situations, and show that this is possible without first identifying and measuring individual difference variables that moderate the situation effects. Furthermore, the HRWP design prevents stimulus sampling problems and substantially increases statistical power.

Dimensionality of brain networks linked to life-long individual differences in self-control.

The ability to delay gratification in childhood has been linked to positive outcomes in adolescence and adulthood. Here we examine a subsample of participants from a seminal longitudinal study of self-control throughout a subject's life span. Self-control, first studied in children at age 4 years, is now re-examined 40 years later, on a task that required control over the contents of working memory. We examine whether patterns of brain activation on this task can reliably distinguish participants with consistently low and high self-control abilities (low versus high delayers). We find that low delayers recruit significantly higher-dimensional neural networks when performing the task compared with high delayers. High delayers are also more homogeneous as a group in their neural patterns compared with low delayers. From these brain patterns, we can predict with 71% accuracy, whether a participant is a high or low delayer. The present results suggest that dimensionality of neural networks is a biological predictor of self-control abilities.

Preschoolers' delay of gratification predicts their body mass 30 years later.

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether preschoolers' performance on a delay of gratification task would predict their body mass index (BMI) 30 years later. STUDY DESIGN: In the late 1960s/early 1970s, 4-year-olds from a university-affiliated preschool completed the classic delay of gratification task. As part of a longitudinal study, a subset (n = 164; 57% women) were followed up approximately 30 years later and self-reported their height and weight. Data were analyzed using hierarchical regression. RESULTS: Performance on the delay of gratification task accounted for a significant portion of variance in BMI (4%; P < .01), over and above the variance accounted for by sex alone (13%). Each additional minute that a preschooler delayed gratification predicted a 0.2-point reduction in BMI in adulthood. CONCLUSION: Longer delay of gratification at age 4 years was associated with a lower BMI 3 decades later. Because this study is correlational, it is not possible to make causal inferences regarding the relationship between delay duration and BMI. Identifying children with greater difficulty in delaying gratification could help detect children at risk of becoming overweight or obese. Interventions that improve self-control in young children have been developed and might reduce children's risk of becoming overweight and also have positive effects on other outcomes important to society.

Cognitive-affective processing system analysis of intra-individual dynamics in collaborative therapeutic assessment: translating basic theory and research into clinical applications.

According to the cognitive-affective processing system (CAPS) model, behavior is a function of how the distinctive cognitive-affective system of the individual responds to one's subjective experience of the situation encountered. Thus an individual's maladaptive coping processes may be understood by identifying the nature of the situations that a client experiences as highly stressful and the psychological reactions they trigger. An initial study established the feasibility and utility of an Internet-based CAPS daily diary program; it was then used to facilitate a clinical stress-management intervention. The daily diary enabled researchers and clinicians to gather Highly-Repeated Within-Persons (HRWP) data on the situational features, cognitions, affect, and coping behaviors associated with daily life stress, which were then analyzed separately for each participant to identify each individual's unique and distinctive pattern of intra-individual dynamics. Results suggested that individuals differed reliably in the features of psychological situations that triggered stress and maladaptive coping behaviors. HRWP analysis of daily diary data enhanced the efficacy of clinical intervention, and clients' self-regulatory capabilities and life satisfaction were shown to increase over the course of the intervention. We discuss how our program of research fits into the larger goals of translational science and current NIMH clinical research priorities.