Personality and Self-efficacy for Illness Management in Cancer.

Objectives Self-efficacy for illness management is increasingly recognized as important for outcomes in cancer. We examined whether The Big Five personality dimensions were associated with self-efficacy for illness management and hypothesized that patients who were less neurotic and more conscientious would have better self-efficacy. Methods Adults with cancer completed a cross-sectional survey that included the Mini-International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) and three subscales of the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Self-Efficacy for Chronic Conditions: managing emotions, managing symptoms, and managing treatment and medication. Linear regressions were used to test the hypotheses, while controlling for covariates. Results The personality and PROMIS self-efficacy measures demonstrated good evidence of reliability (median Cronbach's alpha = .78, range of .69-.92) and validity (intercorrelations). As hypothesized, patients who were less neurotic or more conscientious had higher levels of illness self-efficacy overall and on each of the three subscales (all p s < .001). Openness was associated with better self-management of symptoms ( p = .013) and emotions ( p = .040). Extraversion was associated with better self-management of emotions ( p = .024). Conclusions Personality plays a vital role in illness self-efficacy for patients with cancer. Practice Implications: As a part of multidisciplinary care teams, psychosocial experts can use these findings to help patients better manage their illness.

(Mis)Perceiving Sexual Intent: A Mixed-Method Approach Investigating Sexual Overperception Across Diverse Sexual Identities.

Research on perceptions of sexual interest has documented the tendency for men to overperceive sexual interest (i.e., to perceive a social signal as indicating more sexual intent than the actor intended). However, this work has almost exclusively focused upon these dynamics among heterosexual individuals. Thus, the current set of studies aimed to understand how perceptions of sexual interest manifest among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) women and men. In Study 1 (N = 85), LGB women and men nominated behaviors that signal sexual intent. Using an act nomination approach, LGB women and men tended to nominate behaviors similar to those nominated by heterosexual women and men. In Study 2 (N = 43), gay men reported acts that were representative of their own and other gay men's sexual interest. Consistent with previous work-by comparing perceived self-reported versus others' sexual intent when engaging in specific behaviors-we found no evidence for a sexual overperception bias in gay men, albeit in a small field study. In Study 3 (N = 307), using a gender-by-sexual orientation design, heterosexual and LGB women and men reported previous experiences in which their friendliness was sexually misperceived. Bisexual women were less likely than other groups to report their friendliness being misinterpreted as sexual by other bisexual women and/or lesbians. Additionally, across all genders and sexual orientations, participants reported feelings of indifference, awkwardness and embarrassment when being misperceived. Ultimately, the current studies' results provide broader insight into the nature of sexual overperception among LGB populations.

Community-based N95 distribution during the COVID-19 Omicron BA.1 surge: feasibility, 1-month utilization, and price implications.

Masks and other non-pharmaceutical interventions can complement vaccines and treatments as a part of multilayered mitigation to reduce the burden of COVID-19 in high-risk settings like surges. Although N95s provide greater protection than cloth and procedure masks against airborne infectious illnesses, few people used N95s historically, potentially due to lack of familiarity and cost. The study was designed to examine the feasibility of distributing N95s during a COVID-19 surge. A follow-up survey summarized mask behavior. The investigators aimed to distribute 2,500 N95s to 500 adults in 5-packs with informational handouts at community locations during the COVID-19 Omicron BA.1 surge in New Orleans, Louisiana. A 1-month follow-up survey assessed utilization, safety perceptions, social diffusion of awareness of N95s, and purchase intentions. The investigators successfully distributed all 2,500 N95s during the peak of the BA.1 surge (December 13, 2021 to January 17, 2022). At 1-month follow-up, 96.7% of participants had tried an N95. They utilized an average of 3.42 (68.4%) of the five N95s, felt safer wearing N95s (Ps < 0.0001), discussed N95s with others (80.4%), and would wear N95s again if free (87.9%). Future utilization intentions were price sensitive. Communities will readily use public health tools like N95s when at risk and offered for free with useful information. Cost was identified as a key barrier to sustained utilization. Findings have immediate public policy implications for reducing national, regional, and organizational surges. The research provides an illustrative example of the importance of behavioral science in responding to public health crises.

Masks are a part of a comprehensive approach to reducing the burden of COVID-19 surges. High-quality masks, called N95 masks in the USA, provide better protection than cloth or blue procedure masks. Most people have not used N95s due to a lack of familiarity or cost. We tested a program to distribute N95s to the community during a COVID-19 surge. Specifically, we gave 2,500 N95s to 500 adults in 5-packs with informational handouts during the COVID-19 Omicron BA.1 surge in New Orleans, Louisiana. We requested recipients complete a 1-month follow-up survey. Overall, we were successful in distributing all 2,500 N95s during the peak of the winter 2021­2022 surge. By 1-month follow-up, nearly all recipients had tried an N95 and had used nearly 70% of the total given. They felt safer, discussed the masks with others, and would wear them again if free. Cost was a key barrier to using N95s in the future. After our study, the USA federal government implemented a program to distribute free N95s, but there are no policy plans to distribute free N95s during future winter surges or in response to vaccine-evading variants. Free N95 distribution programs would be popular and reduce the burden of COVID-19.

Goals and good health: Undergraduates' goals for avoiding COVID-19.

We observed COVID-19 concern during goal pursuit data collection, where some undergraduates self-reported COVID-19 specific goals. Thus, we analyzed the individual difference in students who self-reported COVID-19 specific goals in this current exploratory study. The results revealed (N = 496) that there were no differences in those who reported COVID-19 goals with their self-reporting of the Five-Factor Model. Additionally, participant's most reported goal was to 1) not contract COVID-19, 2) be social during COVID-19, and 3) follow health and safety protocols. This study provides researchers with both qualitative and quantitative evidence about college students' concern with COVID-19.

Dispositional intelligence of the Five-Factor Model as a learning outcome in an undergraduate personality course.

This pedagogical prime aimed to examine whether undergraduate education in personality psychology was associated with increases in dispositional intelligence, a key variable underlying social skills. The sample consisted of students enrolled in a small Introduction to Personality college course who completed a summative performance-based assessment of their conceptual reasoning that required a complex application of their understanding of personality. On the first day of class, the students completed a dispositional intelligence scale, demonstrating their pre-course understanding of how personal adjectives (e.g., insecure) correspond to particular personality dispositions (e.g., neuroticism). They took the same scale again on the last day of class to assess if learning about the Five-Factor Model (FFM) during the class was associated with increased dispositional intelligence scores. Results from this longitudinal study revealed that participants had an increase in dispositional intelligence from the first to last day of class (d = 0.89, p = .001), especially when perceiving the dispositions of openness (d=.59, p=.04) and agreeableness (d=.69, p=.019). In conclusion, a college personality course emphasizing the Five-Factor Model was associated with increases in a measure of personality understanding.

Sex on the Screen: A Content Analysis of Free Internet Pornography Depicting Mixed-Sex Threesomes from 2012-2020.

Viewing online pornography is common among US adults, with mixed-sex threesome (MST) videos being one of the top 10 most popular categories of pornography for both men and women. The current content analysis applied sexual script theory to understand the themes present in these mixed-sex threesome videos. Independent coders viewed a total of 50 videos (25 MMF and 25 FFM) at each timepoint (2012, 2015, 2020) and coded for different sexual behaviors and themes in each video. By examining both same-sex (female-female, male-male) and other-sex (female-male) behaviors, as well as themes of aggression and sexual initiation in different videos and across three timepoints, it was determined that other-sex behaviors are more common in MST videos than same-sex behaviors. Same-sex behaviors between two female actors were more common than same-sex behaviors between two male actors. Aggression was a common theme in videos, with male actors being more aggressive on average than female actors. Most of these trends did not change across 8 years, suggesting that the impacts of traditional sexual scripts are pervasive in pornography, even in current online content. Important implications for both researchers and clinical professionals are discussed.

Outbreaks and Outgroups: Three Tests of the Relationship Between Disease Avoidance Motives and Xenophobia During an Emerging Pandemic.

Given the persistent threat posed by infectious disease throughout human history, people have a sophisticated suite of cognitive and behavioral strategies designed to mitigate exposure to disease vectors. Previous research suggests that one such strategy is avoidance of unfamiliar outgroup members. We thus examined the relationship between dispositional worry about disease and support for COVID-19-related travel bans across three preregistered studies (N = 764) conducted at the outset of the pandemic in the United States and Singapore. Americans higher in Perceived Infectability were more supportive of travel bans, whereas Singaporeans higher in Germ Aversion were more supportive of travel bans. In Study 2, priming saliency of the pandemic increased support for travel bans from high (but not low) pandemic-risk countries. This prime did not increase general xenophobia. These results are consistent with threat-specific perspectives of outgroup avoidance, and provide an ecologically-valid test of the implications of perceived disease threat for policy-related attitudes and decision-making. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40806-021-00283-z.

The psychology of breakup sex: Exploring the motivational factors and affective consequences of post-breakup sexual activity.

Popular culture has recently publicized a seemingly new postbreakup behavior called breakup sex. While the media expresses the benefits of participating in breakup sex, there is no research to support these claimed benefits. The current research was designed to begin to better understand this postbreakup behavior. In the first study, we examined how past breakup sex experiences made the individuals feel and how people predict they would feel in the future (n = 212). Results suggested that men are more likely than women to have felt better about themselves, while women tend to state they felt better about the relationship after breakup sex. The second study (n = 585) investigated why men and women engage in breakup sex. Results revealed that most breakup sex appears to be motivated by three factors: relationship maintenance, hedonism, and ambivalence. Men tended to support hedonistic and ambivalent reasons for having breakup sex more often than women. The two studies revealed that breakup sex may be differentially motivated (and may have different psychological consequences) for men and women and may not be as beneficial as the media suggests.

No evidence for a relationship between MHC heterozygosity and life history strategy in a sample of North American undergraduates.

Although allelic diversity at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) has implications for adaptive immunity, mate choice, and social signalling, how diversity at the MHC influences the calibration of life history strategies remains largely uninvestigated. The current study investigated whether greater MHC heterozygosity was associated with markers of slower life history strategies in a sample of 789 North American undergraduates. Contrary to preregistered predictions and to previously published findings, MHC heterozygosity was not related to any of the psychological life history-relevant variables measured (including short- vs. long-term sexual strategy, temporal discounting, the Arizona life history battery, past and current health, disgust sensitivity, and Big Five personality traits). Further, no meaningful effects emerged when analysing women and men separately. Possible reasons for why the current results are inconsistent with previous work are discussed.