Sex Stereotypes and Child Physical Abuse: Mediating Effects of Attitudes on Beliefs about Consequences for Abusive Parents.

We hypothesized that (a) sex stereotypes would influence individuals' attitudes toward and beliefs about physically abusive parents and (b) these attitudes would mediate the connection between sex stereotypes and beliefs. Participants read one of four scenarios in which (a) sex of parents and sex of children were systematically varied while (b) holding constant the actions of parents and children as well as surrounding circumstances. Participants then expressed their attitudes about those parents and their beliefs about appropriate consequences for these parents. As expected, participants held more unfavorable attitudes about fathers than mothers and believed lenient consequences were more appropriate for mothers than fathers. Moreover, the linkage between parents' sex and participants' beliefs was mediated by participants' attitudes such that the effects of sex stereotypes on beliefs were all indirect rather than direct. Limitations (e.g., cross-sectional design, sample representativeness) and future directions (e.g., alternative parental and child behaviors, individual differences as moderators) are discussed.

THNN - A Neural Network Model for Telehealth Data Incompleteness Prediction.

In modern-day medical practices, practitioners and physicians are adapting to new technologies and utilizing new methods of communication with patients. Telemedicine, or telehealth, is one of the newest innovations in medical technology, enabling practitioners to communicate with their patients over the phone, video conferencing, or chat. However, clinical data and sentiments/attitudes are often not reflected in the practitioner's analysis and diagnosis of the patients they serve. As a solution to the problem of data incompleteness in telehealth, THNN allows medical practices to accommodate for possible missing or incomplete data and provide a greater quality of care overall. Through an ensemble of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and AI-enabled systems, THNN produces sentiment and incompleteness mapping to provide seamless results.Clinical relevance- The method presented utilizes telehealth natural language data to process the sentiments of patients and the incompleteness found in the conversations, increasing the possibility of improved healthcare outcomes.

Self-monitoring and former best friends: individual differences in friendship dissolution.

Across two investigations, we explored self-monitoring differences in the causes of relationship dissolution with best friends and if such differences are best captured by a univariate model or bivariate model of self-monitoring. Causes of friendship dissolution often mirror the reasons for friendship formation. Accordingly, we hypothesized that high self-monitors would report a change in shared activities as the reason for dissolving a relationship with a best friend, whereas low self-monitors would report a change in personal compatibility as the reason for dissolving a relationship with a best friend. In both studies, participants focused on a former best friend and indicated which of two causes (Study 1: loss of shared activities vs. loss of shared attitudes and values; Study 2: change in life circumstances vs. change in broad dispositions) was more influential in ending that friendship. They also completed the Self-Monitoring Scale; scores were used to create indices of self-monitoring in its univariate and bivariate (acquisitive vs. protective) forms. In both studies, protective self-monitoring was more consistently related to reasons for friendship dissolution, such that (a) high self-monitoring was associated with a loss of shared interests and (b) low self-monitoring was associated with a loss of personal compatibility as the bases for friendship dissolution. Effects were independent of potential third variables. Implications (e.g., nuanced assessment of self-monitoring), limitations (e.g., absence of longitudinal designs), and future directions (e.g., examining actor-partner effects) are discussed.

Self-monitoring, self-selection, and prospective employment: individual differences in finding a workplace niche.

Self-selection of different employment opportunities was predicted to be a function of dispositional differences in self-monitoring. In two studies, participants read two job descriptions containing attributes that matched the skills and needs of either high self-monitors or low self-monitors. Participants then indicated which job they would accept if offered both jobs and subsequently completed the 25-item Self-Monitoring Scale. Scale responses were used to create univariate/categorical (high vs. low self-monitors) and bivariate/two dimensional (acquisitive, protective) indices of self-monitoring. In Study 1, low self-monitors and high self-monitors chose personally congruent jobs. These divergent choices were observed regardless of the way (univariate model, alternative bivariate model) self-monitoring was assessed. In Study 2, these self-monitoring differences were moderated by job status. These moderated choices of jobs were obtained when self-monitoring was assessed in its conventional and acquisitive (i.e., impression management for gain) forms but not in its protective (i.e., impression management for self-defense) form. In both studies, sex differences did not account for self-monitoring differences. These findings suggest on-the-job differences between high and low self-monitors may represent self-selection processes occurring before job-based experiences.

Minimizing Mistreatment by Female Adults: The Influence of Gender-Based Social Categories and Personality Differences on Attitudes about Child Sexual Abuse.

We investigated the effects of gender-based social categories (i.e., men, women, boys, and girls) on attitudes about child sexual abuse and individual differences in the use of such categories. In four experiments, we systematically varied perpetrators' sex and victims' sex. In three investigations, we assessed personality variables potentially related to participants' use of these social categories. Across these four experiments, we varied perpetrator-victim relationships (teacher-student, neighbors) and victims' ages. In experiment one, individuals had the least negative attitude about child sexual abuse involving adult female neighbors and eighth grade male neighbors. In experiment two, we replicated this effect with fifth grade victims and demonstrated that attitudes were moderated by individual differences in intolerance of ambiguity. In experiment three, we again replicated the aforementioned effect while (a) extending this finding to teacher-student relationships with eighth grade adolescent victims and (b) demonstrating the need for cognition was a moderator. In experiment four, we again replicated (a) our perpetrator sex/victim sex interactive effect and (b) need for cognition moderation while also demonstrating that these effects were applicable to fifth grade victims. Methodological limitations as well as clinical and policy implications (e.g., attenuating the underreporting incidents of child sexual abuse) are discussed.

Aggressive lymphoma presenting as dysphagia: A rare cause of dysphagia.

Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) can involve the esophagus from local spread, distant metastasis and very rarely can also be the primary site. Once DLBCL is diagnosed, caution should be exercised in further evaluation for local treatments of sites like adnexal masses as was seen in this case; sometimes it is DLBCL at atypical sites.

Registered Replication Report: Study 1 From Finkel, Rusbult, Kumashiro, & Hannon (2002).

Finkel, Rusbult, Kumashiro, and Hannon (2002, Study 1) demonstrated a causal link between subjective commitment to a relationship and how people responded to hypothetical betrayals of that relationship. Participants primed to think about their commitment to their partner (high commitment) reacted to the betrayals with reduced exit and neglect responses relative to those primed to think about their independence from their partner (low commitment). The priming manipulation did not affect constructive voice and loyalty responses. Although other studies have demonstrated a correlation between subjective commitment and responses to betrayal, this study provides the only experimental evidence that inducing changes to subjective commitment can causally affect forgiveness responses. This Registered Replication Report (RRR) meta-analytically combines the results of 16 new direct replications of the original study, all of which followed a standardized, vetted, and preregistered protocol. The results showed little effect of the priming manipulation on the forgiveness outcome measures, but it also did not observe an effect of priming on subjective commitment, so the manipulation did not work as it had in the original study. We discuss possible explanations for the discrepancy between the findings from this RRR and the original study.

The self-control consequences of political ideology.

Evidence from three studies reveals a critical difference in self-control as a function of political ideology. Specifically, greater endorsement of political conservatism (versus liberalism) was associated with greater attention regulation and task persistence. Moreover, this relationship is shown to stem from varying beliefs in freewill; specifically, the association between political ideology and self-control is mediated by differences in the extent to which belief in freewill is endorsed, is independent of task performance or motivation, and is reversed when freewill is perceived to impede (rather than enhance) self-control. Collectively, these findings offer insight into the self-control consequences of political ideology by detailing conditions under which conservatives and liberals are better suited to engage in self-control and outlining the role of freewill beliefs in determining these conditions.

Motivated reflection on attitude-inconsistent information: an exploration of the role of fear of invalidity in self-persuasion.

The mere thought effect is defined in part by the tendency of self-reflective thought to heighten the generation of and reflection on attitude-consistent thoughts. By focusing on individuals' fears of invalidity, we explored the possibility that the mere opportunity for thought sometimes motivates reflection on attitude-inconsistent thoughts. Across three experiments, dispositional and situational fear of invalidity was shown to heighten reflection on attitude-inconsistent thoughts. This heightened reflection, in turn, interacted with individuals' thought confidence to determine whether attitude-inconsistent thoughts were assimilated or refuted and consequently whether individuals' attitudes and behavioral intentions depolarized or polarized following a sufficient opportunity for thought, respectively. These findings emphasize the impact of motivational influences on thought reflection and generation, the importance of thought confidence in the assimilation and refutation of self-generated thought, and the dynamic means by which the mere thought bias can impact self-persuasion.

Real evidence for the failure of the Jamesian perspective or more evidence in support of it?

Hardy and Moriarty (2006) presented evidence in support of James's (1890) individual importance hypothesis using a new methodology. Marsh (in press) criticized the Hardy and Moriarty approach, claiming that it did not constitute a valid test of the hypothesis and that in his article he had produced more evidence against it. In this article, we refute both these claims and argue instead that Marsh's individually weighted-averages method does not constitute a valid test of the hypothesis. We also assert that his new analyses actually offer further evidence in support of the Jamesian perspective. Finally, we direct attention toward questionable assumptions that appear to underpin Marsh's approach, and we try to point a way forward for future research in this area.

Self-monitoring: individual differences in orientations to the social world.

In their articles in this special section of the Journal of Personality, the authors have focused their attention on the role of individual differences in self-monitoring for a variety of interpersonal phenomena. In so doing, the authors have provided an overview of the theoretical and empirical contributions of the psychology of self-monitoring to the domains of interest: close relationships, consumer behavior, behavior in the workplace, and social interaction. As each of the contributing authors to this special section suggests, much more theoretical and empirical work is in order if the impact of individual differences in self-monitoring for the phenomena reviewed here is to be fully appreciated. Moreover, the four domains of interest represented in this special section by no means exhaust the areas to which theorists and researchers have applied or can apply the psychology of individual differences in self-monitoring. Given the large nomological network that currently exists involving the self-monitoring construct, it is anticipated that the breadth and depth of applications of the psychology of self-monitoring will only continue to expand as it has in the last 30 years since the appearance of the construct in the literature.

Self-monitoring and close relationships.

Three types of close relationships have received attention from theorists and researchers interested in self-monitoring: friendships, romantic relationships, and marriage. Our review of this literature was organized around three phases of relationships: initiation, maintenance, and dissolution. Across the three types of relationships, consistent differences between high self-monitors and low self-monitors emerged concerning the structure of their social relationships (segmented vs. integrated), the basis for choosing friends and romantic partners (activity-based vs. person-based), and the orientation taken to romantic and marital partners (uncommitted vs. committed). Across all three types of relationships, however, little is known about the processes and consequences involved in the dissolution of close relationships for high self-monitors and low self-monitors. Relatively little is also known about the processes used by high self-monitors and low self-monitors to maintain their friendships and marriages. In addition to addressing these deficiencies in the literature, theorists and researchers interested in self-monitoring and close relationships need to develop sophisticated, causal models that can account for (a) interaction exchanges in the relationships, (b) dyadic as well as individual levels of analysis, and (c) temporal and situational changes in the course of close relationships.