Adolescent leisure reading and its longitudinal association with prosocial behavior and social adjustment.

Reading is a popular leisure activity for children, teenagers, and adults. Several theories agree that reading might improve social cognition, but the empirical evidence remains tentative, with research on adolescents especially lacking. We employed a very large, and nationally representative, longitudinal dataset from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) in Germany to examine this hypothesis. Specifically, we tested whether reading prospectively predicted future self-reported prosocial behavior and social adjustment in adolescents, controlling for a number of covariates. Two-way cross-lagged panel analyses probed the longitudinal relationship between leisure reading and these social outcomes from Grade 6 to Grade 9. In addition, we examined the effect of cumulative reading experience across Grades 5-8 on future social outcomes, using structural equation modeling. We also explored the unique contributions of cumulative reading experience in different literary genres (classic literature, popular literature, nonfiction, comic books). Cumulative reading in general did not predict future prosocial behavior and social adjustment. However, cumulative reading of modern classic literature was positively associated with later prosocial behavior and social adjustment. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 08 November 2021. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/KSWY7 .

Does a brief exposure to literary fiction improve social ability? Assessing the evidential value of published studies with a p-curve.

Humans have long suspected that stories can help us better understand others, and, indeed, lifelong exposure to narrative fiction does predict better social cognition. Several experiments have attempted to investigate the causal direction of this relationship to see if random assignment to a brief narrative directly improves social cognition. Although these experiments have yielded mixed results, a recent meta-analysis did find a small causal effect of narrative fiction on social cognition. What remains unanswered is whether the published findings reflect questionable research practices or trustworthy evidence. In order to rule out the possibility that this body of work has been meaningfully impacted by selective reporting, we conducted a p-curve on the experimental literature on narrative fiction and social cognition. The results of the p-curve indicated that this work does indeed have evidential value but that this conclusion is not very robust. Thus, further experimental work on the causal effect of narrative fiction on social cognitive skills is required before substantial conclusions can be drawn. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Cognitive exploration drives engagement and re-engagement with imaginary worlds, but not spatial exploration as predicted by evolutionary theory.

The empirical evidence for exploration underlying the appeal of imaginary worlds is mostly absent or contradictory. Openness, and the cognitive exploration it represents, provides a better account than the overall drive to explore predicted by evolutionary theory. Furthermore, exploration cannot explain why imaginary worlds foster frequent re-engagement.

Adult attachment and engagement with fictional characters.

Adult attachment influences how people engage with stories, in terms of how immersed or transported they become into these narratives and the tendency to form close bonds with characters. This likely stems from the ability of stories and story characters to provide interpersonal intimacy without the threat of rejection. In Study 1, we expand on this work to examine how attachment relates to two previously uninvestigated aspects of character engagement: character identification and parasocial interactions. Taking a statistically conservative approach, controlling for broader traits, we demonstrate that the attachment dimensions of anxiety and avoidance differentially predict these forms of character engagement. A high-powered, pre-registered, Study 2 follows up on these results by examining the types of characters that are most appealing, based on one's attachment orientation. Together, these studies demonstrate that attachment plays an essential role in both how we engage with characters and the types of characters to whom we are attracted.

Memory and comprehension of narrative versus expository texts: A meta-analysis.

We acquire a lot of information about the world through texts, which can be categorized at the broadest level into two primary genres: narratives and exposition. Stories and essays differ across a variety of dimensions, including structure and content, with numerous theories hypothesizing that stories are easier to understand and recall than essays. However, empirical work in this area has yielded mixed results. To synthesize research in this area, we conducted a meta-analysis of experiments in which memory and/or comprehension of narrative and expository texts was investigated. Based on over 75 unique samples and data from more than 33,000 participants, we found that stories were more easily understood and better recalled than essays. Moreover, this result was robust, not influenced by the inclusion of a single effect-size or single study, and not moderated by various study characteristics. This finding has implications for any domain in which acquiring and retaining information is important.

Zahra or Zoe, Arjun or Andrew? Bicultural baby names reflect identity and pragmatic concerns.

OBJECTIVES: Ethnic first names are a visible product of diversity in the West, yet little is known about the psychological factors that influence naming preferences and choices among bicultural individuals. METHOD: Participants in Studies 1a (South Asian Canadians; N = 326) and 1b (Iranian Canadians; N = 126) were prospective parents who completed an online survey with measures of naming (consequences of ethnic naming, naming preferences) and psychological factors related to naming: heritage and mainstream acculturation, ethno-cultural continuity. Study 2 participants (N = 211) were parents of an Indian background living in three English speaking countries (Canada, United States, UK). They completed an online survey with measures of naming (consequences of ethnic naming, names as markers of cultural identity, actual naming choices) and psychological factors: heritage and mainstream cultural identifications, ethno-cultural continuity. RESULTS: Across all 3 studies we observed a strong preference for ethnic over mainstream names. In Studies 1a and 1b heritage acculturation and motivation for ethno-cultural continuity predicted stronger preference for ethnic names. In contrast, a preference for mainstream names was predicted by mainstream acculturation and expectations of negative consequences of ethnic names. In Study 2 choice of an ethnic name was positively related to beliefs about names as markers of ethnic identity, and negatively related to expectations of negative consequences of ethnic names. CONCLUSIONS: Baby naming among ethnic minorities is a complex cultural decision, reflecting both identity and pragmatic concerns. Implications for studies of acculturation and identity, and future research directions are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Episodic memory solves both social and nonsocial problems, and evolved to fulfill many different functions.

The episodic memory system is flexible and complex, and likely evolved in response to a wide range of survival-relevant problems in our evolutionary past, both social and nonsocial. Episodic memory allows us to recollect and infer details that may have seemed trivial on encoding, but are now known to be relevant. This memory aids humans in navigating their uncertain environment.

Blurred world view: A study on the relationship between television viewing and the perception of the justice system.

Previous studies suggest that distorted representations of reality on television can lead to distorted perceptions of reality among viewers. In this study, 322 individuals in Austria reported their weekly television consumption and whether they believe that there is active practice of capital punishment in Austria, which has been abolished since 1968. The more television participants watched, the more likely they mistakenly believed that there is, or recently was, capital punishment in Austria, even when controlling for participants' age and education. It seems that television has the potential to influence viewers' perception and knowledge of core aspects of society.

What does my avatar say about me? Inferring personality from avatars.

Many individuals now meet and develop friendships while online. As a result, people must form impressions of online acquaintances based on that person's online representation. Here, we investigate personality inferences and intentions to befriend based solely on simple avatars (i.e., customized cartoon representations of the self). Our data show that some traits are more easily inferred from avatars than others, avatars can communicate accurate and distinctive information regarding personality, and individuals with certain personality traits create avatars that are more likely to be perceived accurately. We also found that agreeable and normative individuals created avatars that elicited more desire for friendship from others, implying that the impression given by one's digital avatars may have social consequences.

Personal experience with narrated events modulates functional connectivity within visual and motor systems during story comprehension.

Past experience of everyday life activities, which forms the basis of our knowledge about the world, greatly affects how we understand stories. Yet, little is known about how this influence is instantiated in the human brain. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how past experience facilitates functional connectivity during the comprehension of stories rich in perceptual and motor details. We found that comprehenders' past experience with the scenes and actions described in the narratives selectively modulated functional connectivity between lower- and higher-level areas within the neural systems for visual and motor processing, respectively. These intramodal interactions may play an important role in integrating personal knowledge about a narrated situation with an evolving discourse representation. This study provides empirical evidence consistent with the idea that regions related to visual and motor processing are involved in the reenactment of experience as proposed by theories of embodied cognition.

Imagine all the people: how the brain creates and uses personality models to predict behavior.

The behaviors of other people are often central to envisioning the future. The ability to accurately predict the thoughts and actions of others is essential for successful social interactions, with far-reaching consequences. Despite its importance, little is known about how the brain represents people in order to predict behavior. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, participants learned the unique personality of 4 protagonists and imagined how each would behave in different scenarios. The protagonists' personalities were composed of 2 traits: Agreeableness and Extraversion. Which protagonist was being imagined was accurately inferred based solely on activity patterns in the medial prefrontal cortex using multivariate pattern classification, providing novel evidence that brain activity can reveal whom someone is thinking about. Lateral temporal and posterior cingulate cortex discriminated between different degrees of agreeableness and extraversion, respectively. Functional connectivity analysis confirmed that regions associated with trait-processing and individual identities were functionally coupled. Activity during the imagination task, and revealed by functional connectivity, was consistent with the default network. Our results suggest that distinct regions code for personality traits, and that the brain combines these traits to represent individuals. The brain then uses this "personality model" to predict the behavior of others in novel situations.

Embodied comprehension of stories: interactions between language regions and modality-specific neural systems.

The embodied view of language processing proposes that comprehension involves multimodal simulations, a process that retrieves a comprehender's perceptual, motor, and affective knowledge through reactivation of the neural systems responsible for perception, action, and emotion. Although evidence in support of this idea is growing, the contemporary neuroanatomical model of language suggests that comprehension largely emerges as a result of interactions between frontotemporal language areas in the left hemisphere. If modality-specific neural systems are involved in comprehension, they are not likely to operate in isolation but should interact with the brain regions critical to language processing. However, little is known about the ways in which language and modality-specific neural systems interact. To investigate this issue, we conducted a functional MRI study in which participants listened to stories that contained visually vivid, action-based, and emotionally charged content. Activity of neural systems associated with visual-spatial, motor, and affective processing were selectively modulated by the relevant story content. Importantly, when functional connectivity patterns associated with the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG), the left posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG), and the bilateral anterior temporal lobes (aTL) were compared, both LIFG and pMTG, but not the aTL, showed enhanced connectivity with the three modality-specific systems relevant to the story content. Taken together, our results suggest that language regions are engaged in perceptual, motor, and affective simulations of the described situation, which manifest through their interactions with modality-specific systems. On the basis of our results and past research, we propose that the LIFG and pMTG play unique roles in multimodal simulations during story comprehension.

How to produce personality neuroscience research with high statistical power and low additional cost.

Personality neuroscience involves examining relations between cognitive or behavioral variability and neural variables like brain structure and function. Such studies have uncovered a number of fascinating associations but require large samples, which are expensive to collect. Here, we propose a system that capitalizes on neuroimaging data commonly collected for separate purposes and combines it with new behavioral data to test novel hypotheses. Specifically, we suggest that groups of researchers compile a database of structural (i.e., anatomical) and resting-state functional scans produced for other task-based investigations and pair these data with contact information for the participants who contributed the data. This contact information can then be used to collect additional cognitive, behavioral, or individual-difference data that are then reassociated with the neuroimaging data for analysis. This would allow for novel hypotheses regarding brain-behavior relations to be tested on the basis of large sample sizes (with adequate statistical power) for low additional cost. This idea can be implemented at small scales at single institutions, among a group of collaborating researchers, or perhaps even within a single lab. It can also be implemented at a large scale across institutions, although doing so would entail a number of additional complications.

Does cultural exposure partially explain the association between personality and political orientation?

Differences in political orientation are partly rooted in personality, with liberalism predicted by Openness to Experience and conservatism by Conscientiousness. Since Openness is positively associated with intellectual and creative activities, these may help shape political orientation. We examined whether exposure to cultural activities and historical knowledge mediates the relationship between personality and political orientation. Specifically, we examined the mediational role of print exposure (Study 1), film exposure (Study 2), and knowledge of American history (Study 3). Studies 1 and 2 found that print and film exposure mediated the relationships Openness to Experience and Conscientiousness have with political orientation. In Study 3, knowledge of American history mediated the relationship between Openness and political orientation, but not the association between Conscientiousness and political orientation. Exposure to culture, and a corollary of this exposure in the form of acquiring knowledge, can therefore partially explain the associations between personality and political orientation.

Driver of discontent or escape vehicle: the affective consequences of mindwandering.

An emerging body of evidence suggests that our penchant for entertaining thoughts that are unrelated to ongoing activities might be a detriment to our emotional wellbeing. In light of this evidence, researchers have posited that mindwandering is a cause rather than a manifestation of discontent. We review the evidence in support of this viewpoint. We then consider this evidence in a broader context-with regards to mindwandering's antecedents, respecting the observation that people frequently find pleasure in their off-task moments, and in light of the lay beliefs people hold about its causes. We report data from two studies that speak to the potential challenges of establishing a definitive causal link between mindwandering and wellbeing. First, to advance the idea that mindwandering can convey affective benefits, in spite of negative feelings about mental disengagement, we examined cortical responses in a unique individual who presents with a long history of excessive-but enjoyable-task-irrelevant thinking. Second, to explore the idea that lay beliefs about mindwandering may substantially color the affective responses people have to a mindwandering episode, we surveyed people's beliefs about mindwandering's antecedents and related them to the affective reactions people anticipated to off-task moments. Our hope is to provide a nuanced evaluation of the available evidence for the assertion that mindwandering causes unhappiness, and to provide a clear direction forward to better evaluate this possibility.

Personal narratives as the highest level of cognitive integration.

We suggest that the hierarchical predictive processing account detailed by Clark can be usefully integrated with narrative psychology by situating personal narratives at the top of an individual's knowledge hierarchy. Narrative representations function as high-level generative models that direct our attention and structure our expectations about unfolding events. Implications for integrating scientific and humanistic views of human experience are discussed.

Lay denial of knowledge for justified true beliefs.

Intuitively, there is a difference between knowledge and mere belief. Contemporary philosophical work on the nature of this difference has focused on scenarios known as "Gettier cases." Designed as counterexamples to the classical theory that knowledge is justified true belief, these cases feature agents who arrive at true beliefs in ways which seem reasonable or justified, while nevertheless seeming to lack knowledge. Prior empirical investigation of these cases has raised questions about whether lay people generally share philosophers' intuitions about these cases, or whether lay intuitions vary depending on individual factors (e.g. ethnicity) or factors related to specific types of Gettier cases (e.g. cases that include apparent evidence). We report an experiment on lay attributions of knowledge and justification for a wide range of Gettier Cases and for a related class of controversial cases known as Skeptical Pressure cases, which are also thought by philosophers to elicit intuitive denials of knowledge. Although participants rated true beliefs in Gettier and Skeptical Pressure cases as being justified, they were significantly less likely to attribute knowledge for these cases than for matched True Belief cases. This pattern of response was consistent across different variations of Gettier cases and did not vary by ethnicity or gender, although attributions of justification were found to be positively related to measures of empathy. These findings therefore suggest that across demographic groups, laypeople share similar epistemic concepts with philosophers, recognizing a difference between knowledge and justified true belief.

Psychological entropy: a framework for understanding uncertainty-related anxiety.

Entropy, a concept derived from thermodynamics and information theory, describes the amount of uncertainty and disorder within a system. Self-organizing systems engage in a continual dialogue with the environment and must adapt themselves to changing circumstances to keep internal entropy at a manageable level. We propose the entropy model of uncertainty (EMU), an integrative theoretical framework that applies the idea of entropy to the human information system to understand uncertainty-related anxiety. Four major tenets of EMU are proposed: (a) Uncertainty poses a critical adaptive challenge for any organism, so individuals are motivated to keep it at a manageable level; (b) uncertainty emerges as a function of the conflict between competing perceptual and behavioral affordances; (c) adopting clear goals and belief structures helps to constrain the experience of uncertainty by reducing the spread of competing affordances; and (d) uncertainty is experienced subjectively as anxiety and is associated with activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and with heightened noradrenaline release. By placing the discussion of uncertainty management, a fundamental biological necessity, within the framework of information theory and self-organizing systems, our model helps to situate key psychological processes within a broader physical, conceptual, and evolutionary context.

I remember you: a role for memory in social cognition and the functional neuroanatomy of their interaction.

Remembering events from the personal past (autobiographical memory) and inferring the thoughts and feelings of other people (mentalizing) share a neural substrate. The shared functional neuroanatomy of these processes has been demonstrated in a meta-analysis of independent task domains (Spreng, Mar & Kim, 2009) and within subjects performing both tasks (Rabin, Gilboa, Stuss, Mar, & Rosenbaum, 2010; Spreng & Grady, 2010). Here, we examine spontaneous low-frequency fluctuations in fMRI BOLD signal during rest from two separate regions key to memory and mentalizing, the left hippocampus and right temporal parietal junction, respectively. Activity in these two regions was then correlated with the entire brain in a resting-state functional connectivity analysis. Although the left hippocampus and right temporal parietal junction were not correlated with each other, both were correlated with a distributed network of brain regions. These regions were consistent with the previously observed overlap between autobiographical memory and mentalizing evoked brain activity found in past studies. Reliable patterns of overlap included the superior temporal sulcus, anterior temporal lobe, lateral inferior parietal cortex (angular gyrus), posterior cingulate cortex, dorsomedial and ventral prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, and the amygdala. We propose that the functional overlap facilitates the integration of personal and interpersonal information and provides a means for personal experiences to become social conceptual knowledge. This knowledge, in turn, informs strategic social behavior in support of personal goals. In closing, we argue for a new perspective within social cognitive neuroscience, emphasizing the importance of memory in social cognition.

The hierarchical structure of childhood personality in five countries: continuity from early childhood to early adolescence.

Childhood personality is a rapidly growing area of investigation within individual differences research. One understudied topic is the universality of the hierarchical structure of childhood personality. In the present investigation, parents rated the personality characteristics of 3,751 children from 5 countries and 4 age groups. The hierarchical structure of childhood personality was examined for 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-factor models across country (Canada, China, Greece, Russia, and the United States) and age group (3-5, 6-8, 9-11, and 12-14 years of age). Many similarities were noted across both country and age. The Five-Factor Model was salient beginning in early childhood (ages 3-5). Deviations across groups and from adult findings are noted, including the prominent role of antagonism in childhood personality and the high covariation between Conscientiousness and intellect. Future directions, including the need for more explicit attempts to merge temperament and personality models, are discussed.