Does inconsistency always lead to negative affect? The influence of need for closure on affective reactions to cognitive inconsistency

The Pathway between Social Dominance Orientation and Drop out from Hierarchy-Attenuating Contexts: The Role of Moral Foundations and Person-Environment Misfit

The present study examines the role of individuals' preference for unequal intergroup relations in exacerbating a process of differential attrition from organizations that value intergroup equality (i.e., hierarchy-attenuating contexts). We proposed that people functioning within a well-recognized hierarchy-attenuating context (i.e., students of social work) who were higher on social dominance orientation (SDO) would be more likely to leave their institution through two pathways; first, people higher on SDO would have fewer moral concerns of social fairness and human harm-avoidance (i.e., individualizing); in turn, a lack of individualizing morality would stimulate a perceived person-environment misfit, ultimately increasing their intention to leave. We conducted a single cross-sectional design study involving a convenience sample of 245 undergraduate social work students. Overall, the results of the serial mediation model suggest that people higher on SDO intend to leave their organization that supports inclusive equality via reduced individualizing morality and high perceived P-E misfit. These findings contribute to understanding the role of socio-political orientations and moral beliefs in hindering proper adaptation to contexts that value egalitarian social norms, with relevant implications for individuals and groups.

Subjective consistency increases trust

Trust is foundational for social relations. Current psychological models focus on specific evaluative and descriptive content underlying initial impressions of trustworthiness. Two experiments investigated whether trust also depends on subjective consistency-a sense of fit between elements. Experiment 1 examined how consistency of simple verbal characterizations influences trust judgments. Experiment 2 examined how incidental visual consistency impacts trust judgments and economic decisions reflecting trust. Both experiments show that subjective consistency positively and uniquely predicts trust judgments and economic behavior. Critically, subjective consistency is a unique predictor of trust that is irreducible to the content of individual elements, either on the dimension of trust or the dimension of valence. These results show that trust impressions are not a simple sum of the contributing parts, but reflect a "gestalt". The results fit current frameworks emphasizing the role of predictive coding and coherence in social cognition.

Evaluating the Cognitive Effects of Video-Induced Negative Affect in College Students: A Comparative Study between Acute Exercise and Music Listening

Background: Video-induced negative affect may have an impact on cognition. In this study, acute exercise and music listening are used to explore their impact on individual cognition with video-induced negative affect. Method: All the participants were randomly divided into six groups. Group 1 (n = 19, average age = 20.15) was not given any form of acute exercise or music listening; Group 2 (n = 20, average age = 21.33) was given music listening; Group 3 (n = 20, average age = 20.89) was given acute exercise; Group 4 (n = 20, average age = 21.03) only watched a video without being given any acute exercise or music listening; Group 5 (n = 19, average age = 20.68) was given music listening after watching a video; Group 6 (n = 18, average age = 21.32) was given acute exercise after watching a video. Results: In the pre-test, we found that there was no significant difference in negative affect, positive affect, and cognitive performance among the groups (p > .05). The post-test indicated that the negative affect of college students who watched the video (20.16 ± 8.34) was higher than that of college students who did not watch the video (11.12 ± 3.29). Acute exercise and music listening improved the cognitive performance of college students with video-induced negative affect. Acute exercise improved the cognitive performance of college students with non-video-induced negative affect, while music listening did not. Conclusion: The acute decline in the cognitive performance of college students caused by video-induced negative affect can be ameliorated by means of acute exercise and music listening.

Multivariate morphological brain signatures enable individualized prediction of dispositional need for closure

Need for closure (NFC) reflects stable individual differences in the desire for a quick, definite, and stable answer to a question. A large body of research has documented the association between NFC and various cognitive, emotional and social processes. Despite considerable interest in psychology, little effort has been made to uncover the neural substrates of individual variations in NFC. Herein, we took a data-driven approach to predict NFC trait combining machine learning framework and the whole-brain grey matter volume (GMV) features, which represent a reliable brain imaging measure and have been commonly employed to explore neural basis underlying individual differences of cognition and behaviors. Brain regions contributing to the prediction were then subjected to functional connectivity and decoding analyses for a quantitative inference on their psychophysiological functions. Our results indicated that multivariate patterns of GMV derived from multiple regions across distributed brain systems predicted NFC at individual level. The contributing regions are distributed across the emotional processing network (e.g., striatum), cognitive control network (e.g., lateral prefrontal cortex), social cognition network (e.g., temporoparietal junction) and perceptual processing network (e.g., occipital cortex). The current study provided the first evidence that dispositional NFC is embodied in multiple large-scale brain networks, helping to delineate a more complete picture about the neuropsychological processes that support individual differences in NFC. Beyond these findings, the current interdisciplinary approach to constructing and interpreting neuroimaging-based prediction model of personality traits would be informative to a wide range of future studies on personality.

Voices of the students: Adolescent well-being and social interactions during the emergent shift to online learning environments

Health and safety concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic required many face-to-face United States schools to suddenly shut their doors, moving classes to virtual learning environments. Amidst concerns of technology overuse, adolescents across the country saw dramatic increases in both personal screen time use and social isolation as they learned to navigate online schooling. Understanding the impact of the pandemic-related shutdowns upon adolescent well-being, learning, and social life is critical for designing effective online learning experiences, but research provides few insights from the adolescent perspective. This mixed methods study works to fill this gap by investigating adolescent needs and perceptions during the pandemic. The main questions asked are:To what extent does adolescent well-being during the pandemic differ from pre-pandemic well-being?What factors do adolescents view as influences upon their learning during the imposed shift to online schooling?What social changes and concerns do adolescents report during the pandemic? Twenty-one adolescents completed Likert scale surveys and participated in semi-structured one-to-one interviews. Results showed a significant decrease in positive affect and a significant increase in negative affect during the pandemic, suggesting a decline in well-being. The majority of participants reported high distractibility and noted the lure of entertaining technology, but also described their smartphones as "connecting" and "necessary". Social interactions were a priority for all participants, but participants agreed that opportunities for social connectedness in online education were limited. The challenges of online learning, the importance of identifying and responding to student needs, and suggested strategies for online education are discussed.