Why Should We All Be Cultural Psychologists? Lessons From the Study of Social Cognition

On Cultural Differences of Heroes: Evidence From Individualistic and Collectivistic Cultures

Building on earlier research that examined the characteristics people associate with heroes, our research examined similarities and differences of the hero stereotype across cultures. Specifically, in Study 1 (N = 209) and Study 2 (N = 298), we investigated lay perceptions of heroes among participants from a collectivistic culture. In Study 3 (N = 586), we examined whether group membership could be determined by participants' centrality ratings of the combined set of hero features. In Study 4 (N = 197), we tested whether the hero features that distinguish American and Chinese participants, when used to describe a target person, influence the impression that the target person is a hero. In Study 5 (N = 158) and Study 6 (N = 591), we investigated cultural differences in perceptions of different types of heroes (e.g., social, martial, civil) and the influence of individualism and collectivism on the perception of those heroes.

Dealing With Diversity in Psychology: Science and Ideology

In the spirit of America's Shakespeare, August Wilson (1997), I have written this article as a testimony to the conditions under which I, and too many others, engage in scholarly discourse. I hope to make clear from the beginning that although the ideas presented here are not entirely my own-as they have been inherited from the minority of scholars who dared and managed to bring the most necessary, unpalatable, and unsettling truths about our discipline to the broader scientific community-I do not write for anyone but myself and those scholars who have felt similarly marginalized, oppressed, and silenced. And I write as a race scholar, meaning simply that I believe that race-and racism-affects the sociopolitical conditions in which humans, and scholars, develop their thoughts, feelings, and actions. I believe that it is important for all scholars to have a basic understanding of these conditions, as well as the landmines and pitfalls that define them, as they shape how research is conducted, reviewed, and disseminated. I also believe that to evolve one's discipline into one that is truly robust and objective, it must first become diverse and self-aware. Any effort to suggest otherwise, no matter how scholarly it might present itself, is intellectually unsound.

Accounting for diversity in the treatment of suicide and self-injury: A systematic review of the past 50 years of randomized controlled trials

PURPOSE

Patients receiving treatment for self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITBs) have diverse backgrounds, yet it remains unclear exactly who is represented in the current SITB treatment literature.

METHODS

We conducted a systematic review of the past 50 years of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) testing SITB treatments to evaluate sampling practices and reporting of sample characteristics, as well as inclusion of global populations across the included 525 papers. We also assessed changes over the past five decades in these three domains.

RESULTS

SITB RCTs frequently reported age and sex (98.6%-95.1%), less frequently reported race (83.4%-38.6%), socioeconomic status (48.1%-46.1%) and ethnicity (41.9%-8.1%), and rarely reported LGBTQ+ status (3.7%-1.6%). U.S.-based RCTs featured predominantly White, non-Hispanic, and non-LGBTQ+ samples. Most RCTs were conducted in high-income North American or European countries. Sample reporting practices, sample representativeness, and inclusion of global populations modestly and inconsistently improved over time.

CONCLUSIONS

There has not been substantial improvement in reporting practices, sample representativeness, or inclusion of global populations in SITB RCTs over the past 50 years. Acknowledging who is being studied and representing diverse populations in SITB treatment research is key to connecting research advances with those who may need it most.

Memory and aging across cultures

Memory declines are commonly reported with age, but the majority of research has been conducted with narrow segments of the world's population. We argue for the importance of considering culture in the study of cognitive aging in order to have a representative, accurate understanding of the effects of aging on memory. Limited research thus far investigates the effects of culture on the use of categories and the self in memory with age, finding that cultural differences tend to be larger for older than younger adults. Frameworks drawing on top-down and bottom-up processes may account for when more or less cultural variation would be expected in cognitive performance. Promising future research directions include socio-emotional memory and expanding samples to address global inequities.

Lay Misperceptions of Culture as "Biological" and Suggestions for Reducing Them

Culture is typically studied as socialized and learned. Yet lay intuitions may hold that culture is associated with biology via perceptions of race, presenting a problem for those who study culture: There may be a mismatch between how psychologists study culture and how their research is interpreted by lay audiences. This article is a call to researchers to recognize this mismatch as a problem and to critically evaluate the way we study culture. We first describe evidence that laypeople tend to associate culture with notions of folk biology. Next, we propose three suggestions for researchers: explicitly address whether biological processes are, or are not, relevant for studying culture in their work; consider using multiple methods because different methods for studying culture may come with assumptions about culture as more tied to socialization or biology; and represent all people as cultural by studying multiple forms of culture and by contextualizing all psychological research. Last, we provide an example for how researchers can implement these suggestions to encourage more accurate interpretations of findings.

Inhibition and cognitive flexibility are related to prediction of one's own future preferences in young British and Chinese children

The ability to shift from current to future perspective is pivotal to future-oriented cognition. With two distinct cultural groups, UK (N = 92) and China (N = 90), we investigated 3 to 5-year-olds' understanding of preference changes occurring within themselves and their peers (another child). We administered a battery of representative tasks of executive function and theory of mind to examine their underlying relationships with children's ability to predict future preferences. British 3-year-olds outperformed Chinese children in predicting future preferences, while no country differences were observed between the 4- and 5-year-olds. Across the UK and China, children were more accurate when predicting for their peers than for themselves. They were also more accurate when their current preferences were identified first, i.e. before answering questions about the future. Chinese children outperformed their British counterparts on inhibition and cognitive flexibility tasks whereas there were no Eastern and Western differences in their theory of mind abilities. After controlling for age and children's knowledge of generic adult preferences, children's performance in the inhibition and cognitive flexibility tasks were significantly correlated with the prediction of their own future preferences, but they were not significantly correlated when predicting for a peer. These results are discussed in relation to the conflicts between multiple perspectives and the cognitive correlates of future-oriented cognition.

What lies ahead of us? Collective future thinking in Turkish, Chinese, and American adults

Collective future thinking, namely the anticipation of events for a group, is a relatively new research area in memory studies. Research to date with predominantly Western populations suggests that people tend to expect negative events for their country's future. In two studies, we investigated the emotional valence and perceived control of anticipated future events of one's country and examined the roles of country identification and national well-being in collective future thinking. US and Chinese college students (Study 1) and US, Chinese, and Turkish adults of a community sample (Study 2) imagined events that could happen to their respective countries in 1 week, 1 year, and 10-15 years. Participants rated each event on emotional valence and perceived control. They also completed measures for their country identification and perceived national well-being. Chinese participants imagined future events for their country to be more positive than did the US and Turkish participants, whereas US participants reported higher perceived control by their country for the future events than did Chinese and Turks. Country identification and national well-being predicted more positive future thinking and also mediated cultural differences in future-event valence and perceived country control. These original findings shed critical light on the characteristics of collective future thinking that are shaped by societal-cultural factors.

Epistemological Allyship

Discussions about decolonising psychology now abound. A key perspective from which these commentaries have been written relates to a confrontation of the gatekeepers in global psychology. While this approach is valuable to end epistemological violence and other forms of injustice, it also ends up alienating influential scholars in hegemonic psychology who can magnify the impact of the decolonisation effort. In this article, I borrow from the anti-racism literature the concept of allyship to put forward a new concept of epistemological allyship (EA). I position EA to invite, but not to demand, support from and to provide guidance to gatekeepers who truly wish to support the decolonisation efforts. However, unlike the past experiences with ending slavery in which Black people were portrayed to or required to beg for freedom, this concept of EA is not to be understood in this light. Rather it should be understood to imply that while academics from the majority of the world (AMWs) are fighting their own epistemological battles, any helpful support is and should be welcome.

Remembering and forgetting information about the COVID-19 vaccine on Twitter

Social media exposes people to selective information of what they have previously known. We conducted two laboratory studies to examine in a simulated online context the phenomenon of retrieval-induced forgetting, where information reposted on social media is likely to be later remembered and relevant but not reposted information may be forgotten. Specifically, we examined how exposure to selective information about the COVID-19 vaccine via tweets affected subsequent memory and whether people's attitudes towards vaccination played a role in their memory for the information. Young adults (N = 119; Study 1) and community members (N = 92; Study 2) were presented with information about the COVID-19 vaccine that included both pro- and anti-vaccine arguments, organised in four categories (i.e., science, children, religion, morality). They then read tweets that repeated half of the arguments from two of the categories. In a subsequent memory test, participants remembered best the statements repeated in the tweets and remembered worst the statements from the same category but not repeated in the tweets, thus exhibiting retrieval-induced forgetting. This pattern of results was similar across pro- and anti-vaccine arguments, regardless of the participants' level of support for vaccination. We discussed the findings in light of remembering and forgetting in the context of the pandemic and social media.

How Does COVID-19 Risk Perception Affect Sense of Control? The Roles of Death Anxiety and Confucian Coping

This research examined the impact of COVID-19 risk perception on sense of control, testing the hypotheses that COVID-19 risk perception would reduce sense of control and that this effect would be mediated by death anxiety and moderated by Confucian coping. A series of six studies were conducted with Chinese participants (N = 2202) and employed different research designs in lab and real-life settings. Across the studies, we found that the perceived risk of COVID-19 impaired sense of control. Studies 3a to 5 further revealed that death anxiety mediated the adverse effect of COVID-19 risk perception on sense of control, and Studies 4 to 5 revealed that Confucian coping strategies alleviated the adverse effect of COVID-19 risk perception on sense of control. These findings shed new light on the psychological impact of risk perception in times of crisis and identify mitigating factors and boundary conditions.

Consideration of culture in cognition: How we can enrich methodology and theory

In this paper, we argue that adopting an inclusive approach where diverse cultures are represented in research is of prime importance for cognitive psychology. The overrepresentation of participant samples and researchers from WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) cultures limits the generalizability of findings and fails to capture potential sources of variability, impeding understanding of human cognition. In an analysis of articles in representative cognitive psychology journals over the five-year period of 2016-2020, we find that only approximately 7% of articles consider culture, broadly defined. Of these articles, a majority (83%) focus on language or bilingualism, with small numbers of articles considering other aspects of culture. We argue that methodology and theory developed in the last century of cognitive research not only can be leveraged, but will be enriched by greater diversity in both populations and researchers. Such advances pave the way to uncover cognitive processes that may be universal or systematically differ as a function of cultural variations, and the individual differences in relation to cultural variations. To make a case for broadening this scope, we characterize relevant cross-cultural research, sample classic cognitive research that is congruent with such an approach, and discuss compatibility between a cross-cultural perspective and the classic tenets of cognitive psychology. We make recommendations for large and small steps for the field to incorporate greater cultural representation in the study of cognition, while recognizing the challenges associated with these efforts and acknowledging that not every research question calls for a cross-cultural perspective.

Threatened humanity in a tight world: Cultural tightness results in self-objectification

Self-objectification can be considered as a specific kind of self-dehumanization that consists of a perception of oneself as more instrument-like than human-like and a decreased self-attribution of mental states. Self-objectification is commonly observed, and its contributing factors need to be better understood. In the present research, we examined whether cultural tightness, which entails strong social norms and punishments for deviant behaviors, is an antecedent to self-objectification. Our hypotheses were confirmed by four studies, involving quasi-experiments and fully controlled experiments ( N = 2,693). In particular, Chinese college students living in a region with a tight culture (compared to a loose culture, Study 1), American employees working in an industry with a tight corporate culture (compared to a loose culture, Study 2), American participants who were induced to support cultural tightness (vs. cultural looseness, Study 3), and those who were situated in a simulated tight culture (vs. a loose culture, Study 4) all showed increased levels of self-objectification. As such, they acknowledged their personhood less and focused more on their instrumentality. Implications are discussed.

Brentano's psychology and Kazimierz Twardowski School: implications for the empirical study of psychological phenomena today

The article presents the most important and almost forgotten theses of Franz Brentano's empirical psychology, which have significance for conceptualization and the method of psychological research. The psychology programme, introduced as early as 1874, remains on the fringes of mainstream empirical psychology, but it was the starting point for Kazimierz Twardowski and his students. The continuation and development of Brentano's thought in the twentieth century can significantly enrich and broaden psychology's theoretical and empirical perspective. This applies primarily to reductionism and the social dimension of mental phenomena.

Men's Sexual Interest in Feminine Trans Individuals across Cultures

Feminine trans individuals (i.e., individuals who were assigned male at birth but who have a feminine gender presentation and identity) are present in many cultures. In some cultures, these individuals identify as (trans) women. Many of these individuals undergo medical treatments to feminize their bodies (e.g., breast augmentation), but most do not undergo vaginoplasties and therefore have penises. In many non-Western cultures, feminine trans individuals identify as a non-binary gender (i.e., neither man, nor woman). Many of these individuals do not surgically augment their bodies. Across cultures, some men express sexual interest in feminine trans individuals. Are manifestations of sexual interest in feminine trans individuals consistent across Western and non-Western cultural settings? Our review suggests that, across cultures, most of these men are also sexually attracted to cisgender individuals. Many are sexually attracted to cisgender women or to cisgender members of both sexes. A small subset is sexually attracted to cisgender men. Men who are sexually interested in feminine trans individuals commonly report being primarily insertive during anal sex. Additionally, they tend to report that their sexual interest in these individuals is motivated by attraction to femininity or to the combination female- and male-typical characteristics.

Challenging the White = Neutral Framework in Psychology

In the United States, White samples are often portrayed as if their racial identities were inconsequential to their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and research findings derived from White samples are often portrayed as if they were generalizable to all humans. We argue that these and other practices are rooted in a "White = neutral" framework (i.e., the conceptualization of White samples as nonracial). First, we review existing data and present some new data to highlight the scope of the White = neutral framework. Second, we integrate research from across psychological science to argue that the continued use of the White = neutral framework will prevent psychology from becoming a truly objective and inclusive science for at least three reasons: (a) Research with White samples will be valued over research with samples of color, (b) norms that maintain White neutrality will remain unchallenged, and (c) the role of White identity in psychological processes will remain underspecified and underexamined. Third, we provide recommendations for how to move beyond the White = neutral framework in hopes of encouraging all psychological scientists to move toward a White ≠ neutral framework in which all samples are identified for the unique and diverse perspectives that they bring to the world.

Moral Observer-Licensing in Cyberspace

Moral observer-licensing happens when observers condone actors’ morally questionable conduct due to the actors’ history of moral behaviors. In four studies (N = 808), we investigated this phenomenon in the context of cyberspace and its contributing factors and boundary conditions. The pilot study determined what participants perceived as typically moral and immoral behaviors in cyberspace. Then, in Study 1, participants condemned a story character’s online immoral behavior less often when they were informed of the character’s prior online moral behavior than when they were not, which indicates moral observer-licensing in cyberspace. Study 2 confirmed the presence of moral observer-licensing in cyberspace and further demonstrated that a character’s prior moral or immoral behavior online respectively reduces or intensifies the perceived negativity of the character’s subsequent immoral behavior. Finally, Study 3 showed that participants who identified with the victim in a hypothetical scenario showed less forgiveness and more condemnation of a character’s immoral behavior than those who identified with the perpetrator or the bystander. These findings are of theoretical and practical significance for our understanding of cyber ethics.

Testing the Effectiveness of the Health Belief Model in Predicting Preventive Behavior During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of Romania and Italy

We use a cultural psychology approach to examine the relevance of the Health Belief Model (HBM) for predicting a variety of behaviors that had been recommended by health officials during the initial stages of the COVID-19 lockdown for containing the spread of the virus and not overburdening the health system in Europe. Our study is grounded in the assumption that health behavior is activated based on locally relevant perceptions of threats, susceptibility and benefits in engaging in protective behavior, which requires careful attention to how these perceptions might be structured and activated. We assess the validity of the HBM in two European countries that have been relatively understudied, using simultaneous measurements during acute periods of infection in Romania and Italy. An online questionnaire provided a total of (N = 1863) valid answers from both countries. First, to understand individual difference patterns within and across populations, we fit a General Linear Model in which endorsement was predicted by behavior, country, their interaction, and a random effect for participants. Second, we assess the effect of demographics and health beliefs on prevention behaviors by fitting a multi-group path model across countries, in which each behavior was predicted by the observed health belief variables and demographics. Health beliefs showed stronger relationships with the recommended behaviors than demographics. Confirming previously reported relationships, self-efficacy, perceived severity, and perceived benefits were consistently related to the greater adoption of individual behaviors, whereas greater perceived barriers were related to lower adoption of health behaviors. However, we also point to important location specific effects that suggest that local norms shape protective behavior in highly contextualized ways.

How Does Fasting Affect Cognition? An Updated Systematic Review (2013-2020)

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

The goal of this review was to provide an update on the literature examining how voluntary, temporary abstention from eating impacts cognitive function.

RECENT FINDINGS

We evaluated peer-reviewed articles published between August 2013 and January 2021 that assessed adults, included a measure of cognitive functioning with neutral stimuli, and compared individuals in a fasted state to individuals in a fed state (either within- or between-subject designs). Nineteen articles (21 studies) met inclusion criteria. Sample sizes, fasting methods, and tasks varied across studies. Review of studies indicated that fasting was associated with deficits in cognitive functioning; few studies indicated a benefit in cognitive functioning following a single voluntary fast. The heterogeneity and rarity of available studies limits the conclusions that can be drawn. Several crucial psychosocial and sociodemographic moderators remain unexplored. Recommendations for future work are discussed.

A 21st century cognitive portrait of the Himba, a remote people of Namibia

This research sketches the cognitive portrait of the Himba, a remote population from Northern Namibia living in a non-industrial society almost completely devoid of modern artefacts. We compared the Himba sample to a French sample, exploring cognitive reflection, moral judgement, cooperative behaviour, paranormal beliefs, and happiness. We looked for both differences and similarities across cultures, and for the way cognitive functioning is associated with a range of demographic variables. Results showed some important group differences, with the Himba being more intuitive, more religious, happier, and less utilitarian than the French participants. Further, the predictors of these beliefs and behaviours differed between the two groups. The present results provide additional support to the recent line of research targeting cultural variations and similarities, and call for the need to expand psychology research beyond the Western world.

"I Felt Like a Hero:" Adolescents' Understanding of Resolution-Promoting and Vengeful Actions on Behalf of Their Peers

Bystander intervention on behalf of victims of peer aggression is credited with reducing victimization, yet little is known about how bystanders evaluate their intervention efforts. African-, European-, Mexican-, and Native-American adolescents (N = 266) between 13 and 18 years (M_age = 15.0, 54% female) recounted vengeful and peaceful responses to a peer's victimization. For comparison, they also described acts of personal revenge. Youth's explanations of how they evaluated each action were coded for goals and outcomes. Befitting its moral complexity, self-evaluative rationales for third-party revenge cited more goals than the other two conditions. References to benevolence and lack thereof were more frequent after third-party revenge compared to personal revenge. Concerns that security was compromised and that actions contradicted self-direction were high after both types of revenge. Third-party resolution promoted benevolence, competence, self-direction, and security more than third-party revenge. Epistemic network analyses and thematic excerpts revealed the centrality of benevolence goals in adolescents' self-evaluative thinking. Self-focused and identity-relevant goals were cited in concert with benevolence after third-party intervention.

Bias in bias recognition: People view others but not themselves as biased by preexisting beliefs and social stigmas

Biases perpetuate when people think that they are innocent whereas others are guilty of biases. We examined whether people would detect biased thinking and behavior in others but not themselves as influenced by preexisting beliefs (myside bias) and social stigmas (social biases). The results of three large studies showed that, across demographic groups, participants attributed more biases to others than to themselves, and that this self-other asymmetry was particularly salient among those who hold strong beliefs about the existence of biases (Study 1 and Study 2). The self-other asymmetry in bias recognition dissipated when participants made simultaneous predictions about others' and their own thoughts and behaviors (Study 3). People thus exhibit bias in bias recognition, and this metacognitive bias may be remedied when it is highlighted to people that we are all susceptible to biasing influences.

Culture influences how people divide continuous sensory experience into events

Everyday experience is divided into meaningful events as a part of human perception. Current accounts of this process, known as event segmentation, focus on how characteristics of the experience (e.g., situation changes) influence segmentation. However, characteristics of the viewers themselves have been largely neglected. We test whether one such viewer characteristic, their cultural background, impacts online event segmentation. Culture could impact event segmentation (1) by emphasizing different aspects of experiences as being important for comprehension, memory, and communication, and (2) by providing different exemplars of how everyday activities are performed, which objects are likely to be used, and how scenes are laid out. Indian and US viewers (N = 152) identified events in everyday activities (e.g., making coffee) recorded in Indian and US settings. Consistent with their cultural preference for analytical processing, US viewers segmented the activities into more events than did Indian viewers. Furthermore, event boundaries identified by US viewers were more strongly associated with visual changes, whereas boundaries identified by Indian viewers were more strongly associated with goal changes. There was no evidence that familiarity with an activity impacted segmentation. Thus, culture impacts event perception by altering the types of information people prioritize when dividing experience into meaningful events.

Third-Party Intervention in Peer Victimization: Self-Evaluative Emotions and Appraisals of a Diverse Adolescent Sample

African American, European American, Mexican American, and Native American adolescents (N = 270) described how they felt and appraised their own actions in response to a peer's victimization. Analyses compared times they had calmed victim emotions, amplified anger, avenged, and resolved conflicts peacefully. Adolescents felt prouder, more helpful, more like a good friend, and expected more peer approval after calming and resolving than after amplifying anger or avenging peers. They also felt less guilt and shame after calming and resolving. Avenging elicited more positive self-evaluation than amplifying. Epistemic network analyses explored links between self-evaluative and other emotions. Pride was linked to relief after efforts to calm or resolve. Third-party revenge reflected its antisocial and prosocial nature with connections between pride, relief, anger, and guilt.

Maternal reactions to children's negative emotions: Relations to children's socio-emotional development among European American and Chinese immigrant children

This study examined the relations between maternal reactions to children's negative emotions and children's socio-emotional outcomes, including psychological adjustment, emotion knowledge, and coping strategies. European American and Chinese immigrant mothers reported on their reactions to children's (N = 117, M = 7.14 years) negative emotions and on children's psychological adjustment. One year later, children were interviewed for emotion knowledge and mothers reported on children's use of coping strategies. Mothers from the two cultural groups reported the same level of supportive reactions to their children's negative emotions, whereas Chinese immigrant mothers more often adopted what are commonly considered to be non-supportive strategies than did European American mothers. Whereas supportive maternal reactions were associated with better child outcomes in both cultures, maternal non-supportive reactions were negatively associated with children's functioning for European American children but not for Chinese immigrant children. The findings shed critical light on the functional meaning of parenting practices in specific cultural contexts in shaping developmental outcomes.

Personal Growth Experiences of Parents to Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Experiences of parenting a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have mostly been studied in relation to hardship. The current study explored personal growth experiences of Israeli parents to children with ASD, specifically in relation to Tedeschi and Calhoun's crisis-related growth model. Nineteen parents were interviewed, and qualitative categorical content analysis was performed. Four major growth themes emerged: Empowerment and personal strength, Existential perspective/spiritual-emotional experience, Interpersonal and Expertise, professional or political involvement. Themes were largely consistent with the crisis-related growth model, with some being unique to the current subject of inquiry. Findings indicated growth might occur differently in different cultures. Clinically, with some parents, the focus regarding the parenting of their child with ASD should be shifted from adjustment to growth.

The local perceptual bias of a non-remote and educated population

In 1977, Navon argued that perception is biased towards the processing of global as opposed to local visual information (or the forest before the trees) and implicitly assumed this to be true across places and cultures. Previous work with normally developing participants has supported this assumption except in one extremely remote African population. Here, we explore local-global perceptual bias in normally developing African participants living much less remotely than the African population tested previously. These participants had access to modern artefacts and education but presented with a local bias on a similarity-matching Navon task, contrary to Navon's assumptions. Nevertheless, the urban and more educated amongst these participants showed a weaker local bias than the rural and less educated participants, suggesting an effect of urbanicity and education in driving differences in perceptual bias. Our findings confirm the impact of experience on perceptual bias and suggest that differences in the impact of education and urbanicity on lifestyles around the world can result in profound differences in perceptual style. In addition, they suggest that local bias is more common than previously thought; a global bias might not be universal after all.

VIII. CONCLUSION: CO-CONSTRUCTING A SECURE BASE PARTNERSHIP: MOTHER-CHILD INTERACTIONS, COMMUNICATION, AND SCRIPT REPRESENTATIONS

Using the secure base construct, the evidence presented indicates that interactional experience continues to be a central factor in the organization of mother-child attachment relationships. The parent-child codetermination process that establishes their relationship in infancy expands during the preschool years. Furthermore, with the increasingly relevant role of language, parent-child verbal communication during this time plays an important part in structuring children's attachment behavior and knowledge. Parents help their children construe attachment-related information, control and regulate emotional experience, and guide behavior during attachment-related experiences. That is, during early childhood, parent and child continue the process of constructing a secure base partnership through their gradually more complex interactions that take advantage of children's behavioral, emotional, representational, and language advances. Although the studies are interrelated and contribute to a coherent understanding of attachment relationships during this time period, they represent small-scale studies. Further, some of the effect sizes presented are small. Thus, future research should include tests of replication as well as explorations of links to early and later development and parallel findings in more diverse samples.

Are Whites and minorities more similar than different? Testing the cultural similarities hypothesis on psychopathology with a second-order meta-analysis

The cultural differences hypothesis is the assertion that there are large differences between Whites and racial/ethnic minorities in the United States, while there are small differences between- (e.g., African Americans and Latinos) and within- (e.g., Latinos: Mexican Americans and Cuban Americans) minority groups. Conversely, the cultural similarities hypothesis argues that there are small differences between Whites and minorities, and these differences are equal or smaller in magnitude than differences between and within minorities. In this study, we conducted a second-order meta-analysis focused on psychopathology, to (a) test these hypotheses by estimating the absolute average difference between Whites and minorities, as well as between and within minorities, on levels of psychopathology, and (b) determine if general and meta-analytic method moderators account for these differences. A systematic search in PsycINFO, Web of Science, and ProQuest Dissertations identified 16 meta-analyses (13% unpublished) on 493 primary studies (N = 3,036,749). Differences between Whites and minorities (d+ = 0.23, 95% confidence interval [0.18, 0.28]), and between minorities (d+ = 0.30, 95% confidence interval [0.12, 0.48]) were small in magnitude. White–minority differences remained small across moderators. These findings support the cultural similarities hypothesis. We discuss their implications and future research directions.

The Role of Culture and Acculturation in Researchers' Perceptions of Rules in Science

Successfully navigating the norms of a society is a complex task that involves recognizing diverse kinds of rules as well as the relative weight attached to them. In the United States (U.S.), different kinds of rules-federal statutes and regulations, scientific norms, and professional ideals-guide the work of researchers. Penalties for violating these different kinds of rules and norms can range from the displeasure of peers to criminal sanctions. We proposed that it would be more difficult for researchers working in the U.S. who were born in other nations to distinguish the seriousness of violating rules across diverse domains. We administered a new measure, the evaluating rules in science task (ERST), to National Institutes of Health-funded investigators (101 born in the U.S. and 102 born outside of the U.S.). The ERST assessed perceptions of the seriousness of violating research regulations, norms, and ideals, and allowed us to calculate the degree to which researchers distinguished between the seriousness of each rule category. The ERST also assessed researchers' predictions of the seriousness that research integrity officers (RIOs) would assign to the rules. We compared researchers' predictions to the seriousness ratings of 112 RIOs working at U.S. research-intensive universities. U.S.-born researchers were significantly better at distinguishing between the seriousness of violating federal research regulations and violating ideals of science, and they were more accurate in their predictions of the views of RIOs. Acculturation to the U.S. moderated the effects of nationality on accuracy. We discuss the implications of these findings in terms of future research and education.

Depressive symptoms, ruminative thinking, drinking motives, and alcohol outcomes: A multiple mediation model among college students in three countries

BACKGROUND

Recent research suggests that ruminative thinking (specifically problem-focused thoughts) may explain why individuals engage in drinking to cope (DTC) when dealing with depressive symptoms; which in turn leads to increased negative alcohol-related consequences. Cross-cultural studies addressing these phenomena are scarce.

OBJECTIVES

The present study cross-culturally tested whether four rumination facets (problem-focused thoughts, counterfactual thinking, repetitive thoughts, and anticipatory thoughts) uniquely mediate the relationships between depressive symptoms and drinking motives/alcohol outcomes in a multicultural sample of college student drinkers (n=1429) from Spain, Argentina, and the U.S.

METHOD

Structural equation modeling was conducted to test the models, controlling for sex. Further, we conducted invariance testing to determine whether our models were culturally-specific or culturally-universal.

RESULTS

Within both proposed models, no rumination facet uniquely mediated the relationship between depressive symptoms and drinking motives. However, an exploratory model with a second-order latent factor of ruminative thinking did significantly mediate these associations (exception was conformity motives). Further, there were two significant double-mediated associations that suggested that increased depressive symptoms is associated with increased ruminative thinking, which is associated with higher DTC motives, which in turn is associated with higher alcohol consumption and negative alcohol-related consequences. All models were found to be invariant across countries and sex, suggesting that these associations may be relatively universal.

CONCLUSIONS

Rumination is relevant to understand the increased vulnerability of college drinkers to exhibit greater alcohol consumption and negative consequences via DTC motives when dealing with depressive symptoms.

Why Traditional Metrics May Not Adequately Represent Ethnic Minority Psychology

The first Perspectives on Psychological Science symposium on eminence in psychology focused almost exclusively on “traditional” markers of success (e.g., citation counts, awards, grants). In this essay, I argue that the context of the research and the context of the researchers are crucial components of ethnic minority psychology. First, I describe structural reasons for why ethnic minority researchers might have less impressive traditional markers of success; then, I highlight how the “minority tax” contours the scholarly activities of ethnic minority researchers. Any conceptualization of eminence must take these additional considerations into account.

Putting Culture in the Middle in Judging Scholarly Merit

I discuss the critical importance of putting culture in the middle in judging scholarly merit in psychological science. I describe the challenges in evaluating cultural research, pointing out the various ways that ethnocentric judgments undermine the scientific merit of cultural research and the consequences of the marginalization of culture in psychological science and practice. In spite of the obstacles, cultural psychologists have made major scientific contributions and achieved scientific eminence. I further suggest that we raise the bar by including a broad, cultural approach to research as one basis for judging scientific contributions. I propose that to put culture in the middle, the evaluation of scholarly merit in psychological science should (a) consider the integration of cultural perspectives in research as a critical indicator, (b) take into consideration the international visibility of scholarship,