Why is concealment associated with health and wellbeing? An investigation of potential mechanisms

RATIONALE

Many members of stigmatized groups face health and wellbeing deficits relative to their non-stigmatized peers. Ample evidence suggests that one method used by some members of stigmatized groups to manage the stigma they face-concealing their stigmatized identities-may contribute to these health and wellbeing disparities. However, precisely why concealment may contribute to these disparities is less clear.

OBJECTIVE

The present work seeks to identify and distinguish between plausible explanations for why concealment may contribute to worse health and wellbeing.

METHODS

In the present work, we explore a large number of plausible mechanisms that may explain why concealment is associated with worse health and wellbeing. In three studies (N = 2304) using cross-sectional (Studies 1 and 2) and longitudinal (Study 3) methods, participants were recruited from an online recruitment pool (Studies 1-3) and from an institutional recruitment pool (Study 2). Participants reported on their concealment, health and wellbeing, and constructs related to plausible explanations for the relationships between concealment and health and wellbeing.

RESULTS

We find that concealment is associated with worse health and wellbeing, with generally small effect sizes. We further find that lower feelings of belonging, less social support, and lower self-esteem are the most plausible mechanisms for explaining why concealment is associated with worse health and wellbeing. When between- and within-subjects effects were distinguishable (i.e., Study 3), we observed only between-subjects relationships.

CONCLUSION

Because people's choices to engage in self-protection through concealment should be respected, potential avenues for intervention to reduce minority health disparities may be more appropriately targeted at the mechanisms that account for why concealment may undermine health and wellbeing than at concealment itself. The present work makes strides towards identifying those mechanisms and thus towards addressing them.

Identity Concealment May Discourage Health-Seeking Behaviors: Evidence From Sexual-Minority Men During the 2022 Global Mpox Outbreak

People who conceal their stigmatized identities often experience worse physical health. One possibility for why is that concealment may render certain health-seeking behaviors more difficult. We tested this possibility during the 2022 global mpox outbreak, a public-health emergency that disproportionately affected sexual-minority men. We recruited adult sexual-minority men from Prolific at two time points near the outbreak's peak and attenuation (n = 864 and n = 685, respectively). We found that men who concealed their minority sexual orientations were less likely to (a) receive a vaccine to protect against mpox, (b) receive an mpox test, and (c) report having received an mpox vaccine. The relationship between concealment and vaccine receipt was serially mediated by reduced community connectedness and reduced knowledge of mpox resources. We call for thoughtful consideration of how to reach stigmatized groups with public-health resources, inclusive of those who conceal.

Which Identities Are Concealable? Individual Differences in Concealability

Concealment is a common and consequential identity management strategy. But which identities are concealable? In three studies (n = 468; obs = 4,068), we find substantial individual differences in which identities people experience as concealable. These individual differences in concealability manifest as Person × Identity interactions, such that people experience varying levels of concealability for each of their individual identities. In two additional studies (n = 465; obs = 3,784), we find that these individual differences predict the frequency and efficacy of concealment. We conclude that it is inaccurate to label entire categories of identities as either concealable or conspicuous and urge intergroup researchers to consider people's unique experiences of concealability. Pre-registrations for Studies 1 to 4 and open materials, code, and data for all studies are available on the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/m95qu/.

Interpersonal traits and the neural representations of cognitive control in the prefrontal cortex

Adaptive interpersonal functioning relies on the effectiveness of behavioral and neural systems involved in cognitive control. Whether different subcomponents of cognitive control and their neural representations are associated with distinctive interpersonal dispositions has yet to be determined. The present study investigated the relationships between prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation associated with two subcomponents of cognitive control and individual differences in interpersonally relevant traits and facets within the Five-Factor Model of personality. Undergraduate participants (n = 237) provided self-ratings of interpersonal traits and underwent functional near-infrared spectroscopy to measure activation in regions-of-interest linked to subcomponents of cognitive control: the right lateral PFC and its involvement in response selection and inhibition/suppression (RS) during a go/no-go task, and the left lateral PFC associated with goal selection, updating, representation, and maintenance (GS) on a tower planning task. Multilevel models revealed that during both RS and GS, Neuroticism and Extraversion were associated with lower and higher levels of activation, respectively. Higher Agreeableness was related to lower activation during RS but also with greater activation during GS. More narrowly defined interpersonal facets subsumed within the broader trait domains were differentially associated with RS- and GS-related neural responses. Taken together, these findings highlight potential avenues of future research to better understand the ways in which the neural processes that subserve cognitive control may underlie interpersonal dispositions.

Satisfying singlehood as a function of age and cohort: Satisfaction with being single increases with age after midlife

A growing body of research suggests that despite the stereotype of being dissatisfied with their relationship status, there is variability in how single (unpartnered) individuals feel about singlehood. The current research examined how satisfaction with singlehood varies (linearly or nonlinearly) with age. In Study 1, we analyzed five cross-sectional samples of single individuals (N = 3,304; collected in 2020-2021) using an integrative data analysis (IDA) approach. In Study 2, we used Dutch longitudinal data (N = 3,193; collected in 2008-2019) to more precisely separate the effect of age from that of birth cohort. Study 1 demonstrated that satisfaction with singlehood was positively associated with age after midlife whereas desire for a partner was negatively associated with age. Study 2 provided conceptually consistent evidence for age-related increases in satisfaction with singlehood during mid to late adulthood (around 40s-80s). Some evidence was found in Study 2 that more recent cohorts were higher in satisfaction with singlehood, but this effect did not hold when accounting for differences in marital status. These results provide evidence for potential age effects in well-being related outcomes for singles and suggest that midlife may be an important turning point. Understanding what makes singles satisfied with singlehood at older age may be a promising approach to gain insights into how to promote well-being of the rising single population. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

An Exploratory Study of Physiological Linkage Among Strangers

The present study explores physiological linkage (i.e., any form of statistical interdependence between the physiological signals of interacting partners; PL) using data from 65 same-sex, same ethnicity stranger dyads. Participants completed a knot-tying task with either a cooperative or competitive framing while either talking or remaining silent. Autonomic nervous system activity was measured continuously by electrocardiograph for both individuals during the interaction. Using a recently developed R statistical package (i.e., rties), we modeled different oscillatory patterns of coordination between partner's interbeat interval (i.e., the time between consecutive heart beats) over the course of the task. Three patterns of PL emerged, characterized by differences in frequency of oscillation, phase, and damping or amplification. To address gaps in the literature, we explored (a) PL patterns as predictors of affiliation and (b) the interaction between individual differences and experimental condition as predictors of PL patterns. In contrast to prior analyses using this dataset for PL operationalized as covariation, the present analyses showed that oscillatory PL patterns did not predict affiliation, but the interaction of individual differences and condition differentially predicted PL patterns. This study represents a next step toward understanding the roles of individual differences, context, and PL among strangers.

The Ups and Downs of Being Us: Cross-Relationship Comparisons in Daily Life

Cross-relationship comparisons are an integral part of relationship processes, yet little is known about the impact of these comparisons in daily life. The present research employed a dyadic experience-sampling methodology (N = 78 couples) with end-of-day surveys, end-of-week follow-up, and a 6-month follow-up to examine how individuals make cross-relationship comparisons in daily life, the cumulative impact of these comparisons over time, and the dyadic consequences of such comparisons. Participants made more downward than upward comparisons; however, upward comparisons had a more lasting impact, resulting in decreased satisfaction and optimism, and less positive self-perceptions and partner perceptions, at the end of each day and the week. Individuals who made more upward comparisons were also less satisfied 6 months later. Individuals were also affected by their partner's comparisons: On days when partners made more upward comparisons, they felt less satisfied and optimistic about their relationship and less positive about themselves and their partner.

Subjective Identity Concealability and the Consequences of Fearing Identity-Based Judgment

In intergroup contexts, people may fear being judged negatively because of an identity they hold. For some, the prospect of concealment offers an opportunity to attenuate this fear. Therefore, believing an identity is concealable may minimize people’s fears of identity-based judgment. Here, we explore the construct of subjective identity concealability: the belief that an identity one holds is concealable from others. Across four pre-registered studies and a set of internal meta-analyses, we develop and validate a scale to measure individual differences in subjective identity concealability and provide evidence that it is associated with lower levels of the psychological costs of fearing judgment in intergroup contexts. Open materials, data, and code for all studies, pre-registrations for Studies 1–4, and online supplementary materials can be found at the following link: https://osf.io/pzcf9/.

Using multilevel models for the analysis of event-related potentials

Multilevel modeling (MLM) is becoming increasingly accessible and popular in the analysis of event-related potentials (ERPs). In this article, we review the benefits of MLM for analyzing psychophysiological data, which often contains repeated observations within participants, and introduce some of the decision-making points in the analytic process, including how to set up the data set, specify the model, conduct hypothesis tests, and visualize the model estimates. We highlight how the use of MLM can extend the types of theoretical questions that can be answered using ERPs, including investigations of how ERPs vary meaningfully across trials within a testing session. We also address reporting practices and provide tools to calculate effect sizes and simulate power curves. Ultimately, we hope this review contributes to emerging best practices for the use of MLM with psychophysiological data.

When every day is a high school reunion: Social media comparisons and self-esteem

Although past research has shown that social comparisons made through social media contribute to negative outcomes, little is known about the nature of these comparisons (domains, direction, and extremity), variables that determine comparison outcomes (post valence, perceiver's self-esteem), and how these comparisons differ from those made in other contexts (e.g., text messages, face-to-face interactions). In 4 studies (N = 798), we provide the first comprehensive analysis of how individuals make and respond to social comparisons on social media, using comparisons made in real-time while browsing news feeds (Study 1), experimenter-generated comparisons (Study 2), and comparisons made on social media versus in other contexts (Studies 3 and 4). More frequent and more extreme upward comparisons resulted in immediate declines in self-evaluations as well as cumulative negative effects on individuals' state self-esteem, mood, and life satisfaction after a social media browsing session. Moreover, downward and lateral comparisons occurred less frequently and did little to mitigate upward comparisons' negative effects. Furthermore, low self-esteem individuals were particularly vulnerable to making more frequent and more extreme upward comparisons on social media, which in turn threatened their already-lower self-evaluations. Finally, social media comparisons resulted in greater declines in self-evaluations than those made in other contexts. Together, these studies provide the first insights into the cumulative impact of multiple comparisons, clarify the role of self-esteem in online comparison processes, and demonstrate how the characteristics and impact of comparisons on social media differ from those made in other contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Social and Physiological Context can Affect the Meaning of Physiological Synchrony

Survival of many species, from insects and birds to human and non-human mammals, requires synchronized activity. Among humans, synchrony occurs even at the level of autonomic functioning; people interacting often show mutual, simultaneous changes in activity of the sympathetic or parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system. Critically, autonomic reactivity predicts many mental states and, when synchronized, may reflect higher-order social processes like affiliation. Here, using data from 134 strangers interacting in pairs, we manipulated two features of social context to test their impact on synchrony in sympathetic and parasympathetic reactivity. Participants completed a knot-tying task within a collective reward (“cooperation”) or individual reward (“competition”) framework while conversing or not (“talking” condition). Autonomic reactivity varied by features of social context. Synchrony occurred across social contexts in both autonomic branches. We then examined how synchrony predicted affiliation. Sympathetic synchrony alone predicted affiliation yet social context and parasympathetic reactivity moderated associations between parasympathetic synchrony and affiliation. Thus, social and physiological context of parasympathetic synchrony predicted affiliation better than parasympathetic synchrony alone. We argue that social context and the degree of physiological reactivity underlying physiological synchrony, not the mere existence of physiological synchrony, are key to interpreting physiological synchrony as a social process.

The Extended Contact Hypothesis: A Meta-Analysis on 20 Years of Research

According to the extended contact hypothesis, knowing that in-group members have cross-group friends improves attitudes toward this out-group. This meta-analysis covers the 20 years of research that currently exists on the extended contact hypothesis, and consists of 248 effect sizes from 115 studies. The aggregate relationship between extended contact and intergroup attitudes was r = .25, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [.22, .27], which reduced to r = .17, 95% CI = [.14, .19] after removing direct friendship's contribution; these results suggest that extended contact's hypothesized relationship to intergroup attitudes is small-to-medium and exists independently of direct friendship. This relationship was larger when extended contact was perceived versus actual, highlighting the importance of perception in extended contact. Current results on extended contact mostly resembled their direct friendship counterparts, suggesting similarity between these contact types. These unique insights about extended contact and its relationship with direct friendship should enrich and spur growth within this literature.

Hormone-Diversity Fit: Collective Testosterone Moderates the Effect of Diversity on Group Performance

Prior research has found inconsistent effects of diversity on group performance. The present research identifies hormonal factors as a critical moderator of the diversity-performance connection. Integrating the diversity, status, and hormone literatures, we predicted that groups collectively low in testosterone, which orients individuals less toward status competitions and more toward cooperation, would excel with greater group diversity. In contrast, groups collectively high in testosterone, which is associated with a heightened status drive, would be derailed by diversity. Analysis of 74 randomly assigned groups engaged in a group decision-making exercise provided support for these hypotheses. The findings suggest that diversity is beneficial for performance, but only if group-level testosterone is low; diversity has a negative effect on performance if group-level testosterone is high. Too much collective testosterone maximizes the pains and minimizes the gains from diversity.

Contagious Anxiety: Anxious European Americans Can Transmit Their Physiological Reactivity to African Americans

During interracial encounters, well-intentioned European Americans sometimes engage in subtle displays of anxiety, which can be interpreted as signs of racial bias by African American partners. In the present research, same-race and cross-race stranger dyads ( N = 123) engaged in getting-acquainted tasks, during which measures of sympathetic nervous system responses (preejection period, PEP) and heart rate variability were continuously collected. PEP scores showed that African American partners had stronger physiological linkage to European American partners who evidenced greater anxiety-greater cortisol reactivity, behavioral tension, and self-reported discomfort-which suggests greater physiological responsiveness to momentary changes in partners' affective states when those partners were anxious. European Americans showed physiological linkage to African American and European American partners, but linkage did not vary as a function of their partner's anxiety. Using physiological linkage offers a novel approach to understanding how affective responses unfold during dynamic intergroup interactions.

Wanting to Stay and Wanting to Go

The present research examined the subjective experience of deciding whether or not to end a romantic relationship. In Study 1, open-ended reasons for wanting to stay in a relationship versus leave were provided by three samples and categorized by trained coders, resulting in 27 distinct reasons for wanting to stay (e.g., emotional intimacy, investment) and 23 reasons for wanting to leave (e.g., conflict, breach of trust). In Study 2, we examined endorsement of specific stay/leave reasons among participants currently contemplating either a breakup or a divorce. Most stay and leave reasons mapped onto global ratings of satisfaction and commitment. Attachment anxiety was associated with stronger endorsement of many reasons for wanting to both stay and leave. Further, many participants were simultaneously motivated to both stay in their relationships and leave, suggesting that ambivalence is a common experience for those who are thinking about ending their relationships.

ExperienceSampler: An open-source scaffold for building smartphone apps for experience sampling

Experience sampling methods allow researchers to examine phenomena in daily life and provide various advantages that complement traditional laboratory methods. However, existing experience sampling methods may be costly, require constant Internet connectivity, may not be designed specifically for experience sampling studies, or require a custom solution from a computer programming consultant. In this article, we present ExperienceSampler, an open-source scaffold for creating experience-sampling smartphone apps designed for Android and iOS devices. We designed ExperienceSampler to address the common barriers to using experience sampling methods. First, there is no cost to the user. Second, ExperienceSampler apps make use of local notifications to let participants know when to complete surveys and store the data locally until Internet connection is available. Third, our app scaffold was designed with experience sampling methodological issues in mind. We also demonstrate how researchers can easily customize ExperienceSampler even if they have no programming skills. Furthermore, we evaluate the utility of ExperienceSampler apps with results from one social psychological study conducted using ExperienceSampler (N = 168). Mean response rates averaged 84%, and the median response latency was 9 minutes. Taken together, ExperienceSampler creates cost-effective smartphone apps that can be easily customized by researchers to examine experiences in daily life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Multilevel Intergroup Contact and Antigay Prejudice (Explicit and Implicit)

Intergroup contact at the individual level is robustly associated with lower prejudice, but intergroup contact occurs within a greater regional context. Multilevel examinations thus far have focused on interethnic contact, where both individual- and contextual-level contact are associated with lower explicit prejudice. Given that ethnicity is visible, two lingering questions concern whether (a) contextual contact effects only apply to visible outgroups and (b) contextual contact effects predict implicit prejudice in addition to explicit prejudice. In two studies, we tested these questions in the domain of sexual orientation. Individual- and contextual-level contact were simultaneously (uniquely) associated with lower implicit and explicit prejudice: Individuals having more contact with gay men/lesbians were less prejudiced toward gay men and lesbians, and individuals living in areas with greater contact with gay men/lesbians were less prejudiced toward gay men/lesbians. It seems that people need not directly witness intergroup contact in their region for contextual contact effects to occur.

Ideological reactivity: Political conservatism and brain responsivity to emotional and neutral stimuli

Conservatives are often thought to have a negativity bias-responding more intensely to negative than positive information. Yet, recent research has found that greater endorsement of conservative beliefs follows from both positive and negative emotion inductions. This suggests that the role of affect in political thought may not be restricted to negative valence, and more attention should be given to how conservatives and liberals respond to a wider range of stimulation. In this vein, we examined neural responses to a full range of affective stimuli, allowing us to examine how self-reported ideology moderated these responses. Specifically, we explored the relationship between political orientation and 2 event-related potentials (1 late and 1 early) previously shown to covary with the subjective motivational salience of stimuli-in response to photographs with standardized ratings of arousal and valence. At late time points, conservatives exhibited sustained heightened reactivity, compared with liberals, specifically in response to relatively unarousing and neutral stimuli. At early time points, conservatives exhibited somewhat enhanced neural activity in response to all stimulus types compared with liberals. These results may suggest that conservatives experience a wide variety of stimuli in their environment with increased motivational salience, including positive, neutral, and low-arousal stimuli. No effects of valence were found in this investigation. Such findings have implications for the development and refinement of psychological conceptions of political orientation. (PsycINFO Database Record

Predicting Treatment Outcomes from Prefrontal Cortex Activation for Self-Harming Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder: A Preliminary Study

Self-harm is a potentially lethal symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD) that often improves with dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). While DBT is effective for reducing self-harm in many patients with BPD, a small but significant number of patients either does not improve in treatment or ends treatment prematurely. Accordingly, it is crucial to identify factors that may prospectively predict which patients are most likely to benefit from and remain in treatment. In the present preliminary study, 29 actively self-harming patients with BPD completed brain-imaging procedures probing activation of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) during impulse control prior to beginning DBT and after 7 months of treatment. Patients that reduced their frequency of self-harm the most over treatment displayed lower levels of neural activation in the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) prior to beginning treatment, and they showed the greatest increases in activity within this region after 7 months of treatment. Prior to starting DBT, treatment non-completers demonstrated greater activation than treatment-completers in the medial PFC and right inferior frontal gyrus. Reductions in self-harm over the treatment period were associated with increases in activity in right DLPFC even after accounting for improvements in depression, mania, and BPD symptom severity. These findings suggest that pre-treatment patterns of activation in the PFC underlying impulse control may be prospectively associated with improvements in self-harm and treatment attrition for patients with BPD treated with DBT.

How can intergroup interaction be bad if intergroup contact is good? Exploring and reconciling an apparent paradox in the science of intergroup relations

The outcomes of social interactions among members of different groups (e.g., racial groups, political groups, sexual orientation groups) have long been of interest to psychologists. Two related literatures on the topic have emerged-the intergroup interaction literature and the intergroup contact literature-in which divergent conclusions have been reported. Intergroup interaction is typically found to have negative effects tied to intergroup bias, producing heightened stress, intergroup anxiety, or outgroup avoidance, whereas intergroup contact is typically found to have positive effects tied to intergroup bias, predicting lower intergroup anxiety and lower prejudice. We examine these paradoxical findings, proposing that researchers contributing to the two literatures are examining different levels of the same phenomenon and that methodological differences can account for the divide between the literatures. Further, we introduce a mathematical model by which the findings of the two literatures can be reconciled. We believe that adopting this model will streamline thinking in the field and will generate integrative new research in which investigators examine how a person's experiences with diversity unfold.

Errors in Moral Forecasting

Research in moral decision making has shown that there may not be a one-to-one relationship between peoples’ moral forecasts and behaviors. Although past work suggests that physiological arousal may account for part of the behavior-forecasting discrepancy, whether or not perceptions of affect play an important determinant remains unclear. Here, we investigate whether this discrepancy may arise because people fail to anticipate how they will feel in morally significant situations. In Study 1, forecasters predicted cheating significantly more on a test than participants in a behavior condition actually cheated. Importantly, forecasters who received false somatic feedback, indicative of high arousal, produced forecasts that aligned more closely with behaviors. In Study 2, forecasters who misattributed their arousal to an extraneous source forecasted cheating significantly more. In Study 3, higher dispositional emotional awareness was related to less forecasted cheating. These findings suggest that perceptions of affect play a key role in the behavior-forecasting dissociation.

Self-affirmation breaks the link between the behavioral inhibition system and the threat-potentiated startle response

Reflecting on core personal values is a common means of self-affirmation that can change how a person responds to threatening events. Specifically, self-affirmation has been found to reduce psychological defenses against self-esteem threats. The current research examined the effects of self-affirmation on more basic reflexive mechanisms of motivation and emotion. The startle-eyeblink response is a defensive reflex that can be elicited by loud bursts of noise and is potentiated in the presence of threatening stimuli. Individual differences in anxiety-related traits, including behavioral inhibition-system (BIS) sensitivity, predict the magnitude of threat-potentiated startle responses, such that higher BIS sensitivity corresponds with more intense responses to threatening stimuli. The current experiment (N = 100) tested the hypothesis that affirming a core personal value breaks the link between BIS sensitivity and threat responsiveness. We measured individual differences in BIS, manipulated the opportunity for self-affirmation, and assessed eyeblink responses to startle probes during negative, neutral, and positive emotional picture viewing. In the no-affirmation condition, BIS sensitivity predicted the magnitude of startle-eyeblink responses during negative pictures, consistent with previous research. In the self-affirmation condition, the relationship between BIS sensitivity and threat-potentiated startle responding was eliminated. This finding suggests that self-affirmation's effects extend beyond self-esteem defenses to influence basic defensive reflexes in threat-prone individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record

Incorporating neuroendocrine methods into intergroup relations research

Intergroup researchers have the opportunity to access to a wide variety of methods to help deepen theoretical insights about intergroup relations. In this paper, we focus on neuroendocrine measures, as these physiological measures offer some advantages over traditional measures used in intergroup research, are noninvasive, and are relatively easy to incorporate into existing intergroup paradigms. We begin by discussing the major neuroendocrine systems in the body and their measurable biological products, emphasizing systems that have conceptual relevance to intergroup relations. We then describe how to collect, store, and quantify neuroendocrine measures. Altogether, this paper serves as a primer for intergroup researchers interested in adding neuroendocrine measures to their methodological toolkits to enrich the study of intergroup relations.

Stress and coping in interracial contexts: The influence of race-based rejection sensitivity and cross-group friendship in daily experiences of health

We examined the interplay of psychosocial risk and protective factors in daily experiences of health. In Study 1, the tendency to anxiously expect rejection from racial outgroup members, termed race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race), was cross-sectionally related to greater stress-symptoms among Black adults who reported fewer cross-race friends but not among participants who had more cross-race friends. In Study 2, we experimentally manipulated the development of a same- versus cross-race friendship among Latino/a-White dyads prior to collecting daily experiences of stress-symptoms using a diary methodology. While RS-race predicted more psychosomatic symptoms in the same-race friendship condition, RS-race was unrelated to symptomatology among participants who made a cross-race friend. These findings suggest that experiences of intergroup stress can spill over into everyday life in the absence of positive contact, but cross-race friendships may be a resource that mitigates the expression of interracial stress.

Hormones: empirical contribution. Cortisol reactivity and recovery in the context of adolescent personality disorder

The present study examined whether the associations between stress responses and psychopathology were moderated by adolescent personality disorder (PD) traits. Participants were a community sample of 106 adolescents (47 male, Mage = 16.01) and their parents. Parents reported on adolescents' PD traits and behavioral problems. Changes in salivary cortisol were assessed in response to a laboratory-based stress induction. Moderated regression analyses revealed significant linear and quadratic interactions between cortisol recovery and PD traits in the prediction of behavioral problems. Although typically conceptualized as "adaptive," steeper poststressor recovery was associated with more behavioral problems when PD traits were high. These findings suggest that, in the presence of maladaptive personality traits, premature recovery from environmental stressors may indicate an inability to respond appropriately to negative environmental stimuli, thus reflecting a core disturbance in PD trait functioning. The results underscore the informative role that personality plays in illuminating the nature of hormone functioning in adolescents and are interpreted in a developmental psychopathology framework.

Listen to your heart: when false somatic feedback shapes moral behavior

A pounding heart is a common symptom people experience when confronting moral dilemmas. The authors conducted 4 experiments using a false feedback paradigm to explore whether and when listening to a fast (vs. normal) heartbeat sound shaped ethical behavior. Study 1 found that perceived fast heartbeat increased volunteering for a just cause. Study 2 extended this effect to moral transgressions and showed that perceived fast heartbeat reduced lying for self-gain. Studies 3 and 4 explored the boundary conditions of this effect and found that perceived heartbeat had less influence on deception when people are mindful or approach the decision deliberatively. These findings suggest that the perceived physiological experience of fast heartbeats may signal greater distress in moral situations and hence motivate people to take the moral high road.

To Whom Can I Turn? Maintenance of Positive Intergroup Relations in the Face of Intergroup Conflict

Intergroup conflict is a salient aspect of our social world, yet relatively little is known about the way intergroup conflicts affect subsequent intergroup interactions. The present research employed a daily diary methodology to examine how cross-group friendship affects intergroup approach and avoidance after intergroup conflict. After assessing the diversity and quality of participants’ social networks, the daily social interactions of 60 participants were tracked for 10 days. Among individuals with low-quality or no cross-group friends, intergroup conflict on a preceding day predicted reductions in self-initiated intergroup interactions on the following day. However, individuals with close cross-group friends did not avoid intergroup interactions after intergroup conflict. This effect was mediated by the degree to which people with close cross-group friends sought social support from out-group members in the social interactions that followed intergroup conflict. The implications of these findings for maintenance of positive intergroup relations are discussed.

Are we more moral than we think? Exploring the role of affect in moral behavior and moral forecasting

Can people accurately predict how they will act in a moral dilemma? Our research suggests that in some situations, they cannot, and that emotions play a pivotal role in this dissociation between behavior and forecasting. In the current experiment, individuals in a moral action condition cheated significantly less on a math task than participants in a forecasting condition predicted they themselves would cheat. Furthermore, we found that participants in the action condition displayed significantly more physiological arousal, as measured by preejection period, skin conductance response (SCR), and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and that the underestimation effect was mediated by SCR and RSA together. This research suggests that the affective arousal present during real-life moral dilemmas may not be fully engaged during moral forecasting, and that this may account for the moral forecasting errors that individuals make. This research has the potential to inform past work in the field of moral psychology, which has largely ignored actual behavior.

Intergroup Contact Facilitates Physiological Recovery following Stressful Intergroup Interactions

A growing body of research has demonstrated the importance of intergroup contact in reducing fear, threat and anxiety in intergroup domains. Here we focus on the regulatory benefits of intergroup contact. We hypothesized that past intergroup contact would facilitate recovery from a stressful intergroup evaluation. White and Black participants completed a stressful evaluative task in the presence of two White or two Black interviewers while autonomic nervous system and hormonal responses were assessed. When examining how participants recovered after the stressful task, intergroup contact predicted faster physiological recovery for both autonomic and neuroendocrine reactivity. The importance of recovery from stress for physiological resilience in diverse contexts is discussed.

Seek help from teachers or fight back? Student perceptions of teachers' actions during conflicts and responses to peer victimization

Previous research has shown that teachers’ actions when addressing conflict on school grounds can shape adolescent perceptions regarding how well the school manages victimization. Our objective in this study was to determine how these perceptions influenced the likelihood that adolescent students would react to victimization scenarios by either seeking help from school authority or physically fighting back. Vignettes describing two events of victimization were administered to 148 ethnic minority adolescents (Latino, African American, and Asian backgrounds; 49% female) attending an urban high school with high rates of conflict. Positive perceptions of teachers’ actions during conflicts—assessed via a questionnaire tapping how teachers manage student conflicts both generally and in a specific instance of strife—predicted a greater willingness to seek help from school authority, which in turn negatively predicted self-reported aggressive responses to the victimization scenarios. Path analysis established the viability of this indirect effect model, even when we controlled for sex, beliefs about the acceptability of aggression, and previous levels of reactive aggression. Adolescents’ perceptions of teachers’ actions during conflicts are discussed in relation to social information processing models, improving student–teacher relations, and decreasing aggression at schools.

Can Cross-Group Friendships Influence Minority Students' Well-Being at Historically White Universities?

Past research has demonstrated the negative impact of race-based rejection sensitivity (RS-race) on institutional belonging and satisfaction among minority-group students in predominantly White universities. Given research documenting the benefits of cross-group friendship for intergroup attitudes, we tested whether friendships with majority-group peers would attenuate the effects of RS-race within these contexts. In a longitudinal study of African American students (Study 1), cross-group friendships with majority-group peers buffered students high in RS-race from lack of belonging and dissatisfaction at their university. An experimental intervention (Study 2) that induced cross-group friendship replicated the findings and established their specificity for minority-group students. We discuss implications for efforts toward diversifying educational settings.