{"title":"Douglas Candland (1934-2023).","authors":"Susan Weinberg Margulis","doi":"10.1037/amp0001457","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001457","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Douglas Candland, founder of the first undergraduate major in animal behavior and long-time editor of the <i>Review in General Psychology</i>, passed away on April 16, 2023. Doug's influence in the fields of psychology and animal behavior was enormous. Doug was born on July 9, 1934, and grew up in Southern California. He completed his undergraduate degree at Pomona College in 1956, with a very interdisciplinary suite of majors in psychology, philosophy, and history. He then traveled across the country to Princeton University where he completed his PhD in psychology in 1959, and after a year's postdoc at the University of Virginia, he began a faculty position in psychology at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. It was here that Doug spent his entire academic career, retiring in 2003. In 1968, Doug established the animal behavior major at Bucknell. For many years, this remained the only undergraduate major in animal behavior in the United States. Doug was a gifted teacher and was recognized by both the Animal Behavior Society and the American Psychological Foundation for his outstanding mentorship and creativity in the classroom. It was not at all unusual for students to gather at his home for a potluck and conversation. Doug had a sharp wit and an infectious laugh. He was gifted at seeing the potential in his students and nurturing it in all ways. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48468,"journal":{"name":"American Psychologist","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.3,"publicationDate":"2024-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142819865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Shahar Hechtlinger, Christin Schulze, Christina Leuker, Ralph Hertwig
{"title":"The psychology of life's most important decisions.","authors":"Shahar Hechtlinger, Christin Schulze, Christina Leuker, Ralph Hertwig","doi":"10.1037/amp0001439","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001439","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Research on judgment and decision making typically studies \"small worlds\"-highly simplified and stylized tasks such as monetary gambles-among homogenous populations rather than big real-life decisions made by people around the globe. These transformative life decisions (e.g., whether or not to emigrate or flee a country, disclose one's sexual orientation, get divorced, or report a sexual assault) can shape lives. This article argues that rather than reducing such consequential decisions to fit small-world models, researchers need to analyze their real-world properties. Drawing on principles of bounded and ecological rationality, it proposes a framework that identifies five dimensions of transformative life decisions: conflicting cues, change of self, uncertain experiential value, irreversibility, and risk. The framework also specifies simple, versatile choice strategies that address these dimensions by, for instance, breaking down a decision into steps, avoiding trade-offs between present and future selves, or sampling others' experiences. Finally, it suggests benchmarks for assessing the rationality of transformative life decisions. Methodologically, this framework adapts a long tradition of mainly lab-based judgment and decision-making research to a text-based approach, thereby setting the stage for empirical work that analyzes real-world decisions using natural-language processing. Only by understanding decisions with the potential to transform life trajectories-and people in the process-will it be possible to develop encompassing and inclusive theories of human decision making. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48468,"journal":{"name":"American Psychologist","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142630818","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beliefs that influence personality likely concern a situation humans never leave.","authors":"Jeremy D W Clifton, Alia J Crum","doi":"10.1037/amp0001436","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001436","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Many of us-60% of humanity, according to one study-would like to change some of our personality traits, such as decreasing pessimism or neuroticism. Dweck (2008) proposed that traits might be altered by changing beliefs. However, novel beliefs must be identified, she contends, because currently studied beliefs are empirically inadequate (e.g., low correlations to broad personality traits) and because a belief's influence on behavior is usually confined to a particular situation or topic. When psychologists refer to the psychological impact of beliefs about situations, they typically mean local situations: situations individuals can enter and leave (e.g., \"This neighborhood is dangerous\"). The novel theoretical suggestion of this article is that a person's basic beliefs about a situation <i>they never leave</i> such as the world (e.g., \"This world is dangerous\") are uniquely suited to impact cross-situational behavior patterns often associated with broad personality traits. Historically, general beliefs about the world (termed \"primal world beliefs\") were understudied, and many remained unknown, rendering systematic investigation infeasible. However, using several methods that helped identify Big Five traits decades ago, a recent effort seeking to map primal world beliefs found a structure of 26 dimensions (most clustering into the beliefs that the world is <i>Safe, Enticing,</i> and <i>Alive</i>) suggesting promising avenues for primals-personality research. This article presents a nuanced, working, speculative hypothesis future research can explore: Average behavioral tendencies that persist wherever the individual goes (personality traits) theoretically should result from beliefs about the broader situation the individual never leaves (the world). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48468,"journal":{"name":"American Psychologist","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142606551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alea Ruf, Kira F Ahrens, Judith R Gruber, Rebecca J Neumann, Bianca Kollmann, Raffael Kalisch, Klaus Lieb, Oliver Tüscher, Michael M Plichta, Ute Nöthlings, Ulrich Ebner-Priemer, Andreas Reif, Silke Matura
{"title":"Move past adversity or bite through it? Diet quality, physical activity, and sedentary behavior in relation to resilience.","authors":"Alea Ruf, Kira F Ahrens, Judith R Gruber, Rebecca J Neumann, Bianca Kollmann, Raffael Kalisch, Klaus Lieb, Oliver Tüscher, Michael M Plichta, Ute Nöthlings, Ulrich Ebner-Priemer, Andreas Reif, Silke Matura","doi":"10.1037/amp0001423","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001423","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Adverse life experiences are associated with an increased risk of mental disorders. The successful adaptation to adversity and maintenance or quick restoration of mental health despite adversity is referred to as resilience. Identifying factors that promote resilience can contribute to the prevention of mental disorders. Lifestyle behaviors, increasingly recognized for their impact on mental health, are discussed as potential resilience factors. Several studies found that healthy eating and physical activity (PA) are positively associated with resilience. However, most of these studies assessed resilience through questionnaires, which is unsatisfactory given that resilience research is moving toward conceptualizing resilience as the outcome of a dynamic process, which can only be assessed prospectively and longitudinally. The present study is the first to assess the relationship between diet quality, PA, sedentary behavior (SB), and resilience, captured prospectively and longitudinally in a sample of 145 individuals (75.17% female; <i>M</i><sub>age</sub> = 28.88, <i>SD</i><sub>age</sub> = 7.80; <i>M</i><sub>BMI</sub> = 24.11, <i>SD</i><sub>BMI</sub> = 3.97). Resilience was assessed as the relationship between stressor exposure and mental health (i.e., the stressor reactivity score: higher scores indicate lower resilience and vice versa). Diet quality (i.e., the Healthy Eating Index) was assessed on the basis of app-based food records and 24-hr dietary recalls. PA and SB were objectively recorded through accelerometers. Regression analysis showed that neither diet quality nor PA and SB predicted resilience (<i>p</i>s > .30). Profound differences in the conceptualization and operationalization of resilience might explain the contrary findings. Prospective longitudinal studies are needed to replicate the findings of the present study. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48468,"journal":{"name":"American Psychologist","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142606559","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Frans B. M. de Waal (1948-2024).","authors":"Stephanie D Preston","doi":"10.1037/amp0001456","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001456","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Article memorializes Frans B. M. de Waal (1948-2024). Franciscus (Frans) Bernardus Maria de Waal was a Dutch-American primatologist and ethologist who was born on October 29, 1948, in Hertogenbosch, in the southern Netherlands. Frans was taken by stomach cancer in March 2024, at the age of 75. Frans's long and storied career and life touched the lives of so many, all around the world. Through 13 books (in 20 languages), courses, lectures, field visits (to nearly every continent), collaborations, and many abiding friendships, Frans shared his love of animals and the natural world with us all. May we honor his legacy by caring for those around us, large and small. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48468,"journal":{"name":"American Psychologist","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142606555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"There is nothing WEIRD about basic research: The critical role of convenience samples in psychological science.","authors":"Jeffrey W Sherman","doi":"10.1037/amp0001443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001443","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Attention to issues of sample diversity and generalizability has increased dramatically in the past 15 years, as psychological scientists have confronted the limitations of relatively homogeneous samples. Though this reckoning was perhaps overdue and has undoubtedly shined a light on some poor research practices, recommendations surrounding sample diversity are sometimes applied to research that does not aim for generalizability across peoples. In this article, I seek to promote discussion about when and why sample diversity and generalizability matter. In doing so, I address problems with language surrounding generalizability, the broader question of generalizability beyond samples, challenges for determining sufficient generalizability, and the inherent question of moderation in psychological science, given the reality of limited time and resources. I then discuss the important roles that basic research plays in understanding group differences, producing generalizable knowledge, and developing applied interventions. Finally, I address issues of equity surrounding sample diversity, emphasizing the distinction between WEIRD samples and convenience samples and the importance of convenience samples for globalizing psychological science. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48468,"journal":{"name":"American Psychologist","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142606733","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correction to \"The narcissistic appeal of leadership theories\" by Steffens et al. (2022).","authors":"","doi":"10.1037/amp0001418","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001418","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Reports an error in \"The narcissistic appeal of leadership theories\" by Niklas K. Steffens, Mark S. P. Chong and S. Alexander Haslam (<i>American Psychologist</i>, 2022[Feb-Mar], Vol 77[2], 234-248). In the article, Mark S. P. Chong was incorrectly omitted from the author list. The online version of this article has been corrected. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2020-81554-001.) Leadership is one of the most researched topics in psychological and other social and behavioral sciences. It is routinely seen as vital to the success and vitality of various forms of collaborative activity not only in organizations but in society at large. This has provided the stimulus for a massive amount of theoretical and applied research and also supports a huge industry. But to whom does this body of work appeal? More specifically, does it appeal to people with a broad interest in advancing groups and society or to people who are primarily interested in promoting themselves? To answer this question, we explore the extent to which individuals' narcissism predicts their endorsement of leadership theories. Results provide empirical evidence that the more narcissistic people are, the more they find leadership theories appealing and the more interest they have in learning about the ideas behind particular theories. The predictive power of narcissism also holds when accounting for other variables (including demographic, Big Five traits, and ideological and motivational variables). We conclude that psychological theorizing about leadership can be a double-edged sword in so far as the lionization of leaders(hip) appeals to, and legitimizes, the tastes of a narcissistic audience. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48468,"journal":{"name":"American Psychologist","volume":"79 8","pages":"1048"},"PeriodicalIF":12.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142630824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Kira F Ahrens, Charlotte Schenk, Bianca Kollmann, Lara M C Puhlmann, Rebecca J Neumann, Sarah K Schäfer, Dorota Reis, Ulrike Basten, Danuta Weichert, Christian J Fiebach, Beat Lutz, Michèle Wessa, Jonathan Repple, Klaus Lieb, Oliver Tüscher, Andreas Reif, Raffael Kalisch, Michael M Plichta
{"title":"Resilience to major life events: Advancing trajectory modeling and resilience factor identification by controlling for background stressor exposure.","authors":"Kira F Ahrens, Charlotte Schenk, Bianca Kollmann, Lara M C Puhlmann, Rebecca J Neumann, Sarah K Schäfer, Dorota Reis, Ulrike Basten, Danuta Weichert, Christian J Fiebach, Beat Lutz, Michèle Wessa, Jonathan Repple, Klaus Lieb, Oliver Tüscher, Andreas Reif, Raffael Kalisch, Michael M Plichta","doi":"10.1037/amp0001315","DOIUrl":"10.1037/amp0001315","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Resilience has been defined as the maintenance or quick recovery of mental health during and after stressor exposure. One popular operationalization of this concept is to model prototypical trajectories of mental health in response to an adverse event, where trajectories of undisturbed low or rapidly recovering symptoms both comply with the resilience definition. However, mental health responses are likely also influenced by other stressors occurring before or during the observation time window. These \"background\" stressors may affect a person's assignment to a trajectory class. When using these classes as dependent variables to identify resilience-predictive factors, this may lead to false estimates. A new method to build exposure-controlled trajectories based on time courses of stressor reactivity (SR), rather than pure mental health scores, is demonstrated on a data set of 707 initially healthy participants living in Germany (67.33% female; Mage = 29.20, SD = 8.27). SR scores express individual deviations from the sample's normative mental health reaction to observed real-life stressors during the observation time window, thus accounting for individual differences in exposure to background stressors. The resulting trajectory models are plausible. In analyses additionally controlling for background stressors occurring before the observation time window (past life events), low SR trajectories are predicted by the well-documented resilience factor sense of coherence, suggesting construct validity. Further, they are associated with lower odds of developing categorical mental health conditions, suggesting predictive validity. Our study provides the first proof of principle for a refined method to identify predictors of resilience to major stressor events. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48468,"journal":{"name":"American Psychologist","volume":"79 8","pages":"1076-1091"},"PeriodicalIF":12.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142629666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Juan Del Toro, Riana E Anderson, Xiaoran Sun, Richard M Lee
{"title":"Early adolescents' ethnic-racial discrimination and pubertal development: Parents' ethnic-racial identities promote adolescents' resilience.","authors":"Juan Del Toro, Riana E Anderson, Xiaoran Sun, Richard M Lee","doi":"10.1037/amp0001284","DOIUrl":"10.1037/amp0001284","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Ethnically and racially underrepresented adolescents are experiencing pubertal development earlier in life than prior cohorts and their White American peers. This early onset of puberty is partly attributable to ethnic-racial discrimination. To contribute to adolescents' resilience and posttraumatic growth in the face of ethnic-racial discrimination, parents' ethnic-racial identities may spill over into their parenting beliefs and practices. Parents who have a sense of belonging with and commitment to their ethnic-racial identities may be aware of discrimination and actively and consistently engage in practices that build supportive home environments to support their children's development in the context of ethnic-racial discrimination. To assess whether parents' ethnic-racial identity commitment predicted adolescents' resilience against ethnic-racial discrimination, we used multiple waves of survey data from adolescent siblings and their parents participating in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (N-adolescents = 1,651; N-families = 805; 35% Black, 37% Latinx, 3% Asian, 25% other ethnically and racially underrepresented youth; 49% boys, 50% girls, 1% gender nonconforming youth; Mage = 11.49, SD = 0.51). Results indicated that adolescents who experienced more frequent ethnic-racial discrimination than their siblings showed more advanced pubertal development. Parental ethnic-racial identity commitment reduced the relation between discrimination and pubertal development within a family. Results suggest that ethnic-racial identity commitment in parents can protect children when they experience ethnic-racial discrimination. Building on extant propositions related to resilience (Infurna & Luthar, 2018), the present study amplifies the depiction of resilience, yields recommendations for analysis of future research, and provides implications regarding the role of ethnicity-race in familial practices. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48468,"journal":{"name":"American Psychologist","volume":"79 8","pages":"1109-1122"},"PeriodicalIF":12.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142630826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond \"post,\" \"traumatic,\" \"growth,\" and prediction in research on posttraumatic growth.","authors":"Jonathan M Adler, Ted Schwaba","doi":"10.1037/amp0001398","DOIUrl":"10.1037/amp0001398","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Thirty years after the introduction of posttraumatic growth (PTG), research on the concept has expanded dramatically. Novel theoretical perspectives included in this special issue, however, demonstrate that nearly every element of PTG requires revision. \"Post\" implies a definitive before and after adversity that simply does not exist, either empirically or in the everyday navigation of adversity, especially for marginalized people. \"Trauma\" is appropriately scaled to the gravity of some forms of adversity, yet the term is often overly pathologizing or flattening of individual experience. And \"growth\" is often misleading, difficult to operationalize, and always value-laden. Studying PTG requires grappling with these claims in a way that can inspire pessimism. What is left in PTG after we question the P, T, and G? In asking this question, we ultimately encounter the limits of empiricism. Drawing insights from contemporary research in lifespan development, we suggest that it may be impossible to prospectively predict, using individual-level variables, how people grapple with adversity and develop after it. There are limits to our understanding of PTG that may simply be insurmountable. But complementary perspectives in narrative research, especially those espoused in this issue, as well as in the humanities and the arts, offer a way forward. Retrospectively understanding adverse events and taking an idiographic and qualitative perspective on the ways in which people navigate them can both humanize and bolster inclusivity in PTG research. We conclude by suggesting a period of enhanced divergent exploration, one that embraces disciplinary humility and epistemological and methodological pluralism to further understand PTG. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48468,"journal":{"name":"American Psychologist","volume":"79 8","pages":"1227-1240"},"PeriodicalIF":12.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142630821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}