American Psychologist最新文献

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 they never leave 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 Safe, Enticing, and Alive) 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).

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).

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).

Reports an error in "The narcissistic appeal of leadership theories" by Niklas K. Steffens, Mark S. P. Chong and S. Alexander Haslam (American Psychologist, 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).

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).

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).

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).

Our relationships are an important resource for health and well-being in times of need, often buffering the negative effects of stressful situations. Recent research has expanded on these buffering effects, exploring the role of close others in the experience of posttraumatic growth (PTG), or positive personality change that occurs after someone has experienced trauma. In the current review, we examine how much of a role partners play in PTG for individuals, summarizing the existing evidence suggesting that partners can influence the experience of PTG. Additionally, we examine which partner traits or behaviors may facilitate this growth for individuals, discussing relationship-relevant mechanisms, facilitators, and suppressors of PTG. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we also discuss the quality of existing evidence for the influence of social relationships on PTG, how can we improve the quality of future research, and what is needed for a comprehensive examination of partner-influenced PTG. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The psychological study of resilience has increasingly underscored the need for children and families to access material and psychological resources to positively adapt to significant stress. Redistributive policies-policies that downwardly reallocate society's social and economic resources-can offer economically disadvantaged families sustained access to these resources and mitigate the harmful impacts of adversity. This conceptual article builds upon and integrates insights from psychological and policy research to develop a unifying multilevel resilience framework, which we call the Social Determinants of Resilience. We examine four U.S. redistributive policies that have been extensively studied for their effects on child and family outcomes as case studies: (1) Medicaid expansion; (2) the Earned Income Tax Credit; (3) childcare subsidies; and (4) Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Informed by a scoping review of each policy, we propose that redistributive policies promote children's resilience through three mechanisms by (1) increasing families' resource and service access; (2) reducing family stress; and (3) enhancing adaptive cognitions, emotions, behaviors, and interpersonal processes that protect against the development of psychopathology and promote positive mental health outcomes. Highlighting current evidence for these resilience mechanisms as well as gaps in knowledge, we conclude by setting a multidisciplinary research agenda that can leverage this conceptual framework to advance the science on how redistributive policies enable children and families to thrive. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

This article memorializes Donald N. Bersoff (1939-2024), who provided a foundational influence on the development of American law-psychology and served as the 2013 president of the American Psychological Association (APA). Don had a long and meaningful career as a psychologist and a lawyer. One of Don's greatest interests was in training psychologist-lawyers who would make meaningful contributions to either field. After a decade as APA general counsel, he was recruited to direct the law-psychology program at Hahnemann University and Villanova School of Law. He was elected as the president of the APA in 2013; two of the major themes of his presidency involved encouraging service to military veterans and their families, and promoting diversity within the ranks of psychology to better serve an increasingly diverse population. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).