“It’s More Us Helping Them Instead of Them Helping Us”: How Class Disadvantage Motivates Asian American College Students to Help Their Parents

While considerable attention has been given to the ways that parents contribute to undergraduates’ success, far less attention has been given to what these students do for their families, variation in students’ provision of help, or the consequences of giving. Drawing on 61 interviews with Asian American college students from diverse ethnic and class backgrounds, this paper extends conventional understanding of families and college by analyzing the financial assistance and translation support Asian American undergraduates give their parents. Using a trichotomous model of class—comparing disadvantaged, advantaged, and ambiguous students—I show that class disadvantage motivated students’ helping, advantage deterred it, while the ambiguous fell in between. Culture (i.e., filial piety) and a broad view of family (i.e., siblings’ contributions) also influenced students’ help. Finally, based on interview data combined with partial support from analysis of participants' grade point averages data, I demonstrate that helping had positive and negative implications for students’ college experience.

The Frailty Syndrome: An Emergent Property of Parallel Dysregulation in Multiple Physiological Systems?

Despite its widespread presence in older adults, frailty etiology is still unclear, being associated with dysregulation in diverse physiological systems. Here, we show evidence that frailty emerges from broad loss of homeostasis integrated through complex systems dynamics. Using the NuAge and WHAS cohorts, we calculated Mahalanobis distance-based physiological dysregulation in six systems and tested the breadth, diffuseness, and nonlinearity of associations between frailty and system-specific dysregulation. We found clear support for breadth of associations, but only partial support for diffuseness and nonlinearity: 1) physiological dysregulation is positively associated with frailty in many or all systems, depending on analyses; 2) the number of dysregulated systems or the total amount of dysregulation are more predictive than individual systems, but results only partially replicated across cohorts; 3) dysregulation trends are exponential, but not always significant. These results suggest, but do not fully prove, that frailty is an emergent property of complex systems dynamics.

When does the story matter? No evidence for the foregrounding hypothesis in math story problems

Math story problems are difficult for many solvers because comprehension of mathematical and linguistic content must occur simultaneously. Across two studies, we attempted to conceptually replicate and extend findings reported by Mattarella-Micke and Beilock (2010, https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.1.106) and Jarosz and Jaeger (2019, https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3471). Mattarella-Micke and Beilock found that multiplication word problems in which an irrelevant number was associated with the protagonist of the problem (i.e., foregrounded in the text) were solved less accurately than problems in other conditions. Jarosz and Jaeger used similar materials but tested the more general inconsistent-operations hypothesis that association with the protagonist would interfere with multiplication whereas dissociation would interfere with division. They found partial support: When division problems were primed with dissociative scenarios, solvers made more errors, but they failed to replicate the associative findings for multiplication. In the present research, we conducted two studies (Ns = 205 and 359), in which we similarly manipulated whether irrelevant content was associated with or dissociated from the story protagonist. In these studies, we did not find support for either the foregrounding or inconsistent-operations hypotheses. Exploratory error analyses suggested that solvers’ errors were most often the result of calculation difficulties or inappropriate operation choices and were unrelated to the presence of associative or dissociative story elements. Our careful implementation of this manipulation and much greater power to detect effects suggests that the association manipulation in irrelevant text does not influence adults’ performance on simple math story problems.

Inside Jobs: Salary Setting for Immigrants Crossing Establishment, Organizational, and National Boundaries

Using novel US Department of Labor administrative records, the authors test theoretical mechanisms to account for variation in immigrant workers’ starting salaries following key career transitions. Specifically, they examine differences in the base starting salaries and discretionary starting salary increases above these base starting salaries for 1) same-establishment hires, relative to 2) US-based establishment transfers, 3) international establishment transfers, 4) US-based external hires, and 5) international external hires. In support of the “insider premium” account, findings show that same-establishment hires tend to work in jobs with greater requirements, and thus higher base starting salaries. In partial support of the “outsider premium” account, findings show that US-based external hires receive larger starting salary increases than do same-establishment hires, conditional on the jobs they enter. This said, international external hires receive smaller starting salary increases than do same-establishment hires. Findings reveal distinct mechanisms, acting separately or in tandem, during salary-setting processes.

Cross-Context Responses to Novelty in Rural and Urban Small Mammals

The Anthropocene is the era of urbanization. The accelerating expansion of cities occurs at the expense of natural reservoirs of biodiversity and presents animals with challenges for which their evolutionary past might not have prepared them. Cognitive and behavioral adjustments to novelty could promote animals’ persistence under these altered conditions. We investigated the structure of, and covariance between, different aspects of responses to novelty in rural and urban small mammals of two non-commensal rodent species. We ran replicated experiments testing responses to three novelty types (object, food, or space) of 47 individual common voles (Microtus arvalis) and 41 individual striped field mice (Apodemus agrarius). We found partial support for the hypothesis that responses to novelty are structured, clustering (i) speed of responses, (ii) intensity of responses, and (iii) responses to food into separate dimensions. Rural and urban small mammals did not differ in most responses to novelty, suggesting that urban habitats do not reduce neophobia in these species. Further studies investigating whether comparable response patters are found throughout different stages of colonization, and along synurbanization processes of different duration, will help illuminate the dynamics of animals’ cognitive adjustments to urban life.

Party or Policy? Testing the Elaboration Likelihood Model in the context of voting

<p>In this study, I experimentally tested if the Elaboration Likelihood Model applies to a voting context. Participants rated their likelihood to vote for hypothetical candidates where the candidates’ associated policy and party affiliation were both manipulated. Participants also completed a quiz as a measure of their political sophistication. As expected, those who demonstrated high political sophistication used policy information more often when rating candidates. Contrary to expectations, there was no evidence that low politically sophisticated individuals used party cues more often to guide their ratings of candidates. The findings provide partial support for the Elaboration Likelihood Model, and future adaptations to the experimental design are discussed.</p>

Party or Policy? Testing the Elaboration Likelihood Model in the context of voting

<p>In this study, I experimentally tested if the Elaboration Likelihood Model applies to a voting context. Participants rated their likelihood to vote for hypothetical candidates where the candidates’ associated policy and party affiliation were both manipulated. Participants also completed a quiz as a measure of their political sophistication. As expected, those who demonstrated high political sophistication used policy information more often when rating candidates. Contrary to expectations, there was no evidence that low politically sophisticated individuals used party cues more often to guide their ratings of candidates. The findings provide partial support for the Elaboration Likelihood Model, and future adaptations to the experimental design are discussed.</p>

Is Country-Level Extraversion Associated with the Number of COVID-19 Cases and Deaths?

An evolutionary explanation of between-country variation in extraversion assumes that it is more adaptive in the absence of pathogens but less adaptive in pathogen-prevalent environments. We attempted to test this assumption by correlating country-level extraversion scores and the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. There are at least five country-level extraversion scores available, three of which were significantly correlated with the number of COVID-19 cases and two of which were significantly correlated with the number of COVID-19 deaths. This apparent partial support for the assumption is puzzling because the validity of country-level extraversion scores was low. Brief numerical simulations suggest that a statistical artefact due to combining two mutually non-independent subgroups (European/American countries and African/Asian countries) may account for the observed country-level correlations.

Longitudinal Links Between Self-Esteem and the Importance of Self-Direction Values During Adolescence

Self-direction values (e.g., independence, curiosity) are among the most important values to people worldwide. However, it is not clear what encourages their development. We propose that self-esteem may be associated with the development of self-direction values because feelings of self-worth provide the confidence needed for independent pursuit. As both independence and self-esteem develop during adolescence, we examined longitudinal associations between self-direction values and self-esteem in adolescents. Study 1 ( NT1 = 527, 55.6% girls, Mage = 16.24, SD = .71, NT2 = 198) included two annual waves of data collection. Study 2 ( Noverall = 486, 55.6% girls, initial Mage = 13.76, SD = .51, NT1 = 418, NT2 = 420, NT3 = 426, NT4 = 387) included four annual waves. In the studies, a cross-lagged panel model and a random-intercept cross-lagged panel model showed that adolescents who feel worthy are more likely to experience an increase in the importance of values of independent thoughts and actions relative to other values. Partial support was found for the opposite direction of association. The results were replicated across longitudinal studies of varying duration and across measures. We discuss the results in light of theories of self-esteem, values, and specifically the development of self-direction values.

Television, Continuity, and Change: A Meta-Analysis of Five Decades of Cultivation Research

This study is a meta-analysis of cultivation research from the 1970s to the present, based on three-level analyses of 3842 effect sizes from 406 independent samples. We found an overall effect size of .107 that varies only within a fairly narrow range across many potential moderators. Cultivation effects remain stable over the decades, implying an enduring relationship between television’s message system and viewers’ conceptions of social reality, despite immense changes in the institutional structure and technology of television. That bolsters a “traditional” perspective on cultivation, which is further corroborated by a stronger positive effect of overall viewing compared with genre viewing. However, this (stronger) effect weakens over time, which provides at least partial support for a “reformist” perspective on cultivation. Moreover, sample size and mode of data collection also moderate cultivation effects, with larger effects in smaller samples and in data collected via questionnaires compared with other methods.