Evidence of an Indirect Effect of Generativity on Fear of Death Through Ego-Integrity Considering Social Desirability

Recent research has shown an indirect effect of generativity on fear of death through ego-integrity in older adults. The present paper aims at demonstrating that the indirect effect is valid even when controlling for social desirability. For that purpose, participants ( N = 260 German adults) in study 1 provided self-reports on generativity, ego-integrity, fear of death, and social desirability. Analyses confirmed the indirect effect when the tendency for socially desirable responding was statistically controlled. In study 2, participants ( N = 133 German adults) also reported on their generativity and ego-integrity. Fear of death, however, was assessed with a reaction time-based measure (i.e., the Implicit Associations Test). Again, the indirect effect could be confirmed. Taken together, the studies lend further credibility to the extant findings on the indirect effect of generativity on fear of death through ego-integrity.

Implicit Associations between Adverbs of Place and Actions in the Physical and Digital Space

Neuropsychological, behavioral, and neurophysiological evidence indicates that the coding of space as near and far depends on the involvement of different neuronal circuits. These circuits are recruited on the basis of functional parameters, not of metrical ones, reflecting a general distinction of human behavior, which alternatively attributes to the individual the role of agent or observer. Although much research in cognitive psychology was devoted to demonstrating that language and concepts are rooted in the sensorimotor system, no study has investigated the presence of implicit associations between different adverbs of place (far vs. near) and actions with different functional characteristics. Using a series of Implicit Association Test (IAT) experiments, we tested this possibility for both actions performed in physical space (grasp vs. look at) and those performed when using digital technology (content generation vs. content consumption). For both the physical and digital environments, the results showed an association between the adverb near and actions related to the role of agent, and between the adverb far and actions related to the role of observer. Present findings are the first experimental evidence of an implicit association between different adverbs of place and different actions and of the fact that adverbs of place also apply to the digital environment.

The Good, the Bad, and the Red: Implicit Color-Valence Associations Across Cultures

Cultural differences—as well as similarities—have been found in explicit color-emotion associations between Chinese and Western populations. However, implicit associations in a cross-cultural context remain an understudied topic, despite their sensitivity to more implicit knowledge. Moreover, they can be used to study color systems—that is, emotional associations with one color in the context of an opposed one. Therefore, we tested the influence of two different color oppositions on affective stimulus categorization: red versus green and red versus white, in two experiments. In Experiment 1, stimuli comprised positive and negative words, and participants from the West (Austria/Germany), and the East (Mainland China, Macau) were tested in their native languages. The Western group showed a significantly stronger color-valence interaction effect than the Mainland Chinese (but not the Macanese) group for red-green but not for red-white opposition. To explore color-valence interaction effects independently of word stimulus differences between participant groups, we used affective silhouettes instead of words in Experiment 2. Again, the Western group showed a significantly stronger color-valence interaction than the Chinese group in red-green opposition, while effects in red-white opposition did not differ between cultures. Our findings complement those from explicit association research in an unexpected manner: Where explicit measures showed similarities between cultures (associations for red and green), our results revealed differences; and where explicit measures showed differences (associations with white), our results showed similarities, underlining the value of applying comprehensive measures in cross-cultural research on cross-modal associations.

The role of associative learning in healthy and sustainable food evaluations: an event- related potential study

Individuals in industrialized societies frequently include processed foods in their diet. However, overconsumption of heavily-processed foods leads to imbalanced calorie intakes as well as negative health consequences and environmental impacts. In the present study, normal-weight healthy individuals were recruited in order to test whether associative learning (Evaluative Conditioning, EC) could strengthen the association between food-types (minimally-processed and heavily-processed foods) and concepts (e.g., healthiness), and whether these changes would be reflected at the implicit associations, at the explicit ratings and in behavioral choices. A semantic congruency task with Electroencephalography recordings was used to examine the neural signature of newly acquired food. The accuracy after EC towards minimally-processed food (MP-food) in the SC task significantly increased, indicating strengthened associations between MP-food and the concept of healthiness through EC. At neural level, a more negative amplitude of the N400 waveform, which reflects semantic incongruency, was shown in response to MP-foods paired with the concept of unhealthiness in proximity of the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). This implied the possible role of the left DLPFC in changing food representations by integrating stimuli’s features with existing food-relevant information. Finally, the N400 effect was modulated by individuals’ attentional impulsivity as well as restrained eating behavior.

AN EXAMINATION OF MEN'S IMPLICIT ASSOCIATIONS TOWARDS GENDER AND VIOLENCE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS AND BELIEF IN A JUST WORLD

Violence is being researched increasingly. However, these studies mostly focus on explicit attitudes. Studies focusing on the implicit cognitive structure point to three implicit attitudes: Implicit attitudes towards gender, implicit attitudes towards violence, and implicit associations between gender and violence. In the present study, it is aimed to examine the relationship between these implicit attitudes of men and their demographic characteristics including age, education, employment status, income and socio-economic status, and Belief in a Just World (BJW). To measure implicit attitudes, three Implicit Association Tests (IATs) were translated into Turkish. Two hundred two men, aged between 18 and 55 years (M. = 27.96, SD = 9.68), participated in the study. The findings revealed that implicit attitudes towards gender and violence were associated with age, but not with other demographics. While implicit associations between gender and violence did not differ in terms of demographics, they were found to be related to implicit attitudes towards gender and General BJW. The results were evaluated in the context of normalizing violence against women in society. It is thought that the IATs used can contribute to the intervention programs in Turkey, and the findings obtained with this demographically diverse sample can contribute to the relevant literature. Keywords Belief in a just world, male violence, Implicit Association Test, implicit attitudes