Coping-Related Variables Associated with Individual Differences in Adjustment to Cancer

This study examined relationships between emotional adjustment and a number of coping styles and strategies in people with cancer. Two-hundred eighty-three adults completed measures of positive and negative emotions, subjective ratings of cancer-related symptoms and functional impairment, coping strategies, hope, benefit finding, emotional approach/avoidance, and cancer-related social support. Among the coping strategies, self-blame and behavioral disengagement were consistently associated with poor adjustment, while acceptance and humor were consistently associated with good adjustment. Among the broader measures of coping style, there were associations between poor adjustment and emotional processing, and between good adjustment and hope, benefit finding, and cancer-related social support

Individual Differences in Dopamine Are Associated with Reward Discounting in Clinical Groups But Not in Healthy Adults.

Some people are more willing to make immediate, risky, or costly reward-focused choices than others, which has been hypothesized to be associated with individual differences in dopamine (DA) function. In two studies using PET imaging, one empirical (Study 1: N = 144 males and females across 3 samples) and one meta-analytic (Study 2: N = 307 across 12 samples), we sought to characterize associations between individual differences in DA and time, probability, and physical effort discounting in human adults. Study 1 demonstrated that individual differences in DA D2-like receptors were not associated with time or probability discounting of monetary rewards in healthy humans, and associations with physical effort discounting were inconsistent across adults of different ages. Meta-analytic results for temporal discounting corroborated our empirical finding for minimal effect of DA measures on discounting in healthy individuals but suggested that associations between individual differences in DA and reward discounting depend on clinical features. Addictions were characterized by negative correlations between DA and discounting, but other clinical conditions, such as Parkinson's disease, obesity, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, were characterized by positive correlations between DA and discounting. Together, the results suggest that trait differences in discounting in healthy adults do not appear to be strongly associated with individual differences in D2-like receptors. The difference in meta-analytic correlation effects between healthy controls and individuals with psychopathology suggests that individual difference findings related to DA and reward discounting in clinical samples may not be reliably generalized to healthy controls, and vice versa.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Decisions to forgo large rewards for smaller ones due to increasing time delays, uncertainty, or physical effort have been linked to differences in dopamine (DA) function, which is disrupted in some forms of psychopathology. It remains unclear whether alterations in DA function associated with psychopathology also extend to explaining associations between DA function and decision making in healthy individuals. We show that individual differences in DA D2 receptor availability are not consistently related to monetary discounting of time, probability, or physical effort in healthy individuals across a broad age range. By contrast, we suggest that psychopathology accounts for observed inconsistencies in the relationship between measures of DA function and reward discounting behavior

For better or for worse? Investigating the meaning of change

For most, change makes a regular appearance in everyday life and has the capacity to usher in excitement, growth, and chaos. Due to the variable nature of change, people may hold subjective definitions of what “change” typically means. Across four studies, we examine the possibility that there are meaningful individual differences in the dominant subjective definitions people hold about the nature of change. Study 1 and 2 investigated the spontaneous associations participants make when asked to think about change, and found that holding a positive or negative general view about change (as measured by the Nature of Change scale, developed by the researchers) predicts the valence of self-generated associations. Studies 1 and 2 also demonstrate that people with an implicit entity theory of change (believing that people largely cannot change) report more negative and less positive dominant definitions of change than incremental theorists who believe people’s attributes are changeable. Study 3 expands on this finding to demonstrate a link between beliefs about the Nature of Change and beliefs about the role of effort in attributions of success. Participants who believe change is positive, predictable and controllable are more likely to believe that success is a product of effort than participants who believe change is negative, unpredictable and uncontrollable. Definitions of change predict success attributions over and above people’s implicit incremental or entity theories, which have previously been shown to predict attributions. Finally, Study 4 investigates the possibility that more precise definitions of change (as improvement, decline, or random) would alter people’s responses to the implicit theories scale, demonstrating that responses are somewhat contingent on definitions of change Further, change defined as improvement, decline, or random differentially predicted success attributions, which are also again predicted by people’s Nature of Change definitions. Overall, the current set of studies demonstrates that individual differences in people’s reactions to change are important to consider and may be as dynamic and diverse as change itself

Motivation and young people's career planning: A perspective from the reinforcement sensitivity theory of personality

We examined the associations between personality factors of the reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST) of personality and career planning predispositions in young people (university students and recent graduates), comprising Career Adaptability, Career Optimism, and Perceived Knowledge. As predicted, all three career dispositions were positively correlated with Behavioural Approach System (BAS) scores, principally Reward Interest and Goal-Drive Persistence; and all dispositions negatively correlated with Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS) scores – these significant associations survived hierarchical multiple regression with age and gender statistically controlled. These findings indicate that motivational factors of the kind measured by RST-related approach-avoidance factors are associated meaningfully with career planning predispositions. Although a novel finding, further work is needed to determine whether these relationships exist when actual career-related decisions and behaviours are examined

Are the social groups most likely to be unemployed also those most likely to prefer being employed? Evidence from the 2000 British Cohort Study and 2000/2008 National Child Development Study

This paper first argues for a new approach to researching the issue of unemployment and work attitudes, and then presents findings from an analysis of 2000 British Cohort Study and 2000/2008 National Child Development Study data. Existing social policy literature has shown that a large majority of unemployed people want jobs and actively seek them, but it has not examined choices between less enjoyable jobs and unemployment. Indeed, literature on whether or not unemployed people want employment has not discussed work attitude measurement at all, and has often used measures that do not offer respondents a choice between employment and unemployment and do not hold job quality constant. Furthermore, while the unemployed and employed are found to generally share the same values including a strong work ethic, there is little or no discussion of differences in values and preferences among groups that cut across the two categories. Nor is there recognition that the unemployed category contains disproportionately high numbers from certain social groups and hence inevitably exhibits these groups‟ cultural characteristics and preferences. We suggest that people generally, whether currently unemployed or not, are willing to undertake some kinds of work but not others, and that there is considerable diversity in attitudes towards various jobs and towards being unemployed. Therefore, our research focused on how all respondents answered the agree/disagree statement „Having almost any job is better than being unemployed‟. Of the groups most at risk of unemployment, single people were found to be significantly anti-employment, and those with low academic attainment significantly pro-employment, but there was little or no significance in men, the young, or working class people. Of the numerous living circumstances, lifestyle choice, attitude, and demographic variables included in the study, the following were not only found to have strong associations with agreeing with the statement in all three datasets, but also emerged as significant each time in the logistic regression analysis: those with authoritarian, politically right wing and traditional moral attitudes, the employed not unemployed, and people living in multiple occupancy households and mortgaged (not rented) accommodation. The employed/unemployed finding indicates that survey items offering a choice between employment (including unattractive jobs) and unemployment show unemployed people to be less pro-employment than measures that do not. This is important because how people exercise that choice is important to the debate about whether or not attaching more conditions to the receipt of unemployment benefits is justified

Impact of ICT exports and internet usage on carbon emissions: A case of OECD countries

This paper investigates the causal associations between Information and communication technology (ICT) exports, internet usage, economic growth, and CO2 emission. We use two modes of ICT exports, namely ICT goods exports, and ICT services exports. Similarly, two modes have been used for internet usage, namely number of broadband connections per 100 people, and number of internet users per 100 people. By studying 28 OECD countries for 1991-2015 and employing an error-correction model for detecting Granger causality, we find a series of short-run causal associations among the four variables. The long-run causal association results show that the economic growth is likely to converge to the long-run equilibrium path in keeping with the changes in the other three variables. Our main finding is that the group of developing countries should foster an environment, which will not only boost the ICT service exports, but also will make the penetration of broadband connections in a better way

Educational inequality and the expansion of UK higher education

In this paper we explore changes over time in higher education (HE) participation and attainment between people from richer and poorer family backgrounds during a time period when the UK higher education system expanded at a rapid rate. We use longitudinal data from three time periods to study temporal shifts in HE participation and attainment across parental income groups for children going to university in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The key finding is a highly policy relevant one, namely that HE expansion has not been equally distributed across people from richer and poorer backgrounds. Rather, it has disproportionately benefited children from relatively rich families. Despite the fact that many more children from higher income backgrounds participated in HE before the recent expansion of the system, the expansion acted to widen participation gaps between rich and poor children. This finding is robust to different measures of education participation and inequality. It also emerges from non-parametric estimations and from a more detailed econometric model allowing for the sequential nature of education choices with potentially different income associations at different stages of the education sequence

Gender, stage of transition and situational avoidance : a UK study of trans people’s experiences

Most societies are heavily organised around a dichotomous model of gender, and individuals are heavily policed on their conformity (or otherwise) to gender norms. This scrutinisation of gender has a profound impact on the identities and lived experiences of trans people, especially for those whose gender identity (or presentation) does not appear to match social expectations for that gender; or where someone’s physical body in some way does not match the body conventionally associated with that gender. This might result in trans people avoiding certain situations to reduce the risk of being exposed. Based on a sample of 889 UK-based participants who self-defined as trans, the current paper explores situational avoidance with particular reference to gender identity and stage of transition. A key finding of this study concerned statistically significant associations between group (gender identity; stage of transition) and avoidance (or not) of certain situations, namely clothing shops, gyms, and public toilets. The implications of these findings for supporting trans people through transition – in particular, the Real Life Experience (RLE) are also discussed

Birds of a feather flock together online: digital inequality in social media repertoires

Communication has long been concerned with people’s media repertoires, yet little of this approach has extended to the combination of social media platforms that people use. Despite their considerable popularity, research has found that people do not select into the use of social network sites (SNSs) randomly, which has implications for both whose voices are represented on them and where messaging can reach diverse people. While prior work has considered self-selection into one SNS, in this article we ask: how are different SNSs linked by user base? Using national survey data about 1,512 US adults’ social media uses, we build networks between SNSs that connect SNS pairs by user base. We examine patterns by subgroups of users along the lines of age, gender, education, and Internet skills finding considerable variation in SNS associations by these variables. This has implications for big data analyses that depend on data from particular social media platforms. It also offers helpful lessons for how to reach different population segments when trying to communicate to diverse audiences