Thinking about a limited future enhances the positivity of younger and older adults’ recall: support for socioemotional selectivity theory

Compared with younger adults, older adults have a relative preference to attend to and remember positive over negative information. This is known as the “positivity effect,” and researchers have typically evoked socioemotional selectivity theory to explain it. According to socioemotional selectivity theory, as people get older they begin to perceive their time left in life as more limited. These reduced time horizons prompt older adults to prioritize achieving emotional gratification and thus exhibit increased positivity in attention and recall. Although this is the most commonly cited explanation of the positivity effect, there is currently a lack of clear experimental evidence demonstrating a link between time horizons and positivity. The goal of the current research was to address this issue. In two separate experiments, we asked participants to complete a writing activity, which directed them to think of time as being either limited or expansive (Experiments 1 and 2) or did not orient them to think about time in a particular manner (Experiment 2). Participants were then shown a series of emotional pictures, which they subsequently tried to recall. Results from both studies showed that regardless of chronological age, thinking about a limited future enhanced the relative positivity of participants’ recall. Furthermore, the results of Experiment 2 showed that this effect was not driven by changes in mood. Thus, the fact that older adults’ recall is typically more positive than younger adults’ recall may index naturally shifting time horizons and goals with age

Antecedents and Outcomes of Managing Diversity in a UK Context: Test of a Mediation Model

Extant research on diversity management has primarily examined the main effects of diversity management practices on outcomes from an organizational perspective. Meta-analysis in this field corroborates the conclusion that this approach is unable to account for the outcomes of diversity management effectively. The current study extends the literature by examining organizational antecedents of diversity management practices (DMP). This study also examines the mediating influences of perception of overall justice (POJ) and social exchange with organization (SEWO) on the relationships between DMP and work outcomes of career satisfaction and turnover intention. Results of data obtained from a cross section of 191 minority employees in UK revealed: (i) the reasons why organisations adopted and implemented DMP influenced employees’ outcomes of turnover intention and career satisfaction; (ii) the relationship between diversity management and social exchange with organization is mediated by perception of overall justice; (iii) social exchange with organization relates to increased career satisfaction; and (iv) DMP related positively to career satisfaction through perception of overall justice and SEWO

Positivity effects in older adults' perception of facial emotion: the role of future time perspective

Objectives: We examined age differences in the perception of emotion from facial expressions, testing the impact of future time perspective on positivity effects and emotion complexity. Methods: Perception of emotion was assessed in older (n = 111) and younger (n = 127) adults using facial expressions depicting clearly expressed and ambiguous emotions. A more open-ended judgment paradigm was used, and time perspective was experimentally manipulated. Results: Older adults perceived more positive affect in the expressions compared with younger adults. Ambiguity of the expression modulated these age differences, as older adults perceived more positive emotion in ambiguous expressions compared with younger adults. Emotion complexity emerged only in perception of negative expressions, with older adults seeing more mixed affect in the clear expressions than younger adults. Manipulation of future time perspective eliminated age differences in perception of positive affect. Discussion: Age differences in the perception of emotional expressions showed positivity effects, especially for ambiguous facial expressions. These effects were related to time perspective rather than to age per se. The understanding of the positivity effect in older adults needs to consider the proposed causal role of limited time perspective rather than assuming positivity effects in all older adults

Design, synthesis, and evaluation of cisplatin-containing EGFR targeting bioconjugates as potential therapeutic agents for brain tumors

Rolf F Barth,1 Gong Wu,1 W Hans Meisen,2 Robin J Nakkula,1 Weilian Yang,1 Tianyao Huo,1 David A Kellough,1 Pravin Kaumaya,3–5 Claudia Turro,6 Lawrence M Agius,7 Balveen Kaur2 1Department of Pathology, 2Department of Neurological Surgery, 3Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 4Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 5Department of Microbiology, 6Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA; 7Department of Pathology, Mater Dei Hospital, University of Malta Medical School, Msida, Malta Abstract: The aim of this study was to evaluate four different platinated bioconjugates containing a cisplatin (cis-diamminedichloroplatinum [cis-DDP]) fragment and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-targeting moieties as potential therapeutic agents for the treatment of brain tumors using a human EGFR-expressing transfectant of the F98 rat glioma (F98EGFR) to assess their efficacy. The first two bioconjugates employed the monoclonal antibody cetuximab (C225 or Erbitux®) as the targeting moiety, and the second two used genetically engineered EGF peptides. C225-G5-Pt was produced by reacting cis-DDP with a fifth-generation polyamidoamine dendrimer (G5) and then linking it to C225 by means of two heterobifunctional reagents. The second bioconjugate (C225-PG-Pt) employed the same methodology except that polyglutamic acid was used as the carrier. The third and fourth bioconjugates used two different EGF peptides, PEP382 and PEP455, with direct coordination to the Pt center of the cis-DDP fragment. In vivo studies with C225-G5-Pt failed to demonstrate therapeutic activity following intracerebral (ic) convection-enhanced delivery (CED) to F98EGFR glioma-bearing rats. The second bioconjugate, C225-PG-Pt, failed to show in vitro cytotoxicity. Furthermore, because of its high molecular weight, we decided that lower molecular weight peptides might provide better targeting and microdistribution within the tumor. Both PEP382-Pt and PEP455-Pt bioconjugates were cytotoxic in vitro and, based on this, a pilot study was initiated using PEP455-Pt. The end point for this study was tumor size at 6 weeks following tumor cell implantation and 4 weeks following ic CED of PEP455-Pt to F98 glioma-bearing rats. Neuropathologic examination revealed that five of seven rats were either tumor-free or only had microscopic tumors at 42 days following tumor implantation compared to a mean survival time of 20.5 and 26.3 days for untreated controls. In conclusion, we have succeeded in reformatting the toxicity profile of cis-DDP and demonstrated the therapeutic efficacy of the PEP455-Pt bioconjugate in F98 glioma-bearing rats. Keywords: cisplatin, F98EGFR rat glioma, molecular targets, peptides, monoclonal antibodie