Knowledge that Transforms

Childhood poverty is linked to a host of physical and psychological disorders during childhood and later in life. In the study reported here, we showed that the proportion of childhood spent in poverty from birth to age 9 was linked to elevated allostatic load, a marker of chronic physiological stress, in 17-year-olds. Furthermore, this prospective longitudinal relationship was mediated by cumulative risk exposure at age 13. The greater the duration of early life spent in poverty, the greater the exposure to cumulative risk. This, in turn, leads to elevated allostatic load. Multiple psychological, biological, and neurological pathways likely account for the social patterning of psychological and physical disease.

Terrorists can strike twice--first, by directly killing people, and second, through dangerous behaviors induced by fear in people's minds. Previous research identified a substantial increase in U.S. traffic fatalities subsequent to the September 11 terrorist attacks, which were accounted for as due to a substitution of driving for flying, induced by fear of dread risks. Here, we show that this increase in fatalities varied widely by region, a fact that was best explained by regional variations in increased driving. Two factors, in turn, explained these variations in increased driving. The weaker factor was proximity to New York City, where stress reactions to the attacks were previously shown to be greatest. The stronger factor was driving opportunity, which was operationalized both as number of highway miles and as number of car registrations per inhabitant. Thus, terrorists' second strike exploited both fear of dread risks and, paradoxically, an environmental structure conducive to generating increased driving, which ultimately increased fatalities.

People often face outcomes of important events that are beyond their personal control, such as when they wait for an acceptance letter, job offer, or medical test results. We suggest that when wanting and uncertainty are high and personal control is lacking, people may be more likely to help others, as if they can encourage fate's favor by doing good deeds proactively. Four experiments support this karmic-investment hypothesis. When people want an outcome over which they have little control, their donations of time and money increase (experiments 1 and 2), but their participation in other rewarding activities does not (experiment 1b). In addition, at a job fair, job seekers who feel the process is outside (vs. within) their control make more generous pledges to charities (experiment 3). Finally, karmic investments increase optimism about a desired outcome (experiment 4). We conclude by discussing the role of personal control and magical beliefs in this phenomenon.

Face aftereffects are widely studied on the assumption that they provide a useful tool for investigating face-space coding of identity. However, a long-standing issue concerns the extent to which face aftereffects originate in face-level processes as opposed to earlier stages of visual processing. For example, some recent studies failed to find atypical face aftereffects in individuals with clinically poor face recognition. We show that in individuals within the normal range of face recognition abilities, there is an association between face memory ability and a figural face aftereffect that is argued to reflect the steepness of broadband-opponent neural response functions in underlying face-space. We further show that this correlation arises from face-level processing, by reporting results of tests of nonface memory and nonface aftereffects. We conclude that face aftereffects can tap high-level face-space, and that face-space coding differs in quality between individuals and contributes to face recognition ability.

We integrated research on emotion and on small groups to address a fundamental and enduring question facing alcohol researchers: What are the specific mechanisms that underlie the reinforcing effects of drinking? In one of the largest alcohol-administration studies yet conducted, we employed a novel group-formation paradigm to evaluate the socioemotional effects of alcohol. Seven hundred twenty social drinkers (360 male, 360 female) were assembled into groups of 3 unacquainted persons each and given a moderate dose of an alcoholic, placebo, or control beverage, which they consumed over 36 min. These groups' social interactions were video recorded, and the duration and sequence of interaction partners' facial and speech behaviors were systematically coded (e.g., using the facial action coding system). Alcohol consumption enhanced individual- and group-level behaviors associated with positive affect, reduced individual-level behaviors associated with negative affect, and elevated self-reported bonding. Our results indicate that alcohol facilitates bonding during group formation. Assessing nonverbal responses in social contexts offers new directions for evaluating the effects of alcohol.

Dozens of studies in different nations have revealed that socioeconomic status only weakly predicts an individual's subjective well-being (SWB). These results imply that although the pursuit of social status is a fundamental human motivation, achieving high status has little impact on one's SWB. However, we propose that sociometric status-the respect and admiration one has in face-to-face groups (e.g., among friends or coworkers)-has a stronger effect on SWB than does socioeconomic status. Using correlational, experimental, and longitudinal methodologies, four studies found consistent evidence for a local-ladder effect: Sociometric status significantly predicted satisfaction with life and the experience of positive and negative emotions. Longitudinally, as sociometric status rose or fell, SWB rose or fell accordingly. Furthermore, these effects were driven by feelings of power and social acceptance. Overall, individuals' sociometric status matters more to their SWB than does their socioeconomic status.

Identifying the types of mathematics content knowledge that are most predictive of students' long-term learning is essential for improving both theories of mathematical development and mathematics education. To identify these types of knowledge, we examined long-term predictors of high school students' knowledge of algebra and overall mathematics achievement. Analyses of large, nationally representative, longitudinal data sets from the United States and the United Kingdom revealed that elementary school students' knowledge of fractions and of division uniquely predicts those students' knowledge of algebra and overall mathematics achievement in high school, 5 or 6 years later, even after statistically controlling for other types of mathematical knowledge, general intellectual ability, working memory, and family income and education. Implications of these findings for understanding and improving mathematics learning are discussed.

Persuasive messages are more effective when they are custom-tailored to reflect the interests and concerns of the intended audience. Much of the message-framing literature has focused on the advantages of using either gain or loss frames, depending on the motivational orientation of the target group. In the current study, we extended this research to examine whether a persuasive appeal's effectiveness can be increased by aligning the message framing with the recipient's personality profile. For a single product, we constructed five advertisements, each designed to target one of the five major trait domains of human personality. In a sample of 324 survey respondents, advertisements were evaluated more positively the more they cohered with participants' dispositional motives. These results suggest that adapting persuasive messages to the personality traits of the target audience can be an effective way of increasing the messages' impact, and highlight the potential value of personality-based communication strategies.

We conducted three experiments indicating that characteristically deontological judgments--here, disapproving of sacrificing one person for the greater good of others--are preferentially supported by visual imagery. Experiment 1 used two matched working memory tasks-one visual, one verbal-to identify individuals with relatively visual cognitive styles and individuals with relatively verbal cognitive styles. Individuals with more visual cognitive styles made more deontological judgments. Experiment 2 showed that visual interference, relative to verbal interference and no interference, decreases deontological judgment. Experiment 3 indicated that these effects are due to people's tendency to visualize the harmful means (sacrificing one person) more than the beneficial end (saving others). These results suggest a specific role for visual imagery in moral judgment: When people consider sacrificing someone as a means to an end, visual imagery preferentially supports the judgment that the ends do not justify the means. These results suggest an integration of the dual-process theory of moral judgment with construal-level theory.