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The main purpose of this study was to examine the association between environmental knowledge, environmental attitudes, and attraction to celebrities among a sample of 185 English-speaking community-based adults obtained through Mechanical Turk. A secondary purpose of the study was to validate measures of environmental attitudes and environmental knowledge. As predicted, those with greater attraction to celebrities showed less knowledge of the environment. Our results support the validity of the environmental attitude and environmental knowledge measures, although the two constructs appear to be only marginally related to one another. Implications for environmental education are discussed.

The main purpose of this study was to examine the association between interest in nature and attraction to the mass media. We measured environmental knowledge, environmental attitudes, and attraction to celebrities among a sample of 185 English-speaking community-based adults obtained through Mechanical Turk. A secondary purpose of the study was to validate measures of environmental attitudes and environmental knowledge. As predicted, those with greater attraction to celebrities showed less knowledge of the environment. Our results support the validity of the environmental attitude and environmental knowledge measures, although the two constructs appear to be only marginally related to one another. Implications for environmental education are discussed.

This study compared the quality of survey data collected from Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers and college students. Three groups of participants completed the same survey. "MTurk" respondents completed the survey as paid workers using the Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform. "Student Online" respondents also completed the survey online after having been recruited in class. Finally, "Student Paper-and-Pencil" respondents completed the survey on paper in a classroom setting. Validity checks embedded in the survey were designed to gauge participants' haste and carelessness in survey completion. MTurk respondents were significantly more likely to fail validity checks by contradicting their own answers or simply completing the survey too quickly. Student groups showed fewer careless mistakes and longer completion times. The MTurk sample tended to be older, more educated, and more ethnically diverse than student samples. Results suggest that researchers should pay special attention to the use of validity checks when recruiting MTurk samples.

Oversharing on social media by adolescents is a considerable problem in the digital age, and has the potential to instigate online shaming, cyberbullying, identity theft, and other security risks. To date, oversharing has not been comprehensively studied and there is scarce understanding of the possible psychological conditions that may underlie this maladaptive online behavior. This study aimed to measure online oversharing and its potential psychological correlates among adolescents. Data were collected from 352 Iranian adolescent social media users (270 girls and 82 boys; M age = 16.38, SD = 1.71). The Online Oversharing Inventory, developed for this study, demonstrated unidimensionality and excellent internal consistency. Further results showed that boys overshared significantly more on social media than girls did. Anxiety, attention-seeking, and social media addiction were significantly associated with elevated levels of online oversharing. Results show that the Online Oversharing Inventory is a brief and robust tool for the assessment of high frequency self-disclosure on social media. The findings suggest that anxiety, attention-seeking, and problematic use of social media may predispose adolescents to overshare personal information online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the effects of professors' race and clothing style on student evaluations. Students were randomly assigned to one of four conditions in which they received a photograph and description of a professor. The only difference between conditions was the photograph, which systematically varied race (Black or White) and clothing style (casual or formal). Both Black and White students rated the Black professor less favorably than the White professor. Students trusted the Black professor more when he was pictured in formal compared to casual clothing, while the reverse was true for the White professor. The authors' results support previous research showing that Black professors have a significant disadvantage in the student evaluation process when compared to White professors.

Our study explores the challenges of first-generation students while also examining the factors that predict success in this population. We surveyed undergraduate students to compare the academic and social support needs of first-generation and continuing-generation students. First-generation students showed lower grades and critical-thinking scores compared to their peers. In addition, they reported having less faculty contact and less time for academic tasks. Academic preparedness and contact with faculty members predicted college success for first-generation students. Our results suggest that universities should continue to develop and test programs that bolster academic skills while simultaneously improving the social environment for first-generation students.

Our study tests the effectiveness of STEM Alliance, a student organization aimed at increasing academic and social support for students pursuing STEM majors. STEM Alliance offered weekly, extracurricular activities aimed at preparing students for graduate school and STEM careers. Students attending STEM Alliance events showed greater academic and social support, greater confidence in the institutional environment, and increased contact with faculty. First-generation students showed significant benefits of participation in STEM Alliance; however, continuing- generation students reported greater student-faculty contact. Although our quasi-experimental design cannot indisputably show a cause-and-effect relationship, our research strongly suggests that STEM Alliance represents a promising, inexpensive method of increasing support for students pursuing STEM degrees.

Though many people loathe celebrities and their lifestyles, celebrities can also be perceived as being available to provide community support. The purpose of this study was to establish the psychometric properties of the Perceived Celebrity Support Inventory. The scale was developed to capture three aspects of perceived celebrity support to the community: instrumental (i.e., providing tangible and concrete assistance), informational (i.e., advice, explanation, and information), and emotional (i.e., empathizing, encouraging, listening, and comforting) support. Factor and item analyses have revealed robust psychometric properties in samples drawn from the United States (US) and Iran. The US sample perceived higher community support from celebrities than the Iranian sample. In the Iranian sample, perceived celebrity support for the community was associated with more positive attitudes and less hatred of celebrity culture. In the US, perceived celebrity support was associated with negative attitudes and elevated hatred towards celebrities. The findings advance the literature by providing an instrument with which to measure positive aspects of celebrity influence across cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although collaborative instructional techniques have become popular in college courses, it is unclear whether collaborative techniques can replace more traditional instructional methods. We examined the efficacy of collaborative courses (in-class, collaborative activities with no lectures) compared to traditional lecture courses (in-class, instructor-led presentations) in four sections of introductory psychology. Most other aspects of the courses remained constant, including the professor, assignments, and exams. The collaborative learning condition resulted in significantly lower quiz and exam scores in addition to lower self-reported satisfaction with the course and the instructor than the traditional lecture condition. Moreover, students were no more likely to be satisfied with the social environment in the collaborative condition. Our results suggest that collaborative techniques may be a way to enhance professorial lectures but should not be used to replace them entirely. Further research should explore the ratio of collaborative to traditional techniques that is most beneficial for college student learning.

Negativity bias predicts that individuals will attend to, learn from, and prioritize negative news more than positive news. Drawing from the addiction components model, this cross-sectional study conceptualized and measured "doomscrolling" as excessive thoughts, urges, or behaviors related to the consumption of negative news on social media platforms. Participants were a convenience sample (N = 747) of Iranian social media users. The 8-item, unidimensional Social Media Doomscrolling Scale showed excellent psychometric properties. Men were more likely than women to report doomscrolling. Most respondents reported arousal following doomscrolling. Doomscrolling was negatively associated with psychological wellbeing, satisfaction with life, and motivation to avoid unhealthy behaviors. Doomscrolling was positively associated to impulsivity, engagement in risky behaviors, depression, and future anxiety. Results suggest that doomscrolling is an arousing activity that has the potential to exacerbate worrisome thoughts about future, breed feelings of hopelessness, cultivate appetite for risk, and stifle health consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though efforts have been made to understand the concept of celebrity hatred, ambiguity still exists about why some people feel intense contempt, antagonism, and fear directed at celebrity culture. This study (N = 1175) aimed to reveal the indirect impact of skepticism toward celebrities on celebrity culture hate by introducing perceived celebrity deception (the perception that celebrities are deceptive) and dark triad traits of celebrities (the perception that celebrities possess dark triad personality characteristics, including Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) as potential mediators. The study introduces the Perceived Celebrity Deception Inventory and establishes its psychometric properties. Perceived deception of celebrities and perceived deception of others were relatively high compared to that of one's immediate family, with social media influencers being seen as the most deceptive category of celebrities. Celebrities were perceived as Machiavellian, narcissists, and psychopaths at the same time, but at dissimilar levels. Skepticism toward celebrities was weakly correlated with celebrity culture hate in the correlation analysis. This relationship was mediated by perceived celebrity deception and perceived dark triad of celebrities in the structural analysis. Results suggest that perceived celebrity deception and dark triad characteristics of celebrities tend to breed celebrity culture hate rooted from skepticism toward celebrities and may provoke "behavioral" component of celebrity culture hate (e.g., celebrity bashing). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have scrutinized the use of popular media as a practical tool for reducing homophobia and providing services for LGBTQ+ people. This survey study sought to gauge the association of LGBTQ+ individuals' subjective judgment that social support is available through media (Perceived Media Support; PMS) with their identity and psychological status. We turn to Cultivation Theory and the Parasocial Contact Hypothesis as guiding frameworks to develop the Perceived Media Support Inventory (PMSI), capturing the emotional, instrumental, informational and esteem support that LGBTQ+ individuals perceive from popular media. We collected data from 200 self-identified participants in Iran. Factor and item analyses verified the robustness of the PSMI. PMS was revealed as associated with identity certainty in gays, lesbians and transgender people, identity affirmation in bisexuals, decreased acceptance concerns in transgender people, reduced anxiety in gays, and elevated resilience to stressful circumstances in LGBTQ+s. Besides, surprisingly, PMS was linked to several ramifications, such as identity uncertainty in bisexuals, identity superiority and concealment motivation in gays, internalized homonegativity in transgender people, difficult orientation/identity development process in gays, anxiety in LGBTQ+s in general, a feeling of psychological distance from the community in lesbians and feeling of hatred toward the community in gays. Findings suggest that perceived media support has positive and negative psychological consequences on Iranian LGBTQ+ people, leading us to theorize the dialectics of cultivated media support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study experimentally examined how counselor perceptions of hypothetical students are affected by student gender and socioeconomic status (SES). Results showed that counselors perceive students from low SES backgrounds as having less promising futures and lower math abilities. Counselors also rated female students as lower in math abilities than male students. Our results indicate that institutions should consider providing more school counselor training to reduce bias based on gender and SES.

The authors examined experimentally whether student gender and socioeconomic status (SES) affect teachers' expectations of students. Participants were 106 teachers who read a scenario about a hypothetical student with academic and behavioral challenges. The authors systematically varied the gender and SES of the student to create 4 conditions. Teachers rated high-SES boys more favorably than low-SES boys, but low-SES girls more favorably than high-SES girls. Teachers perceived that low-SES students have less promising futures than do high-SES students. Findings suggest that teachers are likely to develop negative attitudes toward low-SES students in general, but especially boys. These preconceived attitudes may help explain why teacher efficacy tends to be lower in economically disadvantaged schools. (Contains 1 table.)