Search

What an instructor does on the first day of a course can impact students' motivation in the course. To build upon these prior research findings, we implemented a first-day intervention to influence students' motivation by increasing their perceptions of course interest, course usefulness, and instructor caring. The participants were undergraduate students ("n" = 111) enrolled in either an introductory or an upper-level psychology class. The instructor implemented an experimental intervention to some sections but not to others. The intervention allowed students to discuss the usefulness of and their interest in the course with one another and to interact with a caring instructor. As hypothesized, students' perceptions of course interest and instructor caring increased significantly; although perceptions of course usefulness did not.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted many people’s standard operating procedures in ways that require behavioral and psychological adjustments. Research indicates widespread stress and anxiety during the pandemic. What is still less known is which pandemic-influenced factors are most directly impacting psychological wellbeing, and whether emotion regulation abilities are moderating this impact. Two-hundred thirty participants were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to complete an online survey composed of assessments of perceived stress, state anxiety, emotion regulation abilities, and pandemic-related behavioral and lifestyle impacts. Multiple behavioral and lifestyle impacts were predictors of both stress and anxiety. Additionally, emotion regulation difficulty moderated the relationship between several pandemic-related predictors and stress and anxiety. The current study provides evidence that emotion regulation moderates the degree to which pandemic-related changes impact stress and anxiety. Emphasizing adaptive emotion regulation strategies may strengthen one’s ability to cope with these pandemic-related changes and increase mental wellbeing, although even these strategies might have limited efficacy during periods of greater disruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empathy is a construct with a long history of definitional variability, which is reflected in the variety of scales designed to measure it. A recent investigation involved a series of analyses to explore constructs assessed in the self-report of empathy and to illuminate the inconsistency in measurement across multiple scales. The current investigation was designed to extend this line of inquiry by focusing solely on cognitive and affective subscales of empathy. A sample of 855 undergraduates completed empathy questionnaires that contained both an affective and a cognitive subscale. A confirmatory factor analysis revealed poor fit for affective and cognitive empathy factors while an exploratory factor analysis revealed several factors that are not essential for empathy. To navigate current barriers for building a cohesive body of literature, future empathy researchers are encouraged to clearly define their conceptualization of empathy and carefully select a measure to best reflect their definition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asymmetry in central nervous system ( CNS) control of autonomic nervous system ( ANS) activity, a widely debated topic, was investigated via lateralized presentation of two ANS challenges: cold pressor, which elicits primarily sympathetic activation, and facial cooling, a predominantly vagal task. Seventy-three university students (37 female) engaged in these tasks while cardiovascular and electrodermal measures were acquired. Compared to right-side cold pressor, left cold pressor elicited generally larger cardiac, blood pressure, and skin conductance responses, but did not evoke asymmetric changes in heart rate variability. Facial cooling elicited significant increases in vagally mediated heart rate variability, but they were also not lateralized. These findings are consistent with reports of right hemisphere dominance in sympathetic regulation, but indicate that CNS vagal control is relatively symmetric. These results are framed in terms of polyvagal theory and neurovisceral integration two influential models of CNS-ANS integration in the service of adaptive environmental engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]