American Psychologist

Preston, Stephanie D.

2024 American Psychologist

doi: 10.1037/amp0001456pmid: 39509223

Ruf, Alea; Ahrens, Kira F.; Gruber, Judith R.; Neumann, Rebecca J.; Kollmann, Bianca; Kalisch, Raffael; Lieb, Klaus; Tüscher, Oliver; Plichta, Michael M.; Nöthlings, Ute; Ebner-Priemer, Ulrich; Reif, Andreas; Matura, Silke

2024 American Psychologist

doi: 10.1037/amp0001423pmid: 39509222

Adverse life experiences are associated with an increased risk of mental disorders. The successful adaptation to adversity and maintenance or quick restoration of mental health despite adversity is referred to as resilience. Identifying factors that promote resilience can contribute to the prevention of mental disorders. Lifestyle behaviors, increasingly recognized for their impact on mental health, are discussed as potential resilience factors. Several studies found that healthy eating and physical activity (PA) are positively associated with resilience. However, most of these studies assessed resilience through questionnaires, which is unsatisfactory given that resilience research is moving toward conceptualizing resilience as the outcome of a dynamic process, which can only be assessed prospectively and longitudinally. The present study is the first to assess the relationship between diet quality, PA, sedentary behavior (SB), and resilience, captured prospectively and longitudinally in a sample of 145 individuals (75.17% female; Mage = 28.88, SDage = 7.80; MBMI = 24.11, SDBMI = 3.97). Resilience was assessed as the relationship between stressor exposure and mental health (i.e., the stressor reactivity score: higher scores indicate lower resilience and vice versa). Diet quality (i.e., the Healthy Eating Index) was assessed on the basis of app-based food records and 24-hr dietary recalls. PA and SB were objectively recorded through accelerometers. Regression analysis showed that neither diet quality nor PA and SB predicted resilience (ps > .30). Profound differences in the conceptualization and operationalization of resilience might explain the contrary findings. Prospective longitudinal studies are needed to replicate the findings of the present study.

Hechtlinger, Shahar; Schulze, Christin; Leuker, Christina; Hertwig, Ralph

2024 American Psychologist

doi: 10.1037/amp0001439pmid: 39541520

Research on judgment and decision making typically studies “small worlds”—highly simplified and stylized tasks such as monetary gambles—among homogenous populations rather than big real-life decisions made by people around the globe. These transformative life decisions (e.g., whether or not to emigrate or flee a country, disclose one’s sexual orientation, get divorced, or report a sexual assault) can shape lives. This article argues that rather than reducing such consequential decisions to fit small-world models, researchers need to analyze their real-world properties. Drawing on principles of bounded and ecological rationality, it proposes a framework that identifies five dimensions of transformative life decisions: conflicting cues, change of self, uncertain experiential value, irreversibility, and risk. The framework also specifies simple, versatile choice strategies that address these dimensions by, for instance, breaking down a decision into steps, avoiding trade-offs between present and future selves, or sampling others’ experiences. Finally, it suggests benchmarks for assessing the rationality of transformative life decisions. Methodologically, this framework adapts a long tradition of mainly lab-based judgment and decision-making research to a text-based approach, thereby setting the stage for empirical work that analyzes real-world decisions using natural-language processing. Only by understanding decisions with the potential to transform life trajectories—and people in the process—will it be possible to develop encompassing and inclusive theories of human decision making.

Clifton, Jeremy D. W.; Crum, Alia J.

2024 American Psychologist

doi: 10.1037/amp0001436pmid: 39509221

Many of us—60% of humanity, according to one study—would like to change some of our personality traits, such as decreasing pessimism or neuroticism. Dweck (2008) proposed that traits might be altered by changing beliefs. However, novel beliefs must be identified, she contends, because currently studied beliefs are empirically inadequate (e.g., low correlations to broad personality traits) and because a belief’s influence on behavior is usually confined to a particular situation or topic. When psychologists refer to the psychological impact of beliefs about situations, they typically mean local situations: situations individuals can enter and leave (e.g., “This neighborhood is dangerous”). The novel theoretical suggestion of this article is that a person’s basic beliefs about a situation they never leave such as the world (e.g., “This world is dangerous”) are uniquely suited to impact cross-situational behavior patterns often associated with broad personality traits. Historically, general beliefs about the world (termed “primal world beliefs”) were understudied, and many remained unknown, rendering systematic investigation infeasible. However, using several methods that helped identify Big Five traits decades ago, a recent effort seeking to map primal world beliefs found a structure of 26 dimensions (most clustering into the beliefs that the world is Safe, Enticing, and Alive) suggesting promising avenues for primals–personality research. This article presents a nuanced, working, speculative hypothesis future research can explore: Average behavioral tendencies that persist wherever the individual goes (personality traits) theoretically should result from beliefs about the broader situation the individual never leaves (the world).

Sherman, Jeffrey W.

2024 American Psychologist

doi: 10.1037/amp0001443pmid: 39509224

Attention to issues of sample diversity and generalizability has increased dramatically in the past 15 years, as psychological scientists have confronted the limitations of relatively homogeneous samples. Though this reckoning was perhaps overdue and has undoubtedly shined a light on some poor research practices, recommendations surrounding sample diversity are sometimes applied to research that does not aim for generalizability across peoples. In this article, I seek to promote discussion about when and why sample diversity and generalizability matter. In doing so, I address problems with language surrounding generalizability, the broader question of generalizability beyond samples, challenges for determining sufficient generalizability, and the inherent question of moderation in psychological science, given the reality of limited time and resources. I then discuss the important roles that basic research plays in understanding group differences, producing generalizable knowledge, and developing applied interventions. Finally, I address issues of equity surrounding sample diversity, emphasizing the distinction between WEIRD samples and convenience samples and the importance of convenience samples for globalizing psychological science.