We conducted a multilevel meta-analysis of 390 effect sizes from 167 studies with 157,923 participants examining the relationship between connectedness with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) communities and health-related outcomes, following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. We conducted our initial search in January 2023 in APA PsycInfo, ERIC, Medline, and Open Dissertations, selecting studies that (a) measured LGBTQ+ community connectedness, (b) measured health, and (c) provided an estimate of the relationship between LGBTQ+ community connectedness and health. We found that connectedness with LGBTQ+ communities promotes mental health (r = .11), well-being (r = .17), and physical health (r = .09). Conversely, we found that connectedness with LGBTQ+ communities promotes substance use among younger participants, likely through behavioral engagement with LGBTQ+ others. We found that connectedness with LGBTQ+ communities was related to less mental health and more suicidality for younger people, likely because younger LGBTQ+ people seek out connectedness in response to this psychological distress. We also found that connectedness was not as health-promoting for LGBTQ+ individuals with multiple marginalized identities and that psychological feelings of belongingness with LGBTQ+ communities are generally more health-promoting than behavioral community engagement. Results from a narrative review and moderation meta-analyses suggested that, contrary to predictions made by minority stress theory, connectedness with LGBTQ+ communities does not buffer the relationship between minority stressors and health. Rather, meta-analytic mediation analyses suggested that proximal minority stressors negatively impact health-related outcomes by reducing connectedness with LGBTQ+ communities and that distal minority stressors are often less impactful on health-related outcomes because they promote connectedness with LGBTQ+ communities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

People's subjective beliefs about themselves affect what people think and, consequently, what they do. Positive self-beliefs are important for many life outcomes, from academic success to well-being, especially during K-12 education as a crucial developmental period. Many empirical studies and meta-analyses have examined correlates of self-beliefs. The present second-order meta-analytic review integrates this large and diverse body of research, addressing two research aims: First, we examined the comparative strength of different variables related to self-beliefs. Second, we provide a methodological review of meta-analyses in this area, thereby facilitating readers' ability to assess the risk of bias when interpreting the results. We summarized 105 first-order meta-analyses published before July 2023 that investigated variables associated with self-beliefs during K-12 education, comprising 493 first-order effect sizes based on more than 8,500 primary studies and more than 16 million children and adolescents. We computed second-order standardized mean differences (SMD) using two-level meta-analyses with robust variance estimation. Personal characteristics (SMD = 0.50) showed stronger relations with self-beliefs than interventions (SMD = 0.27). Achievement (SMD = 0.66) and noncognitive variables (SMD = 0.67) were the personal characteristics most strongly related to self-beliefs compared to cognitive abilities (SMD = 0.30) and background variables (SMD = 0.21). Interventions targeting individual characteristics (SMD = 0.35) and especially self-beliefs (SMD = 0.52) showed larger effect sizes than interventions that focused on improving teaching and classroom structure (SMD = 0.20). Few meta-analyses investigated situational aspects, such as the geographical origin of the sample, in association with children's and adolescents' self-beliefs. Overall, this second-order meta-analytic review provides a comprehensive map of correlates of the self, highlighting pathways for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Research has suggested that the endorsement of ideologies supporting the status quo leads to higher subjective psychological well-being-an idea labeled as the palliative function of ideology within system justification theory. Furthermore, this approach has suggested that this association should be moderated by social status. Specifically, the association between the endorsement of ideologies supporting the status quo and well-being should be positive among high-status groups and negative among low-status groups-mainly as a function of the existence of a unique motivation to justify the status quo. Given contradictory evidence in previous studies, we conducted a meta-analysis to test these ideas. Across 1,627 studies and 1,856,940 participants, we observed a meta-analytic association between endorsement of ideologies supporting the status quo and well-being of r = .07, p < .001. Nonetheless, we did not find evidence supportive of the moderator role of social status. These results provide partial evidence supporting the main tenets of system justification theory, and they are inconsistent with the idea of the existence of a unique motivation to justify the status quo. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Evidence has ostensibly been accumulating over the past 2 decades suggesting that an external focus on the intended movement effect (e.g., on the golf club during a swing) is superior to an internal focus on body movements (e.g., on your arms during a swing) for skill acquisition. Seven previous meta-studies have all reported evidence of external focus superiority. The most comprehensive of these concluded that an external focus enhances motor skill retention, transfer, and performance and leads to reduced eletromyographic activity during performance and that more distal external foci are superior to proximal external foci for performance. Here, we reanalyzed these data using robust Bayesian meta-analyses that included several plausible models of publication bias. We found moderate to strong evidence of publication bias for all analyses. After correcting for publication bias, estimated mean effects were negligible: g = 0.01 (performance), g = 0.15 (retention), g = 0.09 (transfer), g = 0.06 (electromyography), and g = -0.01 (distance effect). Bayes factors indicated data favored the null for each analysis, ranging from BF01 = 1.3 (retention) to 5.75 (performance). We found clear evidence of heterogeneity in each analysis, suggesting the impact of attentional focus depends on yet unknown contextual factors. Our results contradict the existing consensus that an external focus is always more effective than an internal focus. Instead, focus of attention appears to have a variety of effects that we cannot account for, and, on average, those effects are small to nil. These results parallel previous metascience suggesting publication bias has obfuscated the motor learning literature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The core premise of cognitive appraisal theories of emotion is that emotions are produced from our interpretation of what we experience. Compared to other major theoretical frameworks in emotion, the appraisal perspective emphasizes the centrality of these cognitive interpretations in giving rise to emotions. Decades of research have yielded numerous studies that broadly agree on the centrality of the appraisal process, but differ in the details, with different lists of appraisal dimensions, terminology, and only qualitative predictions for the relationship between select appraisals and emotions. Despite hundreds of published empirical studies, the field still lacks a systematic, quantitative meta-analysis that can establish support for the detailed relationships between appraisals and emotions. Here, we conducted a mixed-effects meta-analysis of 2,634 effect sizes from 309 studies across 251 reports, covering 47 distinct appraisals and 63 emotions, to assess the evidence for 853 specific appraisal-emotion relationships. We find that 75.0% of previously hypothesized relationships between appraisals and emotions were statistically significant, with an average moderate-to-large effect size (mean = .33). We also highlight many previously unpredicted relationships, with an average small-to-moderate effect size (mean = .27), which can form the basis for future confirmatory studies and theory refinement. As a summary, we provide a taxonomy of appraisal dimensions, as well as appraisal profiles of these emotions, which could be useful to affective scientists, clinical psychologists, and applied behavioral researchers. Taken together, this review documents the state of knowledge in the field and generates new hypotheses for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017) has highlighted the differential roles that intrinsic life goals (for personal growth, close relationships, community connections, and physical health) and extrinsic life goals (i.e., for wealth, image, and status) play in supporting well-being. Less is known about how orientations toward these two types of aspirations develop. It is likely that early environmental influences, namely one's parents, impact individuals' aspirations. We address this gap by systematically reviewing the links between relevant parents' characteristics and the intrinsic and extrinsic goals of their children. We identified 49 eligible reports. Children's intrinsic aspirations were higher when parents provided a need-supportive environment (characterized by support for autonomy, relatedness, and competence) and when they endorsed intrinsic aspirations themselves, whereas children's extrinsic aspirations were higher when parents exhibited extrinsic aspirations themselves, promoted the pursuit of extrinsic aspirations, and provided environments characterized by need frustration. Therefore, fostering basic psychological need satisfaction may support children's intrinsic aspiring. In addition, parents should also be mindful of their own extrinsic goals, as they may influence extrinsic aspirations in their children and possibly compromise their well-being over the long term. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Executive function (EF), the set of mental processes and skills involved in goal-oriented planning, organizing, and controlling behavior, is believed to support child development across many domains of life. However, although ample evidence suggests a relation between childhood EF and academic skills, it is less clear what its role is in domains beyond academics. We report a meta-analysis of relations between early childhood EF (assessed at 36-60 months of age) and social, health, and behavioral outcomes assessed concurrently and longitudinally (1,459 effect sizes, 158 studies, n = 144,642). No significant relations were found between EF and health outcomes. EF was concurrently associated with emotion understanding and regulation, prosocial skills, peer acceptance, and skill at lying. Both concurrently and longitudinally, EF was positively associated with peer acceptance, adaptive classroom behavior, and social competence, and negatively associated with internalizing and externalizing problems, and inattention and hyperactivity. For adolescent outcomes, only the relation between EF and internalizing could be meta-analyzed, and no significant relation was found between these variables. The magnitude of effect sizes varied, with absolute values ranging from r = .02 to .30. Moderator analyses indicated the relation between EF and behavioral outcomes varied by outcome, but there was no such finding for EF and social or health outcomes. EF was more strongly associated with teacher- versus parent-reported behavioral problems. There was little evidence that quality indicators affected effect sizes. There was also little evidence of publication bias. Overall, our results are consistent with the possibility of broad relevance of EF for child development; yet, future research should provide stronger causal tests of hypothesized relations between EF and outcomes to better understand the nature of EF and whether fostering it can promote healthy development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Researchers and policymakers aspire for educational interventions to change children's long-run developmental trajectories. However, intervention impacts on cognitive and achievement measures commonly fade over time. Less is known, although much is theorized, about social-emotional skill persistence. The current meta-analysis investigated whether intervention impacts on social-emotional skills demonstrated greater persistence than impacts on cognitive skills. We drew studies from eight preexisting meta-analyses, generating a sample of 86 educational randomized controlled trials targeting children from infancy through adolescence, together involving 56,662 participants and 450 outcomes measured at posttest and at least one follow-up. Relying on a metaregression approach for modeling persistence rates, we tested the extent to which posttest impact magnitudes predicted follow-up impact magnitudes. We found that posttest impacts were equally predictive of follow-up impacts for cognitive and social-emotional skills at 6- to 12-month follow-up, indicating similar conditional persistence rates across skill types. At 1- to 2-year follow-up, rates were lower, and, if anything, cognitive skills showed greater conditional persistence than social-emotional skills. A small positive follow-up effect was observed, on average, beyond what was directly predicted by the posttest impact, indicating that interventions may have long-term effects that are not fully mediated by posttest effects. This pattern of results implied that smaller posttest impacts produced more persistent effects than larger posttest impacts, and social-emotional skill impacts were smaller, on average, than cognitive skill impacts. Considered as a whole, intervention impacts on both social-emotional and cognitive skills demonstrated fadeout, especially for interventions that produced larger initial effects. Implications for theory and future directions are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Due to the vital role of empathy in promoting prosocial behaviors and nurturing social bonds, there is a growing interest in cultivating empathy. Yet, the effectiveness of existing training methods on empathy, especially on different dimensions of empathy (i.e., affective, cognitive, motivational, and behavioral empathy), varies tremendously, and the underlying causes for this heterogeneity remain insufficiently explored. To address this issue, we categorized various training methods into three distinct approaches based on the premise that empathy can be influenced by factors associated with the subject, the object, and their relationship. Respectively, these are Subject-Oriented, Object-Oriented, and Socially Oriented approaches. To examine the effects of training and sustainability of these approaches on different dimensions of empathy, we conducted a meta-analysis encompassing 110 eligible studies with 32, 44, 39, 39, and 91 samples for affective, cognitive, motivational, behavioral, and composite empathy, respectively. Results showed that trainings produced small and unsustainable effects on affective empathy, moderate and unsustainable effects on cognitive empathy, small and sustainable effects on motivational empathy, and moderate and sustainable effects on behavioral empathy. The effects of training on composite empathy were robust but decreased over time. Among the three training approaches, Socially Oriented approaches were the most effective in improving all dimensions of empathy. Subject-Oriented and Object-Oriented approaches were effective only in improving cognitive and composite empathy. Altogether, our study offers practical guidance for selecting appropriate training approaches and proposes theoretical principles for developing optimal training strategies in both basic research and clinical applications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Social rewards are strong drivers of behavior and fundamental to well-being, yet there is a lack of consensus regarding what actually defines a reward as "social." Because a systematic overview of existing social reward operationalizations is currently absent, a review of the literature seems necessary to advance toward a unified framework and to better guide research and theory. To bridge this gap, we preregistered and conducted the first comprehensive systematic review of human and animal experimental studies that used the term "social reward" and charted existing operationalizations, revealing the implicit and explicit definitions used in the field. Stimulus characteristics and measures of social reward were extracted from a total of 384 studies encompassing 42,118 participants and subjects. We provide detailed summaries of these elements, stratified by species (human/animal) and study type (behavioral, brain imaging, pharmacological, and physiological). Two main aspects were found to account for most of the difference in operationalizations: the sensory richness of a stimulus (intimacy) and engagement in social interaction (i.e., the synchronous observation and action between at least two individuals, viz., immediacy). Drawing insights from second-person neuroscience approaches and theoretical models in the field of human-computer interaction, we propose that human and animal research can greatly benefit from considering these properties, as they have important theoretical and practical consequences for human and translational research, with far-reaching implications for neighboring research fields such as those pertaining to social media and the development of artificial intelligence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Children's ability to accurately recognize the external emotional signals produced by those around them represents a milestone in their socioemotional development and is associated with a number of important psychosocial outcomes. A plethora of individual studies have examined when, and in which order, children acquire emotion knowledge over the course of their development. Yet, very few attempts have been made to summarize this body of work quantitatively. To address this, the present meta-analysis examined the age-related trajectories of emotion recognition across childhood and the extent to which typically developing children's recognition of external emotional cues (in the face, voice, and body) is influenced by a host of participant-, task-, and stimulus-related factors. We analyzed children's emotion recognition overall (independent of specific emotion categories) and for specific basic emotions. In total, k = 129 individual studies, investigating a total of N = 31,101 2-12-year-old children's emotion recognition abilities were included in our analyses. Children's recognition accuracy across all emotion categories was significantly above chance and improved with age in the same manner for all emotions. Emotion recognition accuracy was also moderated by region of study and task type. The order in which children became proficient at identifying specific emotions was consistent with previous qualitative reviews: Happiness was the easiest emotion to recognize, and disgust and fear were the most difficult to recognize across age. Task- and stimulus-related moderator variables also influenced specific emotion categories in different ways. We contextualize these results with regard to children's socioemotional development more broadly, and we discuss how our findings can be used to guide researchers and practitioners interested in children's social skills. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Influential theories in psychology, neuroscience, and economics assume that the exertion of mental effort should feel aversive. Yet, this assumption is usually untested, and it is challenged by casual observations and previous studies. Here, we meta-analyze (a) whether mental effort is generally experienced as aversive and (b) whether the association between mental effort and aversive feelings depends on population and task characteristics. We meta-analyzed a set of 170 studies (from 125 articles published in 2019-2020; 358 different tasks; 4,670 unique subjects). These studies were conducted in a variety of populations (e.g., health care employees, military employees, amateur athletes, college students; data were collected in 29 different countries) and used a variety of tasks (e.g., equipment testing tasks, virtual reality tasks, cognitive performance tasks). Despite this diversity, these studies had one crucial common feature: All used the NASA Task Load Index to examine participants' experiences of effort and negative affect. As expected, we found a strong positive association between mental effort and negative affect. Surprisingly, just one of our 15 moderators had a significant effect (effort felt somewhat less aversive in studies from Asia vs. Europe and North America). Overall, mental effort felt aversive in different types of tasks (e.g., tasks with and without feedback), in different types of populations (e.g., university-educated populations and non-university-educated populations), and on different continents. Supporting theories that conceptualize effort as a cost, we suggest that mental effort is inherently aversive. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Research on unconscious fear responses has recently been translated into experimental paradigms for reducing fear that bypass conscious awareness of the phobic stimulus and thus do not induce distress. These paradigms stand in contrast to exposure therapies for anxiety disorders, which require direct confrontation of feared situations and thus are distressing. We systematically review these unconscious exposure paradigms. A Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses-based search yielded 39 controlled experiments based on 10 paradigms that tested whether exposure without awareness can reduce fear-related responses. In randomized controlled trials of phobic participants, unconscious exposure interventions: (a) reduced behavioral avoidance (weighted mean = 0.77, = 469) and self-reported fear ( = 0.78, = 329) during in vivo exposure to feared situations; (b) reduced neurobiological indicators of fear and enhanced such indicators of fear regulation ( = 0.81, = 205); (c) had significantly stronger effects on reducing symptomatic behaviors and enhancing neurobiological indicators of fear regulation than did conscious exposure ( = 0.78, = 342); and (d) produced these effects without inducing subjective fear. In fear-conditioned participants, unconscious exposureinduced extinction learning ( = 0.80, = 420), even during sleep, and yielded somewhat stronger extinction learning than conscious exposure did ( = 0.44, = 438). We organize these findings within a neuroscientific framework and evaluate alternative mechanisms for unconscious exposure. The use of incommensurate outcome measures across exposure paradigms and nonreporting of relevant statistics limited meta-analyses. Despite steps taken to address publication bias, 25.6% of included studies came from a single laboratory. We propose potential clinical applications of these findings. Future research should clarify underlying mechanisms, use common outcome measures, and explore effects on other anxiety disorders. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Stress generation posits that (a) individuals at-risk for psychopathology may inadvertently experience higher rates of prospective dependent stress (i.e., stressors that are in part influenced by their thoughts and behaviors) but not independent stress (i.e., stressors occurring outside their influence), and (b) this elevated dependent stress, in some measure, is what places these individuals at-risk for future psychopathology. In recognition of 30 years of stress generation research, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis using frequentist and Bayesian approaches (102 articles with 104 eligible studies, = 31,541). Generally strong support was found for psychopathology predicting dependent stress (e.g., ds = 0.36-0.52, BF₁₀ = 946.00 to 4.65 × 10¹⁸). Moderator analyses for dependent stress revealed larger effects for briefer assessments periods, shorter follow-ups, and self-report measures than for interviews. Among risk factors, depressogenic cognitive styles (ds = .26-.50, BF₁₀ = 47.50 to 1.00 × 10⁵) and general interpersonal vulnerability (ds = .26-.44, BF₁₀ = 2.72 to 2708.00) received the strongest support as stress generation mechanisms, and current evidence is modest for protective factors predicting dependent stress. Overall, larger effects were generally found for prospective prediction of dependent stress than independent stress. Evaluations of mediation in the research literature were relatively few, limiting the current review to qualitative analysis of the mediation component of stress generation. General support was found, however, for dependent stress as a mediator for psychopathology and associated risk factors in relation to subsequent psychopathology. The current review ends with recommendations for future research and integration of stress generation within minority stress frameworks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Researchers have become increasingly aware that data-analysis decisions affect results. Here, we examine this issue systematically for multinomial processing tree (MPT) models, a popular class of cognitive models for categorical data. Specifically, we examine the robustness of MPT model parameter estimates that arise from two important decisions: the level of data aggregation (complete-pooling, no-pooling, or partial-pooling) and the statistical framework (frequentist or Bayesian). These decisions span a of estimation methods. We synthesized the data from 13,956 participants (164 published data sets) with a meta-analytic strategy and analyzed the between estimation methods for the parameters of nine popular MPT models in psychology (e.g., process-dissociation, source monitoring). We further examined moderators as potential . We found that the absolute divergence between estimation methods was small on average (<.04; with MPT parameters ranging between 0 and 1); in some cases, however, divergence amounted to nearly the maximum possible range (.97). Divergence was partly explained by few moderators (e.g., the specific MPT model parameter, uncertainty in parameter estimation), but not by other plausible candidate moderators (e.g., parameter trade-offs, parameter correlations) or their interactions. Partial-pooling methods showed the smallest divergence within and across levels of pooling and thus seem to be an appropriate default method. Using MPT models as an example, we show how transparency and robustness can be increased in the field of cognitive modeling. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Seventy years of research on intergroup contact, or face-to-face interactions between members of opposing social groups, demonstrates that positive contact typically reduces prejudice and increases social cohesion. Extant syntheses, however, have not considered the full breadth of contact valence (positive/negative) and have treated self-selection as a threat to validity. This research bridges intergroup contact theory with sequential sampling models of impression formation to assess contact effects across all valences. From the premise that positive versus negative contact instigates differential resampling of outgroup experiences when self-selection is possible, we advance and meta-analytically test new predictions for the moderation of valenced contact effects and negativity bias as a function of people's opportunity and motivation to self-select in and out of contact. Our random-effects synthesis of positive and negative intergroup contact studies (238 independent samples, 936 nested effects; total N = 152,985) found significant valenced contact effects: Positive contact systematically associates with lower prejudice, and negative contact associates with higher prejudice. Critically, the detrimental effect of negative contact is significantly larger than the benefit of positive contact. This negativity bias is particularly pronounced under conditions in which one can self-select, is motivated to avoid contact, among male-dominated and prejudiced samples, in contact with stigmatized, low status, low socioeconomic status outgroups, along nonconcealable stigma, with nonintimate contact partners in informal settings and in collectivistic societies. Considering individuals' motivation and opportunity to self-select, together with contact valence, therefore offers a more nuanced and integrated platform to design contact-based interventions and policies across varied contact ecologies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Our meta-analysis on gender differences in sex drive found a stronger sex drive in men compared to women (Frankenbach et al., 2022). Conley and Yang (2024) criticized how we interpreted the findings and provided suggestions regarding the origins of these gender differences, an undertaking that we had refrained from doing in our original work. We concur with several important points made by Conley and Yang (2024): (a) women's sexual experiences are generally more negative than men's, which could partly explain why men report more sex drive; (b) lack of statistical moderation by some sociocultural variables does not imply that the sex drives of men and women are generally unaffected by the social environment; and (c) gender differences in sexuality are likely smaller than they are often portrayed in research, and that the practical impact of this difference is largely unknown. Still, we reject other assertions made by Conley and Yang (2024): (a) we did not frame our findings in support of the view that gender differences in sex drive are determined by biology, (b) we did not conflate response bias with sociocultural biases more broadly, and (c) we did not fail to incorporate and consider gendered cultural messages about sexuality in our methods and discussion. We make several suggestions about future research on these matters. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Although trauma-focused psychotherapy (T-F psychotherapy) is the treatment of choice for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), up to one half of patients do not respond to this treatment. Attempts to improve response to T-F psychotherapy have focused on augmenting fear extinction-based factors. Here, a systematic and meta-analytic review of predictors of T-F psychotherapy outcome was conducted with the goal of using an aggregate data-driven approach to elucidate baseline factors associated with treatment outcome. There were 114 studies that met inclusion criteria ( = 61, 970; = 40.1 years; 40.1% female). There were 237 effect sizes across 24 meta-analytic categories. Poorer treatment response is associated with lower pretreatment levels of activation of fear-related brain regions, psychophysiological reactivity to fear provocation, trauma-related cognitions, anger, depression, high-risk alleles of genes linked to fear, lower levels of executive control, and social support. A range of other factors also predicted poorer responses including being male, non-Caucasian, older in age, early trauma occurrence, more trauma experience, history of combat trauma, as well as comorbid sleep, pain, poor quality life, and alcohol abuse difficulties. This review provides one potential explanation for the limited success of T-F psychotherapy augmentation strategies that have focused only on fear circuity mechanisms at the exclusion of other factors. Here, poor response relating to predictors of early trauma onset and comorbidity are consistent with clinical presentations of complex PTSD, which may suggest T-F psychotherapy is less effective for this condition. This collective evidence suggests that clinicians should consider a tailored approach that targets potential barriers to successful treatment response. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Boundary dissolution has broadly been defined as the breakdown of boundaries and loss of psychological distinctiveness in the parent-child subsystem. Qualitative reviews have highlighted the developmental and clinical value of examining boundary dissolution as a multidimensional construct. Though prior work suggests patterns share minimal variance, research has yet to quantitatively synthesize the weighted effect of distinct patterns. The primary aim of this meta-analysis was to aggregate empirical research on associations between boundary dissolution patterns and children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Four patterns of boundary dissolution were identified across developmental, clinical, and family systems literatures: (a) enmeshment-entanglement and blurring of the intergenerational parent-child boundary through psychologically controlling and intrusive behaviors, (b) disorganization-chaotic parent-child boundary (e.g., inexplicable, contradictory behaviors, and responses) reflecting no coherent pattern of relating, (c) caregiving-child functions as a caregiver providing parents with instrumental and emotional support and guidance, and (d) coerciveness-child operates as a disciplinarian or authoritarian to intimidate and control parents. The meta-analysis reviewed 478 studies. Although each boundary dissolution pattern was associated with internalizing and externalizing symptoms, weighted effects across patterns significantly varied in magnitude. Regarding externalizing symptoms, the weighted effect of enmeshment was stronger relative to the weighted effect of caregiving. Turning to internalizing symptoms, the weighted effect of enmeshment was stronger than the weighted effect of caregiving and coerciveness. Additionally, the weighted effect of disorganization was stronger than the weighted effect of caregiving. The robustness of weighted effects depended on child, contextual, and methodological characteristics as well as time lag. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Although health-promotion interventions that recommend changes across multiple behavioral domains are a newer alternative to single-behavior interventions, their general efficacy and their mechanisms of change have not been fully ascertained. This comprehensive meta-analysis (6,878 effect sizes from 803 independent samples from 364 research reports, = 186,729 participants) examined the association between the number of behavioral recommendations in multiple-behavior interventions and behavioral and clinical change across eight domains (i.e., diet, smoking, exercise, HIV [Human Immunodeficiency Virus] prevention, HIV testing, HIV treatment, alcohol use, and substance use). Results showed a positive, linear effect of the number of behavioral recommendations associated with behavioral and clinical change across all domains, although approximately 87% of the samples included between 0 and 4 behavioral recommendations. This linear relation was mediated by improvements in the psychological well-being of intervention recipients and, in several domains (i.e., HIV, alcohol use, and drug use), suggested behavioral cuing. However, changes in information, motivation, and behavioral skills did not mediate the impact of the number of recommendations on behavioral and clinical change. The implications of these findings for theory and future intervention design are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Sensitive caregiving behavior, which involves the ability to notice, interpret, and quickly respond to a child's signals of need and/or interest, is a central determinant of secure child-caregiver attachment. Yet, significant heterogeneity in effect sizes exists across the literature, and sources of heterogeneity have yet to be explained. For all child-caregiver dyads, there was a significant and positive pooled association between caregiver sensitivity and parent-child attachment ( = .25, 95% CI [.22, .28], = 174, 230 effect sizes, = 22,914). We also found a positive association between maternal sensitivity and child attachment security ( = .26, 95% CI [.22, .29], = 159, 202 effect sizes, = 21,483), which was equivalent in magnitude to paternal sensitivity and child attachment security ( = .21, 95% CI [.14, 27], = 22, 23 effect sizes, = 1,626). Maternal sensitivity was also negatively associated with all three classifications of insecure attachment (avoidant: = 43, = -.24 [-.34, -.13]; resistant: = 43, = -.12 [-.19, -.06]; disorganized: = 24, = -.19 [-.27, -.11]). For maternal sensitivity, associations were larger in studies that used the Attachment Q-Sort (vs. the Strange Situation), used the Maternal Behavior Q-Sort (vs. Ainsworth or Emotional Availability Scales), had strong (vs. poor) interrater measurement reliability, had a longer observation of sensitivity, and had less time elapse between assessments. For paternal sensitivity, associations were larger in older (vs. younger) fathers and children. These findings confirm the importance of both maternal and paternal sensitivity for the development of child attachment security and add understanding of the methodological and substantive factors that allow this effect to be observed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

In recent years, our increasing use of technology has resulted in the production of vast amounts of data. Consequently, many researchers have analyzed digital data in attempt to understand its relationship with individuals' personalities. Such endeavors have inspired efforts from divergent fields, resulting in widely dispersed findings that are seldom synthesized. In this two-part study, we draw from two distinct areas of personality prediction across psychology and computer science to explore the convergent validity of self-reports with human perception and machine learning algorithms, the identifiability of the Big Five traits, and the predictability of different types of data. In Study 1, five meta-analyses of human perception studies integrating findings from 24,124 individuals rated across 30 independent samples demonstrated moderate convergent validity across all traits (ranging from ρ = 0.38 for Neuroticism, to ρ = 0.57 for Openness). In Study 2, a multilevel meta-analysis of computer prediction studies reporting 534 effect sizes across 42 studies also demonstrated moderate convergent validity (ρ = 0.30). Multivariate analyses of the significant moderators highlighted that X, Facebook, Sina Weibo, videos, and smartphones had a negative impact on the variance identified. Finally, in synthesizing the extant literature, we discuss the measures used to assess personality and the analytical approaches adopted. We identify the strengths and limitations across each field and explain how interdisciplinary methodologies could advance the testing and development of psychological theory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

This meta-analytic review investigated the development of narcissism across the life span, by synthesizing the available longitudinal data on mean-level change and rank-order stability. Three factors of narcissism were examined: agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic narcissism. Analyses were based on data from 51 samples, including 37,247 participants. As effect size measures, we used the standardized mean change d per year and test-retest correlations that were corrected for attenuation due to measurement error. The results suggested that narcissism typically decreases from age 8 to 77 years (i.e., the observed age range), with aggregated changes of d = -0.28 for agentic narcissism, d = -0.41 for antagonistic narcissism, and d = -0.55 for neurotic narcissism. Rank-order stability of narcissism was high, with average values of .73 (agentic), .68 (antagonistic), and .60 (neurotic), based on an average time lag of 11.42 years. Rank-order stability did not vary as a function of age. However, rank-order stability declined as a function of time lag, asymptotically approaching values of .62 (agentic), .52 (antagonistic), and .33 (neurotic) across long time lags. Moderator analyses indicated that the findings on mean-level change and rank-order stability held across gender and birth cohort. The meta-analytic data set included mostly Western and White/European samples, pointing to the need of conducting more research with non-Western and ethnically diverse samples. In sum, the findings suggest that agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic narcissism show normative declines across the life span and that individual differences in these factors are moderately (neurotic) to highly (agentic, antagonistic) stable over time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Experimental research on sequential moral behavior (SMB) has found that engaging in an initial moral (or immoral) behavior can sometimes lead to moral balancing (i.e., switching between positive and negative behavior) and sometimes to moral consistency (i.e., maintaining a consistent pattern of positive or negative behavior). In two meta-analyses, we present the first comprehensive syntheses of SMB studies and test moderators to identify the conditions under which moral balancing and moral consistency are most likely to occur. Meta-Analysis 1 (k = 217 effect sizes, N = 31,242) revealed that engaging in an initial positive behavior only reliably resulted in moral licensing (i.e., balancing) in studies that measured engagement in negative target behaviors (Hedges' g = 0.25, 95% CI [0.16, 0.44]) and only resulted in positive consistency in foot-in-the-door studies using prosocial requests (Hedges' g = -0.44, 95% CI [-0.59, -0.29]). Meta-Analysis 2 (k = 132 effect sizes, N = 14,443) revealed that engaging in an initial negative behavior only reliably resulted in moral compensation (i.e., balancing) in studies that measured engagement in positive target behaviors (Hedges' g = 0.27, 95% CI [0.18, 0.37]). We found no evidence for reliable negative consistency effects in any conditions. These results cannot be readily explained by current theories of SMB effects, and so further research is needed to better understand the mechanisms that drive moral balancing and consistency under the conditions observed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

This meta-analysis examines the association between exposure to community violence and parenting behaviors (i.e., positive parenting, harsh/neglectful parenting, parent-child relationship quality, and behavior control). A systematic search yielded 437 articles that measured community violence exposure before or at the time of parenting, assessed parenting, and were available in English. There were 342 effect sizes across parenting constructs: positive (k = 101; 68 studies), harsh/neglectful (k = 95; 60 studies), relationship quality (k = 68; 41 studies), and behavior control (k = 78; 51 studies), from 160 reports representing 147 distinct studies. Results of the three-level meta-analyses found small but significant effects between community violence and positive parenting (r = -.059, 95% CI [-.086, -.032]; 95% PI [-.268, .151]), harsh/neglectful parenting (r = .133, 95% CI [.100, .166]; 95% PI [-.107, .372]), parent-child relationship quality (r = -.106, 95% CI [-.145, -.067]; 95% PI [-.394, .182]), and behavior control (r = -.047, 95% CI [-.089, -.005]; 95% PI [-.331, .237]). The association between exposure to community violence and harsh/neglectful parenting and behavior control was moderated by the type of exposure to community violence, informant or source of community violence and parenting data, child age, sex, and race/ethnicity. Given the substantial degree of heterogeneity in overall effect sizes, implications for policy and intervention are tentatively considered while emphasizing that more empirical research on the association between community violence and parenting is essential for advancing the field. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Creativity is widely considered a skill essential to succeeding in the modern world. Numerous creativity training programs have been developed, and several meta-analyses have attempted to summarize the effectiveness of these programs and identify the features influencing their impact. Unfortunately, previous meta-analyses share a number of limitations, most notably overlooking the potentially strong impact of publication bias and the influence of study quality on effect sizes. We undertook a meta-analysis of 169 creativity training studies across 5 decades (844 effect sizes, the largest meta-analysis of creativity training to date), including a substantial number of unpublished studies (48 studies; 262 effect sizes). We employed a range of statistical methods to detect and adjust for publication bias and evaluated the robustness of the evidence in the field. In line with previous meta-analyses, we found a moderate training effect (0.53 s; unadjusted for publication bias). Critically, we observed converging evidence consistent with strong publication bias. All adjustment methods considerably lowered our original estimate (adjusted estimates ranged from 0.29 to 0.32 s). This severe bias casts doubt on the representativeness of the published literature in the field and on the conclusions of previous meta-analyses. Our analysis also revealed a high prevalence of methodological shortcomings in creativity training studies (likely to have inflated our average effect), and little signs of methodological improvement over time-a situation that limits the usefulness of this body of work. We conclude by presenting implications and recommendations for researchers and practitioners, and we propose an agenda for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

People sometimes avoid information about the impact of their actions as an excuse to be selfish. Such "willful ignorance" reduces altruistic behavior and has detrimental effects in many consumer and organizational contexts. We report the first meta-analysis on willful ignorance, testing the robustness of its impact on altruistic behavior and examining its underlying motives. We analyze 33,603 decisions made by 6,531 participants in 56 different treatment effects, all employing variations of an experimental paradigm assessing willful ignorance. Meta-analytic results reveal that 40% of participants avoid easily obtainable information about the consequences of their actions on others, leading to a 15.6-percentage point decrease in altruistic behavior compared to when information is provided. We discuss the motives behind willful ignorance and provide evidence consistent with excuse-seeking behaviors to maintain a positive self-image. We investigate the moderators of willful ignorance and address the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of our findings on who engages in willful ignorance, as well as when and why. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

While there has been an increase in studies investigating the relationship between endogenous oxytocin (OXT) concentrations and human social interactions over the past decades, these studies still seem far from converging, both in methodological terms and in terms of their results. This systematic review and meta-analysis were aimed at a comprehensive evaluation and synthesis of empirical evidence on the relationship between endogenous OXT concentrations and human social interactions by reviewing studies published between 1970 and July 2020 and addressing various related methodological and analytical limitations. Sixty-three studies were included in the qualitative synthesis, and results from 51 studies were pooled in a meta-analysis (n = 3,741 participants). The results indicated that social interaction did not lead to an expected hormonal response in causal designs, either in a pre-post design (g = 0.079) or when comparing experimental conditions with and without social interaction (g = 0.256). However, in correlational designs, the overall mean effect size (ES) of the correlations between indicators of social interaction and OXT concentrations was significantly different from zero (z = 0.137). In both designs, subgroup analyses revealed that studies involving either parent-child interactions, or the utilization of the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay method for OXT analysis, or unrestricted eating, drinking, or exercise before biofluid collection showed significantly higher than zero mean ESs. This review exposes the observed inconsistencies and suggests that standardized, replicable, and reliable approaches to assessing social interaction and measuring OXT concentrations need to be developed to study neurochemical mechanisms of sociality in humans. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Investigating the mechanisms through which psychotherapy brings about desired change can inform efforts to improve therapies. We applied meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) to assess putative change mechanisms for cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as mediators of youth depression treatment outcome. Then, we tested whether candidate mediators (CMs) showed evidence of treatment-specificity to CBT versus interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT). Literature searches identified 34 randomized trials (27 CBT, 6 IPT, 1 CBT/IPT, 3,868 participants, published 1982-2020) that measured seven CMs: negative cognition, social engagement, family functioning, pleasant activity engagement, problem solving, reframing, or avoidance. We assessed mediational pathways and whether posttreatment CMs mediated treatment effects on posttreatment depression symptoms, covarying pretreatment CMs, and symptoms. Treatment type was tested as a moderator of mediational pathways. Results show that negative cognition (24 trials) and pleasant activities (3 trials) mediated depression symptom outcome in CBT. Social engagement and family functioning showed stronger mediation in IPT (5 and 6 trials) than in CBT (14 and 13 trials). We conclude that negative cognition is a robust mediator of CBT but may not be treatment-specific; pleasant activities may also be a mediator of CBT. However, the lack of treatment or mediation effects involving problem solving and reframing contradicts CBT theory. In contrast, social and family mechanisms appear to be IPT-specific mediators. These conclusions are provisional due to small samples examining IPT and several CMs, limitations in CM measurement (i.e., posttreatment retrospective report), and assumptions of MASEM-and will need to be confirmed when more and better evidence accumulates. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

People's perceptions of their romantic partners are somewhat accurate but also contain biases. In the current meta-analytic review, we sought to examine overall levels of accuracy and bias in romantic partner perceptions and moderators of accuracy and bias. We examined tracking accuracy (k = 157), projection (k = 157), indirect accuracy (k = 69), and mean-level bias (k = 153) in perceptions of a romantic partner across samples that estimated tracking accuracy and projection simultaneously. Gender, relationship length, study design, geographic region, publication year, and judgment type were examined as potential moderators. Results revealed significant mean effect sizes for tracking accuracy (β = .24), projection (β = .42), similarity (β = .22), and indirect accuracy (β = .11). Overall, people tended to have mean-level accuracy (d = -0.006) even when constructs were coded as conceptually positive or negative (d = -0.03). Men seemed to view their partners more negatively. Publication year and relationship length did not matter for any perceptual process. Tracking accuracy was higher in overall judgments, whereas projection was higher in daily judgments. Positive interaction traits and mind-reading judgments showed a negative bias. Greater projection and positive bias in noninteraction judgments were associated with higher relationship quality. Our results are the first to provide effect sizes for projection, tracking accuracy while controlling for projection, and indirect accuracy, and build on prior research concerning the complex ways in which partners perceive each other. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).