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Objectives: We test whether there is a shared mechanism between many environmental risk factors and delinquency. Youth developing in harsh and unpredictable environments can adopt the belief that the world is chaotic, people are undependable, and they are unable to control their circumstances (i.e., an unpredictability schema). They may then opt to focus on the present (i.e., a short-term mindset), rather than invest in a future that is not stable or guaranteed. Methods: We test this idea by examining whether harsh and unpredictable environments are associated with delinquency—first through unpredictability schemas and then short-term mindsets—using structural equation models of two representative and geographically diverse longitudinal datasets. Results: Results show that many indicators of harsh and unpredictable environments predict unpredictability schemas and short-term mindsets. Their relationships with delinquency are mediated through short-term mindsets, especially sensation-seeking, but less so through unpredictability schemas. Conclusions: Similar findings across the datasets suggest short-term mindsets may be evoked as a response to harsh and unpredictable environments, namely unpredictable parenting and violence among peers. This illuminates the consequences of exposure to adverse environments and lends credence to the idea that short-term mindsets can help explain the link between many risk factors and crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has demonstrated an inverse relation between subjective social class (SSC) and performance on emotion recognition tasks. Study 1 (N = 418) involved a preregistered replication of this effect using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task and the Cambridge Mindreading Face-Voice Battery. The inverse relation replicated; however, exploratory analyses revealed a significant interaction between sex and SSC in predicting emotion recognition, indicating that the effect was driven by males. In Study 2 (N = 745), we preregistered and tested the interaction on a separate archival dataset. The interaction replicated; the association between SSC and emotion recognition again occurred only in males. Exploratory analyses (Study 3; N = 381) examined the generalizability of the interaction to incidental face memory. Our results underscore the need to reevaluate previous research establishing the main effects of social class and sex on emotion recognition abilities, as these effects apparently moderate each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On average, psychological variables are often statistically different in people living in poverty compared with people living in affluence. The default academic response to this pattern is often the deficit model: Poverty damages or impairs brain function, which leads to poor performance that only exacerbates the poverty. Deficits and damage are real phenomena. However, there are also other processes: People living in poverty may have made reasonable psychological responses to their circumstances or may have developed strengths that enhance their ability to cope with challenges in their lives. We illustrate these points by discussing the linked examples of time preference, early reproduction, and hidden talents. We argue for a balanced approach to the psychology of poverty that integrates deficit and strengths-based models. Future research could focus on the ways in which impairment and adaptation interact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some scholars think that Open Science practices constrain researchers in ways that reduce their creativity, arguing, for instance, that preregistration discourages data exploration and so stifles discovery. In this article, we argue the opposite: Open Science practices are liberating and can foster creativity. Open Science practices are liberating because they (a) enable us to explore data transparently and comfortably; (b) reward quality, which is under our control, rather than outcomes, which are not; and (c) reduce the choke hold of needing to find "positive" results for career advancement. Open Science practices can foster creativity because they cultivate an open and flexible mind-set, create a more collaborative and constructive climate, and generate more accurate information and make it more accessible. In sum, Open Science liberates researchers more than it constrains them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children, particularly girls, who experience early familial adversity tend to go on to reach sexual maturity relatively early. This feature of adolescent development is believed to be an evolved strategy that arose because individuals with genes that caused them to mature relatively early under certain conditions left behind more descendants than those who did not. However, although much has been done to uncover the psychological and physiological mechanisms underlying this process, less attention has been paid to the evolutionary reasons behind why it might be advantageous. It has previously been suggested that this strategy evolved because early familial adversity accurately indicated later environmental adversity, under which conditions early reproduction would likely maximize evolutionary fitness. In this article, we contrast this “external prediction” model with an alternative explanation, which builds on the existing explanation and is mutually compatible with it but also distinct from it. We argue that accelerated development is advantageous because early adversity detrimentally affects the individual’s body, increasing later morbidity and mortality; individuals may adapt to this internal setback by accelerating their development. Unlike the external prediction model, this “internal prediction” relies not on temporal environmental continuity but on long-term effects of early circumstances on the body. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A predominant view in psychology is that early psychosocial adversity (e.g., abuse) impairs cognition, because children from stressful backgrounds (e.g., violent households) score lower on standard tests of intelligence, language, memory, inhibition, and other abilities. However, recent studies indicate that these people may exhibit improved detection, learning, and memory on tasks involving stimuli that are ecologically relevant to them (e.g., dangers), compared with safely nurtured peers. These findings contradict the view that cognition of stressed people is generally impaired; they suggest, rather, that these people’s minds are developmentally specialized toward local environmental conditions. Here, we review recent research supporting this hypothesis. In addition, we propose that novel studies should examine whether stressed children show not only improved detection but also improved memory and reasoning on tasks involving stimuli that are ecologically relevant to them. Finally, we discuss clinical implications of switching from conceptualizing stressed minds as “adapted” rather than “impaired.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to adjust developmental trajectories based on experience is widespread in nature, including in humans. This plasticity is often adaptive, tailoring individuals to their local environment. However, it is less clear why some individuals are more sensitive to environmental influences than others. Explanations include differences in genes and differences in prior experiences. In this article, we present a novel hypothesis in the latter category. In some developmental domains, individuals must learn about the state of their environment before adapting accordingly. Because sampling environmental cues is a stochastic process, some individuals may receive a homogeneous sample, resulting in a confident estimate about the state of the world—these individuals specialize early. Other individuals may receive a heterogeneous, uninformative set of cues—those individuals will keep sampling. As a consequence, individual variation in plasticity may result from different degrees of confidence about the state of the environment. After developing the hypothesis, we conclude by discussing three empirical predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How does repeated or chronic childhood adversity shape social and cognitive abilities? According to the prevailing deficit model, children from high-stress backgrounds are at risk for impairments in learning and behavior, and the intervention goal is to prevent, reduce, or repair the damage. Missing from this deficit approach is an attempt to leverage the unique strengths and abilities that develop in response to high-stress environments. Evolutionary-developmental models emphasize the coherent, functional changes that occur in response to stress over the life course. Research in birds, rodents, and humans suggests that developmental exposures to stress can improve forms of attention, perception, learning, memory, and problem solving that are ecologically relevant in harsh-unpredictable environments (as per the specialization hypothesis). Many of these skills and abilities, moreover, are primarily manifest in currently stressful contexts where they would provide the greatest fitness-relevant advantages (as per the sensitization hypothesis). This perspective supports an alternative adaptation-based approach to resilience that converges on a central question: "What are the attention, learning, memory, problem-solving, and decision-making strategies that are enhanced through exposures to childhood adversity?" At an applied level, this approach focuses on how we can work with, rather than against, these strengths to promote success in education, employment, and civic life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]