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Financial behavior disparities across race and gender persist in the United States. Historical and structural factors contribute to such disparities. It is important to understand the psychological mechanisms underlying these disparities to begin to achieve wealth equity. This study addressed one potentially relevant psychological construct: stereotypes about financial behaviors. Using a sample of 114 college students from a large public university, the study explored societally held beliefs about financial behaviors. The results showed that White men were generally viewed as more financially competent than White women, who were viewed as more financially competent than Black men and Black women. Implications for financial education and financial behaviors are discussed.

This article examines the intersection of optimism and religion by exploring the spiritual experiences of Pentecostal Christians and Traditionalists in Cape Coast, Ghana. We argue that for both Pentecostals and Traditionalists (practitioners of indigenous Akan religion) an experience of contact with the spirit realm conditions movements between pessimistic and hopeful subjectivities. When the object of hope is definite, butuncertain, Pentecostal spiritual experiences are similar to those of traditionalists. Pentecostal ism stands out as unique from traditionalist experience and practice because it also provokes states of confident expectation for a generalized object, resulting in periods of boundless optimism that shift seamlessly between confident expectancy for specific material aspirations and more abstract ends like blessing and anointing. These general states we analytically define as optimism. Pentecostal experiences generate optimistic stances that collapse the believers' economically modest presents and imagined wealthy futures, allowing for the identification of spiritual and material well-being, eclipsing actual wealth differences. For our Pentecostal interlocutors, optimism is a moment within a spectrum of states that include pessimism and variegated states of hopefulness--all of which are mediated by experiences with God/Spirit. [Keywords: Pentecostal ism, Optimism, hope, religious experience, spiritual experience, mysticism, Ghana, Indigenous Religion, Christianity, Traditional African Religion]. [Palavras-chave: pentecostalismo, otimismo, esperanca, experiencia religiosa, experiencia espiritual, misticismo, Gana, religiao tradicional africana, cristianismo, religiao indigena] [phrase omitted], In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James (1902:363) claims that religious experience changes how people see the world. 'Mystical states' he claims, create a 'distinct theoretic drift' in the [...]

Self-regulation is a widely studied construct, generally assumed to be cognitively supported by executive functions (EFs). There is a lack of clarity and consensus over the roles of specific components of EFs in self-regulation. The current study examines the relations between performance on (a) a self-regulation task (Heads, Toes, Knees Shoulders Task) and (b) two EF tasks (Knox Cube and Beads Tasks) that measure different components of updating: working memory and short-term memory, respectively. We compared 107 8- to 13-year-old children (64 females) across demographically-diverse populations in four low and middle-income countries, including: Tanna, Vanuatu; Keningau, Malaysia; Saltpond, Ghana; and Natal, Brazil. The communities we studied vary in market integration/urbanicity as well as level of access, structure, and quality of schooling. We found that performance on the visuospatial working memory task (Knox Cube) and the visuospatial short-term memory task (Beads) are each independently associated with performance on the self-regulation task, even when controlling for schooling and location effects. These effects were robust across demographically-diverse populations of children in low-and middle-income countries. We conclude that this study found evidence supporting visuospatial working memory and visuospatial short-term memory as distinct cognitive processes which each support the development of self-regulation.

Recent decades have seen a rapid acceleration in global participation in formal education, due to worldwide initiatives aimed to provide school access to all children. Research in high income countries has shown that school quality indicators have a significant, positive impact on numeracy and literacy—skills required to participate in the increasingly globalized economy. Schools vary enormously in kind, resources, and teacher training around the world, however, and the validity of using diverse school quality measures in populations with diverse educational profiles remains unclear. First, we assessed whether children's numeracy and literacy performance across populations improves with age, as evidence of general school‐related learning effects. Next, we examined whether several school quality measures related to classroom experience and composition, and to educational resources, were correlated with one another. Finally, we examined whether they were associated with children's (4–12‐year‐olds, N = 889) numeracy and literacy performance in 10 culturally and geographically diverse populations which vary in historical engagement with formal schooling. Across populations, age was a strong positive predictor of academic achievement. Measures related to classroom experience and composition were correlated with one another, as were measures of access to educational resources and classroom experience and composition. The number of teachers per class and access to writing materials were key predictors of numeracy and literacy, while the number of students per classroom, often linked to academic achievement, was not. We discuss these results in the context of maximising children's learning environments and highlight study limitations to motivate future research. Research Highlights: We examined the extent to which four measures of school quality were associated with one another, and whether they predicted children's academic achievement in 10 culturally and geographically diverse societies.Across populations, measures related to classroom experience and composition were correlated with one another as were measures of access to educational resources to classroom experience and composition.Age, the number of teachers per class, and access to writing materials were key predictors of academic achievement across populations.Our data have implications for designing efficacious educational initiatives to improve school quality globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examines Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) experiences of a sample of Black business owners in a mid-sized city amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores how Black business owners made sense of the Paycheck Protection Program, and how they came to regard it as an untrustworthy source of economic relief or even a dangerous trap. Less than half of the small business owners we interviewed applied for PPP, and those who did, did so with great trepidation. We find that experiences of Black business owners with the PPP are informed by the longstanding barriers that Black businesses face accessing financing from financial institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality of life, physical and mental health, and lifestyle behaviors were assessed in 500 graduate and undergraduate students at a Historically Black University. 82% of the sample rated their quality of life positively. 11.3% of the sample reported mild depression, while 4.9% and 1.1% of the sample reported moderate and severe depression respectively. 8.4% of the sample reported suicidal ideation within the past two weeks. Family, financial and academic stressors were found to be significant predictors of depressive symptoms. Implications for mental health care are discussed. (Contains 4 tables.)

Languages feature labels used to name various feeling states, referred to as emotion lexica. Language-specific linguistic features patterned after culturally-shaped templates such as somatic referencing, make each emotion lexicon unique. This study investigates somatic referencing in the emotion lexicon of the Efik ethnolinguistic group obtained through ethnographic linguistic fieldwork in South-eastern Nigeria. Our analysis revealed that in the Efik language, nearly fifty body-centered lexemes serve as the primary labels for a variety of feeling states. The identified emotion terms incorporated specific body parts, various parts of the face, as well as the generalized body. In each instance, the body referent constituted part of the internal structure of the feeling label. Our findings complement existing emotion research examining the cultural scripting of emotion experiences as well as their expression and communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limited research on effective parenting and optimal child outcomes within an African, specifically Ghanaian context exists. This study examined conceptions of effective parenting from the perspective of religious counselors who are often sought by parents for parenting advice. Two research questions were addressed: (1) how do religious counselors conceptualize effective parenting; and (2) to what extent do their conceptualizations reflect current literature and research on effective parenting? Ninety-two religious counselors, 19 Muslims and 73 Christians, were recruited from four urban areas in Ghana. Participants were asked about effective parenting during individual interviews. The findings revealed three major themes and several sub-themes. The three themes were socialization and structure, positive parent-child interaction, and autonomy support. Themes about what constitute effective parenting were both consistent and inconsistent with traditional views of parenting within a Ghanaian cultural context. Findings revealed some contemporary changes of parenting in Ghana with implications for effective parenting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manner in which emotion is expressed in contemporary Ghanaian literature is explored through an examination of 'Changes', a novel by Ama Ata Aidoo. The study reveals the interesting mix of the indigenous, Westernization and time that make up the world of Ghanaian emotions.

A manifestation of coloniality in psychological science concerns the modern individualist lifeways that inform mainstream research. We report results of a multi‐method research project that investigated implications of these ways of being for the experience of love in Ghanaian settings. In particular, we investigated the hypothesis that engagement with Pentecostal Charismatic Churches (PCCs)—an important carrier of individualist lifeways in many West African settings—would be associated with a growth orientation to love as a means for mutual self‐expansion and fulfillment. In Study 1 (n = 61), growth themes and a conception of love as feeling were more evident, but sustainability themes and a conception of love as doing less evident, in interview responses of participants who reported engagement with PCCs versus Traditional Western Mission Churches (TWMCs). In Study 2 (n = 1120), family obligation, relationship harmony, and (among participants who reported daily church attendance) perception of a social norm to prioritize mother over spouse were weaker for members of PCCs than TWMCs. Results help to reveal the colonial dark side of the modern individualist lifeways that mainstream research tends to regard as a just‐natural standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]