52% Yes, a signiicant crisis 3% No, there is no crisis 7% Don't know 38% Yes, a slight crisis 38% Yes, a slight crisis 1,576 RESEARCHERS SURVEYED M ore than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments. Those are some of the telling figures that emerged from Nature's survey of 1,576 researchers who took a brief online questionnaire on reproducibility in research. The data reveal sometimes-contradictory attitudes towards reproduc-ibility. Although 52% of those surveyed agree that there is a significant 'crisis' of reproducibility, less than 31% think that failure to reproduce published results means that the result is probably wrong, and most say that they still trust the published literature. Data on how much of the scientific literature is reproducible are rare and generally bleak. The best-known analyses, from psychology 1 and cancer biology 2 , found rates of around 40% and 10%, respectively. Our survey respondents were more optimistic: 73% said that they think that at least half of the papers in their field can be trusted, with physicists and chemists generally showing the most confidence. The results capture a confusing snapshot of attitudes around these issues, says Arturo Casadevall, a microbiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. "At the current time there is no consensus on what reproducibility is or should be. " But just recognizing that is a step forward, he says. "The next step may be identifying what is the problem and to get a consensus. "

In 11 studies, we found that participants typically did not enjoy spending 6 to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think, that they enjoyed doing mundane external activities much more, and that many preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves instead of being left alone with their thoughts. Most people seem to prefer to be doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative. “The mind is its own place, and in it self/Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.”– John Milton, Paradise Lost

What is boredom? We review environmental, attentional, and functional theories and present a new model that describes boredom as an affective indicator of unsuccessful attentional engagement in valued goal-congruent activity. According to the Meaning and Attentional Components (MAC) model, boredom is the result of (a) an attentional component, namely mismatches between cognitive demands and available mental resources, and (b) a meaning component, namely mismatches between activities and valued goals (or the absence of valued goals altogether). We present empirical support for four novel predictions made by the model: (a) Deficits in attention and meaning each produce boredom independently of the other; (b) there are different profiles of boredom that result from specific deficits in attention and meaning; (c) boredom results from two types of attentional deficits, understimulation and overstimulation; and (d) the model explains not only when and why people become bored with external activities, but also when and why people become bored with their own thoughts. We discuss further implications of the model, such as when boredom motivates people to seek interesting versus enjoyable activities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

There is an imperative to predict hazardous drinking among college students. Implicit measures have been useful in predicting unique variance in drinking and alcohol-related problems. However, they have been developed to test different theories of drinking and have rarely been directly compared to one another. Thus, their comparative utility is unclear. The current study examined five alcohol-related variants of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) in a sample of 300 undergraduates and sought to establish their predictive validity. Results indicated that the Drinking Identity IAT, which measured associations of “drinker” with “me,” was the most consistent predictor of alcohol consumption, problems, and alcohol cravings. It also had the highest internal consistency and test–retest reliability scores. The results for the Alcohol Excitement and Alcohol Approach IATs were also promising but their psychometric properties were less consistent. Although the two IATs were positively correlated with all of the drinking outcome variables, they did not consistently predict unique variance in those variables after controlling for explicit measures. They also had relatively lower internal consistencies and test–retest reliabilities. Ultimately, results suggested that implicit drinking identity may be a useful tool for predicting alcohol consumption, problems, and cravings and a potential target for prevention and intervention efforts.

Predicting hazardous drinking in college students continues to be a serious priority. Emerging evidence suggests that implicit measures may offer additional insight in predicting unique variance in alcohol outcomes. Implicit drinking identity, in particular, may be a powerful predictor of alcohol use. The current study examined the predictive validity of three alcohol-related associations (e.g., drinking identity, alcohol approach, and alcohol cope) using adaptations of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) in a sample of 243 undergraduates. Confirming previous findings, drinking identity associations were the most consistent predictor of alcohol consumption and alcohol problems. They were the only associations that were unique predictors of alcohol use after controlling for other implicit associations. In comparison, alcohol cope and alcohol approach associations were weak but consistent predictors of alcohol consumption and alcohol problems. Although positively correlated with all drinking outcomes, neither set of associations predicted unique variance in the drinking outcomes when all implicit associations were included in the same model. Collectively, these results extend previous findings that implicit drinking identity may be a uniquely powerful tool for predicting alcohol outcomes and a potential target for clinical intervention and prevention efforts.

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Alcohol-related content is common on social media and may both reflect and influence offline drinking behavior. Posting alcohol-related content has been linked to alcohol outcomes, including higher rates of alcohol consumption, cravings, alcohol-related problems, and clinical alcohol use disorders. Exposure to alcohol-related content on social media has likewise been associated with adverse alcohol outcomes. In this paper, we review research on the relationship between social media and alcohol use, and explore the ways that online identity and social influence can account for this relationship. Finally, we call for further research on the use of social media as a platform for prevention and intervention efforts. ALCOHOL AND SOCIAL MEDIA Picture this: you're browsing through your Facebook feed one morning when you notice a friend's status update about their wild Friday night. It's the latest in a long line of posts they've been sharing recently about their drinking and partying. You feel a twinge of uneasiness-should you feel concerned about your friend? But, it's only Facebook, right? Such alcohol-related content appears surprisingly frequently in social media [1,2]. Given the seriousnesss of problematic alcohol use as a public health concern [3], should such content be taken seriously as an indicator or influence on actual health behaviors? In this paper, we review recent work on social media and alcohol use with an emphasis on determining how and why the two are related. What is social media and how does it relate to alcohol? Social media loosely includes online and mobile platforms where people voluntarily come together to generate, share, and consume content, including text, pictures, and video. Popular social media platforms include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, Vine, Instagram, and Snapchat, among others. Historically, such platforms also included mySpace, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), and Bebo. Social media use is pervasive. According to the Pew Research Center, 71% of the US population reports active use of a Facebook account, and although use is more prevalent among teenagers, a majority of older adults also use it. Twitter use is slightly less common, with only 23% of online adults reporting active use. Surprisingly, alcohol-related content is quite common on social media, including Facebook [1,2] and MySpace [4,5,6]. Content analysis of Facebook pictures and messages suggests that alcohol-related content on social media typically conveys positive attitudes towards alcohol [7]. Such content may even become more prevalent during college: in one study of

This study investigated whether self-reports of alcohol-related postings on Facebook by oneself or one's Facebook friends were related to common motives for drinking and were uniquely predictive of self-reported alcohol outcomes (alcohol consumption, problems, and cravings). Method: Pacifi c Northwest undergraduates completed a survey of alcohol outcomes, drinking motives, and alcoholrelated Facebook postings. Participants completed the survey online as part of a larger study on alcohol use and cognitive associations. Participants were randomly selected through the university registrar's offi ce and consisted of 1,106 undergraduates (449 men, 654 women, 2 transgender, 1 declined to answer) between the ages of 18 and 25 years (M = 20.40, SD = 1.60) at a large university in the Pacifi c Northwest. Seven participants were excluded from analyses because of missing or suspect data. Results: Alcohol-related postings on Facebook were signifi cantly correlated with social, enhancement, conformity, and coping motives for drinking (all ps < .001). After drinking motives were controlled for, self-alcohol-related postings independently and positively predicted the number of drinks per week, alcohol-related problems, risk of alcohol use disorders, and alcohol cravings (all ps < .001). In contrast, friends' alcohol-related postings only predicted the risk of alcohol use disorders (p < .05) and marginally predicted alcohol-related problems (p = .07). Conclusions: Posting alcohol-related content on social media platforms such as Facebook is associated with common motivations for drinking and is, in itself, a strong predictive indicator of drinking outcomes independent of drinking motives. Moreover, self-related posting activity appears to be more predictive than Facebook friends' activity. These fi ndings suggest that social media platforms may be a useful target for future preventative and intervention efforts.