No abstract

Certain facial displays (typically the human smile) have been found to vary with a situation's sociality. Because the facial display that accompanies laughter is under less voluntary control, it is a stronger test of sociality effects. Participants (N = 162) were videotaped watching a humorous videoclip in 1 of 3 conditions: alone, in a same-sex dyad with a stranger, or in a same-sex dyad with a friend. The frequency and time spent laughing were significantly greater in one or both dyadic conditions than in the alone condition, although no differences existed for self-reported evaluations of the videoclip's funniness or amusement felt. When the self-report measures were controlled for, the dyads of strangers (compared with the alone condition) were associated with the frequency of laughter. Although the results provide further support for sociality effects, the situational demands faced by participants may be a better predictor of facial displays than level of sociality.

Despite the substantial amount of literature focusing on social support for pregnant and parenting adolescents, few studies have directly examined the relationships among stress and social support across their transition to parenting. The present study investigates the nature of the relationship between stress and support both before and after the birth of the baby. Two groups of adolescent females (one group facing parenthood and one not) completed measures of support and stress across a 7-month period (N = 231) to coincide with the transition to parenthood. In general, support and stress were negatively related when measured concurrently and positively related over time for parenting adolescents but not the non-parenting group. Understanding how long social support impacts stress will enable practitioners to identify when best to provide interventions for pregnant and parenting adolescents.

Social support has been found to reduce adolescents' perceptions of stress and to contribute to greater well-being; however, lacking in much of the research has been the examination of changes in social support in the lives of'adolescents. Examined in this study were changes in adolescent support and stress over a 7-month period. Three-hundred fifty-two students completed a questionnaire at three points in time over 7 months. Results indicated that mothers were selected most often as the primary support person at each time. However, 42% of the adolescents changed their nomination of support provider at all three times. Perceptions of parental and fitmily support were key in discriminating adolescents who did or did not change their primary support person. Parental and family support also were instrumental in predicting adolescents'perceptions of stress. The results of this study show that parents and,faimily continue to play an important role in the lives of adolescentv.

We examined relationships between moral disengagement, locus of control, and just world beliefs and adherence to COVID-19 containment measures. We predicted that these individual differences would be more influential for adherence than beliefs about the pandemic (e.g., its origins and one's perceived susceptibility to infection). COVID-19-related measures of these three individual differences were each significantly associated with adherence even after controlling for demographics and pandemic beliefs although beliefs about the severity of the virus and the benefits of containment measures also significantly related to adherence. Beliefs were associated with the individual difference measures and political orientation. Moral disengagement, the strongest individual difference predictor, was associated with lower support for each pandemic containment precaution (e.g., mask wearing). These results can be used to frame messages to increase adherence to public health measures.