You and me versus the rest of the world: the effects of affiliative motivation and ingroup partner status on social tuning.

Bandura argues that individuals are more likely to engage in social learning when they identify with a social model and when they are motivated or rewarded. Therefore, in the present work, we investigate how these two key factors, perceived similarity and affiliative motivation, influence the extent to which individuals engage in social tuning or align their views with an interaction partner-especially if their partner's attitudes differ from the larger social group. Experiment 1 (170 participants) explored the role of perceived similarity through group membership when needing to work collaboratively with a collaboration partner whose climate change beliefs differed from a larger social group. Experiment 2 (115 participants) directly manipulated affiliative motivation (i.e., length of interaction time) along with perceived similarity (i.e., Greek Life membership) to explore if these factors influenced social tuning of drinking attitudes and behaviors. Experiments 3 (69 participants) and 4 (93 participants) replicated Experiment 2 and examined whether tuning occurred for explicit and implicit attitudes towards weight (negative views Experiment 3 and positive views Experiment 4). Results indicate that when individuals experience high affiliative motivation, they are more likely to engage in social tuning of explicit and implicit attitudes when their interaction partner belongs to their ingroup rather than their outgroup. These findings are consistent with the tenets of Social Learning Theory, Shared Reality Theory, and the affiliative social tuning hypothesis.

Physical and Functional Differences in Youth Baseball Players With and Without Throwing-Related Pain.

BACKGROUND: Identifying risk factors that contribute to shoulder and elbow pain within youth baseball players is important for improving injury prevention and rehabilitation strategies. HYPOTHESIS: Differences will exist between youth baseball players with and without a history of upper extremity pain on measures related to growth, shoulder performance, and baseball exposure. STUDY DESIGN: Case-control study; Level of evidence, 3. METHODS: A total of 84 youth baseball players were divided into 2 groups based on self-reported history of throwing-related arm pain. Group differences for growth-related, shoulder performance, and baseball exposure variables were analyzed by use of parametric and nonparametric tests, as appropriate. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess variables most predictive of pain. RESULTS: The group of athletes with pain (n = 16) were taller and heavier, played more baseball per year, and had greater pitching velocity. Athletes with pain also had greater loss of internal rotation range of motion and greater side-to-side asymmetry in humeral retrotorsion (HRT), attributable to lower degrees of HRT within the nondominant humerus. Multivariate analysis revealed that player height was most predictive of pain, with a 1-inch increase in height resulting in a 77% increased risk of pain. CONCLUSION: Vertical growth that accompanies adolescence increases the risk of experiencing throwing-related pain in youth baseball players. Players who are taller, particularly those with faster pitching velocities, are at the greatest risk for developing pain and should be more carefully monitored for resultant injury. The degree of nondominant HRT may have a relationship to the development of pain, but further research is required to better understand the implications of this observation.

Patient-centered medical home implementation effects on emergency room utilization: a case study.

The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) concept has been commended for its potential to increase access to primary care while improving quality and health outcomes. Numerous studies have documented the benefits of the PCMH healthcare delivery modality inclusive of decreased emergency room (ER) visits among PCMH enrollees. Yet a debate wages on whether PCMHs are conceptually sound and clinically effective with few empirical studies dedicated to the study of this relatively new care delivery model (Friedberg et al. 2014; Agency for Health Research and Quality 2012; Cassidy 2010). As part of the campaign to implement the PCMH care delivery modality throughout the Military Health System, the Army Medical Command constructed a medical home at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, in December 2010. The authors evaluated the effectiveness of this medical home in reducing ER visits and found enrollees were 67% less likely than standard primary care clinic enrollees to visit the ER when controlling for age, gender, race, beneficiary category, marital status, and outpatient visits. Additionally, men were nearly half as likely as women to visit the ER, and high outpatient users were twice as likely to visit the ER. This is an encouraging study for proponents of the PCMH model. Limitations and suggestions for future research are also presented.

Moral credentialing by association: the importance of choice and relationship closeness.

People express more prejudice if they have established their "moral credentials." Five studies explored the acquisition of moral credentials through associations with racial minorities, particularly close relationships that are personally chosen. Participants choosing to write about a positive experience with a Black person (Study 1) or Hispanic person (Study 2) subsequently expressed more preference for Whites and tolerance of prejudice than did other participants. In Study 3, the credentialing effect of choice was diminished when participants were given an incentive for that choice. Participants in Study 4 who wrote about a Black friend were more credentialed than those who wrote about a Black acquaintance, regardless of whether the experience was positive or negative. Study 5 suggested that participants strategically referred to close associations with minorities when warned of a future situation in which they might appear prejudiced.