Peter Richard Harris

Decision-making involvement is important for maintaining a sense of self and quality of life in people with dementia. To date, few studies have explored the factors behind this relationship. We explored whether decision-making benefits quality of life by enabling fulfilment of basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. We analysed one-year longitudinal data from 787 people recently diagnosed with dementia from the DETERMIND cohort. Path analysis examined cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between decision-making involvement and quality of life. Parallel mediation analysis tested whether psychological needs explained this relationship. Cognitive impairment was tested as a moderator of longitudinal associations. At baseline, decision-making involvement was positively associated with quality of life, fully mediated by satisfaction of all three psychological needs. Despite declines in cognitive function, decision-making involvement remained high and quality of life stable over one year. No significant longitudinal associations were found between decision-making involvement and quality of life. Decision-making involvement may support quality of life through psychological needs fulfilment. Stability in decision-making and quality of life suggests resilience among people with dementia in early stages. Supporting psychological needs through tailored interventions and decision-aid tools may have the potential to enhance quality of life as dementia progresses.

Background: An earlier study in a school in England found that a series of brief values affirmation writing exercises, performed over the course of a school year by students aged 11–14, increased the mathematics attainment of students of low socioeconomic status (SES). Aims: This pre‐registered follow‐up of the original study aims to investigate the long‐term effects of values affirmation on low‐SES students' attainment. Sample: The sample consisted of all students in the analytical sample of the original study who remained at the school and for whom the necessary data were available, N = 409 (95 low‐SES). Methods: The students' results in high‐stakes national standardized assessments at age 16, taken two to four years after the affirmation, were analysed. Results: The evidence did not support the pre‐registered hypotheses that values affirmation would raise the attainment of low‐SES students in mathematics and English. However, exploratory analyses suggested that for low‐SES students in two of the three‐year groups, the intervention increased Attainment 8 , a broad policy‐relevant measure of academic attainment, and increased the attainment of boys in English (in particular English Literature) but reduced the corresponding attainment of girls. Conclusions: The results suggest that the benefits of values affirmation can differ by student cohort and by school subject and that they might be time‐limited in some circumstances. This suggests a set of hypotheses that future research could test in order to advance understanding of when values affirmation is, and is not, successful for school students over a sustained period.

While decreasing their meat consumption is one of the most impactful behaviours an individual may carry out to reduce their carbon emissions, it is still a minority behaviour in many parts of the world. Research suggests that communicating information about changing ‘dynamic’ norms may be a useful tool for changing attitudes and behaviours in the direction of those currently held by the minority. This study uses a 2 × 2 mixed design (norm type [dynamic/static] × visual cue [present/absent, and a no-task control), and a follow-up assessment after one week to investigate the effect of making dynamic norms salient on various meat consumption outcomes: attitudes towards meat consumption, interest in reducing one’s own meat consumption, intentions to reduce one’s own meat consumption and self-reported meat consumption. We used an online sample of British participants ( N = 1294), ranging in age 18–77 ( M _age = 39.97, s.d. _age = 13.71; 55.8% female). We hypothesized that: (i) dynamic norms will positively influence meat consumption outcomes; (ii) visual cues will accentuate the difference between norm conditions; (iii) using a visual cue will enhance the effect of dynamic norms; and (iv) any effects of dynamic norms will endure over a period of one week. We found no positive effect of dynamic norms (versus static norms) on any outcome at time 1, and no positive effect on changes in outcomes from time 1 to time 2. However, we found a positive interaction of norm type and visual cue at time 1 (although not from time 1 to time 2): the addition of a visual cue to dynamic norm messages enhanced the positive effect of the message at time 1 (but did not enhance the changes occurring from time 1 to time 2). Analyses for changes in self-reported meat consumption did not reach our evidential threshold. We discuss the practical and theoretical implications of these findings.

We tested the effectiveness of three brief, online manipulations theorised to have beneficial effects on wellbeing: a social cure manipulation priming important group memberships, a self‐affirmation manipulation priming important values, and a group‐affirmation manipulation priming values important to one's group. A control condition required respondents to reflect on films. Study 1 (N = 201) had no explicit stressor, whereas study 2 (N = 379) had an acute stressor immediately before the manipulations. The outcomes were a set of hedonic, evaluative, and eudaimonic wellbeing measures. With no acute stressor, all three manipulations boosted wellbeing perceptions, but in diverse ways. After a stressor, the social cure manipulation was the most frequent predictor. In all cases, main effects of the manipulations boosted wellbeing perceptions; however, where effects were moderated by baseline anxiety or stress induced by the stressor, the benefits were restricted to those lower in anxiety and stress. Overall, the results lend support to the idea that brief online manipulations, especially ones priming collective identities, can be beneficial for wellbeing. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

Introduction: Few studies have longitudinally mapped quality of life (QoL) trajectories of newly diagnosed people with dementia and their carers, particularly during coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). Methods: In a UK cohort study, 261 newly diagnosed people with dementia and 206 family carers were assessed prior to the pandemic (July 2019–March 2020), followed up after the first lockdown (July–October 2020) and then again a year and 2 years later. Latent growth curve modelling examined the level and change of QoL over the four time-points using dementia-specific QoL measures (DEMQOL and C-DEMQOL). Results: Despite variations in individual change scores, our results suggest that generally people with dementia maintained their QoL during the pandemic and experienced some increase towards the end of the period. This contrasted with carers who reported a general deterioration in their QoL over the same period. ‘Confidence in future’ and ‘Feeling supported’ were the only carer QoL subscales to show some recovery post-pandemic. Discussion: It is positive that even during a period of global disruption, decline in QoL is not inevitable following the onset of dementia. However, it is of concern that carer QoL declined during this same period even after COVID-19 restrictions had been lifted. Carers play an invaluable role in the lives of people with dementia and wider society, and our findings suggest that, post-pandemic, they may require greater support to maintain their QoL.

Background: Educational outcomes in the United Kingdom vary as a function of students' family background, with those of lower socioeconomic status (SES) and certain ethnic minority groups among the worst affected. Aims: This pre‐registered study investigates: (i) whether knowledge about students' socioeconomic and ethnic background influences teachers' judgements about the quality of their work and potential for the future, and (ii) the role of teachers' beliefs—most notably about meritocracy—in their practices. Sample: Our findings are based on the responses of 416 in‐service (88%) and trainee (12%) teachers who successfully passed several stringent exclusion criteria. Methods: As part of a 2 × 2 independent measures design, teachers were randomly assigned to assess an identical piece of work ostensibly written by a student who varied by SES (higher vs. lower) and ethnicity (White British vs. Black Caribbean). Following this, they responded to several measures assessing their beliefs about education. Results: Teachers judged students of lower SES to be inferior to students of higher SES across a range of indicators. By contrast, we found no evidence of racial bias in teachers' judgements, though potential reasons for this are discussed. Teachers who believed that schooling is meritocratic were significantly less likely to support equity‐enhancing teaching practices and initiatives. Conclusions: Unconscious teacher biases and beliefs may be contributing to the relative underperformance of students from poorer backgrounds. These findings provide a mandate for educational institutions to help teachers reflect upon, and develop the skills required to mitigate potentially harmful biases.

  In two online studies, we test whether spontaneous self-affirmation (measured by the Spontaneous Self-Affirmation Measure, SSAM) predicts better mental health and coping and the role that self-esteem and dispositional optimism play in these relationships. Study 1 (N = 110) was cross-sectional. In study 2 (N = 192) we collected the mental health measures one month post-baseline. Consistent with pre-registered hypotheses, the SSAM predicted less anxiety, depression and avoidant coping, and greater wellbeing and non-avoidant coping; however, relationships involving self-esteem and optimism varied with the reported source of self-affirmation measured by the SSAM (strengths, values, social relations). Overall, the findings are generally consistent with the hypothesis that spontaneous self-affirmation tends to function as a resource that fosters positive coping with threats.

To identify factors that predict the risk of loneliness for people with dementia and carers during a pandemic.People with dementia and their carers completed assessments before (July 2019–March 202...

The present research examines the relationship between individual differences in the extent to which people report self-affirming when faced with a threat (spontaneous self-affirmation) and well-being. Across three studies (total N = 515), spontaneous self-affirmation consistently emerged as a significant linear predictor of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being outcomes, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. A self-affirmation manipulation eliminated this association for two indices of well-being, primarily by boosting the well-being scores of those lower in spontaneous self-affirmation. Furthermore, spontaneous self-affirmation was found to partially mediate associations between socioeconomic status and well-being. These findings highlight individual differences in spontaneous self-affirmation as a potentially important contributor to well-being and suggest that consideration of spontaneous self-affirmation might further our understanding of the relationship between socioeconomic status and well-being.

A host of studies have shown that self‐relevant health messages may result in increased defensiveness and rejection of protective recommendations. Drawing on research showing that multiple identities offer psychological resources to deal with identity threats, we sought to examine whether the salience of an alternative identity before people are exposed to a personally relevant health message may buffer the threat and reduce defensive responses. Two studies were conducted on samples of daily smokers asked to read an antismoking message before completing a range of measures of defensiveness. Half of the participants had an alternative identity made salient beforehand (vs. no salience condition). Consistent with our hypotheses, Study 1 ( N = 90) showed that this manipulation significantly reduced defensiveness to the message. Study 2 ( N = 95) additionally showed that such effects only occurred when the alternative identity overlapped highly with the threatened identity. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.