The Present Study. We conducted an experiment investigating the relationship between chronotype and facial affect processing in order to determine whether eveningness is related to social cognition. The review of individual chronotype differences reveals the possibility that eveningness may be a premorbid trait for depression. There are two reasons for this notion. First, a tendency towards eveningness may lead to SCN dysfunction, which in turn, may lead to mood disorders. Second, eveningness is associated with the presence of both mood disorders and factors related to mood disorders—such as abnormalities in physiology and sleep, similar light exposure, negative personality traits, and evening social interactions. These two reviews together reveal the manner in which eveningness may be related to social cognition. People who exhibit sleep deprivation, depression, and functioning at non- preferred times of day all show similar deficits in facial affect processing—namely, blunted perception of emotional intensity at lower levels of expressiveness, and decreased emotion recognition accuracy. Since evening types often experience sleep deprivation, social interaction at non-preferred times of day (such as during morning hours), and depression, it is possible that they might display these same facial affect processing deficits. If such a relationship is found, it would reveal social cognition to be another avenue through which eveningness and depression are related. More importantly, it would indicate that, in addition to depression, eveningness may also be a risk factor for social ineptitude. It is possible, however, for the converse to be true: pre- existing social ineptness may in fact be the cause of one’s eveningness and depression. Although the facial affect processing studies mentioned above detected both directional causality and the existence of processing deficits, the present study does not, as it follows a simple cross-sectional descriptive design. Rather, we simply set out to investigate if there was a difference between chronotypes in their ratings of emotional intensity. Findings from the previously mentioned studies enabled us to make two predictions:
The Present Study. The seminal article describing the TGP details each of the structures of the theory and states that they are intertwined [34], but specific operational mechanisms were not explored. Moreover, the potential of any of the domains or constructs to serve as a central mediator was not articulated [32]. Although there has been no formal test of the model in its entirety, many of the model constructs have been explored as correlates of condom use in other contexts. Thus, the existing literature provides data for a two- pronged research approach: 1) to systematically explore associations of TGP constructs with condom use among African American young women, and 2) to systematically explore associations between TGP constructs to better explicate how the three structures of the theory are connected.
The Present Study. A great advantage to designing interventions based on frameworks such as the TGP is that the theoretical constructs provide psychological and behavioral targets to improve the likelihood of behavioral change. Interventions aimed at changing behaviors (e.g. condom use) often do so by enhancing theoretical mediators of the behavior (e. g. condom use negotiation) [113]. It is also of value to explore these mediators not only as intervention targets but as potential links in multiple chains that begin with other theoretical constructs in order to explicate how those factors fit into a larger mechanism that predicts condom use. Additionally, analysis of theoretical constructs that may be antecedents to important mediators of behavioral change can illuminate whether background variables indicate important areas of diversity in the target population and can aid in the refinement of intervention strategies [114]. Developing statistical models in the social sciences can lead to conclusions that are dependent upon validation in other samples. Indeed, “models are best regarded as approximations to reality rather than as exact statements of truth” [186]. A practice that allows researchers to develop a model through exploratory methods in one sample and test the best fitting model as a legitimate hypothesis in another is that of cross validation [187]. When two samples are not available, a single sample may be randomly split into a calibration and validation sample. In structural equation modeling, hypotheses regarding measurement of constructs and associations between constructs can be confirmed in this manner. This study empirically tested how acquired economic, social and physical risks and personal and behavioral risk factors directly and indirectly predicted condom use among African American young women. No studies have tested communication as a central mediator of acquired risks of all three domains of the TGP. Furthermore, conservative religious beliefs have not been previously measured in a manner consistent with the TGP among a sample of African American young women. The study goals were to randomly split a sample of African American young women into calibration and validation samples and (1) test a measurement model of observed variables and latent constructs described by the TGP, (2) test a structural equation model of the latent variables and (3) validate the model through multi-group analysis with equality constraints using structural equation modeling.
