Does differential social support cause sex differences in bereavement outcome?

A study of a sample of bereaved and married individuals tested the prediction from stress theory that sex differences in bereavement outcome are due to differences in social support extended to the bereaved. Previous research had established that compared to same‐sex married controls, widowers suffer greater health deterioration following the death of a spouse than widows. Although there is some evidence that widows receive more social support than widowers, it has never been tested empirically whether differential social support is responsible for the sex difference in bereavement outcome. Two sets of tests were conducted to examine these hypotheses: first, sex differences in bereavement outcome and in the social support perceived by the bereaved were assessed by means of sex×marital status ANOVAs on depressive symptomatology, loneliness and social support; second, an ANCOVA was used to assess whether the marital status×sex interaction on distress was substantially reduced or eliminated when social support was used as a covariate. Although there was evidence of the expected sex differences in bereavement outcome and social support, there was no evidence that social support mediates the sex differences in bereavement outcome. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does covenant marriage predict latent trajectory groups of newlywed couples?

Covenant marriage is a legally distinct marriage license available in Arizona, Louisiana, and Arkansas in the United States. This study revisited one of the largest longitudinal dyadic studies on covenant versus standard newlywed couples. Using this dataset of 677 different-sex couples, we explored whether being in a covenant marriage could predict how marital satisfaction developed over the first five marital years. We applied the Growth Mixture Modeling (GMM) method to identify groups that differed in their initial marital satisfaction and trajectory. The results revealed three different trajectory groups—one group showing high and stable marital satisfaction, which we named High Stable, and two groups showing declines in marital satisfaction, one being medium and the other one being low in satisfaction at the beginning of the marriage, and we named them Medium Declining and Low Declining respectively. Spouses with lower initial marital satisfaction experienced a faster decline and suffered the highest divorce rate. Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) analysis revealed that one's group membership was predicted by their partner's membership, suggesting a mutual influence on marital development. Being in a covenant marriage was able to predict husbands' membership as covenant husbands were found to be more likely in the high stable group.     

Collectivize social support? Elements for reconsidering the social dimension in the study of social support

Psychological models of mental disorders play an important role in the explanation of psychological deterioration. Researchers from this area usually study several cognitive and behavioral variables to account for the onset and maintenance of depression. However, many authors have detected the need to include a "social dimension" in the explanation of deterioration. In this sense, social support has become a crucial aspect in the study of mental health, and the psychological literature on this topic has generated an intense debate about several facets of the positive impact of social networks on psychological well-being. In this article, the author defends that this increasing centrality of the concept has been accompanied by a psychological reductionism that is making the role of "social aspects" to explain psychological well-being more problematic. Implications of this reductionism are discussed, and an alternative proposal is made to overcome some theoretical and empirical problems related to social support research.     

Does personal intelligence exist? Evidence from a new ability-based measure

Personal intelligence has been defined as the ability to reason about personality and personality-relevant information and to use that information to guide one's actions and more generally, one's life. We constructed an initial version of an ability-based measure to test whether personal intelligence can be measured and whether it exists as a unitary intelligence. In 3 studies (N = 241, 308, and 385), we administered this Test of Personal Intelligence (TOPI), composed of 4 sections, to undergraduates along with criterion measures. Results suggested that a personal intelligence can be measured, that it might exist as a unified area of mental abilities, and that it represents psychological qualities that have intriguing predictive aspects.     

Does temporal preparation facilitate visual processing in a selective manner? Evidence from attentional capture

The present study addressed the question of whether temporal preparation influences perceptual stimulus processing in a selective manner. In three visual search experiments, we examined whether temporal preparation aids spatial selection and thus reduces distraction caused by the onset of a task-irrelevant item. In each trial, participants had to detect a target amongst five non-targets and report a basic feature of the target. In some trials, an additional task-irrelevant singleton item (abrupt onset) appeared on the screen which distracted attention away from the target. To manipulate the degree of distraction, we varied the spatial distance and the stimulus-onset asynchrony between target and singleton. Temporal preparation for the target varied by means of constant foreperiods of different lengths. Though we observed overall faster responding in the case of high temporal preparation in all three experiments, temporal preparation did not reduce spatial distraction by the abrupt onset, even when the spatial position of the target was predictable. In sum, this pattern of results does not provide support for an influence of temporal preparation on spatial selection. Instead, it indicates that temporal preparation affects early visual processing in a non-selective manner.     

Does materialism predict racism? materialism as a distinctive social attitude and a predictor of prejudice

Previous research reported that Right‐Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) constitute the individual's ideological space and are strong dispositional determinants of racism. In the present study, materialism was examined as a third social attitude and a potential predictor of racism. In a student (N = 183) and heterogeneous adult sample (N = 176) analyses revealed that RWA, SDO and materialism constitute three separate dimensions and that each of them explains a unique part of the variance in racism. In addition, Structural Equation Modelling showed that the relationship between materialism and racism was largely mediated by selfish motives. In the discussion we go further into the role of materialism as a third social attitudinal dimension. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Do pulmonary function and smoking behavior predict cognitive function? findings from a british sample

Abstract

The relationship of smoking behavior, pulmonary function, and four measures of cognitive function was studied in a sample of 4,399 men and women (mean age = 44.7 f 17.1 years; age range: 18 to 94 years) randomly selected from British electoral registers. Each subject was assessed with a face-to-face structured interview (including demographic data, smoking history, and health-related questions) as well as cognitive testing [simple reaction time (SRT), choice reaction time (CRT), incidental memory, and spatial reasoning] and pulmonary function testing. Results indicated that smoking was associated with somewhat better performance on the CRT and memory tasks, and that smoking behavior was not associated with decrements in cognitive performance. Impaired pulmonary function was generally associated with poorer cognitive performance on all of the cognitive measures, suggesting that pulmonary function may be a relevant factor to consider in experimental studies of smoking and cognitive function among healthy adults.     

Does a theory of language need a grammar? Evidence from Hebrew root structure

Hebrew constrains the occurrence of identical consonants in its roots: Identical consonants are acceptable root finally (e.g., skk), but not root initially (e.g., kks). Speakers' ability to freely generalize this constraint to novel phonemes (Berent, Marcus, Shimron, & Gafos, 2002) suggests that they represent segment identity-a relation among mental variables. An alternative account attributes the restriction on identical phonemes to their feature similarity, captured by either the number of shared features or their statistical frequency. The similarity account predicts that roots with partially similar consonants (e.g., sgk) should be at least as acceptable as roots with fully identical consonants (e.g., skk), and each of these roots should be less acceptable than dissimilar controls (e.g., gdn). Contrary to these predictions, three lexical decision experiments demonstrate that full identity is more acceptable than partial similarity and (in some cases) controls. Speakers' sensitivity to consonant identity suggests that linguistic competence, in general, and phonology, in particular, encompass a computational mechanism that operates over variables. This conclusion is consistent with linguistic accounts that postulate a symbolic grammatical component that is irreducible to the statistical properties of the lexicon.     

Does social environment influence learning ability in a family-living lizard?

Early developmental environment can have profound effects on individual physiology, behaviour, and learning. In birds and mammals, social isolation during development is known to negatively affect learning ability; yet in other taxa, like reptiles, the effect of social isolation during development on learning ability is unknown. We investigated how social environment affects learning ability in the family-living tree skink (Egernia striolata). We hypothesized that early social environment shapes cognitive development in skinks and predicted that skinks raised in social isolation would have reduced learning ability compared to skinks raised socially. Offspring were separated at birth into two rearing treatments: (1) raised alone or (2) in a pair. After 1 year, we quantified spatial learning ability of skinks in these rearing treatments (N = 14 solitary, 14 social). We found no effect of rearing treatment on learning ability. The number of skinks to successfully learn the task, the number of trials taken to learn the task, the latency to perform the task, and the number of errors in each trial did not differ between isolated and socially reared skinks. Our results were unexpected, yet the facultative nature of this species’ social system may result in a reduced effect of social isolation on behaviour when compared to species with obligate sociality. Overall, our findings do not provide evidence that social environment affects development of spatial learning ability in this family-living lizard.     

Does rapid response to two group psychotherapies for binge eating disorder predict abstinence?

Objective

Extend understanding of a rapid response (RR) to treatment by examining its prognostic significance at end-of-treatment (EOT) and 1 year follow-up within two group treatments for binge eating disorder (BED): Dialectical Behavior Therapy for BED (DBT-BED) and an active comparison group therapy (ACGT).

Methods

101 adults with BED randomized to 20-weeks DBT-BED versus ACGT (Safer, Robinson, & Jo, 2010). RR defined as ≥65% reduction in the frequency of days of binge eating by week 4. RR across and within treatment conditions used to predict binge eating abstinence and secondary outcomes (e.g., binge eating pathology, treatment attrition) at EOT and 1 year follow-up.

Results

(1) Significantly higher binge eating abstinence for rapid responders (RR; n = 41) vs. non-rapid responders (non-RRs; n = 60) at EOT (70.7% vs. 33.3%) and 1 year follow-up (70.7% vs. 40.0%), respectively, as well as improvement on most secondary measures (2) Significantly less attrition among RRs vs. non-RRs (3) Significantly higher binge eating abstinence rates at both time points for DBT-RRs vs. DBT-non-RRs, but not for ACGT-RRs vs. ACGT-non-RRs.

Conclusions

Current study extends prognostic significance of RR to 1 year follow-up. RR more prominent for those randomly assigned to DBT-BED than ACGT. Implications discussed.     

Gender differences in social support: a question of skill or responsiveness?

Spouses often report that wives provide better social support than husbands. Yet studies observing spouses' supportive interactions challenge this perception, finding no differences between husbands' and wives' supportive behaviors. This article offers reconciliation by suggesting that husbands and wives may differ, not in their skill at providing support, but in their responsiveness to their partners' changing needs over time. Observational and diary data from couples confirmed that, whereas husbands and wives did not differ on average in the support they provided each other, they did differ in the timing of that support. Wives tended to provide better support on days that their husbands experienced greater stress. However, when wives experienced greater stress, their husbands displayed both support and negativity.     

When Does Gender Constrain Parsing? Evidence from ERPs

We review the implications of recent ERP evidence for when and how grammatical gender agreement constrains sentence parsing. In some theories of parsing, gender is assumed to immediately and categorically block gender-incongruent phrase structure alternatives from being pursued. In other theories, the parser initially ignores gender altogether. The ERP evidence we discuss suggests an intermediate position, in which grammatical gender does not immediately block gender-incongruent phrase structures from being considered, but is used to dispose of them shortly thereafter.     

Does Happiness Increase in Old Age? Longitudinal Evidence from 20 European Countries

Journal of Happiness Studies - Several studies indicate that happiness follows a U-shape over the life cycle: Happiness decreases after the teenage years until reaching its nadir in middle age. A...     

Does auditory streaming require attention? Evidence from attentional selectivity in short-term memory

R. P. Carlyon, R. Cusack, J. M. Foxton, and I. H. Robertson (2001) have argued that attention is crucial for auditory streaming. The authors review R. P. Carlyon et al.'s (2001) arguments and suggest that a pertinent literature, the irrelevant sound paradigm--demonstrating preattentive auditory streaming--has been overlooked. In illustration of this alternative approach, the authors include a novel single experiment demonstrating the impact of preattentive auditory streaming on short-term serial memory. It is concluded that R. P. Carlyon et al.'s (2001) results do not definitively demonstrate that auditory streaming processes are dependent on attention; indeed, they are compatible with alternative accounts of the relationship between perceptual organization and attention.     

IV. Does a generalized Heisenberg principle operate in the social sciences?

It is argued that a generalization of Heisenberg's principle of indeterminacy is possible in the social sciences. The empirical grounds for this contention lie with interference phenomena induced by transference distortions that may occur when human beings investigate the behaviour of one another.     

Gender Bias in Leader Selection? Evidence from a Hiring Simulation Study

The present research investigated factors that might affect gender discrimination in a hiring simulation context from the perspectives of social role theory and the shifting standards model. Specifically, the experimental study investigated whether gender biases are evident in the screening and hiring stage of the personnel selection process depending on the applicants?? social role and evaluators?? gender. A sample of German undergraduate business students (54 women, 53 men) was asked to make a personnel selection decision (short-listing or hiring) about a fictitious applicant (man or woman) in a specific role (leader or non-leader) for a managerial position. Consistent with social role theory??s assumption that social role information is more influential than gender information, participants selected applicants described as leaders over applicants described as non-leaders, regardless of applicant gender. In addition, in the presence of role information, female applicants portrayed as leaders were similarly short-listed and hired as male applicants with the same credentials. In the absence of role information, female applicants were similarly short-listed as male applicants; however, male applicants were hired over female applicants, albeit by male participants only. This is consistent with the shifting standards model??s assumption that group members are held to a higher standard to confirm traits on which they are perceived to be deficient: Male participants hired female applicants portrayed as non-leaders with less certainty than their male counterparts possibly due to higher confirmatory standards for leadership ability in women than men. The research and practice implications of these results are discussed.     

Does social motivation mitigate fear caused by a sudden sound in horses?

Animal Cognition - Living in a herd has multiple advantages for social species and is a primary survival strategy for prey. The presence of conspecifics, identified as a social buffer, may mitigate...     

Does infancy matter? predicting social behavior from infant temperament

In this essay we argue that infant temperament, defined as behavioral styles that appear early in life as a direct result of neurobiological factors, plays a significant role in the development and expression of social behavior. Temperament may be studied using a typological or dimensional approach and the relations between early temperament and later behavior can be examined in terms of homotypic or heterotypic continuity. The implication of each of these approaches for understanding the influence of infant temperament on social development is examined. As well, utilizing data from our laboratory, we suggest that under certain circumstances one can predict social behavior by identifying two temperament types in infancy. These types are high reactive/high negative infants and high reactive/high positive infants. A significant proportion of the high reactive/high negative infants display behavioral inhibition and social reticence through the preschool years, whereas a significant proportion of the high reactive/high positive infants display exuberance and positive social interaction through the preschool period.