Alcohol-related expectancies for self and others reported by alcoholic men and women.

A questionnaire used by Rohsenow in 1983 was administered to 87 alcoholic men and women taking part in rehabilitation programs at local Swedish outpatient rehabilitation clinics. The purpose was to explore their alcohol-related expectancies for themselves and for others and to compare these with the results from other similar studies in other cultures. The answers, scored according to Rohsenow's eight factors, indicated that alcoholics expected larger positive and negative effects for others than for themselves. This discrepancy was slightly modified by such variables as sex, age, and drinking habits. Alcoholics in Sweden seem to have alcohol-related expectancies similar to those of social drinkers both in Sweden and in other Western countries.     

Mood state changes of women as a function of regular aerobic exercise

The present study examined mood states of aerobic exercisers before and after completing a 15-wk. program. The subjects (ages 18 to 36 yr.) were 86 women enrolled in activity classes at a large state school in the southeast. Subjects were initially classified according to previous exercise habits. Analysis indicated both groups of frequent and infrequent exercisers were similar in mood states. Participation in regular exercise did not significantly change or enhance the mood states from pretreatment measures. Pretest measures of mood states provided poor prediction of posttest measures, indicating extreme variability in subjects' scores.     

The effectiveness of men and women in problem-solving groups as a function of group gender composition

Previous research suggests that the fewer women in a group, the less likely their ideas will be considered. The present study was designed to test the effect of gender composition on women's influence. Thirty groups were asked to solve two problems, first as individuals, then as groups. Composition and gender of the subject receiving a helpful clue were varied. Subjects rated the second task and members of the group, and a Bales Interaction Analysis was conducted. Results indicated that men were more influential than women only when in the minority, that women had smaller proportions of leadership acts than men, and that some stereotyped attitudes existed. Results were discussed in terms of previous findings, and suggestions for future research were made.     

Self-reported arousal Factorial complexity as a function of the subject's arousal level

Abstract.— The factorial stability of a previously constructed six-factor check-list for self-reported arousal was studied in three different situations which were conceived of as inducing different levels of arousal, viz. in the evening before going to bed, at a lecture, and at an examination. The analyses showed that the six factors obtained in the Lecture group were reduced to five in the Examination group and to four in the Evening group. This reduction was due to a combination of the items from pairs of the original factors into one factor. Significant differences between the three groups were obtained in all factors but one. The results were regarded as support for the usefulness of the six-factor instrument, the implication being that one or two of the factors in some situations might be redundant. The relevance of the results for a previously proposed model of arousal was discussed.     

Self-focused attention and the experience of alcoholic intoxication

The present study investigates the relationship between self-focused attention and the experience of emotional and bodily concomitants of alcoholic intoxication. It was hypothesized that self-focused attention would amplify salient mood and bodily concomitants of intoxication after alcohol intake and counteract these concomitants after placebo treatment. Self-focused attention was assessed by measures of private body consciousness, private self-consciousness, and of self-awareness. Since alcohol intake did not influence mood, it was not possible to test our main-hypothesis linking self-focused attention with the experience of mood concomitants of intoxication. As to bodily concomitants of intoxication a strong effect of alcohol intake was disclosed. Further analysis revealed the predicted relationship between self-awareness and private body consciousness on one hand and the experience of bodily concomitants of intoxication, on the other. The relationship between private body consciousness and experience of bodily concomitants of intoxication was moderated by the amount of experience with alcohol. No significant relationship between private self-consciousness and experience of bodily concomitants of intoxication was found.     

Interpreting infant emotional expressions: Parenthood has differential effects on men and women

Interpreting and responding to an infant's emotional cues is a fundamental parenting skill. Responsivity to infant cues is frequently disrupted in depression, impacting negatively on child outcomes, which underscores its importance. It is widely assumed that women, and in particular mothers, show greater attunement to infants than do men. However, empirical evidence for sex and parental status effects, particularly in relation to perception of infant emotion, has been lacking. In this study, men and women with and without young infants were asked to rate valence in a range of infant facial expressions, on a scale of very positive to very negative. Results suggested complex interaction effects between parental status, sex, and the facial expression being rated. Mothers provided more positive ratings of the happy expressions and more extreme ratings of the intense emotion expressions than fathers, but non-mothers and non-fathers did not. Low-level depressive symptoms were also found to correlate with more negative ratings of negative infant facial expressions across the entire sample. Overall, these results suggest that parental status might have differential effects on men and women's appraisal of infant cues. Differences between fathers’ and mothers’ perceptions of infant emotion might be of interest in understanding variance in interaction styles, such as proportion of time spent in play.     

Stereotyping and action tendencies attribution as a function of available emotional information

In three experiments, we addressed the role of stereotypes in the attribution of action tendencies in intergroup contexts. We hypothesized that stereotyping would affect the attribution of action tendencies to out‐group members. Participants were presented with a facial expression displayed by either an in‐group or an out‐group member, followed by the presentation of a label describing an action tendency. They were then asked whether the label corresponded to the feeling state of the expresser. Study 1 tested whether stereotypes influence the attribution of action tendencies to out‐group members. Study 2 tested whether stereotype application varies as a function of the emotional information contained in the facial stimuli (i.e. neutral vs. emotional). Finally, Study 3 tested whether stereotype activation is indirectly determined by a difference in morphology between in‐group and out‐group members or directly determined by the expresser's group membership. As predicted, an increase in attribution of stereotypic action tendencies was observed for out‐group expressers. The application of stereotypes was specifically observed when facial expressions were neutral as compared to emotional and was independent of morphological differences between in‐group and out‐group faces. Such biases in interpreting out‐group members feeling states may play a crucial role in the maintenance of intergroup prejudice. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Post-event spontaneous intrusive recollections and strength of memory for emotional events in men and women

Spontaneous intrusive recollections (SIRs) follow traumatic events in clinical and non-clinical populations. To determine whether any relationship exists between SIRs and enhanced memory for emotional events, participants viewed emotional or neutral films, had their memory for the films tested two days later, and estimated the number of SIRs they experienced for each film. SIR frequency related positively to memory strength, an effect more pronounced in the emotional condition. These findings represent the first demonstration of a relationship between SIRs occurring after an emotional experience and subsequent memory strength for that experience. The results are consistent with the possibility that emotional arousal leads both to elevated SIR frequency and better memory, and that the covert rehearsal associated with SIRs enhances memory for emotional relative to neutral stimuli. Additional evidence of menstrual cycle influences on SIR incidence in female participants appears to merit consideration in future work.     

Interindividual-intergroup discontinuity as a function of trust and categorization: the paradox of expected cooperation

Two experiments used a 3-choice variation of the prisoner's dilemma game to explore the paradoxical implications of expected cooperation of other groups and individuals for competitiveness and cooperativeness. Experiment 1 found that an experimental manipulation of opponent trustworthiness influenced the tendency of both groups and individuals to cooperate but had no significant effect on the tendency of groups and individuals to compete--possibly because of the perceived unfairness of competing with a trustworthy other. Experiment 2 found that an experimental manipulation of categorization increased the tendency of same-category groups and individuals to cooperate (as in Experiment 1) and also increased the tendency of same-category groups, but not individuals, to compete (unlike in Experiment 1). It was further found that the tendency of same-category groups to compete more than same-category individuals was relatively stronger for participants high in guilt proneness.     

Differences in the drinking behavior between alcoholic men and women in the Schwerin district]

The present paper demonstrates some typical differences in drinking behaviour between female and male alcoholics. We investigated especially the difference in quantities of consumed pure alcohol. The ratio of the mean consumption per year by women and men was 1 : 1,9. The difference in due to differences in the drinking habits and a different alcoholic tolerance in both sexes. Generally we found that in both family and society alcohol abuse is less tolerated in women.     

The acquisition of conditioned emotional response as a function of intertrial interval

The effects of intertrial interval (ITI) and foreperiod duration on the acquisition of a conditioned emotional response were investigated using a four-trial conditioning procedure. The optimum ITI was found to be 60 s with a bidirectional gradient for conditioned suppression above and below 60 s. Conditioned supression was found to be directly related to foreperiod duration.     

Effects of alcohol abuse and familial alcoholism on physical health in men and women

Detoxified alcoholic men (n = 76) and women (n = 72) and nonalcoholic control men (n = 50) and women (n = 51) were given a structured interview that assessed five categories of physical health: medical history, alcohol-related disorders, trauma history, drug use history, and, for females, female-related disorders. Approximately half the subjects in each group were family history positive for alcoholism. Significant differences between alcoholics and controls were found for all five categories; family history effects were significant for four of the five categories, and sex differences were present in two categories. The results indicate that (a) alcoholics suffer pervasive physical health difficulties, (b) a family history of alcoholism is predictive of health problems in both alcoholics and controls, (c) the effects of alcohol abuse and family history of alcoholism on health appear to be independent and additive, and (d) women may be more "illness prone" than men and exhibit an increased vulnerability to the adverse effects of alcoholism.     

Control orientation as a personality dimension among alcoholic and obese adult men undergoing addictions treatment.

Rotter's (1966) I-E Locus of Control Scale was administered to 18 men in residential treatment for alcoholism and 13 men in intensive outpatient treatment for obesity. The obese sample scored significantly higher in internal locus of control, whereas the alcoholic sample was comparatively external in control orientation. These findings contradict currently held assumptions on the directionality of control orientation among both alcoholic and obese adults and suggest that internally oriented obese adults may feel that they have little control over their weight and eating behavior but more control over other aspects of their lives. In contrast, externally oriented alcoholics appear to be aware of their inability to control their drinking and their limited control over many factors influencing their lives. Implications for treatment are also discussed.     

Familiarity changes as a function of perceptual shifts

This experiment compares the yes-no and forced recognition tests as methods of measuring familiarity. Participants faced a phase of 3 study-test recognition trials in which they studied words using all the letters of the alphabet (overlapping condition, O), and an additional phase in which targets and lures did not share any letters (non-overlapping condition, NO). Finally, subjects performed a forced-choice task in which they had to choose one of two new words, each from one of the subsets (Parkin et al., 2001). Results in the NO condition were better than in the O condition in the yes-no recognition test, while the forced-choice rate was significantly higher than .50, showing their sensitivity to familiarity. When the letter set of the words for study in the third list of the NO condition was switched, the difference between NO and O conditions disappeared in yes-no test, while the force-choice rate was not higher than .50. We conclude that both the yes-no test and the forced-choice test are valid and equivalent measures of familiarity under the right conditions.