Privacy and control: Are they related?

This study examines the relationship of privacy preference with sense of control over privacy, and the discrepancy between desired and actual privacy. Results indicate that (a) sense of control is a fairly good predictor of privacy preference, (b) most subjects report low actual privacy than desired, and the highest desired privacy was in the case of intimacy, (c) discrepancy between desired and actual privacy significantly relates to privacy preference, and sense of control was significantly related to the discrepancy between desired and actual privacy. The results suggest that the experience of control is a significant external correlate of privacy preference.     

Work values and work interests: Are they the same?

The hypothesis that the VPI and WVI are measuring the same domain based on theoretical similarities was tested using 195 male freshmen students. The data were analyzed by correlational technique including discriminant analysis. The results allow for the interpretation that the VPI and WVI are in fact measuring two distinctive domains.     

Number and language: how are they related?

Does the ability to develop numerical concepts depend on our ability to use language? We consider the role of the vocabulary of counting words in developing numerical concepts. We challenge the 'bootstrapping' theory which claims that children move from using something like an object-file - an attentional process for responding to small numerosities - to a truly arithmetic one as a result of their learning the counting words. We also question the interpretation of recent findings from Amazonian cultures that have very restricted number vocabularies. Our review of data and theory, along with neuroscientific evidence, imply that numerical concepts have an ontogenetic origin and a neural basis that are independent of language.     

Religion and medicine: How are they related?

This paper provides a comprehensive and dynamic profile of religion-medicine interrelationships. This profile is drawn from the respective characteristics of religion and medicine, as well as from historic and contemporary literature regarding their interconnections. Six symbiotic functions are identified and discussed with respect to their bearing on clinical practice, medical education, and research.The authors thank Drs. Chester R. Burns, Thomas H. Murray, and Ronald A. Carson for their comments on drafts of this paper.     

Suicide and the contemporary woman: Are male and female suicide rates converging?

Nationwide statistics on White suicide rates for the years 1960–1978 are examined to assess whether the suicide rates of women are increasing relative to those of men. This is accomplished by calculating for the total population and for several age groupings the sex differential (SD), which is defined as the percentage of suicides which are female after adjustments are made for the sex distribution in the population. The data reveal that the SD narrowed from 1960–1967, held steady from 1968–1972, and then widened slightly from 1973–1978. The most important aspects of these trends are that (a) the narrowing of the SD is due more to declining suicide rates among older (over-40) males than to increasing female suicide rates, and (b) the narrowing of the SD and the small increases in female suicide rates occurred prior to 1970 and thus were earlier than would be expected on the basis of changing sex-role expectations. Post hoc explanations of these patterns refer to methodological factors and to changes in social integration resulting from a variety of sociohistorical factors.     

Female and male intravenous drug users not-in-treatment: Are they at differential risk for AIDS?

We describe and compare the drug-use patterns of ethnically diverse (45% white, 39% African American, 15% Hispanic) female and male intravenous drug users (IVDUs) not-in-treatment. Focusing on a group of hard-to-reach and economically disadvantaged IVDUs, we were able to document drug use patterns and practices that have been shown to place them at increased risk for AIDS. We were also able to examine if women IVDUs were at differential risk for AIDS in comparison to men IVDUs. Results indicated that female IVDUs practices may place them differentially at risk for contracting HIV because they were more likely than male IVDUs to share needles. When female IVDUs shared needles, they were also more likely than male IVDUs to share needles with a spouse or sexual partner. We argue that these results may be tied to gender role socialization and have important implications for designing interventions for female IVDUs.This research was supported by Grant DA01070 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to the second author.     

Sexual preferences: Are they useful in the assessment and treatment of sexual offenders?

In this paper, we review the evidence on the relevance of sexual preferences for the assessment and treatment of sexual offenders. We conclude that there is limited value to phallometric assessments and that the modification of sexual preferences may not be essential to effective treatment.     

The Zeigarnik effect and intrinsic motivation: Are they the same?

The present study focused on delineating the parameters under which intrinsic motivation leads an individual to reengage an activity from those that result in the Zeigarnik effect. In a posttask free-choice period, participants not completing the experimental task displayed more reengagement behavior than participants completing the task (the Zeigarnik effect). When participants were also provided self-efficacious performance feedback via a prearranged competitive outcome manipulation, there was no evidence of the Zeigarnik effect, while there was support for intrinsic motivation from competent self-efficacious performance feedback. Results were discussed in terms of distinguishing between intrinsic motivation and the Zeigarnik effect as sources of reengagement motivation. It was concluded that, in the presence of self-efficacious performance feedback, the competent-incompetent impression was more salient than task-completion feedback.Preparation of this article was supported by Texas Christian University grant TCU/RF 5-23757.     

Intentionality and meta-awareness of mind wandering: Are they one and the same,or distinct dimensions?

Researchers have recently demonstrated that mind-wandering episodes can vary on numerous dimensions, and it has been suggested that assessing these dimensions will play an important role in our understanding of mind wandering. One dimension that has received considerable attention in recent work is the intentionality of mind wandering. Although it has been claimed that indexing the intentionality of mind wandering will be necessary if researchers are to obtain a coherent understanding of the wandering mind, one concern is that this dimension might be redundant with another, longstanding, dimension: namely, meta-awareness. Thus, the utility of the argument for assessing intentionality rests upon a demonstration that this dimension is distinct from the meta-awareness dimension. To shed light on this issue, across two studies we compared and contrasted these dimensions to determine whether they are redundant or distinct. In both studies, we found support for the view that these dimensions are distinct.     

Study strategies of college students: Are self-testing and scheduling related to achievement?

Previous studies, such as those by Kornell and Bjork (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14:219–224, 2007) and Karpicke, Butler, and Roediger (Memory, 17:471–479, 2009), have surveyed college students’ use of various study strategies, including self-testing and rereading. These studies have documented that some students do use self-testing (but largely for monitoring memory) and rereading, but the researchers did not assess whether individual differences in strategy use were related to student achievement. Thus, we surveyed 324 undergraduates about their study habits as well as their college grade point average (GPA). Importantly, the survey included questions about self-testing, scheduling one’s study, and a checklist of strategies commonly used by students or recommended by cognitive research. Use of self-testing and rereading were both positively associated with GPA. Scheduling of study time was also an important factor: Low performers were more likely to engage in late-night studying than were high performers; massing (vs. spacing) of study was associated with the use of fewer study strategies overall; and all students—but especially low performers—were driven by impending deadlines. Thus, self-testing, rereading, and scheduling of study play important roles in real-world student achievement.     

Are boundary extension and representational momentum related?

Boundary extension (BE) is misremembering more of a particular scene than actually presented. Representational momentum (RM) is misremembering the final position of a moving object as further along its implied trajectory. There is a sense in which both BE and RM are predictions, and the current experiments explore the possibility that these are related phenomena. We showed participants single photographs to measure baseline BE, and then approach sequences and measured BE and RM. We found significant BE and RM, and a significant interaction between baseline BE and BE following an approach sequence, but no interaction with RM. The initial evidence suggests that BE and RM are separate processes, and that BE (the establishing of spatial layout) occurs before RM (the continuation of movement) within a scene.     

Are parents' and children's thinking styles related?

This study extends the investigation of the validity of Sternberg's theory of mental self-government to mainland Chinese secondary school students and their parents. The assumption of a 'socialization effect' underlying the theory was subjected to broader investigation. 232 students and their parents responded to a range of demographic questions and to the Thinking Styles Inventory which is based on Sternberg's theory. The two major findings are that (1) Sternberg's theory is valid with both samples, and (2) students' thinking styles are related not only to their personal factors, e.g., sex, grade, and self-rated abilities, but also to their parents' thinking styles. These findings have implications for school teachers and counselors as well as for parents.     

Are the Russians as Unhappy as they say they are?

Since the 1980s, several polls in Russia have included questions about happiness. The responses to these questions were quite similar. Average happiness was low in comparison to other nations and declined over time. Ten years after the fall of communism Russians are less happy than during the communist period.There are doubts about the validity of these self-reports. One source of doubt is that these data may not reflect Russians' self-appraisals adequately, due to distortions in translation and a differential response bias. A second misgiving is that true discontent could be rather superficial, and be largely due to unfavorable comparison with the West and folklore of negativism.These qualms are checked in this article. It appears that the Russians are as unhappy as they say they are, and that they have good reasons to be so. The current unhappiness is not due to the Russian national character, but has more to do with the troublesome transitions taking place in Russian society.     

Morphemic relationships in the lexicon: Are they distinct from semantic and formal relationships?

The influence of morphemic relationships on the repetition priming effect, which is presumed to provide an index of lexical organization, was examined in several experiments. An attempt was made in all experiments to minimize nonlexical contributions to these lexical effects by placing related items in a context of unrelated items. Priming among regularly and irregularly suffixed morphemic relatives, associates, and synonyms was examined. Morphemic relatives and associates yielded significant priming, although priming was largest for regularly suffixed morphemic relatives. Priming was not obtained for synonyms. In previous research (Napps & Fowler, 1987), priming was not found among orthographically and phonologically related words. The results are interpreted to mean that morphemic priming is not the result of the convergence of semantic, orthographic, and phonological relationships, but rather that morphemic relationships are represented explicitly in the lexicon.     

Motivational systems of social behavior in male rats and monkeys: Are they homologous?

A comparison is presented between the behaviors of male rats and male stumptail macaques that occur when two unfamiliar males are paired for 10 min. Results which have been presented in detail in separate papers elsewhere are compared and discussed here in terms of the hypothetical organization of motivational systems. The following motivational mechanisms appear to be homologous in the rat and monkey: offense, defense, submission, male sex, self grooming, and allogrooming. Two motivational mechanisms are analogous but not homologous: patrol/marking in the rat and display in the monkey. There is a shift in sensory modality of motivating stimuli from olfaction in the rat to complex visual and auditory stimuli in the monkey. There is also a shift in the modalities of motor patterns from predominant use of the mouth by the rat to use of the hands by the monkey. Both shifts affect most or all motivational systems of social behavior. It is hypothesized that the outer parts of motivational systems, their sensory and motor interfaces with the environment, change more rapidly and incrementally during the course of mammalian evolution than does the inner part, the integrational portion that consists of the motivational mechanisms.     

Primary and Secondary Caregiver Reports of Quality of Life in Pediatric Asthma: Are they Comparable?

This study aimed to compare primary and secondary caregiver QOL within families of children with asthma and determine the potential importance of including secondary caregiver QOL in clinical and research settings. Participants included 118 families of children with asthma that had primary and secondary caregivers. Families completed measures in a single research session. Caregivers reported on QOL, psychological functioning, and family burden; children completed a measure of QOL. Child lung function was determined from objective spirometry. Adherence to prescribed controller medication was measured for 6 weeks following the research visit. Primary caregiver QOL was significantly lower than secondary caregiver QOL (Mean overall QOL of 5.85 versus 6.17, p < .05). Better medication adherence was associated with higher primary caregiver QOL (ρ = .22, p = .02); secondary caregiver QOL, not primary caregiver QOL, was positively associated with child QOL (ρ = .20, p = .03). Families with discrepant QOL scores between caregivers (difference in scores of at least .50) were characterized by more family burden and primary caregiver psychological symptoms. Differences in QOL scores between caregivers may be a reflection of primary caregivers’ greater investment in daily asthma management. In families reporting low burden and few psychological difficulties in the primary caregiver, QOL assessments from either caregiver may may be informative and representative of how parents are adapting to child asthma. In families experiencing high levels of burden or more primary caregiver psychological difficulties, QOL reports from secondary caregivers may not be as clinically meaningful.     

Dementia and agitation in nursing home residents: how are they related?

The link between agitated behaviors and cognitive functioning in 408 nursing home residents was examined. Results showed that cognitively impaired residents manifested aggressive behaviors (e.g., cursing, hitting) and physically nonaggressive behaviors (e.g., pacing). The highest levels of physically nonaggressive behaviors were manifested by those residents who presented intermediate levels of impairment in their performance of activities of daily living. Cognitively intact residents exhibited verbally agitated behaviors (e.g., complaining). These findings have important implications for caregivers of agitated nursing home residents.