Self-reported comfort in athletic training to same- and opposite-sex athletes

To assess the comfort of athletic trainers in providing care to athletes of the same- and opposite-sex, the Gender Comfort in Athletic Training Questionnaire was developed. Cronbach alpha was .72. The 8-item questionnaire was mailed to 235 participants, who were senior athletic training students and clinical instructors affiliated with 14 university athletic training programs. 192 questionnaires were returned (82%). Only one t test showed a significant mean difference in reported comfort between women (n= 103, M=2.8, SD= 0.8; disagree) and men (n= 89, M=3.1, SD=0.8; neutral) on the statement: I feel more comfortable providing athletic training services to male athletes than female athletes. The women and men in this sample were similar in their self-ratings of comfort in providing athletic training services to male and female athletes.     

The perception of erotic arousal in men and women by same- and opposite-sex peers

Recent empirical evidence suggests that males and females differ very little in their response to erotica. Yet public opinion suggests that there are indeed differences: perceived differences. The present study explored two possibilities why these perceived differences continue to exist. One basis for such differences would be that both males and females see males as being more aroused (or arousable) by erotic stimuli, that is, a pure gender stereotype. A second possibility, suggested by Griffitt (1973), is that individuals who are asked to indicate how they think others would respond depend primarily on a projection process to make these attributions. The results of the study suggest that the latter process is more typical of males than of females; and that the former process is partially true for females, who tend as well to view all others (males and females) as being more aroused by erotic stimuli than they themselves are.This research was supported in part by Research Grant MH 16351-02 from the National Institute of Mental Health to the second author and is based in part on a paper delivered at the International Conference on Love and Attraction, Swansea, Wales, 1977. The authors wish to thank Glenn Littlepage and Rita Steifel for their assistance.     

The effect of anticipated future interaction on reward allocation in same- and opposite-sex dyads

Hypotheses were tested concerning the relationship of anticipated future interaction and sex of allocator vs. sex of recipient on reward allocation norm choice. Male and female college students worked on a sex-neutral, attributionally ambiguous task. Subjects participated in same- and mixed-sex dyads, but were kept isolated from one another. All received feedback that they had contributed higher input than their partner and had been randomly chosen to apportion a group reward. The primary dependent variable was amount of reward allocated to self. As predicted, there was a significant difference in allocation norm choice in the no future interaction condition (with males favoring equity and females employing equality), while both sexes divided the reward equally between themselves and the coworker in the future interaction condition. A model was proposed to explain these findings in terms of a continuum of social interaction levels. Rather than being viewed as independent causal entities, sex of allocator and sex of recipient were demonstrated to play roles of differing importance as a function of the level of interaction experienced or anticipated.     

Friends with benefits: on the positive consequences of pet ownership

Social support is critical for psychological and physical well-being, reflecting the centrality of belongingness in our lives. Human interactions often provide people with considerable social support, but can pets also fulfill one's social needs? Although there is correlational evidence that pets may help individuals facing significant life stressors, little is known about the well-being benefits of pets for everyday people. Study 1 found in a community sample that pet owners fared better on several well-being (e.g., greater self-esteem, more exercise) and individual-difference (e.g., greater conscientiousness, less fearful attachment) measures. Study 2 assessed a different community sample and found that owners enjoyed better well-being when their pets fulfilled social needs better, and the support that pets provided complemented rather than competed with human sources. Finally, Study 3 brought pet owners into the laboratory and experimentally demonstrated the ability of pets to stave off negativity caused by social rejection. In summary, pets can serve as important sources of social support, providing many positive psychological and physical benefits for their owners.     

Relational benefits of relational aggression: adaptive and maladaptive associations with adolescent friendship quality

Two longitudinal studies examined associations between relational aggression and friendship quality during adolescence. In Study 1, 62 adolescents in Grades 6 (25.8%), 7 (32.3%), and 8 (41.9%) completed assessments of friendship affiliations, relational and overt aggression, and friendship quality at 2 time points, 1 year apart. Results using actor partner interdependence modeling indicated that high levels of relational aggression predicted increases in self-reported positive friendship quality 1 year later. In Study 2, 56 adolescents in Grades 9 (66.7%) and 10 (33.3%) attended a laboratory session with a friend in which their conversations were videotaped and coded for relationally aggressive talk. Target adolescents completed measures of positive and negative friendship quality during the laboratory session and during a follow-up phone call 6 months later. Analyses revealed that high levels of relationally aggressive talk at Time 1 predicted increases in negative friendship quality 6 months later. In addition, among adolescents involved in a reciprocal best friendship, high levels of observed relationally aggressive talk predicted increases in positive friendship quality over time. Taken together, these studies provide support for the idea that relational aggression may be associated with adaptive as well as maladaptive outcomes within the dyadic context of adolescent friendship.     

Selective attention and control of action: comparative psychology of an artificial, evolved agent and people

This study examined the selective attention abilities of a simple, artificial, evolved agent and considered implications of the agent's performance for theories of selective attention and action. The agent processed two targets in continuous time, catching one and then the other. This task required many cognitive operations, including prioritizing the first target (T1) over the second (T2); selectively focusing responses on T1, while preventing T2 from interfering with responses; creating a memory for the unselected T2 item, so that it could be efficiently processed later; and reallocating processing towards T2 after catching T1. The evolved agent demonstrated all these abilities. Analysis shows that the agent used reactive inhibition to selectively focus behavior. That is, the more salient T2, the more strongly responses towards T2 were inhibited and the slower the agent was to subsequently reallocate processing towards T2. Reactive inhibition was also suggested in two experiments with people, performing a virtually identical catch task. The presence of reactive inhibition in the simple agent and in people suggests that it is an important mechanism for selective processing.     

Sexual willingness with same- and other-sex prospective partners: Experimental evidence from the bar scene

Sex is ubiquitous in the media, but only a fraction depicts sexual interactions between same-sex partners. This field study, conducted outside of bars in the Midwestern United States, examined 83 heterosexuals’ sexual willingness with a same- or other-sex partner. Participants viewed a randomly assigned video vignette of a same- or other-sex partner. Alcohol intake, partner attractiveness, and sexual willingness were measured. Using moderated regression analysis, we found that alcohol intake predicted sexual willingness with the male target for both men and women, but not with the female target. The attractiveness of same-sex partners was related to sexual willingness. Sexual willingness was only influenced by alcohol intake and perceived attractiveness of a same-sex prospective partner. Most notably, alcohol intake was related to increased sexual willingness of men with a same-sex partner, suggesting a potential shift in normative casual sexual behavior among heterosexual men.     

Philosophy for psychology: Reality ain't what it used to be - perhaps it's evolved!

According to Wittgenstein (<citeref rid="bib37">1980</citeref>): 'Philosophy is the discipline of thinking about thinking'. And 'the object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a theory, but an activity. The theory of knowledge is the philosophy of psychology' (p. 77). This paper is in the nature of a philosophical discourse analysis of the August 2001 issue of The Psychologist (which focused on evolution), illustrating with various examples the need for philosophical rigour in psychological discourse. In particular, Ryle's (<citeref rid="bib31">1966</citeref>) notion of logical category errors is exemplified and explained by samples from the psychological discourse in The Psychologist journal.     

Evaluating a sex-related ability: Comparison with same-, opposite-, and combined-sex norms

A study was conducted to replicate and extend Zanna, Goethals, and Hill's (Zanna, M. P., Goethals, G. R., & Hill, J. F. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1975, 11, 86–93) experiment investigating social comparison choices for evaluating a sex-related ability. In a 2 × 3 design male and female undergraduates received ambiguous feedback about their performance on a test. The test was described as one in which either males typically excel or females typically excel, or no sex differences for performance were mentioned. Subjects were then given the opportunity to select normative comparison information in order to evaluate their performance. Information about same-sex, opposite-sex, and combined (male and female) norms was available. The results showed that interest in same-sex and combined information was high on both first and second choices. Opposite-sex comparisons were of low priority. Same-sex comparisons were of high priority even when sex differences were not made salient. Males and females differed to some extent in their comparison choices. The results suggest that while persons prefer to compare with similar (same-sex) others, they are also interested in making broader kinds of comparisons (with combined-sex norms). The results are discussed in terms of Wilson's (Wilson, S. R. Sociometry, 1973, 36, 600–607) two-process analysis of ability comparison and Goethals and Darley's (Goethals, G., & Darley, J. In J. M. Suls & R. L. Miller (Eds.), Social comparison processes; Theoretical and empirical perspectives. Washington, D. C.: Hemisphere/Halsted/Wiley, 1977) related attribute hypothesis.     

Mimicking attractive opposite-sex others: the role of romantic relationship status

Based on the recent literature indicating that nonconscious behavioral mimicry is partly goal directed, three studies examined, and supported, the hypothesis that people who are involved in a romantic relationship nonconsciously mimic an attractive opposite-sex other to a lesser extent than people not involved in a relationship. Moreover, Studies 2 and 3 revealed that romantically involved persons tended to mimic an attractive alternative less to the extent that they were more close to their current partner. Finally, Study 3 provided preliminary support for a potential underlying mechanism, revealing that the effect of relationship status on level of mimicry displayed toward an opposite-sex other is mediated by perceived attractiveness of the opposite-sex other. The present findings suggest that behavioral mimicry serves an implicit self-regulatory function in relationship maintenance. Implications for both the literature on relationship maintenance and the literature on behavioral mimicry are discussed.     

Social psychology at the crossroads: Its encounter with cognitive and ecological psychology and the interactive perspective

This article discusses the implications for social psychology of recent developments in the neighbouring fields of cognitive and ecological psychology. The authors stress the importance of studying the cognitive processes directly instead of inferring them as hypothetical constructs from aggregate responses. This paradigmatic shift implies a change in the conduct of research from the traditional nomothetic perspective to a neo-idiographic one. A method of representational contextualization is offred to generate the affective and cognitive deep structure from surface, first order data. This structure identified as the internal environment, reflects simultaneously the construction of reality by a situated individual and the recoding rules operating in such a construction.     

Encoding geometric and non-geometric information: a study with evolved agents

Vertebrate species use geometric information and non-geometric or featural cues to orient. Under some circumstances, when both geometric and non-geometric information are available, the geometric information overwhelms non-geometric cues (geometric primacy). In other cases, we observe the inverse tendency or the successful integration of both cues. In past years, modular explanations have been proposed for the geometric primacy: geometric and non-geometric information are processed separately, with the geometry module playing a dominant role. The modularity issue is related to the recent debate on the encoding of geometric information: is it innate or does it depend on environmental experience? In order to get insight into the mechanisms that cause the wide variety of behaviors observed in nature, we used Artificial Life experiments. We demonstrated that agents trained mainly with a single class of information oriented efficiently when they were exposed to one class of information (geometric or non-geometric). When they were tested in environments that contained both classes of information, they displayed a primacy for the information that they had experienced more during their training phase. Encoding and processing geometric and non-geometric information was run in a single cognitive neuro-representation. These findings represent a theoretical proof that the exposure frequency to different spatial information during a learning/adaptive history could produce agents with no modular neuro-cognitive systems that are able to process different types of spatial information and display various orientation behaviors (geometric primacy, non-geometric primacy, no primacy at all).     

Prospective associations of co-rumination with friendship and emotional adjustment: considering the socioemotional trade-offs of co-rumination

Co-ruminating, or excessively discussing problems, with friends is proposed to have adjustment tradeoffs. Co-rumination is hypothesized to contribute both to positive friendship adjustment and to problematic emotional adjustment. Previous single-assessment research was consistent with this hypothesis, but whether co-rumination is an antecedent of adjustment changes was unknown. A 6-month longitudinal study with middle childhood to midadolescent youths examined whether co-rumination is simultaneously a risk factor (for depression and anxiety) and a protective factor (for friendship problems). For girls, a reciprocal relationship was found in which co-rumination predicted increased depressive and anxiety symptoms and increased positive friendship quality over time, which, in turn, contributed to greater co-rumination. For boys, having depressive and anxiety symptoms and high-quality friendships also predicted increased co-rumination. However, for boys, co-rumination predicted only increasing positive friendship quality and not increasing depression and anxiety. An implication of this research is that some girls at risk for developing internalizing problems may go undetected because they have seemingly supportive friendships.     

Prospective associations between friendship adjustment and social strategies: friendship as a context for building social skills

The proposal that friendships provide a context for the development of social skills is widely accepted. Yet little research exists to support this claim. In the present study, children and adolescents (N = 912) were presented with vignettes in which a friend encountered a social stressor and they could help the friend and vignettes in which they encountered a stressor and could seek help from the friend. Social strategies in response to these vignettes were assessed in the fall and spring of the school year. Different indicators of friendship adjustment had unique effects on youths' strategies in response to helping tasks. Whereas having more friends predicted decreases in avoidant or hostile strategies, having high-quality friendships predicted emotionally engaged strategies that involved talking about the problem. Moreover, whereas having more friends predicted increases in relatively disengaged strategies, like distraction and acting like the problem never happened, having high-quality friendships predicted decreases in these strategies. The present study also tested whether youths' strategies in the fall predicted changes in friendship adjustment by the spring. Only strategies which may be seen as major friendship transgressions (i.e., avoiding or blaming the friend when the friend encounters a problem) predicted changes in friendship over time. Collectively, these results provide important new information on the interplay between social competencies and friendship experiences and suggest that friendships may provide a critical venue for the development of important relationship skills.     

A comparison of same- and cross-age interactions in mixed-age groups

This study investigated the types of interactions occurring within and between age groups in mixed-age preschool classes. Using point-time sampling procedures, the peer interactions of 30 3- to 5-year-old preschool children enrolled in two preschool classes were recorded. Interactions were coded according to six categories and according to the role of the target child in the interaction. Contrary to popular assumptions about interactions in mixed-age groups, results indicated that for both the older and younger children the types of interactions occurring across age groups did not differ significantly from interactions within same-age groups. Symmetrical rather than asymmetrical relationships across age groups were found in the exchange of nurturance, direction and information.     

Memory of a speaker's voice: Reaction time to same- or different-voiced letters

Subjects were presented with a sequence of two letters, each letter spoken in either a male or female voice. On each trial, the subject was required to indicate, as quickly as possible, whether the two letters had the same name. Reaction times (RTs) were faster for letters spoken in the same voice for both “same” and “different” responses, even when letters were separated by 8 s. These results are incompatible with the notion of physical and name codes in auditory memory since a “different” response should always be based on a comparison of letter names and should not be influenced by voice quality. It was also found that RTs were not influenced by the phonemic distinctive feature similarity of the letters.     

Believing the best: on doxastic partiality in friendship

Synthese - Some philosophers argue that friendship can normatively require us to have certain beliefs about our friends that epistemic norms would prohibit. On this view, we ought to exhibit some...     

The psychology of markets vs. hierarchies: The procedural fairness of alternative allocation procedures for benefits and burdens

This paper reports two studies examining the influence of social context on judgments about the fairness and desirability of two allocation mechanisms — markets and hierarchies. Two allocation contexts are compared: distributing benefits and burdens. The results show that people prefer to allocate burdens through markets and benefits through hierarchies. In both cases desirability is linked to procedural fairness, suggesting that people always prefer to use the fairer procedure for allocation, but view different procedures as fairer in these different contexts. Procedural fairness judgments were found to be linked to respondents' judgments about the impact of using different procedures to make allocations in each context, with people in each case preferring the procedure that they believe will have the most positive impact upon group cohesion. These findings suggest that what is construed as a fair procedure in one social context is not the same as what is construed as a fair procedure in another social context.