There's something about obesity: culture, contagion, rationality, and children's responses to drinks "created" by obese children

Theories of the development of obesity stereotypes cannot easily explain the stigma associated with being obese. Evidence that important similarities exist between the symptoms of obesity and contagious illnesses, young children have "theories" of illnesses, and obesity stereotypes are among the earliest that children develop led to the hypothesis that children would find beverages purportedly created by obese children less tasteful and more memorable than beverages created by average weight children. After assignment to two story conditions in which a child became ill after eating an unfamiliar food, Caucasian-American and Chinese 7- and 10-year-olds sampled identically flavored "obese-created" and "average-created" beverages. Taste ratings were lower, ratings of the chances of feeling sick were higher, and memory was superior for obese-created drinks than for average-created drinks, particularly when the character in the story contracted a contagious illness and memory was scored for "gist." Finally, children often created the false memory that the story character was an obese beverage creator. The roles of contagion and magical beliefs are discussed, as are the rationality of children's responses and the relevance of the findings for theories of obesity stereotypes.     

"Listen and I tell you something": Storytelling and social action in the healing of the oppressed

The process of healing from life under a military dictatorship is slow and arduous. Reviving one's sense of self when the peace has been shattered; articulating vision and purpose in a culture and a community polarized and divided, requires both a connection to the spiritual and an outlet for direct action. In both cases it is necessary to reclaim ones' voice and to find others who will listen with the commitment to receive and understand. In this article, the words of citizens of Argentina and Chile are presented to illustrate the experience of those who lived in violence and how they are managing to heal.     

What in the world is happening in sport psychology

Abstract

The field of sport psychology is advancing at a rapid rate in many parts of the world, considering the numbers of journals and scholarly articles being produced, the formation of professional societies, and the educational and interventional services being provided to participants in sport and exercise programs. One international direction in sport psychology research is the study of cognitive processes associated with excellence in performance. Cognitive and psychological loads associated with different activities are being determined in order to identify how best to optimize such loads. With a comparison of expert and novice performers, especially under laboratory sport-simulated conditions, researchers are learning more about how individuals possessing different levels of skill manage and respond to information present in the performance situation. Cognitive considerations in the learning and performing of sports skills are receiving more attention by the sport psychology researcher as well as by the consultant.     

A look at social support patterns

The issue of how to provide support for patients with a life-threatening illness continues to be a problem for pastors and chaplains. The authors discuss the significance and reasons for looking at the present day social support patterns as an unnatural problem. Unless the unnatural nature of support in the modern medical setting is understood pastors and chaplains can miss the target on answering the question of how to provide support. The authors conclude the article by addressing this question from the position of reserving the unnatural nature of providing support.Dr. Bergen is Professor of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH 03755. Dr. Nelson is affiliated with the Chaplain Service, Veterans Administration Center, White River Junction, VT 05001 and Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School.     

Behavioural inhibition and the age at social isolation in rats

Rats that were socially isolated or group-housed at weaning were re-housed at 51 days of age in either the same housing condition or the opposite housing condition until 91 days and throughout subsequent behavioural testing. Increased resistance to extinction of running in an alley and poorer Hebb-Williams maze learning were found only after social isolation between 23 and 51 days of age. In contrast, slower running to reach the water reward during alley training and lower rearing activity at the beginning of open field testing were evident only in rats that were isolated at the time of testing. As in previous studies, open field hyperactivity was found in rats isolated at weaning but slower emergence latency was found in animals isolated at the time of testing. These findings confirm that the many behavioural effects of social isolation at different ages do not reflect a unitary aetiology. The behaviour of rats isolated at weaning is suggestive of a “disinhibition syndrome” but the precise nature of this syndrome is as yet unclear.     

Season's greetings: adults' social contacts at the holiday season.

Close friends and family play an important role in adults' lives, but little is known about the implications of infrequent or peripheral social ties that adults maintain. Eighty-seven adults, ranging in age from 24 to 87 years (M = 51.25) provided information about their holiday card networks. Participants completed surveys for up to 25 cards that they received during one holiday season (n = 1,405 surveys completed) and provided the holiday greetings as well, if they were willing (n = 1,152 cards). Over half of the cards participants received were from individuals whom participants did not consider to be close friends or family members and whom they had not seen in over a year. Adults of all ages described emotional reactions to approximately one third of the cards they received. Younger adults tended to view their holiday greetings as a means of maintaining or building new social ties, whereas older adults were more likely to view their holiday greetings as a link to their personal past. Receiving a greater number of holiday cards and receiving cards from close social contacts were associated with increased feelings of social embeddedness. Similarities and differences between peripheral ties and close social ties are considered.     

The social context of undermining behavior at work

We developed a fairness theory perspective to explain the experience of being “singled out” for social undermining from supervisors and coworkers, and tested our predictions across four distinct social contexts. We argued and predicted that attitudinal and behavioral reactions to undermining (from supervisors and coworkers) would be strongest when a correspondingly low level of undermining was found in the social context. The hypothesized cross-level interaction was supported for supervisor and coworker undermining among a sample of officers from the national police force in the Republic of Slovenia (Study 1), replicated for supervisor undermining among soldiers in the US National Guard (Study 2), and further replicated with group-member undermining among a sample of individuals working in student teams (Study 3). We then predicted that justice perceptions would mediate the singled out interaction and tested the mediated-moderation model in a coworker-network context among employees of a restaurant chain (Study 4). The results substantially supported the mediation prediction. These findings from diverse settings demonstrate that considering the social context is important when trying to understand the effects of social undermining behaviors at work.     

Neuroticism and social comparison orientation as moderators of affective responses to social comparison at work

In a study among 72 nurses, the affective consequences of social comparison were examined and related to neuroticism (N) and to social comparison orientation (SCO). Participants were confronted with a bogus interview with an upward versus a downward comparison target. Positive affect and identification were higher, and negative affect was lower, in the upward than in the downward comparison condition. Independent of their SCO, the higher individuals were in N, the less they identified with the upward comparison target, the more they identified with the downward comparison target, and the less positive affect they showed following confrontation with the upward comparison target. In contrast, independent of their level of N, the higher individuals were in SCO, the more negative affect they showed following confrontation with the downward comparison target. The effects on negative affect stayed the same when controlling for positive affect, and the effects on positive affect stayed the same when controlling for negative affect. These effects were also obtained when perceived direction was used as a predictor instead of the experimentally manipulated direction. It is concluded that, although N and SCO are correlated, these variables seem to have independent and distinct effects upon the responses to social comparison information.     

Another look at sex stereotypes and social judgments: an analysis of the social perceiver's use of subjective probabilities

Locksley, Borgida, Brekke, and Hepburn (1980) assert that subjects fall prey to the base-rate fallacy when they make stereotype-related trait judgments. They found that subjects ignored their stereotypes when trait judgments were made in the presence of trait-related behavioral information. The present article reexamines those findings with respect to two issues: (a) the use of a normative criterion in comparison with subjects' judgments and (b) the level of analysis (group vs. individual) of subjects' judgments. We conducted a replication of the Locksley et al. (1980) Study 2, and the results were examined with respect to these two issues. We found no support for the base-rate fallacy. When a Bayesian normative criterion was constructed for each subject based on the subject's own stereotype judgments and was compared with assertiveness judgments made in the presence of individuating information, there was no evidence that subjects ignored or underused their stereotypes as the base-rate fallacy predicts.     

Foraging in a simulated natural environment: There's a rat loose in the lab

Rats were required to earn their food in a large room having nine boxes placed in it, each of which contained food buried in sand. In different phases of the experiment the amount of time allowed for foraging, the amount of food available in each food patch, and the location of the different available amounts were varied. The rats exhaustively sampled all patches each session but seemed to have fairly strong preferences for certain locations over others. If position preferences were for patches containing small amounts of food, the sensitivity to amount available was increased so that when location was compensated for, a pattern of optimal foraging was evident. The importance of environmental constraints in producing optimal behavior and the relation of the observed behavior to laboratory findings are discussed.     

Individual and common components of the social environment at work and psychological well-being

Interpretations of correlational research on the social origins of psychological well-being are limited by the possibility of reciprocal influences between persons and their social situations and by respondent bias. These issues are addressed in a study of the relation between the social environment at work and mental health. Two components of a social environment were measured: a common social environment, the social climate shared by employees in the same work setting. The study related (a) averaged co-workers' ratings and individuals' own ratings of the social environment to (b) individuals' self-reported psychological well-being. A group of 37 bank branches represented work environments, and nonmanagerial personnel in the branches served as participants. Results indicated that the quality of the social environment at work is related to the mental health of employees. More important, the relation was confirmed with an independent measure of the social environment. Aggregate co-worker ratings of the common social environment were significantly correlated with individual depression and anxiety. However, an individual's perceptions appeared to mediate the social environment's impact. As hypothesized, well-being was more closely tied to the proximal individual social environment than to the more distal common social environment.     

Looking at selection from a social process perspective: Towards a social process model on personnel selection

Traditional selection practice and research has exclusively focused on ''product'' and ''procedural'' characteristics of selection (e.g., reliability, validity of selection tools). This perspective is characterized by assumptions underlying the ''psychometric'' model on selection. Mainly triggered by environmental changes and present-day assessment practices, a new perspective on selection has emerged since the beginning of the 1990s, namely the negotiation perspective. The negotiation perspective pays attention to the social-emotional processes during selection. In this article, we explore the process side of personnel selection to a further extent. Based on relevant literature and research findings, we present a conceptual model of job applicants' expectations and appreciation of the selection encounter. The Social Process model on Selection (SPS model) contains eight process characteristics. We assume job applicants to value/have expectations of: (1) provision of general information on the job opening, (2) participation and control, (3) openness to assertiveness, (4) creation of transparency of testing, (5) provision of feedback, (6) guarantee of objectivity and standardization, (7) assurance of human treatment, and (8) respect for privacy and job relevance of information gathering. Directions for further research are discussed.