Social isolation and gender

This study investigated the relationship between gender and social support. It was found that men were more isolated than women although there were no gender differences in perceived adequacy (i.e., satisfaction with one's social support network) or network size. Given that both the adequacy and network size variables were associated with socially desirable responding but the isolation variable was not, the results suggest that the behaviorally oriented indicator of isolation was a better measure of the degree of social isolation than traditional subjective scales currently used by many researchers. This suggests that traditional measures of social support that incorporate the dimensions of network size and perceived adequacy of one's social support system need to control for socially desirable responding and that measures can and need to be developed that are not significantly influenced by this response set bias. Hence, the assessment of social support may need to be more multifaceted than is currently undertaken in many studies. Our finding that men reported being more isolated than women may be a function, in part, of the fact that the majority of the sample (76.7%) was single/did not live with a partner. Previous research has found that men generally get their emotional needs met by their spouses/partners while women often get their emotional needs met by their female friends. Consistent with the literature, and given that most of our respondents were single, this study supports the contention that men are generally more socially isolated than women because they do not create adequate emotional intimacy when they are not in partnership with a significant other.     

Social isolation and gender

This study investigated the relationship between gender and social support. It was found that men were more isolated than women although there were no gender differences in perceived adequacy (i.e., satisfaction with one's social support network) or network size. Given that both the adequacy and network size variables were associated with socially desirable responding but the isolation variable was not, the results suggest that the behaviorally oriented indicator of isolation was a better measure of the degree of social isolation than traditional subjective scales currently used by many researchers. This suggests that traditional measures of social support that incorporate the dimensions of network size and perceived adequacy of one's social support system need to control for socially desirable responding and that measures can and need to be developed that are not significantly influenced by this response set bias. Hence, the assessment of social support may need to be more multifaceted than is currently undertaken in many studies. Our finding that men reported being more isolated than women may be a function, in part, of the fact that the majority of the sample (76.7%) was single/did not live with a partner. Previous research has found that men generally get their emotional needs met by their spouses/partners while women often get their emotional needs met by their female friends. Consistent with the literature, and given that most of our respondents were single, this study supports the contention that men are generally more socially isolated than women because they do not create adequate emotional intimacy when they are not in partnership with a significant other.     

Social participation attenuates decline in perceptual speed in old and very old age

Does an engaged and active lifestyle in old age alleviate cognitive decline, does high cognitive functioning in old age increase the possibility of maintaining an engaged and active lifestyle, or both? The authors approach this conundrum by applying a structural equation model for testing dynamic hypotheses, the dual change score model (J. J. McArdle & F. Hamagami, 2001), to 3-occasion longitudinal data from the Berlin Aging Study (Time 1: n=516, age range=70-103 years). Results reveal that within a bivariate system of perceptual speed and social participation, with age and sociobiographical status as covariates, prior scores of social participation influence subsequent changes in perceptual speed, while the opposite does not hold. Results support the hypothesis that an engaged and active lifestyle in old and very old age may alleviate decline in perceptual speed.     

Social isolation inhibits male-like sexual behavior in female hamsters

In the female golden hamster, Mesocricetus auratus, group housing permits the expression of male-like behavioral patterns including mounting and pelvic thrusting toward an estrous stimulus female. Sixty percent of females housed in groups of five showed these behaviors, while singly housed females were rarely observed to show mounting or thrusting. Females weaned at 19 or 35 days of age did not differ in their tendencies to show male-like behavioral patterns. Virtually all observations of mounting and pelvic thrusting behaviors were made on days when the females being tested were in behavioral estrus. These findings differ from previous studies which have reported that masculine behavioral patterns are rare in normal female hamsters. In previous studies females that were evaluated were typically not in behavioral estrus and were not housed for long periods of time with other intact females. Social factors interact with hormonal state to contribute to the expression of male-like behaviors in female hamsters.     

Social isolation, psychological health, and protective factors in adolescence

This study investigates the relationships among social isolation, psychological health, and protective factors in adolescents. Feelings of social isolation may influence psychological health in adolescents, but protective factors such as family connectedness, school connectedness, and academic achievement may also play a key role. The sample included 4,746 adolescents from 31 middle and high schools. Participants responded to 221 survey questions regarding peer relationships, psychological health, school connectedness, family relationships, and academic achievement. The findings revealed that social isolation was associated with an increased risk for depressive symptoms, suicide attempts, and low self-esteem. Protective factors influenced associations between social isolation and psychological health. Implications for prevention such as building healthy peer relationships, promoting family connectedness, and developing school-based interventions are discussed.     

Attention and perceptual priming in the perceptual identification task

Prior research indicates that manipulations of attention during encoding sometimes affect perceptual implicit memory. Two hypotheses were investigated. One proposes that manipulations of attention affect perceptual priming only to the extent that they disrupt stimulus identification. The other attributes reduced priming to the disruptive effects of distractor selection. The role of attention was investigated with a variant of the Stroop task in which participants either read words, identified their color, or did both. Identifying the color reduced priming even when the word was also overtly identified. This result held regardless of whether color and word were presented as a single object (Experiments 1 and 2) or as separate objects (Experiment 4). When participants read and identified a color, the overt order of the responses did not matter; both conditions reduced priming relative to reading alone (Experiment 3). The results provide evidence against the stimulus-identification account but are consistent with the distractor-selection hypothesis.     

Cells,circuits, and choices: Social influences on perceptual decision making

Making decisions is an integral part of everyday life. Social psychologists have demonstrated in many studies that humans’ decisions are frequently and strongly influenced by the opinions of others—even in simple perceptual decisions, where, for example, participants have to judge what an image looks like. However, because the effect of other people’s opinions on decision making has remained largely unaddressed by the neuroimaging and neurophysiology literature, we are only beginning to understand how social influence is integrated into the decision-making process. We put forward the thesis that by probing the neurophysiology of social influence with perceptual decisionmaking tasks similar to those used in the seminal work of Asch (1952, 1956), this gap could be remedied. Perceptual paradigms are already widely used to probe neuronal mechanisms of decision making in nonhuman primates. There is also increasing evidence about how nonhuman primates’ behavior is influenced by observing conspecifics. The high spatial and temporal resolution of neurophysiological recordings in awake monkeys could provide insight into where and how social influence modulates decision making, and thus should enable us to develop detailed functional models of the neural mechanisms that support the integration of social influence into the decision-making process.     

Social isolation,aggression, and dominance in attacks in juvenile angelfish,Pterophyllum scalare

The effects of social isolation on aggressive behavior and rank order have been investigated in small groups of juvenile angelfish, Pterophyllum scalare. An experimental protocol including a “double transfer” of the subjects was used, in which fish were transferred to new aquaria in groups, before subsequent isolation and regrouping. A significant decrease in aggression was observed in the first recording session following both isolation and group transfer, after which the level returned to that recorded in the home tanks. The social hierarchy was also perturbed, but changes generally involed the two highest ranking fish in two out of the three groups, and were found not to be statistically significant. The behavior patterns are interpreted as adaptive responses to environmental change. © 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

On the relation between decision rules and perceptual representation in multidimensional perceptual categorization

This article examines the relation between changing categorization decision rules and the nature of the underlying perceptual representation. Observers completed a matching task that required them to adjust the length and orientation of a single line stimulus until they perceived it to "match" a second line stimulus (Alfonso-Reese, 1996, 1997). The same observers then completed four categorization tasks with the same stimuli. Data from the matching task were used to estimate a perceptual representation for each stimulus and observer. Three hypotheses regarding potential interactions between categorization decision rules and perceptual representation were examined. One assumed that there was no interaction between decision rules and perceptual representation. The second assumed that linear categorization rules affect the perceptual representation differently from nonlinear categorization rules. The third assumed that dimensional integration rules affected the perceptual representation differently from decision rules that require the observer to set a criterion along one stimulus dimension while ignoring the other; this is referred to as decisional selective attention. The results suggested that (1) the matching task perceptual representation provided a good account of the categorization data, (2) decisional selective attention affected the perceptual representation differently from decisional integration, and (3) decisional selective attention generally decreased the perceptual variability along the attended dimension.     

Social isolation as a punishment procedure: a controlled study

Contingent social isolation was investigated as a punishment procedure for the disruptive behavior of emotionally disturbed children in a classroom setting. The methodological limitations of previous studies were outlined, and alternatives adopted. Within a reversal and multiple baseline design, contingent social isolation was found to be an effective and relatively specific punisher. By introducing a new observation procedure, “pseudo-timeout”, it was determined that the punishing effect of social isolation was not attributable to observation artifact. A means for resolving the terminological confusion in the present use of timeout and social isolation was recommended.     

Comparison and contrast in perceptual categorization

People categorized pairs of perceptual stimuli that varied in both category membership and pairwise similarity. Experiments 1 and 2 showed categorization of 1 color of a pair to be reliably contrasted from that of the other. This similarity-based contrast effect occurred only when the context stimulus was relevant for the categorization of the target (Experiment 3). The effect was not simply owing to perceptual color contrast (Experiment 4), and it extended to pictures from common semantic categories (Experiment 5). Results were consistent with a sign-and-magnitude version of N. Stewart and G. D. A. Brown's (2005) similarity-dissimilarity generalized context model, in which categorization is affected by both similarity to and difference from target categories. The data are also modeled with criterion setting theory (M. Treisman & T. C. Williams, 1984), in which the decision criterion is systematically shifted toward the mean of the current stimuli.     

Assimilation and contrast in perceptual judgments

An attempt is made to specify the differential conditions underlying two opposite context effects: assimilation and contrast. Assimilation occurs when the judgment of the current stimulus shifts in the direction of the preceding stimulus; contrast occurs when the judgment shifts in the opposite direction. Both effects are brought together and demonstrated in a single paradigm. It is hypothesized that the number of contextual stimuli is the differentiating factor. Two alternative hypotheses, the differential stimulation hypothesis and the temporal position hypothesis, are also tested. The differential stimulation hypothesis proposes that the intensity difference between the contextual and judged stimulus determines whether assimilation or contrast occur, and the temporal position hypothesis proposes that varying the temporal position of the contextual stimulus is the critical factor. While the results do not support either of these alternative hypotheses, it is shown that the number of contextual stimuli does determine whether assimilation or contrast occur.