What Do We Know About Gay and Lesbian Couples?

Abstract— Research on gay and lesbian couples is highlighted with regard to household labor, conflict, satisfaction, perceived social support, stability, and the variables that predict relationship quality. Relative to partners from married heterosexual couples, partners from gay and lesbian couples tend to assign household labor more fairly, resolve conflict more constructively, experience similar levels of satisfaction, and perceive less support from family members but more support from friends. The limited data available indicate that gay and lesbian couples may be less stable than married heterosexual couples. The factors that predict relationship quality tend to be the same for gay, lesbian, and heterosexual married couples. Overall, research paints a positive picture of gay and lesbian couples and indicates that they tend to be more similar to than different from heterosexual couples.     

Integrity and Honesty Testing: What Do We Know? How Do We Use It?

This selective review of integrity and honesty testing addresses two primary questions: ‘What do we know about honesty testing?’ and ‘How do we use what we know?’ Up-to-date information about test reliability, validity, and construct definition from recent reviews of the research literature in the USA is presented and interpreted. Relationships to other selection devices and personality measures are discussed, as well as how integrity tests fit into a multiple assessment selection system.     

What Do We Know About Neuropsychological Aspects Of Schizophrenia?

Application of a neuropsychological perspective to the study of schizophrenia has established a number of important facts about this disorder. Some of the key findings from the existing literature are that, while neurocognitive impairment is present in most, if not all, persons with schizophrenia, there is both substantial interpatient heterogeneity and remarkable within-patient stability of cognitive function over the long-term course of the illness. Such findings have contributed to the firm establishment of neurobiologic models of schizophrenia, and thereby help to reduce the social stigma that was sometimes associated with purely psychogenic models popular during parts of the 20th century. Neuropsychological studies in recent decades have established the primacy of cognitive functions over psychopathologic symptoms as determinants of functional capacity and independence in everyday functioning. Although the cognitive benefits of both conventional and even second generation antipsychotic medications appear marginal at best, recognition of the primacy of cognitive deficits as determinants of functional disability in schizophrenia has catalyzed recent efforts to develop targeted treatments for the cognitive deficits of this disorder. Despite these accomplishments, however, some issues remain to be resolved. Efforts to firmly establish the specific neurocognitive/neuropathologic systems responsible for schizophrenia remain elusive, as do efforts to definitively demonstrate the specific cognitive deficits underlying specific forms of functional impairment. Further progress may be fostered by recent initiatives to integrate neuropsychological studies with experimental neuroscience, perhaps leading to measures of deficits in cognitive processes more clearly associated with specific, identifiable brain systems.     

Aging and Spatial Navigation: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go?

Spatial navigation is a complex cognitive skill that is necessary for everyday functioning in the environment. However, navigational skills are not typically measured in most test batteries assessing cognitive aging. The present paper reviews what we know about behavioral differences between older and younger adults in navigational skill and reviews the putative neural mechanisms that may underlie these behavioral differences. Empirical studies to date clearly identify navigation as an aspect of cognitive function that is vulnerable to the aging process. The few functional and structural neuroimaging studies that speak to neurological correlates of these age-related differences point to the hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, posterior cingulate gyrus (retrosplenial cortex), parietal lobes and pre-frontal cortex as structures critically involved in age effects on navigation. Outstanding issues in the field are addressed and productive avenues of future research are suggested. Among these outstanding issues include the necessity of performing longitudinal studies and differentiating between hippocampal and extra-hippocampal contributions to aging in navigation. The field may also be advanced by empirical assessment of navigational strategies and investigations into the multisensory nature of navigation including assessing the relative contributions of visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive function to age differences in navigational skill.     

What We Know—and Don't Know—About Preventing Child Maltreatment

Abstract

Although child maltreatment is routinely acknowledged as a serious social problem, it remains widespread, raising questions about how prevention efforts can be improved. Following a review of theory and research relevant to prevention programming, the two dominant models of child abuse prevention-child empowerment and parent education-are examined, emphasizing both those factors that appear to contribute to program success (e.g., early intervention, sufficient time commitments, cultural sensitivity) and weaknesses in current efforts (e.g., poor implementation). Although underutilized, broader social and system-level reforms, including social policy and media initiatives, hold promise for prevention. Ways in which to leverage these tools are explored. Additional research is urged to explore assumptions on which programs are based, as well as to conduct more rigorous evaluation of current programs. The article concludes that a sustained commitment to prevention efforts aimed at child abuse and neglect is required.     

What Do We Do Unconsciously? And How?

In this reply, we endorse Chartrand's (2005) taxonomy of conscious awareness for different stages of consumer decisions affected by environmental cues. In addition, we attempt to broaden the scope of this taxonomy by discussing its usefulness for consumer decisions in general. We generally support Simonson's (2005) claim that research based on consumers as conscious decision makers is indeed predictive of a wide variety of behavior. However, we also argue that the importance of consciousness should not be overstated. Conscious processes observed in a research laboratory are not representative of conscious processes in real life. The alternative model to describe effects of the environment on behavior by Janiszewski and van Osselaer (2005) may be useful to explain automaticity in goal‐directed behavior, but it poorly describes other automatic behaviors.     

The Outcome of Parenting: What Do We Really Know?

Lykken's proposal that people should be required to apply for a license before they can become parents is based on his belief that the increase in crime over the past 40 years is due largely to the increase in the number of children reared in fatherless homes. I argue that the absence of a father is a correlate of criminal behavior in the offspring but not its cause. Other correlations that are usually interpreted as the effects of good or bad child-rearing practices are similarly ambiguous and subject to other explanations. I conclude that the increase in crime over the past 40 years cannot be blamed on the absence of fathers or inept child rearing, and offer two alternative hypotheses.     

How Do We Know Necessary Truths? Kant's Answer

It is traditionally held that our knowledge of necessity is a priori ; but the familiar theories of a priori knowledge – platonism and conventionalism – have now been discredited, and replaced by either modal skepticism or a posteriori essentialism. The main thesis of this paper is that Kant's theory of a priori knowledge, when detached from his transcendental idealism, offers a genuine alternative to these unpalatable options. According to Kant's doctrine, all epistemic necessity (which he calls "conviction" ( Ueberzeugung ) is grounded directly or indirectly on our capacity for clear and distinct rational intuition (which he calls "insight" ( Einsicht ). Insight, in turn, depends upon functions of the imagination for creating "mental models" of necessary truths. This doctrine is well exemplified by Kant's account of our knowledge of simple analytic truths.     

Coparenting Interventions for Fragile Families: What Do We Know and Where Do We Need To Go Next?

With a large and growing share of American families now forming outside of marriage, triangular infant–mother–father relationship systems in “fragile families” have begun to attract the interest of family scholars and clinicians. A relatively novel conceptualization has concerned the feasibility of intervening to support the development of a sustained and positive coparenting alliance between mothers and fathers who have not made an enduring relationship commitment to one another. At this point in time, there are very few published outcome studies of programs explicitly conceived to help build coparenting alliances in such families. This article reviews what we currently know from this evolving field of study, and from those related responsible fatherhood and marriage and relationship enhancement (MRE) initiatives that included any explicit targeting, strengthening, and assessment of fragile family coparenting in their designs. We summarize lessons learned thus far from Access and Visitation (AV) programs for non‐residential fathers, from MRE programs for low‐income, unmarried couples, and from newer programs for fragile families directly designed to target and support coparenting per se. We close with recommendations for charting this important new family process terrain.     

Why Do We Need to Know What the Public Thinks about Nanotechnology?

Public debate on nanotechnology is a large topic within governments, research agencies, industry and non-government organisations. But depending who you talk to the perception of what the public thinks about nanotechnology can be very varied. To define coherent policy and to invest in research and development that aligns with public preferences, needs more than just perceptions of public perceptions. Public attitude studies are vital in understanding what the public really think, but they need to go further than simplistic polling and should examine factors such as changes over time, drivers of attitude change, different attitudes to different applications and be supported by qualitative data. This paper summarises the findings of a three year tracking study of public attitudes towards nanotechnology, highlighting both concerns and aspirations for nanotechnology and discusses the impacts of that data on public engagement programs.     

Do We Know How Happy We Are? On Some Limits of Affective Introspection and Recall

This paper aims to show that widespread, serious errors in the self‐assessment of affect are a genuine possibility—one worth taking very seriously. For we are subject to a variety of errors concerning the character of our present and past affective states, or “affective ignorance.” For example, some affects, particularly moods, can greatly affect the quality of our experience even when we are unable to discern them. I note several implications of these arguments. First, we may be less competent pursuers of happiness than is commonly believed, raising difficult questions for political thought. Second, some of the errors discussed ramify for our understanding of consciousness, including Ned Block's controversial distinction between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. Third, empirical results based on self‐reports about affect may be systematically misleading in certain ways.