Analysis of the evolution of soccer at the world championships

This research follows the line of investigation opened some years ago about the generalizability studies and variance components applied to soccer. In this investigation, various matches played during the final phase of the last three World Championships (France'98, Korea and Japan'02 and Germany'06) were observed and coded while their interaction contexts were registered. In total, 58 matches were used for this investigation. The following facets were considered: 5 field areas where the 48 contexts are moved or transformed and 7 different types of match result. The results confirm the linear model, which can be generalized to the universe. The resulting 1% of the variance explained by the World Championship facet (1 point when analyzed singly and 14 points when it interacts with the other facets) allows us to confirm that soccer has not changed over the last three World Championships.     

Thickness and the Koffka ring effect

Over seven decades ago Gestalt psychologist Kurt Koffka described a remarkable effect: when a contiguous gray ring is placed on a background half of one shade of gray, half of another, the ring appears homogeneous. However, if the ring is slightly divided, the two halves of the ring appear different shades of gray, the half of the ring on the darker background appearing lighter than the half of the ring on the lighter background. The Gestalt principle of continuity is used to explain this effect. We show that when the ring is made thinner it appears heterogeneous even when contiguous. We also illustrate this in the additional material with a colored background with more than two regions.     

Attending to threat: Race-based patterns of selective attention

The present research investigated the extent to which the stereotype that young Black men are threatening and dangerous has become so robust and ingrained in the collective American unconscious that Black men now capture attention, much like evolved threats such as spiders and snakes. Specifically, using a dot-probe detection paradigm, White participants revealed biased attention toward Black faces relative to White faces (Study 1). Because the faces were presented only briefly (30-ms), the bias is thought to reflect the early engagement of attention. The attentional bias was eliminated, however, when the faces displayed averted eye-gaze (Study 2). That is, when the threat communicated by the Black faces was attenuated by a relevant, competing socio-emotional cue—in this case, averted eye-gaze—they no longer captured perceivers’ attention. Broader implications for social cognition, as well as public policies that reify these prevailing perceptions of young Black men are discussed.     

A New Old Question: Do contextual factors relate to rating behavior: An investigation with peer evaluations

The personality (dispositional) characteristic of self‐monitoring, beliefs and orientations toward the performance appraisal of 62 peer raters were collected in an attempt to predict peer rating behavior (i.e., mean ratings, rater discrimination, and performance appraisal dimensions discrimination). The beliefs and orientation toward appraisal systems emerged moderately related to rating behavior measures. Specific variables included in the category termed rating context revealed further illuminating effects. Furthermore, the moderating effect of self‐monitoring on the relationship rating the context‐rating behavior of peers was solidly supported. Theoretical interpretations of the results were discussed.     

Personal Political Salience: The Role of Personality in Collective Identity and Action

Personal political salience (PPS) is proposed as a personality characteristic that assesses individuals' linkage of political events with their personal identities. Its role in facilitating the development of politicized collective identity and action is examined. In four samples of midlife and activist women, we show that PPS was consistently related both to politicized gender identity and political participation. Further analyses show similar results for PPS, politicized racial identity, and political participation. Politicized gender identity mediated the relationship between PPS and women's rights activism, and politicized racial identity mediated the relationship between PPS and civil rights activism. PPS is demonstrated to independently predict political action and also to provide a personality link between group memberships, politicized collective identity, and political participation.     

Reason,Education and Liberalism: Family Resemblance within an Overlapping Consensus

This paper focuses on recent debates over the nature ofliberalism and its central feature of reason, both inside and outside ofeducational philosophy. Central ideas from Jonathan and Hirst contributeas do those from Rawls, Gadamer, Wittgenstein, Taylor, and Ackermantoward a less traditional contextualized and contingent view.     

Smoking in College Women: The Role of Thinness Pressures, Media Exposure, and Critical Consciousness

There are strong social pressures for U.S. females, particularly those of European heritage, to achieve and maintain an extremely low body weight. These pressures are reflected in a variety of media sources, including advertising. We argue that valuing thinness, exposure to thinness-depicting media, and lacking skepticism about tobacco advertisements have adverse effects on young women's decisions about smoking, particularly smoking for weight control. We tested these hypotheses in a study of 188 female undergraduates, both never-smokers and daily smokers. Believing that smoking controls weight, exposure to thinness-depicting media, and low levels of skepticism about tobacco advertising were associated with being a smoker. Among smokers, believing that smoking controls weight, internalizing thinness pressures, and low levels of feminist consciousness were associated with smoking for weight control. Results are discussed with the aim of encouraging public health anti-smoking campaigns targeted at women, and smoking cessation programs that are responsive to the needs of weight-concerned female smokers.     

Middle Aging in Women: Patterns of Personality Change from the 30s to the 50s

This three-sample study focused on changes in four key features of women's personalities (identity, generativity, confident power, and concern about aging) over the course of middle age. Based on women's retrospective and concurrent feelings about their lives in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, scales were developed and validated for the four themes. We found that identity certainty, generativity, confident power, and concern about aging all were experienced as more prominent in middle age (the 40s) than in early adulthood (the 30s). We also found that these elements of personality were rated even higher in the 50s than the 40s. Scores seemed to be a function of age more than historical period or particular experiences in social roles. Scores on identity certainty, generativity, and confident power were positively related to well-being, while concern about aging was negatively related to well-being.     

Response additivity: effects of superimposed free reinforcement on a variable-interval baseline

Three experiments examined the effects of superimposing free reinforcement (Free VI 30-sec) on behavior maintained by a response dependent mult VI 2-min VI 2-min schedule of reinforcement. Experiment I used pigeons as subjects, key pecking as the response, and colors of response key as the stimuli associated with the multiple-schedule components. When free reinforcement was added during only one component (Differential condition) a large and highly significant increase in response rate developed in this component. Adding free reinforcement during both components (Nondifferential condition) produced smaller and far less-consistent effects. An entirely different pattern of results was obtained in two subsequent experiments, where similar procedures and reinforcement conditions were used with rats as subjects and bar pressing as the response. In both Experiments II and III, response rates decreased to the stimulus associated with added free reinforcement in the Differential condition. These findings are interpreted as the result of interactions between behavior maintained by response-reinforcer contingencies and behavior maintained by stimulus-reinforcer contingencies. As such, they support the main assumption of an autoshaping theory of behavioral contrast, that additivity of responding generated by the two kinds of contingency can occur only in situations favorable to autoshaping.