Group transformation: How demonstrability promotes intra-group cooperation in social dilemmas

Intra-group cooperation in a social dilemma is increased after a group has discussed and reached a decision, especially if the dilemma is easily understood (‘demonstrable’). This paper examines how demonstrability affects the decision of a group that consists entirely of participants who are initially non-cooperative. Thirty-eight 6-person groups with unanimous prior preference for cooperation or non-cooperation discussed a prisoner’s dilemma before making a group decision. When demonstrability was low groups reflected the prior (either cooperative or non-cooperative) preferences of their members. When demonstrability was high we found that groups showed no effect of prior preference. Specifically, groups of prior non-cooperators made more cooperative group decisions and subsequently their members remained cooperative when asked to express preferences individually. The combined advantages of group process and high demonstrability for facilitating optimal cooperation are discussed.     

Visual field asymmetry in attentional capture

The present study examined the spatial distribution of involuntary attentional capture over the two visual hemi-fields. A new experiment, and an analysis of three previous experiments showed that distractors in the left visual field that matched a sought-for target in color produced a much larger capture effect than identical distractors in the right visual field, revealing a visual field asymmetry in color-based contingent capture. On the other hand, abrupt onsets in the two hemi-fields did not differ in the magnitude of their capture effect, indicating a symmetric distribution of onset capture. The different spatial patterns for contingent capture and onset capture reveal differences between the two types of attentional capture, possibly indicating differences in the underlying brain mechanisms.     

Analysis of Citations to Biomedical Articles Affected by Scientific Misconduct

We describe the ongoing citations to biomedical articles affected by scientific misconduct, and characterize the papers that cite these affected articles. The citations to 102 articles named in official findings of scientific misconduct during the period of 1993 and 2001 were identified through the Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science database. Using a stratified random sampling strategy, we performed a content analysis of 603 of the 5,393 citing papers to identify indications of awareness that the cited articles affected by scientific misconduct had validity issues, and to examine how the citing papers referred to the affected articles. Fewer than 5% of citing papers indicated any awareness that the cited article was retracted or named in a finding of misconduct. We also tested the hypothesis that affected articles would have fewer citations than a comparison sample; this was not supported. Most articles affected by misconduct were published in basic science journals, and we found little cause for concern that such articles may have affected clinical equipoise or clinical care.     

Standing between two worlds in Harlem: A developmental psychopathology perspective of perinatally acquired human immunodeficiency virus and adolescence

Perinatal HIV infection in the US continues to evolve from a fatal pediatric illness to a chronic medical condition of childhood and adolescence. Although navigating this period is influenced by multi-leveled deprivations commonly experienced by low-income minority families, HIV alters the timing and experience of developmental milestones for many adolescents with perinatal HIV. This selective review of the growing developmental psychopathology literature and the authors' clinical work at a pediatric HIV program in Harlem, NY provide an overview of how developmental psychopathology offers an integrative framework that elucidates how autonomy, peer relationships, and self-concept evolve among 13–21 year old adolescents. This paper highlights the importance of considering influences of both perinatal HIV and the culture of poverty on adolescent development, and of adopting multilevel interventions and research to address how interactions among biologic, environmental, and HIV-related stressors (serostatus disclosure, medical treatment adherence, illness stigma) influence the development of adolescents with perinatal HIV.     

African Americans' Racial Identity and Socially Desirable Responding: An Empirical Model

The authors developed a model of the relationships between racial identity development and socially desirable responding, using a sample of African American undergraduate students. Instruments used were the Racial Identity Attitude Scale‐Long Form (J. E. Helms & T. A. Parham, 1996) and the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (D. L. Paulhus, 1991). The results challenge previous research conclusions regarding social desirability and racial identity development. Implications of findings for researchers, instrument developers, and counselors are included.     

Free associations and dominance ratings of homophones for young and older adults.

Homophones are words that share phonology but differ in meaning and spelling (e.g., beach, beech). This article presents the results of normative surveys that asked young and older adults to free associate to and rate the dominance of 197 homophones. Although norms exist for young adults on word familiarity and frequency for homophones, these results supplement the literature by (1) reporting the four most frequent responses to visually presented homophones for both young and older adults, and (2) reporting young and older adults' ratings of homophone dominance. Results indicated that young and older adults gave the same first response to 67% of the homophones and rated homophone dominance similarly on 60% of the homophone sets. These results identify a subset of homophones that are preferable for research with young and older adults because of age-related equivalence in free association and dominance ratings. These norms can be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society's Web archive, www.psychonomic.org/archive/.     

Investigating the Big Five Personality Factors and Smoking: Implications for Assessment

Global personality dispositions may be important for understanding population-based individual differences in smoking outcomes, yet few studies have been executed using measures of these global dispositional constructs from the contemporary field of personality. This study explored whether the Big Five personality factors (Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Intellect) were concurrently associated with key smoking (e.g., nicotine dependence, smoking rate, age at first cigarette) and cessation (e.g., self-efficacy to quit, motivation to quit, number of prior quit attempts, length of most recent quit) variables in a sample of regular smokers (n = 130). Of the 35 correlations computed, only 2 were significant: Intellect was positively correlated with motivation to quit and number of 24-hr quit attempts in the last year. These results have implications for using trait variables to study individual differences in smokers.     

Contextual Variations in Young Women's Gender Identity Negotiations

This article explores young women's strategies for seeking personal power and resisting gender-based stereotypes in a wealthy, suburban, White community and a working-class, urban, community of color. Semi-structured interviews with 27 young women were used to examine contextual variations in these gender identity negotiation processes. Both groups of young women were acutely aware of women's subordinate social and cultural position and this awareness contributed to some negative feelings about being female. However, their strategies for locating strength in their identities varied by social contexts. Moreover, the two groups of young women encountered distinct sets of stereotypes in their respective communities. Forms of resistance to these stereotypes led to significantly different behavior patterns. These comparisons build a richer theoretical understanding of the contextual dimensions of young women's gender identity negotiations.     

Predicting uptake of housing services: The role of self-categorization in the theory of planned behaviour

The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and self-categorization theory (SCT) were used to predict homeless people’s (n = 80) uptake of housing support services. Homeless people’s uptake behaviour was measured one year after a TPB/SCT-based interview schedule was administered. Congruent with previous research, TPB variables were influential predictors of both intention and behaviour. However, the addition of self-categorization variables, such as friendship group norms and identification as a housing support service user, significantly increased the rate prediction for both intention and behaviour, respectively. The implications of the research are firstly, that social cognition models are useful for understanding uptake of housing support services; and secondly, the addition of self-categorization variables aids in exploring the central role that social norms play in understanding the uptake of these services. These findings are discussed in terms of their impact on theory and practice.     

Infra-humanization: Ambivalent sexism and the attribution of primary and secondary emotions to women

Leyens and colleagues (e.g., Leyens et al., 2001) have observed that people are more likely to attribute uniquely human (secondary) emotions to the in-group than to the out-group. We examined whether males and females differentially attribute primary and secondary emotions to women. We hypothesized that individual differences in hostile sexism (HS) and benevolent sexism (BS), rather than participant sex, would predict the attribution of emotions to women. As expected, high BS individuals were more likely to attribute positive secondary emotions to women than low BS individuals. In contrast, high HS individuals were more likely to deny positive secondary emotions to women than low HS individuals. Participant sex was not related to the attribution of emotions to women after the effects of HS and BS were accounted for.