The relative influence of facial neoteny and waist-to-hip ratio on judgements of female attractiveness and fecundity

Numerous studies have demonstrated that waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) affects perceptions of female physical attractiveness and fecundity. This study tested the assumption that facial attractiveness explained more variance in overall ratings and fecundity than WHR, when the latter is manipulated within the normal range (0.67 - 0.85). One hundred and sixty-one participants (mean age = 21.5) rated the attractiveness, youthfulness, fertility, healthiness and likelihood of being pregnant for 27 photographs of three females in which facial attractiveness in terms of neoteny (three levels) and WHR (three levels) had been systematically digitally manipulated. Facial attractiveness exerted a significant influence on judgements of attractiveness, youthfulness, fertility and healthiness, whereas WHR only affected likelihood of being pregnant. Results are interpreted in terms of neotenous facial attractiveness providing potential mates with information concerning phenotypic and genetic quality.     

Problem music and self-harming

Academics and protest groups have claimed that "problem music" (hard rock, hip hop/rap, & punk) causes self-injurious thoughts/behaviors among fans. In this study we investigated whether the relationship is mediated by self-esteem, delinquency, and conservatism; and whether first exposure to problem music preceded self-injurious thoughts. A liking for problem music was associated with four of the five self-injurious measures, although these significant relationships were weakened (into nonsignificance in the case of two self-injurious measures) when the mediating variables were included. Listening to problem music did not precede self-injurious thoughts. Problem music is associated with self-injurious thoughts and behaviors, but this relationship is mediated by other factors and the former does not seem to cause the latter.     

Benefits of all work and no play: the relationship between neuroticism and performance as a function of resource allocation

The authors evaluate a model suggesting that the performance of highly neurotic individuals, relative to their stable counterparts, is more strongly influenced by factors relating to the allocation of attentional resources. First, an air traffic control simulation was used to examine the interaction between effort intensity and scores on the Anxiety subscale of Eysenck Personality Profiler Neuroticism in the prediction of task performance. Overall effort intensity enhanced performance for highly anxious individuals more so than for individuals with low anxiety. Second, a longitudinal field study was used to examine the interaction between office busyness and Eysenck Personality Inventory Neuroticism in the prediction of telesales performance. Changes in office busyness were associated with greater performance improvements for highly neurotic individuals compared with less neurotic individuals. These studies suggest that highly neurotic individuals outperform their stable counterparts in a busy work environment or if they are expending a high level of effort.     

Incremental validity of the typical intellectual engagement scale as predictor of different academic performance measures

The incremental validity of the Typical Intellectual Engagement (TIE) scale (Goff & Ackerman, 1992) as a predictor of academic performance (AP) was tested over and above other established determinants of AP, namely, psychometric g (as extracted from 5 cognitive ability tests) and the Big Five personality traits, assessed by the Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness Five Factor Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992). One hundred four British students were tested on arrival to university, and AP measures were collected longitudinally throughout a 3-year period. TIE, g, and Conscientiousness were the highest correlates of AP. A series of multiple-hierarchical regressions showed that TIE had significant incremental validity (over and above g and the Big Five) in the prediction of AP. Implications are discussed in light of the investment theory of intellectual competence and the utility of self-report inventories as predictors of academic achievement.     

Reduced electrodermal activity in psychopathy-prone adolescents

This study tests the hypothesis that psychopathy-prone adolescents show reduced anticipatory skin conductance responding. Electrodermal activity was recorded while participants anticipated and responded to a 105 dB signaled or unsignaled white-noise burst. Using an extreme groups design, the authors used Child Psychopathy Scale (D. R. Lynam, 1997) scores from a community sample of 335 male adolescents (age 16) to form control (n = 65) and psychopathy-prone (n = 65) groups. Significantly more psychopathy-prone participants were nonresponders in the signaled anticipatory (p = .014), signaled responsivity (p = .037), and unsignaled responsivity (p = .003) conditions compared with controls. Anticipatory hyporesponsivity of psychopathy-prone adolescents similar to the electrodermal hyporesponsivity found in psychopathic adults suggests that this autonomic impairment is present by adolescence and may predispose individuals to adult psychopathy.     

Detached Mindfulness In Cognitive Therapy: A Metacognitive Analysis And Ten Techniques

This paper describes the nature and information processing requirements of detached mindfulness. The construct emerged from the self-regulatory information processing theory of emotional disorder (Wells & Matthews, 1994), and is viewed as a metacognitive state that facilitates change in core underlying pathological processes. Detached mindfulness has multiple components, requiring the activation of metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive monitoring and control, suspension of conceptual processing, attentional flexibility, and a de-centered relationship with thoughts. A model of the cognitive structures and processes supporting the state is presented. Implications of the model for the scientific development and effective use of mindfulness techniques are discussed. Ten techniques for rapidly achieving detached mindfulness in the course of metacognitive therapy are described.Address correspondence to Professor Adrian Wells, Academic Division of Clinical Psychology, The University of Manchester, Rawnsley Building, Manchester Royal Infirmary, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9WL, UK; e-mail: Adrian.Wells@manchester.ac.uk.     

Social dominance and anti-immigrant prejudice: A cross-national and prospective test of the mediating role of assimilation,multiculturalism, colour blindness,and interculturalism

Decades of research have shown that social dominance orientation (SDO) is one of the most important predictors of anti-immigrant attitudes. However, the mechanisms through which SDO can explain prejudice have been studied insufficiently. Using rich and diverse samples from France and from the province of Québec in Canada, the present research provides a cross-national (N = 1,852) and prospective (N = 534) analysis of a theoretical model in which the dimensions of SDO are indirectly predicting anti-immigrant prejudice via the intergroup ideologies of assimilation, multiculturalism, colour blindness and interculturalism. Results showed that interculturalism, a hierarchy-attenuating ideology was found to be a robust mechanism to explain the subtle effects of SDO-E on anti-immigrant prejudice whereas assimilation, a hierarchy-enhancing ideology was playing a more important role to explain direct and blatant effects of SDO-D on prejudice. The two most studied diversity approaches, multiculturalism and colour blindness, were largely redundant once interculturalism was considered. This pattern occurred in both France and Québec hence, favouring the context-independent pathway.     

Tolerance of ambiguity: A review of the concept,its measurement and applications

This paper reviews the scattered and diffuse literature on the tolerance of ambiguity construct (AT). The work by Frenkel-Brunswik (1948) is considered in some detail to help explain the origin of the concept as well as its diffusion to many areas of psychology. Second, thirty years of correlational research, which looks at the studies correlating AT measures with a variety of psychological variables, are reviewed. Third, evidence for the differential distribution of AT among particular groups is reviewed. Fourth, the psychometric properties of the various self-report AT measures are considered in some detail. The two final sections look at organizational and cultural correlates of AT (the areas currently most interested in the AT concept). The conclusion attempts to explain varying patterns of interest in the AT construct and its current status.     

Predicting protestant work ethic beliefs

Two correlational studies attempt to determine the aetiology of Protestant Work Ethic (PWE) beliefs by looking at the relationship between it and various theoretically related variables. In the first study, three demographic and seven psychographic variables were regressed onto the PWE using step-wise multiple regression. Five of the ten predictors were significant indicating that people with high internal and powerful other locus of control beliefs, limited educaztion, conservativel free-enterprise economic beliefs, and strong postponement of gratification beliefs and practices were most likely to endorse the PWE. In the second study parents and college-age children completed the same questionnaire to indicate family resemblances in PWE beliefs. Using a within-family analysis it was found that there were family resemblances in PWE, economic and voting beliefs and that sons were less similar to their parents than were daughters. Results provide partial support for both McClelland's and Weber's theses, and underline other results suggesting the role of psychological conservatism in the development of PWE beliefs.     

Sex differences in the preferences for specific female body shapes

The purpose of this study was to examine the somatic preferences of males and females for detailed anatomical drawings of female stimulus figures to examine their ability to predict the preferences for members of the opposite sex. The figures were systematically varied on three dimensions (bust, waist, and hips), with three sizes of each (small, medium, and large). The 12 figures were rated by 100 male and female subjects on a 7-point bipolar construct scale, ranging from extremely attractive to extremely unattractive. This was done both for the subjects' personal perceptions and for their predicted ratings of the opposite sex. Multivariate and univariate analyses yielded several sex, rating-perceptive (self vs. other), figure shape differences and interactions. Male subjects displayed a preference for large busts and hourglass shapes, which are accurately predicted by the females. Males predicted that females would rate slimmer figure highly, and females predicted that males would rate larger figures highly. The results are considered in light of related research in this area.