The Effects of an Anti-Nuclear War Film on Attitudes toward Nuclear Issues

This study tested the effects of an anti-nuclear war film on students' attitudes toward nuclear issues. Twenty-six male and female Canadian undergraduates were shown the film “If You Love This Planet”; another 26 were shown a neutral film. Students shown the anti-nuclear war film showed more support for activism and protest against nuclear war. The study provided evidence that a film can influence activist attitudes toward nuclear issues and that such attitudes are based more on self-concern than on altruistic concern about one's country. The study also found that males tended to be more optimistic than females about the future of the human race and more willing than females to sacrifice themselves for their country.     

Motor timing and the preparation for sequential actions

Motor timing is essential for performing self-initiated movement sequences. Here, we investigated how sequence rhythm, or the timing for co-ordinating movements within a sequence, contributes to action preparation, compared with other processes occurring during sequence planning. First, we recorded the readiness potential (RP) in a condition of complex sequence rhythm and in condition of high demand on the timing for sequence initiation. We found that sequence rhythm and sequence initiation are independent processes, with sequence initiation contributing to early RP. Second, we compared the RP recorded in a condition of complex sequence rhythm and in a condition of complex sequence order, in which a complex combination of finger sub-movements had to be correctly ordered within a sequence. We found that sequence rhythm and sequence order share common processes occurring late RP. We suggest that the preparation for movement involves independent processes devoted to different aspects of motor timing and sequencing.     

National anthems and suicide rates

In a sample of 18 European nations, suicide rates were positively associated with the proportion of low notes in the national anthems and, albeit less strongly, with students' ratings of how gloomy and how sad the anthems sounded, supporting a hypothesis proposed by Rihmer.     

Sex differences in sympathy for attempted suicides

In a sample of 115 undergraduates, women expressed more sympathy for hypothetical attempted suicides than did men, but not more empathy or agreement with the actions. A history of considering suicide was not associated with judgments about attempting suicide.     

Negative urgency: a personality predictor of externalizing behavior characterized by neuroticism, low conscientiousness, and disagreeableness

Negative urgency, the tendency to act rashly when distressed, is characterized by high Neuroticism, low Conscientiousness, and low Agreeableness. Because of this set of characteristics, the authors hypothesized that (1) negative urgency (NU) is a particularly important predictor of externalizing dysfunction; (2) traits that reflect primarily high Neuroticism predict internalizing dysfunction; and (3) traits that reflect primarily low Conscientiousness predict those types of externalizing dysfunction that include intense affect less strongly than does NU. In three studies, the authors showed that negative urgency concurrently predicted alcohol dependence symptoms in disordered women, drinking problems and smoker status in preadolescents, and aggression, risky sex, illegal drug use, drinking problems, and conduct disordered behavior in college students. High Neuroticism traits predicted internalizing dysfunction but predicted none of these externalizing criteria beyond negative urgency. Low Conscientiousness did not add to prediction from negative urgency, except in a few cases. The tendency toward affect-driven rash action may underlie many externalizing behaviors.     

A systematic meta-review of evaluations of youth violence prevention programs: Common and divergent findings from 25 years of meta-analyses and systematic reviews

Violence among youth is a pervasive public health problem. In order to make progress in reducing the burden of injury and mortality that result from youth violence, it is imperative to identify evidence-based programs and strategies that have a significant impact on violence. There have been many rigorous evaluations of youth violence prevention programs. However, the literature is large, and it is difficult to draw conclusions about what works across evaluations from different disciplines, contexts, and types of programs. The current study reviews the meta-analyses and systematic reviews published prior to 2009 that synthesize evaluations of youth violence prevention programs. This meta-review reports the findings from 37 meta-analyses and 15 systematic reviews; the included reviews were coded on measures of the social ecology, prevention approach, program type, and study design. A majority of the meta-analyses and systematic reviews were found to demonstrate moderate program effects. Meta-analyses yielded marginally smaller effect sizes compared to systematic reviews, and those that included programs targeting family factors showed marginally larger effects than those that did not. In addition, there are a wide range of individual/family, program, and study moderators of program effect sizes. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Comparing the Effects of Two Practice Conditions on the Subtraction Fact Fluency of Fifth-Grade Students

Journal of Behavioral Education - This study employed an alternating treatments design to compare the effects of two types of practice conditions on the subtraction fact fluency in a fifth-grade...