In matters of opinion, what matters is the group: Minority group members’ emotional reactions to messages about identity expression

Two studies investigated the reactions of minority group members to messages about identity expression by ingroup and outgroup sources. Our main hypothesis was that compared to ingroup sources, outgroup sources arouse more anger when they argue for identity suppression. In the first study homosexuals evaluated an outgroup source arguing for identity suppression more negatively than an ingroup source, felt more threatened by this source and as a result, experienced stronger feelings of anger towards this source. The second study among members of a language-based minority replicated and extended these findings. Furthermore we showed that the anger that is experienced towards an outgroup source causes a willingness to change the opinion of this source. When ingroup or outgroup sources supported identity expression, evaluations and experience of anger did not differ in both studies. The importance of a source’s group membership in reactions to opinions about one’s group is discussed.     

Openness to experience, plasticity, and creativity: Exploring lower-order, high-order, and interactive effects

What are creative people like? Openness to experience is important to creativity, but little is known about plasticity, the higher-order factor that subsumes openness. College students (n = 189) completed measures of the Big Five and measures of creative cognition (fluency and quality of divergent thinking), everyday creative behaviors, creative achievement, and self-rated creativity. Latent variable models found broad effects of openness to experience and few effects of the other four domains. At the higher-order level, plasticity predicted higher scores on nearly all of the facets of creativity, and stability had several significant effects. For some creativity measures, plasticity and stability had opposing effects. Tests of latent interactions found no significant effects: plasticity and stability predict creatively independently, not jointly.     

The Exemption that Confirms the Rule: Reflections on Proceduralism and the UK Hybrid Embryos Controversy

This paper provides an interpretation of the licensing provisions envisaged under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 as a model for a rule and exemption-based procedural strategy for the adjudication of potential ethical controversies, and it offers an account of the liberal-democratic legitimacy of the procedure’s outcomes as well as of the legal procedure itself. Drawing on a novel articulation of the distinction between exceptions and exemptions, the paper argues that such a rule and exemption mechanism, while not devoid of attractions, is not immune from the criticisms often levied against procedural approaches to the management of pluralism: it either has to fall back on substantive justification in ways that are not helpful when trying to arbitrate a moral controversy, or it appears justificatorily groundless.     

Spider monkey ranging patterns in Mexican subtropical forest: do travel routes reflect planning?

Although it is well known that frugivorous spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi yucatanensis) occupy large home ranges, travelling long distances to reach highly productive resources, little is known of how they move between feeding sites. A 11 month study of spider monkey ranging patterns was carried out at the Otochma’ax Yetel Kooh reserve, Yucatán, Mexico. We followed single individuals for as long as possible each day and recorded the routes travelled with the help of a GPS (Global Positioning System) device; the 11 independently moving individuals of a group were targeted as focal subjects. Travel paths were composed of highly linear segments, each typically ending at a place where some resource was exploited. Linearity of segments did not differ between individuals, and most of the highly linear paths that led to food resources were much longer than the estimate visibility in the woodland canopy. Monkeys do not generally continue in the same ranging direction after exploiting a resource: travel paths are likely to deviate at the site of resource exploitation rather than between such sites. However, during the harshest months of the year consecutive route segments were more likely to retain the same direction of overall movement. Together, these findings suggest that while moving between feeding sites, spider monkeys use spatial memory to guide travel, and even plan more than one resource site in advance. This contribution is part of the special issue “A Socioecological Perspective on Primate Cognition” (Cunningham and Janson 2007).     

A comparative study of the impact of education vs. process groups for families of patients with affective disorders

This clinical project compares the relative impact of two types of multiple family groups on psychiatric inpatients and their families. Forty patients with a diagnosis of affective disorder, and their family members, were randomly assigned to a traditional multiple family group with a process orientation that emphasized support, destigmatization, and self-help about common problems; or to a psychoeducational multiple family group that emphasized the provision of information about the patient's illness and methods of coping with it effectively. Both groups, which met for four hours on a Saturday afternoon, were an integral part of an ongoing inpatient program specializing in the treatment of affective disorders. Pre- and post-measures were obtained regarding family and patient knowledge about affective disorders, level of personal distress, attitudes about the illness, and dyadic adjustment. In addition, both patients and family members were asked to rate their satisfaction with the group experience. A number of differences in knowledge, attitude and dyadic adjustment were found in the participants of both groups immediately following their respective group sessions, but there were only a few statistically significant differences between the two groups. Those who attended the psychoeducational session, however, reported significantly more satisfaction with the experience.     

Assessing outcome in smoking cessation studies.

Outcome measures for smoking cessation are reviewed and evaluated, including 3 self-report measures and 3 biochemical validation measures. Point prevalence reflects the percentage of participants taking action, prolonged abstinence reflects those in the maintenance stage, and continuous abstinence reflects those who progress from action to maintenance without lapsing or relapsing. Biochemical assessments are primarily measures of point prevalence abstinence. The desirability of biochemical validation is a particularly controversial and critical issue. Three factors affect the accuracy of self-report: Type of Population, Type of Intervention, and Demand Characteristics. False-negative rates are generally low. Three broad issues impact on decisions to use biochemical validation: (a) alternative explanations for false positives, (b) refusal rate problems, and (c) the effect of inaccuracy on intervention assessment.     

The stages and processes of exercise adoption and maintenance in a worksite sample.

We applied the model of the stages and processes of change to exercise adoption and maintenance. This model has shown promise in advancing theory and treatment of the addictions and other negative health behaviors, but there have been few systematic attempts to apply the model to positive health behaviors, such as exercise adoption. Questionnaires dealing with the stages and processes of exercise change were developed and administered to a sample of 1,172 participants in a worksite health promotion project. The sample was split randomly into halves for (a) initial model development and testing and (b) confirmatory measurement model testing. Additional model confirmation was obtained by examining the hierarchical structure of the processes of change and by conducting Stage x Process analyses. Results suggest that the underlying constructs derived from smoking cessation and other addictive behaviors can be generalized to exercise behavior. Understanding the stages and processes of exercise behavior change may yield important information for enhancing exercise adoption, adherence, and relapse prevention at both individual and public health levels.     

Grouping students for instruction: effects of learning style on achievement and attitudes

The present study examined the effects of matching and mismatching American middle-school students with a preference for learning alone or learning with peers with selected instructional treatments in order to determine the impact upon their attitudes and achievement in social studies. Analysis revealed that the learning-alone preference performed significantly better in the learning-alone condition and that the learning-with-peers preference performed significantly better in the learning-with-peers condition. However, no-preference students also performed significantly better in the learning-alone condition than with peers. In addition, data revealed that the learning-alone and the learning-with-peers students had significantly more positive attitudes when matched with their preferred learning style; the nopreference students had more positive attitudes in the learning-alone condition.     

Debunking myths about self-quitting. Evidence from 10 prospective studies of persons who attempt to quit smoking by themselves

This article examines data from 10 longterm prospective studies (N greater than 5,000) in relation to key issues about the self-quitting of smoking, especially those discussed by Schachter. When a single attempt to quit was evaluated, self-quitters' success rates were no better than those reported for formal treatment programs. Light smokers (20 or less cigarettes per day) were 2.2 times more likely to quit than heavy smokers. The cyclical nature of quitting was also examined. There was a moderate rate (mdn = 2.7%) of long-term quitting initiated after the early months (expected quitting window) of these studies, but also a high rate (mdn = 24%) of relapsing for persons abstinent for six months. The number of previous unsuccessful quit attempts was unrelated to success in quitting. Finally, there were few occasional smokers (slips) among successful long-term quitters. We argue that quitting smoking is a dynamic process, not a discrete event.