Interpersonal identity formation during early adolescence

The purpose of this study was to explore interpersonal identity development during early adolescence. Sixth, seventh, and eighth graders (N = 356) were administered the interpersonal identity scale of the Revised Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (Bennion & Adams, 1986). Findings revealed that 55% of the sample fell into one of the four discrete identity status categories, with 62% of this group classified as either diffused or foreclosed. Within these two less sophisticated statuses, grade and gender differences were observed. The interpersonal domains of friendship, dating, and sex roles were salient for the young adolescents in this sample, particularly for those classified as diffused and foreclosed. Findings reflect the emergent and/or transitional nature of interpersonal identity development during early adolescence.     

Asian American college women's body image: a pilot study

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of values acculturation and the influence of media on Asian American college women's overall body image. A sample of 59 Asian American women from two large universities completed self-report surveys, which included questions regarding values acculturation, media internalization, and overall body satisfaction. Results showed that Asian American women who identified more strongly with traditional Asian values reported higher levels of body image dissatisfaction. Further, Asian American women who reported higher internalization of media portrayals of beauty ideals reported higher body image dissatisfaction. Research and clinical recommendations are made to enhance psychologists' understanding of Asian American women's body image and acculturation.     

Breasts Are for Men: Media, Masculinity Ideologies, and Men’s Beliefs About Women’s Bodies

Although masculinity ideology (MI) has been shown to predict men’s sexual risk-taking, less is known about MI’s contribution to men’s beliefs about women and their sexual bodies. Accordingly, we examined associations between masculine ideology, media consumption, and men’s attitudes about women’s reproductive body functions among a sample of 656 undergraduate men. Participants completed measures assessing their endorsement of traditional gender ideologies, their levels of media exposure and engagement, and their attitudes toward childbirth and breastfeeding. It was hypothesized that media use would contribute to traditional MI, and that traditional MI would contribute to negative views about breastfeeding and childbirth. Results supported these individual connections, but not a mediated model. Discussion focuses on implications of these findings for women’s lives.     

Risk Taking in Decision Making for Others Versus the Self1

In two studies, we examined people's level of risk taking when making monetary decisions for other people rather than for themselves. Experiment 1 examined the role of regret in these situations; results show that regret concerns led to increased risk avoidance both when participants made decisions for other people as well as when making decisions for themselves. Experiment 2 tested whether skill tasks would lead to greater risk avoidance when the decision was for another person versus for oneself. This hypothesis was not supported, although men were more risk seeking than were women in both situations. Taken together, these studies suggest that many of the findings from risk research on individual decision making regarding financial situations generalize to decision making for others.     

Person Recall in Field Settings1

Men and women were stopped in public places by a target, who approached them either in an open and friendly demeanor or with a closed and hesitant demeanor. Witnesses interacted with the target for either 5 s or 30 s, and were tested for cued recall 2 min after the encounter. Demeanor did not influence overall recall, but did affect recall of specific characteristics. Men were superior to women in recall of physical characteristics, but gender differences were not found in recall of clothing characteristics. Witnesses were superior with longer observation periods, especially for recall of clothing. Significant but low confidence‐accuracy correlations were found for recall of 8 of 14 person characteristics. Men were superior to women in their accuracy of duration estimations, but men and women both consistently overestimated durations.     

The Dynamics of Visual Reweighting in Healthy and Fall-Prone Older Adults

Multisensory reweighting (MSR) is an adaptive process that prioritizes the visual, vestibular, and somatosensory inputs to provide the most reliable information for postural stability when environmental conditions change. This process is thought to degrade with increasing age and to be particularly deficient in fall-prone versus healthy older adults. In the present study, the authors investigate the dynamics of sensory reweighting, which is not well-understood at any age. Postural sway of young, healthy, and fall-prone older adults was measured in response to large changes in the visual motion stimulus amplitude within a trial. Absolute levels of gain, and the rate of adaptive gain change were examined when visual stimulus amplitude changed from high to low and from low to high. Compared with young adults, gains in both older adult groups were higher when the stimulus amplitude was high. Gains in the fall-prone elderly were higher than both other groups when the stimulus amplitude was low. Both older groups demonstrated slowed sensory reweighting over prolonged time periods when the stimulus amplitude was high. The combination of higher vision gains and slower down weighting in older adults suggest deficits that may contribute to postural instability.     

Reply to the Comments of Longuenesse and Ginsborg

In this discussion I respond to some of the criticisms raised by Béatrice Longuenesse and Hannah Ginsborg to my account of Kant's aesthetic theory presents in Kant's Theory of Taste.     

Conscious thoughts from reflex-like processes: A new experimental paradigm for consciousness research

The contents of our conscious mind can seem unpredictable, whimsical, and free from external control. When instructed to attend to a stimulus in a work setting, for example, one might find oneself thinking about household chores. Conscious content thus appears different in nature from reflex action. Under the appropriate conditions, reflexes occur predictably, reliably, and via external control. Despite these intuitions, theorists have proposed that, under certain conditions, conscious content resembles reflexes and arises reliably via external control. We introduce the Reflexive Imagery Task, a paradigm in which, as a function of external control, conscious content is triggered reliably and unintentionally: When instructed to not subvocalize the name of a stimulus object, participants reliably failed to suppress the set-related imagery. This stimulus-elicited content is considered ‘high-level’ content and, in terms of stages of processing, occurs late in the processing stream. We discuss the implications of this paradigm for consciousness research.