Sexual Content on Mainstream TV Advertising: A Cross-cultural Comparison

A content analysis of 1,785 American ads and 1,467 Israeli ads maps the representation of sexual content on mainstream TV advertising in the two countries. This content appears in less than 5% of the advertisements. Most of it is mild and portrayed in the conservative context of an established relationship. Explicit material, socially discouraged practices, references to sexual responsibility and complete nudity are extremely rare. Israeli advertisements tend to present a higher share of sexual content than American ads, and male models are more likely to be partially nude than female models—but these differences are minor in extent.     

“Pure Joy”: Spinoza on Laughter and Cheerfulness

Laughter is a significant topic for Renaissance and seventeenth-century philosophers. Still, the latter rarely approved of laughter but endorsed it as useful mockery for theological or philosophical purposes. Benedict Spinoza’s view of laughter stands out as an exception to this attitude as well as to previous and later ones. Spinoza differentiates between mockery and laughter, denounces the former as evil, and characterizes the latter as “pure joy”: laughter is about oneself rather than another and originates in noticing something good, rather than base or ugly. In contrast to melancholy, cheerfulness is “always good” and is a precondition of our liberation as it furthers the use of reason. Not only is Spinoza’s view original, but it is an important source of the eighteenth-century notions of good-natured laughter and good humor through a more than probable influence on their proponent, the Earl of Shaftesbury. Whilst Spinoza’s view of cheerfulness is briefly addressed in recent studies, his view of laughter goes unnoticed in most commentaries and is misrepresented in humor studies. Contrary to what is assumed in the philosophy of laughter, I argue that the most important defense of laughter comes not from a British Enlightenment thinker, but from the Dutch Jewish seventeenth-century philosopher.     

Facets of career decision-making difficulties

The present research investigated the relations among the measured and the expressed career decision-making difficulties in a sample of 299 young adults who intended to apply to college or university. As hypothesised, the correlations between career decision-making difficulties, as measured by the Career Decision-Making Difficulties Questionnaire (CDDQ), and the expressed difficulties were generally high (median = 0.64), but varied among the 10 difficulty categories (range 0.35-0.82). Both measured and expressed difficulties correlated negatively with the students' career decision-making self-efficacy (-0.63 and -0.65, respectively). The correlations between the CDDQ and both dimensions of the Vocational Decision Style Indicator were negative but low (-0.25 for the introvert vs. extrovert dimension and -0.35 for the thinking vs. feeling dimension). The correlations between the students' scholastic aptitude test scores and both measured and expressed difficulties were negligible (-0.03 and -0.08, respectively). Participants with more crystallised career plans reported lower career decision-making difficulties, higher career decision-making self-efficacy, and a higher 'thinking' (as opposed to 'feeling') vocational decision-making style. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Feeling happy and (over)confident: the role of positive affect in metacognitive processes

The relationship between affect and metacognitive processes has been largely overlooked in both the affect and the metacognition literatures. While at the core of many affect-cognition theories is the notion that positive affective states lead people to be more confident, few studies systematically investigated how positive affect influences confidence and strategic behaviour. In two experiments, when participants were free to control answer interval to general knowledge questions (e.g. question: “in what year”, answer: “it was between 1970 and 1985”), participants induced with positive affect outperformed participants in a neutral affect condition. However, in Experiment 1 positive affect participants showed larger overconfidence than neutral affect participants. In Experiment 2, enhanced salience of social cues eliminated this overconfidence disadvantage of positive affect relative to neutral affect participants, without compromising their enhanced performance. Notably, in both experiments, positive affect led to compromised social norms regarding the answers’ informativeness. Implications for both affect and metacognition are discussed.     

THE ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGY IN NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: WISHFUL THINKING AND REALITY

The aim of this essay is to indicate that psychology as a science or profession has not played a significant role in the historical evolution of industrialized countries. It is further argued that the problems of developing countries are basically political and economic and to psychologize them might be both unproductive and immoral. It is suggested that psychologists might do a better service by studying ways and means of changing the behavior of people who control the material resources of the world.     

A developmental study of the role of word order in comprehending Hebrew

Monolingual Hebrew-speaking subjects, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 11 years old, as well as adults, were asked to interpret utterances consisting of two nouns and a verb. Some utterances included only word order cues while others included direct object marker and subject-verb gender agreement cues. Even though Hebrew word order is relatively free, when subjects used word order as an interpretive cue they generally assigned sentence relations according to the dominant SVO order of modern Hebrew. This trend was less strong for the interpretations of NNV utterances than of NVN and VNN utterances. There was no evidence of a developmental sequence for word order strategies. In addition, there was no evidence that word order, for any age group, was necessarily a dominant cue for assigning sentence relations when other linguistic information was available.     

What makes people happy? Decoupling the experiential-material continuum

Extant literature suggests that consumers derive more happiness from experiences (e.g., vacations) than from material possessions (e.g., furniture). However, this literature typically pits material against experiential consumption, treating them as a single bipolar construct of their relative dominance: more material or more experiential. This focus on relative dominance leaves unanswered questions regarding how different levels of material and experiential qualities each contribute to happiness. Four preregistered studies (N = 3,288), using hundreds of product categories, measured levels of material and experiential qualities using two unipolar items. These studies investigate recalled, evoked, and anticipated happiness. Results show a more nuanced view of the experiential advantage that is critical for future research and consumer theory: material and experiential qualities both have positive relationships with happiness. Further, there is no inherent trade-off between experiential and material qualities: consumers can enjoy consumption that is high on both (e.g., swimming pools and home improvements).     

Thyroid chondroplasty: Smoothing the thyroid cartilage— A retrospective study of thyroid chondroplasty for feminine neck appearance

Background: Thyroid chondroplasty is a surgical intervention for reduction of the Adam's apple, performed in trans women to achieve a more feminine appearance of the neck. This procedure is necessary since hormonal therapy given as part of gender affirming medical interventions has no effect on the mature larynx.

Objectives: We aim to describe our thyroid chondroplasty surgical technique and outcome of all thyroid chondroplasties performed during the study period.

Methods: A retrospective chart review of all thyroid chondroplasty procedures performed in a tertiary referral center between 2006 and 2015. Patients' clinical characteristics and surgical outcome were recorded and analyzed.

Results: Twenty-seven trans women underwent thyroid chondroplasty in our institution. Post-operative complications included a single patient who suffered from false vocal fold (ventricular folds) hematoma that resolved spontaneously. Five other patients had an erythematous scar. No other complications were observed.

Conclusion: Thyroid chondroplasty is a safe procedure for achieving a feminine neck contour in trans women.