Depression in adults with type 2 diabetes: the role of adherence, body mass index, and self-efficacy.

Considerable evidence links depression with the development and worsening of diabetes, but the factors contributing to this link have not been established. The authors examined the role of adherence, body mass index (BMI), and self-efficacy. Adult patients with Type 2 diabetes (N = 56) completed self-report measures of diet and exercise adherence, diet and exercise self-efficacy, and depression. BMI was obtained from medical records. Path and mediation analyses indicated that both adherence and BMI independently contributed to self-efficacy. Self-efficacy mediated both the association between adherence and depression and the association between BMI and depression. These findings are consistent with the proposal that lower self-efficacy in reaction to adherence failure and higher BMI contributes to depression in adults with diabetes.     

A COMPARISON OF MALE AND FEMALE DIRECTORS IN POPULAR PORNOGRAPHY: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WOMEN ARE AT THE HELM?

Pornography is a lucrative business. Increasingly, women have participated in both its production, direction, and consumption. This study investigated how the content in popular pornographic videos created by female directors differs from that of their male counterparts. We conducted a quantitative analysis of 122 randomly selected scenes from 44 top-renting adult videos in 2005 (half male- and half female-directed). Findings revealed that all films shared similar depictions: Verbal and physical aggression was common, women were the primary targets of aggression, and negative responses to aggression were extremely rare. Compared to male-directed films, female-directed films were significantly more likely to portray women-only scenes and sexual acts. Even when controlling for main characters' gender, female-directed films showed significantly more female perpetrators aggressing against female targets and significantly more depictions of women as perpetrators of aggression. We highlight the importance of economic forces, rather than director gender, in dictating the content of popular pornography.     

Young children's comprehension of number markers

Young children's comprehension of four number markers (demonstratives, regular nouns, third person of the auxiliary be, and regular present tense verbs) was investigated through their presentation in sentences conveying non-redundant information about number. Comprehension of each sentence was tested in two tasks: pointing to one of a pair of line drawings and acting out with toys the action described by a sentence. The results indicated that, firstly, the number information carried by the verb is rarely attended to or mastered before some component of the noun phrase; and, secondly, that the is/are allomorphs of the auxiliary be are mastered much earlier than the singular and plural forms of third-person regular present tense verbs. Both the overall order of difficulty in understanding the four number markers investigated and the analysis of individual data were consistent with the developmental sequence reported by several authors for the acquisition of grammatical morphemes in spontaneous speech production.     

Grammatical gender processing in bilinguals: An analytic review

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - In this review article, we analyze how grammatical gender is represented and processed in the bilingual mind. To that end, we review the data from 13 existing...     

Anxiety sensitivity and daily cigarette smoking in relation to sleep disturbances in treatment-seeking smokers

ABSTRACT

Although the association between anxiety and sleep disturbance is well-documented, the underlying mechanisms are less clear. Anxiety sensitivity (AS), the fear of physiological arousal and bodily sensations, is a risk factor for anxiety and poor sleep. Smoking also contributes to poor sleep and may compound the effects of AS on sleep quality. This study evaluated the main and interactive effects of AS and cigarettes/day on sleep quality among smokers. Participants (n = 190) were adult treatment-seeking daily smokers who completed a baseline assessment as part of a larger smoking cessation trial. Sleep quality was self-reported. Results indicated that AS was significantly correlated with greater disturbance in sleep duration, subjective sleep quality, sleep onset latency, sleep disturbance, daytime dysfunction, and sleep medication use. There was a significant interaction between AS and cigarettes/day in terms of sleep onset latency, but not other sleep quality indices. AS was associated with significantly longer sleep onset latency minutes among heavier smokers, but not lighter smokers. Specifically, the association between AS and sleep onset latency was significant for those who smoked ≥ 33 cigarettes/day. AS is a psychological factor that may contribute to poor sleep quality, especially in heavy smokers, and thus may be a promising intervention target.