Social Comparison,the Threat of AIDS,and Adolescent Condom Use1

This study tested hypotheses from social comparison theory about adolescent condom use. Questionnaires were administered to 457 twelfth-grade students (284 sexually active). Three different operationalizations of social comparison were used—comparative ratings, affiliative preferences, and derogation; each produced different results. Low condom users who felt threatened by AIDS made more downward comparative ratings regarding condom use than did unthreatened low users. In contrast, low users preferred upward affiliations with high users. Adolescents with higher self-esteem derogated adolescents with AIDS less as threat increased. Adolescents with lower self-esteem who made downward comparative ratings were more satisfied with their own past condom use. Satisfied low condom users were less likely to intend condom use in the future. The results provide evidence that downward comparison may act indirectly to deter behavioral change.     

Further evidence of associations of type a personality scores and driving-related attitudes and behaviors

The present study examined the effects of Type A personality on specific self-reported driving attitudes and behaviors when operating a motor vehicle. 102 undergraduate students completed the student version of the Jenkins Activity Survey (Form T) and several questionnaires asking participants about their driving history, driving attitudes, and driving behaviors. When the full range of Type A scores were examined, Type A personality was significantly related to more traffic accidents, greater frequency of breaking traffic laws, higher impatience when driving, more displays of aggression on the road, and engaging in more risky driving behaviors (rs<.17). When extreme Type A and Type B scores were compared, Type A drivers reported being involved in significantly more motor vehicle accidents and reported displaying more aggression on the road. Further research should examine actual behavioral data using more diverse samples to validate the results.     

What Mediates the Relationship Between Religious Service Attendance and Aspects of Well-Being?

Religious service attendance predicts increased well-being across a number of studies. It is not clear, however, whether this relationship is due to religious factors such as intrinsic religiosity or due to nonreligious factors such as social support or socially desirable responding. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between religious service attendance and well-being while simultaneously examining intrinsic religiosity, social support, and socially desirable responding as potential mediators of the relationship. A sample of 855 participants (71 % female, average age 19.5) completed questionnaires assessing religiosity, social support, socially desirable responding, and well-being. Path models were estimated using maximum likelihood estimation to analyze the data. Intrinsic religiosity was the strongest mediator of the relationship between religious service attendance and depressive and anxiety symptoms. This suggests that the mental health benefits of religious service attendance are not simply the result of increased social support or a certain response style on questionnaires; rather, it appears that the relationship is at least partly the result of people trying to live their religion in their daily lives.     

Evidence for ‘motionese’: modifications in mothers’ infant‐directed action

We investigated the possibility that mothers modify their infant‐directed actions in ways that might assist infants’ processing of human action. In a between‐subjects design, 51 mothers demonstrated the properties of five novel objects either to their infant (age 6–8 months or 11–13 months) or to an adult partner. As predicted, demonstrations to infants were higher in interactiveness, enthusiasm, proximity to partner, range of motion, repetitiveness and simplicity, indicating that mothers indeed modify their infant‐directed actions in ways that likely maintain infants’ attention and highlight the structure and meaning of action. The findings demonstrate that ‘motherese’ is broader in scope than previously recognized, including modifications to action as well as language.     

Effects of time pressure on context-sensitive property induction

Past research suggests that category-based induction flexibly draws on different kinds of knowledge in different contexts, and that different kinds of knowledge may differ in accessibility. The present study investigates the degree to which knowledge accessibility mediates context-sensitive induction by examining the effects of time pressure on inferences about novel properties of animal species. Participants were told about a novel gene or a novel disease that was true of one category of animals, then rated the likelihood that taxonomically, ecologically, and unrelated animals had the same property, under speeded or delayed conditions. Property effects were observed for taxonomically related species independent of time pressure, but were only observed for ecologically related species in the delayed condition. These results suggest that time pressure selectively restricts access to ecological knowledge, and that knowledge access is critical for context-sensitive inductive reasoning.