Stigma Consciousness and Subjective Well-Being in Lesbians and Gays

The stigma associated with sexual identity can affect an individual’s well-being. The main goal of this study was to analyse the role of a psychosocial variable, stigma consciousness, on the well-being of lesbian and gay (LG) individuals. For this purpose, a sample of 481 participants completed various questionnaires (M _age = 32.36, SD _age = 9.60). Analysis of these results using structural equations showed two different pathways to cope with the stigma. The first pathway consists of collective action, and the second consists of stigma concealment. Specifically, stigma consciousness positively predicts well-being through group identification and collective action. Stigma concealment, however, negatively predicts well-being through the perception of prejudice. In addition, this work has confirmed that concealment has a direct negative relationship with subjective well-being. These results are interpreted from a psychosocial perspective. Finally, based on our data, we propose future interventions that provide LG individuals with strategies to cope with their perceptions of stigma.     

The cost of a strategy

Abstract

Experiment 1 demonstrated a new kind of dual-task interference effect. The primary task was a speeded left-right discrimination of stimulus position (R1). The un speeded secondary task consisted of reporting verbally whether the stimuli were the same or different (R2). Stimulus exposure time was either 150 or 2000 msec. Two groups of subjects performed the primary task only, whereas two other groups performed both tasks and were instructed to emit R1 before R2. It was reasoned that the decision would be made to emit R1 before R2, and that this decision would produce a lengthening of R1. The results supported this prediction. Experiment 2 showed that the interference effect also occurred when the subjects were not explicitly instructed to emit R1 before R2, and was not due to either the mere presence of the second task or to response grouping. Experiments 3 and 4 compared two possible models for explaining the interference effect, i.e. the capacity-sharing model and the postponement model. As predicted by the postponement model, task difficulty did not interact, or interacted underadditively, with task overlap (Experiment 3), and the interference effect was not influenced by the amount of processing resources devoted to the primary task (Experiment 4). It was concluded that this new type of interference effect is best explained by the version of the postponement model that locates the bottleneck at the decision stage.     

Bidirectional links in the network of multiplication facts

In three experiments, we tested the hypothesis that activation of multiplication operand nodes (e.g., 3 and 8) can occur through presentation of their product (e.g., 24). In Experiments 1 and 2 we found activation of the operands when the product was presented as a cue in a number-matching task. In Experiment 3, activation also occurred in a parity-matching task, where the product (24) was not relevant to the parity matching on its operands (3 and 8). We concluded that bidirectional links exist among the operands and their product for multiplication problems and these links can be activated in a purely stimulus-driven manner. We suggest this may constitute the basis for the solution of simple divisions by mediation through the complementary multiplication facts.     

Number magnitude orients attention, but not against one’s will

Recent evidence has shown that uninformative numbers can trigger attention shifts congruent with the spatial representation of number magnitude (Fischer, Castel, Dodd, & Pratt, 2003). In the present study, three spatial-cuing experiments whose aim was to qualify the automaticity of this numbermediated orienting are described. Experiment 1 replicated the phenomenon, showing that uninformative numbers can evoke orienting in a simple detection task. In Experiment 2, target location was random, but the participants were encouraged to shift attention to the left in response to large numbers and to the right in response to small numbers. No evidence for strong automaticity was observed, since the participants’ performance was better when left-side targets were preceded by large numbers than when they were preceded by small numbers and vice versa. Experiment 3 corroborated this pattern by comparing gaze- and number-mediated cuing under conditions of real counterpredictiveness. The results indicate that unlike gaze-driven orienting, number-mediated orienting is not obligatory.     

Right-left prevalence with task-irrelevant spatial codes

The present work investigated the right-left prevalence effect caused by the automatic activation of horizontal and vertical spatial codes in a task (Simon task) in which spatial information is task-irrelevant. Experiment 1 showed a horizontal Simon effect and a vertical Simon effect with a two-dimensional stimulus-response set. In Experiments 2 and 3, the right-left prevalence was obtained in two-dimensional Simon tasks with two contralateral effectors and four effectors respectively. Experiment 4 showed that horizontal coding is based on multiple spatial codes, whereas only one spatial code was formed for vertical coding. On the whole, these results support the notion that the right-left prevalence effect is a general phenomenon affecting spatial coding, and suggest that the horizontal dimension is prevalent because it is based on multiple spatial codes.     

Automatic spatial coding of perceived gaze direction is revealed by the Simon effect

In a typical Simon task, the (irrelevant) spatial position of the stimulus interferes with the processing of the salient characteristic (e.g., color). We used the Simon effect to investigate the automatic processing of gaze cues. We show that a simple drawing of schematic eyes automatically generates a spatially defined code of gaze direction. Although completely irrelevant to the task, direction of gaze influenced reaction times in a spatially selective two-choice discrimination based on eye color. Moreover, in one experiment employing an orthogonal manipulation of stimulus position and gaze direction, we found that coding of gaze direction is independent of stimulus spatial coding. Our finding of a “gazedirection Simon effect” is congruent with the hypothesis that gaze direction is coded by a specialized mechanism.     

The Role of Reproductive Strategies in Academic Attainment

Since there is a tradeoff between prolongedformal education and early reproduction, education canbe construed as a long-term reproductive tactic. Thisreproductive strategies approach was tested by looking at relationships between sociosexuality (SOI)and parental investment (parental income, number ofsiblings, parental divorce, number of step siblings,birth intervals, birth order, closeness to parents) and GPA of 139 White students at a privatecollege. Parental investment was reduced to threefactors (Family Composition, Family Security, andMarital Instability), the last of which was negativelycorrelated with GPA and positively correlated with SOI.SOI was a much stronger (negative) predictor of GPA inwomen, but not men, than ACT was. Results support thereproductive strategies approach and imply that prediction of academic difficulty (and genderdifferences therein) must confront reproductiveissues.     

Hand-hemispace spatial compatibility,precueing, and stimulus-onset asynchrony

Summary The role of attention and the resolution of coding conflicts in hand-hemispace spatial-compatibility effects was examined in a precueing experiment in which visual and vibrotactile precues, with various stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs), were presented in blocked and random order. It was expected that precues at the shorter SOAs would fail to facilitate the shifting of attention, as they occur too close to the imperative stimulus to be informative. The task would therefore approximate one of choice reaction time (RT), resulting in a hand-hemispace spatial-compatibility effect. Conversely, the longer SOAs would provide the subject with sufficient time in which to shift attention fully, and would therefore result in a task more like that of simple reaction time (SRT). It was expected that the hand-hemispace spatial-compatibility effect would then be absent. As was expected, this effect was present at the shorter SOAs, and absent at the longer SOAs. In Experiments 2 and 3, provision of a visual precue further facilitated attentional deployment, as did blocking the presentation of various SOAs in Experiment 3. Vibrotactile and visual precues did not differ in their ability to direct attention, implying that these modalities orient attention and precue location in essentially similar ways. These findings are discussed within the context of the mechanisms thought to underlie the time course of spatial compatibility and the dissipation of a fading trace of interfering spatial codes.