An investigation of appearance motives for tanning: The development and evaluation of the Physical Appearance Reasons For Tanning Scale (PARTS) and its relation to sunbathing and indoor tanning intentions

Motives for UV exposure have been shown to be related to appearance concerns, yet little research has examined specific tan appearance attitudes. Given this lacuna, Study 1 involved the identification of six factors among college female tanners: general attractiveness, media influence, family/friends influence, physical fitness appearance, acne reasons, and skin aging concerns. In Study 2, a separate sample of college female tanners were used to validate a higher order factor model, which demonstrated acceptable fit. Additionally, the factors converged in the expected directions, with the general attractiveness and skin aging concerns being the best correlate of UV exposure and sun-protection intentions. The relevance of these findings to skin cancer prevention is discussed.     

Promoting response variability and stimulus generalization in martial arts training

The effects of reinforcement and extinction on response variability and stimulus generalization in the punching and kicking techniques of 2 martial arts students were evaluated across drill and sparring conditions. During both conditions, the students were asked to demonstrate different techniques in response to an instructor's punching attack. During baseline, the students received no feedback on their responses in either condition. During the intervention phase, the students received differential reinforcement in the form of instructor feedback for each different punching or kicking technique they performed during a session of the drill condition, but no reinforcement was provided for techniques in the sparring condition. Results showed that both students increased the number of different techniques they performed when reinforcement and extinction procedures were conducted during the drill condition, and that this increase in response variability generalized to the sparring condition.     

Sample size and the detection of correlation--a signal detection account: comment on Kareev (2000) and Juslin and Olsson (2005)

Simulations examined the hypothesis that small samples can provide better grounds for inferring the existence of a population correlation, p, than can large samples. Samples of 5, 7, 10, 15, or 30 data pairs were drawn either from a population with p=0 or from one with p>0. When decision accuracy was assessed independently for each level of the decision criterion, there was a criterion-specific small-sample advantage. For liberal criteria, accuracy was greater for large than for small samples, but for conservative criteria, the opposite result occurred. There was no small-sample advantage when accuracy was measured as the area under a receiver operating characteristic curve or as the posterior probability of a hit. The results show that small-sample advantages can occur, but under limited conditions.     

Lost in the wilderness: terror management, action orientation, and nature evaluation

The authors propose that wilderness is intrinsically associated with death, and, consequently, terror management concerns may promote more negative evaluations of wilderness. Consistent with this, wilderness inspired more thoughts about death than either cultivated nature or urban environments (Study 1), and death reminders reduced perceived beauty of wilderness (Study 2). The authors further suggest that active self-regulation facilitates suppression of the dark side of wilderness. Consistent with this, action orientation was positively related to perceived beauty of wilderness (Study 3), and after viewing wilderness, action-oriented individuals were more efficient at suppressing the association between wilderness and death than state-oriented individuals (Study 4). Direct death reminders overruled the effects of action orientation on nature evaluation (Study 5), presumably because direct death reminders are difficult to suppress even for action-oriented individuals.     

Quantitative genetic analysis of latent growth curve models of cognitive abilities in adulthood

Though many cognitive abilities exhibit marked decline over the adult years, individual differences in rates of change have been observed. In the current study, biometrical latent growth models were used to examine sources of variability for ability level (intercept) and change (linear and quadratic effects) for verbal, fluid, memory, and perceptual speed abilities in the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging. Genetic influences were more important for ability level at age 65 and quadratic change than for linear slope at age 65. Expected variance components indicated decreasing genetic and increasing nonshared environmental variation over age. Exceptions included one verbal and two memory measures that showed increasing genetic and nonshared environmental variance. The present findings provide support for theories of the increasing influence of the environment with age on cognitive abilities.     

Depression and vulnerability as assessed by the Rorschach method

We examined clinically depressed (CD; n = 16), previously depressed (PD; n = 19) and never depressed (ND; n = 18) individuals on 13 theoretically selected Rorschach (Exner, 1993; Rorschach, 1942) variables and on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979). The group assignment was made according to the criteria of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; American Psychiatric Association, 1994). We tested 2 contradictory models for depressive vulnerability, Beck's (Clark & Beck, 1999) and Miranda and Persons's (1988; Persons & Miranda, 1992), in a planned comparison design with focused contrasts. The CDs significantly contrasted the combined group of NDs and the PDs in a pathological direction on 8 of the 13 Rorschach variables and on the BDI. However, the combined group of CDs and PDs also significantly contrasted the NDs in a pathological direction on 3 of these Rorschach variables and on the BDI. In addition, logistic regression analyses indicated that Rorschach indexes significantly improved the prediction of major depression above and beyond that achieved by the BDI. The findings show that the Rorschach method was able to identify (a) cognitive and aggressive disturbances that are present in individuals who are actively depressed but not in individuals who have been depressed in the past or never been depressed and (b) affective and coping disturbances that are present in depressed individuals and to some degree in PD individuals but not in individuals who have not experienced depression. We discuss the scanty evidence of psychological disturbances in PD individuals, as measured with the Rorschach, in relation to the mood-state dependent hypothesis of Miranda and Persons (1988; Persons & Miranda, 1992).     

An analysis of choice making in the assessment of young children with severe behavior problems

We examined how positive and negative reinforcement influenced time allocation, occurrence of problem behavior, and completion of parent instructions during a concurrent choice assessment with 2 preschool-aged children who displayed severe problem behavior in their homes. The children were given a series of concurrent choice options that varied availability of parent attention, access to preferred toys, and presentation of parent instructions. The results showed that both children consistently allocated their time to choice areas that included parent attention when no instructions were presented. When parent attention choice areas included the presentation of instructions, the children displayed differential patterns of behavior that appeared to be influenced by the presence or absence of preferred toys. The results extended previous applications of reinforcer assessment procedures by analyzing the relative influence of both positive and negative reinforcement within a concurrent-operants paradigm.