Gender differences in the motivational processing of facial beauty

Gender may be involved in the motivational processing of facial beauty. This study applied a behavioral probe, known to activate brain motivational regions, to healthy heterosexual subjects. Matched samples of men and women were administered two tasks: (a) key pressing to change the viewing time of average or beautiful female or male facial images, and (b) rating the attractiveness of these images. Men expended more effort (via the key-press task) to extend the viewing time of the beautiful female faces. Women displayed similarly increased effort for beautiful male and female images, but the magnitude of this effort was substantially lower than that of men for beautiful females. Heterosexual facial attractiveness ratings were comparable in both groups. These findings demonstrate heterosexual specificity of facial motivational targets for men, but not for women. Moreover, heightened drive for the pursuit of heterosexual beauty in the face of regular valuational assessments, displayed by men, suggests a gender-specific incentive sensitization phenomenon.     

Factors affecting responses to Likert type questionnaires: introduction of the ImpExp,a new comprehensive model

The major purpose of this paper is to propose a comprehensive model describing the effects of response sets within the theory framework of the stages of responding to questionnaires, and taking into account the effects of collectivist and individualist attributes within cross-cultural contexts. The introduction of this model aims to provide a construct that may help minimize biases in questionnaire-based research as well as providing new directions for theoretical and empirical research in the field of response sets.

In the mood to get over yourself: mood affects theory-of-mind use

Understanding others' behavior often involves attributing mental states to them by using one's "theory of mind." We argue that using theory of mind to recognize differences between one's own perspective and another's perspective is a deliberate process of inference that may be influenced by incidental mood. Because sadness is associated with more systematic and deliberate processing whereas happiness is associated with more heuristic processing, we predicted that theory-of-mind use would be facilitated by sadness compared with happiness. Two experiments supported this prediction, demonstrating that participants were more likely to utilize knowledge about others to make inferences about their mental states when they were induced to feel sad than when they were induced to feel happy. These results provide both theoretical insight into the psychological mechanisms that govern theory of mind as well as practical insight into a common source of variability in its use.     

The Miyake Island Volcano Disaster in Japan: Loss, Uncertainty, and Relocation as Predictors of PTSD and Depression

This study investigates the relationship between psychological well-being and the impact of loss and psychological uncertainty after the 2000 Miyake Island volcanic eruption. 231 Japanese evacuees (ages 20-93, average 59.52 years old) responded to mailed questionnaires 10 months after the volcanic eruption in 2000. The questionnaire included the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R) for posttraumatic stress disorder, an 11-item version of the Center for Epidemiological Study-Depression Scale (CES-D), assessment of disaster losses, demographics, and measure of relevant pre- and post-disaster activities (e.g., relocation, worry, doctor visits). Findings indicated that material loss and uncertainty of losses were significantly associated with higher rates of reported PTSD and depression symptoms. Those who relocated multiple times reported significantly higher rates of PTSD symptoms than those who relocated less frequently. Demographic characteristics such as being older, widowed, lower SES, less education, and longer length of residency on the island were also strongly associated with higher reported PTSD symptoms. Depression symptoms were strongly associated with being widowed, lower SES, longer length of residency on the island, and previous experiences of evacuations due to disasters.     

Why don't we believe non-native speakers? The influence of accent on credibility

Non-native speech is harder to understand than native speech. We demonstrate that this “processing difficulty” causes non-native speakers to sound less credible. People judged trivia statements such as “Ants don't sleep” as less true when spoken by a non-native than a native speaker. When people were made aware of the source of their difficulty they were able to correct when the accent was mild but not when it was heavy. This effect was not due to stereotypes of prejudice against foreigners because it occurred even though speakers were merely reciting statements provided by a native speaker. Such reduction of credibility may have an insidious impact on millions of people, who routinely communicate in a language which is not their native tongue.     

Brain potentials related to seeing one''s own name

Subjects were assigned an assumed name and then shown a series of statements of the form, "My name / is / X", where X was the assumed name, their own first name, or one of a set of other false names. Their task was to respond positively to the "assumed" name and reject as false all other names, including their own. An N380 feature of the averaged task-related brain potentials, considered to be inversely related to the degree of contextual priming, was greatly enhanced for the false names compared to the assumed name. The N380 to one's own name was more similar to that of the false than the assumed name, indicating that the sentence context's priming of various names was under the subjects' attentional control, and that the late negativity could be modulated by this attention. In contrast, a large P510 feature distinguished one's own name from the false name, and this difference was unaffected by practice. Even in cases, then, where the context allows anticipation of one verbal event (here, the assumed name), a highly overlearned and salient stimulus such as one's own name continues to produce a distinctive neural response.     

Gender matters when sports engagement and self-efficacy interact with academic achievement

Social Psychology of Education - This study examines, through the lens of gender, whether engagement in sports, self-efficacy and grade level affect academic achievements of adolescents. The study...     

Auditory hallucinations in acute stroke

Auditory hallucinations are uncommon phenomena which can be directly caused by acute stroke, mostly described after lesions of the brain stem, very rarely reported after cortical strokes. The purpose of this study is to determine the frequency of this phenomenon. In a cross sectional study, 641 stroke patients were followed in the period between 1996-2000. Each patient underwent comprehensive investigation and follow-up. Four patients were found to have post cortical stroke auditory hallucinations. All of them occurred after an ischemic lesion of the right temporal lobe. After no more than four months, all patients were symptom-free and without therapy. The fact the auditory hallucinations may be of cortical origin must be taken into consideration in the treatment of stroke patients. The phenomenon may be completely reversible after a couple of months.