Sex differences in the personal costs and benefits of relational and physical aggression in high school

While recent research using peer ratings demonstrates positive relations between youth's reputations for aggression and popularity, it is not clear whether aggressive youth themselves make these links. Using youth's self‐reports, this study assessed the associations of relational and physical aggression with indicators of both personal gains in peer relations (perceived popularity and receipt of prosocial attention) and personal costs in terms of retaliation or depressive responses (peer victimization and depressive symptoms) in a large sample (n=455) of eighth‐ to tenth‐grade students. Regression analyses reveal that more relationally aggressive youth report more prosocial attention but also more relational (but not physical) victimization. In contrast, more physically aggressive youth report more depressive symptoms and physical (but not relational) victimization. Findings suggest that some costs of aggression (victimization) are higher for boys while others (depressive symptoms) are greater for girls. Group differences were also found for aggressive, victimized, and aggressive/victimized youth compared to the typical low aggressive/low victimized youth. These data suggest that the costs of relational and physical aggression may outweigh benefits except for aggressive non‐victimized boys. Aggr. Behav. 32:409–419, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

A review of research methods in IO/OB work-family research

A methodological review was conducted of work-family (WF) research published in industrial-organizational psychology and organizational behavior journals over a period of 24 years (1980-2003). Content analysis was conducted on 225 individual studies published in 210 articles to categorize methodological features, including the research design, sources of data used, data analysis techniques, reliability and validity of measures used, and sociodemographic characteristics of the samples. Results support many of the criticisms of WF research and suggest that scholars publishing WF research in industrial-organizational psychology and organizational behavior journals could make greater use of longitudinal and experimental research designs, gather more multisource data, and move beyond the individual level of analysis. Adopting more diverse conceptualizations of family, including a greater proportion of racial and ethnic minorities, and studying workers in occupations other than managerial or professional positions also appear warranted. Finally, methodological trends varied across specific WF content areas, which suggests that distinct methodologies might be useful to advance knowledge of specific WF topics.     

Stability of choice reaction time and synchronicity of peak EMG values during bimanual reactions.

18 volunteers of our Faculty participated in two quasi-identical experiments six months apart. Repeated measurements of reaction time and synchronicity of peak forearm EMG values during bimanual reactions are analyzed by means of analysis of variance with subjects and measurement period as factors. Using Ebel's formula, test-retest reliabilities derived from the analysis vary between .82 and .94 for reaction times on different tasks and conditions and between .75 and .92 for synchronicity of peak EMG values.     

Category-Specific Naming Deficit for Medical Terms after Dominant Thalamic/Capsular Hemorrhage

Postmortem, retrograde degeneration, and electrical stimulation studies have implicated the anterior pulvinar in language processing. We examined a patient who, after a hemorrhage affecting the dominant pulvinar and internal capsule, exhibited a circumscribed anomia for medical items and conditions. No other language disturbance was noted. Five category-specific word lists, matched for word frequency, were administered in a naming-to-definition format. Results indicated that the patient exhibited a significant category-specific naming deficit for medical items and conditions compared to matched control subjects. Although medical item lists were found to differ from nonmedical item lists in imageability and abstractness, B.C.'s category-specific deficit did not seem to be caused by word frequency, concept familiarity, imageability, or abstractness. Nor could the patient's performance be explained on the basis of deficits in broader semantic classifications (i.e., animate vs inanimate or man-made vs natural). The patient was unable to retrieve medical items even when given phonemic cues for those he could not name. Findings indicate that subtotal damage in the dominant pulvinar may create category-specific deficits.     

Effect of short lateralized signals on arousal versus activation on tasks requiring visuospatial or elementary semantic stimulus processing, a replication with a modified experimental design

In this experiment, which is basically a replication of an earlier experiment done in 1988, we tested the hypothesis that the brain self-regulates its own arousal and activation. When subjects perform a putative right-hemisphere task (visuospatial), the effect of a supplementary information-processing load is supposed to lead to a delayed reaction. The opposite is supposed to be true in a putative left-hemisphere task (semantic). The former effect is supposed to be the result of increased arousal, the latter is that of increased activation. In the present experiment the reactions subject to experimental treatment are compared with control reactions of the same subject. This was not the case in the earlier experiment. Still other improvements of the experimental design were made. The results clearly confirm the earlier findings. Additional evidence is offered to strengthen the plausibility of the basic hypothesis.     

Anxiety sensitivity moderates the painful effects of feeling burdensome to others

Perceived burdensomeness (PB), the perception of being a burden to others, is associated with pain and physical symptoms. Anxiety sensitivity (AS), the fear of arousal-related sensations, arising from beliefs that the sensations may have adverse personal consequences (physical, cognitive, and social), may increase risk for pain responding, particularly in anxiety-provoking (e.g. socially threatening) contexts. Accordingly, individuals high in AS may have a stronger pain response when experiencing PB than those low in AS. Undergraduate participants (n = 262) completed the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI-3), and then were randomly assigned to re-live an experience when they were either burdensome to others (burdensome condition) or contributed equally to a group (control condition). Both social and physical self-reported pain were assessed post-manipulation. Those high in AS reported significantly higher pain ratings in the burdensome condition than the control condition; for those low in AS, pain did not change across conditions. In particular, being fearful of the physical repercussions of anxiety (AS physical concerns) while also feeling burdensome to others was associated with greater physical pain. AS may exacerbate the already painful effects of feeling burdensome to others, and may have important implications for the development of future suicide- and pain-related interventions.     

Neurobehavioral phenotype of Klinefelter syndrome

A defined genetic syndrome with neurobehavioral components offers an unusual paradigm for the correlation of genetic defects with neurodevelopmental abnormalities. The power of the combination of detailed behavioral, neuroanatomical, and genetic studies has been demonstrated in studies of other conditions involving the sex chromosomes, such as Fragile X syndrome (Mazzocco [2000] Ment Retard Develop Disabil Res Rev. 6:96-106) and Turner syndrome (Ross [2000] Ment Retard Develop Disabil Res Rev. 6:135-141). Although the behavioral and neurologic difficulties that have been identified in Klinefelter syndrome (KS) are in most cases milder than the consequences of many other genetic syndromes, the deficits in KS cause significant morbidity, representing a more common, but poorly understood, subtype of those with learning disabilities. Both as children and as adults, KS subjects appear to offer a powerful genetic model for the study of language and language-based learning disabilities. Although it has been proposed that the language-based learning difficulties of KS boys are similar to those of nonaneuploidic dyslexics [Bender et al., 1986; Geschwind et al., 1998], this is not yet well established. The co-morbid frontal-executive dysfunction observed in KS is also a likely contributor to learning difficulties and, perhaps, social cognition, in many KS patients. It is also proposed that altered left-hemisphere functioning, whether causing, or due to, altered functional and anatomical cerebral dominance, is at the core of KS subjects' language problems. Although X chromosomal loci can provide only part of the picture, the study of KS subjects, a population with a relatively homogeneous etiology for dyslexia/dysphasia and frontal-executive dysfunction, offers many advantages over such a study in the general population, in which both dyslexia and attentional disorders are quite genetically heterogeneous [Decker and Bender, 1988; Pennington, 1990; Grigorenko et al., 1997; Geschwind et al., 1998]. Furthermore, the interaction of genetic factors and hormonal influences in the cognitive phenotypes described remains an unexplored area for future investigation. MRDD Research Reviews 2000;6:117-124.     

Toward a reconceptualization of the reciprocal imitation phenomenon: Two experiments

This paper reports two experiments which consider the increased imitation exhibited by models who have been imitated. Experiment 1 was concerned with whether the reciprocal imitation effect is really reciprocal or if the subsequent imitation will generalize to someone else. It was found that adult subjects who were previously imitated at the 75% rate on a perceptual judgments task subsequently imitated their partner more, rated their partner more attractive, and felt more confidence when imitated than did subjects imitated at the 25% rate. These results were obtained regardless of which confederate the subjects imitated, thus indicating that reciprocal imitation is not necessarily reciprocal, but is generalizable. Experiment 2 assessed whether the subsequent imitation is the product of the effects of being imitated or is the result of the subject observing the imitator's imitation. The results indicated that after having observed imitation at a 75% rate, adult onlookers are more likely to subsequently imitate and be attracted to the imitator, the imitated person, and a person new to the situation than are onlookers who observed a 25% imitation rate. A theoretical modification is advanced which holds that subsequent imitation effects, whether from observing others imitate or from being the target of the imitation, result from a process of imitation of imitativeness. The results of these two experiments have implications for theory in imitation and social learning.     

Fear of missing out and depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments issued public health safety measures (e.g., “stay-at-home” ordinances), leaving many people “missing out” on integral social aspects of their own lives. The fear of missing out, popularly shortened as, “FoMO,” is a felt sense of unease one experiences when they perceive they may be missing out on rewarding and/or enjoyable experiences. Among 76 participants (ages M = 69.36, SD = 5.34), who were at risk for hospitalization or death if infected with COVID-19, we found that FoMO was associated with depressive symptoms at Time 1, even when controlling for perceived stress, loneliness, and fear of COVID-19. However, FoMO did not predict future depressive symptoms, about 1 week later, when controlling for Time 1 depressive symptoms. These findings provide further evidence that FoMO is associated with depressive symptoms in a short period of time even when accounting for other powerful social factors such as loneliness. Future research should explore the potential causal relationships between FoMO and depression, especially those that may establish temporal precedence.