Predicting high risk sexual behaviour in heterosexual and homosexual men: the roles of impulsivity and sensation seeking

Impulsivity and sexual sensation seeking were examined as personality correlates of high risk sexual behaviour — unprotected sex with multiple partners — in samples of heterosexual (n=112) and homosexual (n=104) men. Among heterosexuals, both personality variables were associated with frequency of unprotected sex but only sexual sensation seeking was associated with number of sex partners. Sexual sensation seeking also mediated the association between use of drugs other than alcohol and number of sex partners. Among homosexuals, no personality or substance use variables predicted high risk sexual behaviour. Implications of the findings for the study of determinants of sexual risk-taking are discussed.     

Connecting DSM-5 Personality Traits and Pathological Beliefs: Toward a Unifying Model

Dissatisfaction with the DSM-IV model of personality disorders has led to the development of alternative conceptualizations, including pathological trait models and models linked to particular theoretical approaches, such as Beck and Freeman’s (1990) cognitive framework. An important issue involves the potential to interweave such models into a single, parsimonious system that combines their distinct advantages. In this study, pathological trait and dysfunctional belief data from 616 individuals in a non-clinical sample were evaluated for commensurability using structural equation modeling. These models can be integrated via five higher-order factors, and that specific dimensions of dysfunctional beliefs can be differentiated based on features of the DSM-5 trait model. Overall, these results suggest that traits provide scaffolding for individual differences in pathological personality, within which dysfunctional beliefs offer specific vectors for clinical intervention in a cognitive framework. Implications of the empirical commensurability of trait and cognitive models are discussed.     

The Difference Between Being and Seeing: The Relative Contribution of Self-Perception and Priming to Behavioral Changes via Digital Self-Representation

Studies in the Proteus Effect (N. Yee & J. Bailenson, 2007 Yee, N. and Bailenson, J. 2007. The proteus effect: The effect of transformed self-representation on behavior. Human Communication Research, 33: 271–290. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) have shown that the appearance of avatars (i.e., digital representations of ourselves) can lead to behavioral changes in users. For example, participants in attractive avatars became friendlier to confederate strangers than participants in unattractive avatars. While the Proteus Effect is premised on self-perception theory (D. Bem, 1972 Bem, D. 1972. “Self-perception theory.”. In Advances in experimental social psychology Edited by: Berkowitz, L. Vol. 6, New York: Academic Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar])—the notion that we infer our own attitudes by observing ourselves as if from a third party—it is also possible that the previous findings were caused by priming (i.e., behavioral assimilation; J. Bargh, M. Chen, & L. Burrows, 1996 Bargh, J., Chen, M. and Burrows, L. 1996. The automaticity of social behaviour: Direct effects of trait concept and stereotype activation on action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71: 230–244. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). In our study, we used immersive virtual environment technology to experimentally tease apart embodiment from perception of the same visual stimulus. Our results showed that embodiment produced significantly larger behavioral changes than mere observation of the same visual stimuli. These findings support the claim that our avatars provide a unique lever to behavioral change; however, more work is needed to pin down the exact mechanism behind the effect.     

Outpatient alcoholics view group therapy

Eight chronic alcoholic outpatients who completed six months of a biweekly therapy group returned questionnaires based on Yalom's concepts of group therapy curative factors. The questionnaire data revealed that the most helpful factors were instillation of hope, altruism, group cohesiveness, interpersonal output and universality. These results are discussed with reference to other studies using Yalom's technique.Supported by Biomedical Research Support Grant Number 2-0570260-30102, Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, San Francisco, California.     

The influence of attention on value integration

People often have to make decisions based on many pieces of information. Previous work has found that people are able to integrate values presented in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream to make informed judgements on the overall stream value (Tsetsos et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109(24), 9659–9664, 2012). It is also well known that attentional mechanisms influence how people process information. However, it is unknown how attentional factors impact value judgements of integrated material. The current study is the first of its kind to investigate whether value judgements are influenced by attentional processes when assimilating information. Experiments 1–3 examined whether the attentional salience of an item within an RSVP stream affected judgements of overall stream value. The results showed that the presence of an irrelevant high or low value salient item biased people to judge the stream as having a higher or lower overall mean value, respectively. Experiments 4–7 directly tested Tsetsos et al.’s (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109(24), 9659–9664, 2012) theory examining whether extreme values in an RSVP stream become over-weighted, thereby capturing attention more than other values in the stream. The results showed that the presence of both a high (Experiments 4, 6 and 7) and a low (Experiment 5) value outlier captures attention leading to less accurate report of subsequent items in the stream. Taken together, the results showed that valuations can be influenced by attentional processes, and can lead to less accurate subjective judgements.     

Childhood anxiety and attention to emotion faces in a modified stroop task

This study used an emotional face stroop task to investigate the effects of self‐report trait anxiety, social concern (SC), and chronological age (CA) on reaction time to match coloured outlines of angry, happy, and neutral faces (and control faces with scrambled features) with coloured buttons in a community sample of 74 children aged 6 –12 years. The results showed an interference of colour matching for angry (relative to neutral) faces in children with elevated SC. The same effect was not found for happy or control faces. In addition, the results suggest that selective attention to angry faces in children with social concern (SC) was not significantly moderated by age.     

Theological Education at the Crossroads

Theological education and ministerial training must prepare people for a post‐Christendom context. Moving on from the subject‐object dualism of modernity, where ministry is seen as a professional task done to and for others, this article proposes that attending to the subjectivity of others is necessary for the formation of mature community, and for genuine missional engagement. It proposes a contextualised training in which students learn theologically reflective practice from the heart of Christian community.     

The influence of prior knowledge on the retrieval‐directed function of note taking in prior knowledge activation

Background. Prior knowledge activation facilitates learning. Note taking during prior knowledge activation (i.e., note taking directed at retrieving information from memory) might facilitate the activation process by enabling learners to build an external representation of their prior knowledge. However, taking notes might be less effective in supporting prior knowledge activation if available prior knowledge is limited. Aims. This study investigates the effects of the retrieval‐directed function of note taking depending on learners' level of prior knowledge. It is hypothesized that the effectiveness of note taking is influenced by the amount of prior knowledge learners already possess. Sample. Sixty‐one high school students participated in this study. A prior knowledge test was used to ascertain differences in level of prior knowledge and assign participants to a low or a high prior knowledge group. Method. A 2×2 factorial design was used to investigate the effects of note taking during prior knowledge activation (yes, no) depending on learners' level of prior knowledge (low, high) on mental effort, performance, and mental efficiency. Results. Note taking during prior knowledge activation lowered mental effort and increased mental efficiency for high prior knowledge learners. For low prior knowledge learners, note taking had the opposite effect on mental effort and mental efficiency. Conclusions. The effects of the retrieval‐directed function of note taking are influenced by learners' level of prior knowledge. Learners with high prior knowledge benefit from taking notes while activating prior knowledge, whereas note taking has no beneficial effects for learners with limited prior knowledge.