Moderators of the relationship between exercise and mood changes: gender,exertion level,and workout duration

Although the role of exercise in improving mood is well established, less is known about moderators of this effect, particularly outside of the laboratory. The current study examined the effect of gender, type of exercise, level of exertion, and duration of workout on the exercise–mood relationship in a naturalistic setting. One hundred and thirty five participants (64 females) either engaged in weight training (n = 52) or cardiovascular (n = 83) exercise. Pre- and post-exercise assessments of mood were collected and changes in two types of mood, negative mood and exhaustion, were examined. Overall, participants reported improved mood after exercise in both domains. Workout duration and level of exertion significantly moderated the relationship of exercise to mood improvement (i.e., an increase in either corresponded to greater improved mood, ps<0.05). Overall, women showed more improved mood than men in the domain of exhaustion (p = 0.001).     

Distinctions Between Worry and Perceived Risk in the Context of the Theory of Planned Behavior

Worry and risk perception were integrated into the theory of planned behavior (TPB) within health and non-health domains (flossing and academic coursework, respectively). Models were estimated and replicated in 2 undergraduate samples ( n s = 191 and 309), with effects of worry and risk on intentions expected to occur primarily through attitudes. Past behavior was modeled through effects on all TPB constructs and through interactions with worry and risk. Worry positively predicted intentions and attitudes (and norms in the non-health domain) for those at the lowest levels of prior behavior. Risk perceptions negatively predicted intentions and self-efficacy (and attitudes in the health context) also for those at low levels of prior behavior. Implications for further theory development are discussed.     

A note on the standard length of a test

This paper describes a relationship between the variance-covariance matrix of test items and Woodbury's concept of the standard length of a test. An index of item-test relationship is described in standard length terms. The sum of these indices for the items in a test is equal to the square of Jackson's coefficient of sensitivity.     

Polygraph Testimony and Juror Judgments: A Comparison of the Guilty Knowledge Test and the Control Question Test1

The present experiment investigated the impact of the Control Question Test (CQT) and the Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT) on the verdicts of mock jurors. Although studies have indicated that polygraph evidence has little influence on jurors' verdicts (Cavoukian & Heselgrave, 1980; Spanos, Myers, Dubreuil, & Pawlak, 1992–1993), no research has previously distinguished between the different types of polygraph tests and their impact on juror verdicts. In the present study, jurors were shown a videotape of a simulated rape-murder trial that contained either CQT polygraph evidence, GKT polygraph evidence, or no polygraph evidence. No differences were found among the 3 conditions for either jury verdicts or individual juror verdicts, and jurors tended to rate both forms of polygraph testimony below other forms of equally suspect evidence, such as eyewitness testimony, in its influence on their decision-making process.     

Sex-role behaviors and personality traits of male day care teachers

It was hypothesized that male day care teachers who had adopted the feminine role of caregiver would score feminine in their personality traits and would reinforce children for feminine behaviors and punish them for masculine behaviors. A random sample of 20 male caregivers was contrasted to 20 male engineers on personality traits as assessed by The Adjective Checklist (ACL). Twenty female caregivers were also contrasted to the personality traits and the sex-typed contingency behaviors of the male caregivers. Feminine traits were defined by raw scores on the Abasement, Nurturance, Affiliation, Succorance, and Deference scales of the ACL. Masculine traits were represented by raw scores on the Achievement, Dominance, Endurance, and Autonomy scales. The Fagot-Patterson Checklist was employed to determine sex-typed contingency behaviors. Both male and female caregivers reinforced children significantly more for feminine behaviors than masculine behaviors (as defined by The Fagot-Patterson Checklist) and punished masculine behaviors more than feminine behaviors. The personalities of the male caregivers corresponded to the feminine direction of their female counterparts, but they were not significantly more feminine than the male engineers. The female caregivers, however, scored significantly more feminine in personality than the male engineers.This study is based on a dissertation submitted by Bryan E. Robinson to the Department of Child Development — Family Relations, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D.     

马克思与虚无主义问题

马克思的目的是要说明人对价值的需要无须超越历史就能得到满足。认为善(good)内在于历史上与断言善是与历史相同的并非一回事。马克思并不是一个历史主义者——如罗森所使用的术语——因为他没有把善与"所发生之事"等同起来。罗森认为,马克思必定主张在历史中发生的任何事情都是可允许的。马克思的标准是人,而不是历史中在马克思的特定意义上算作人类的(行动)的所有行动。实际上在历史进程中,绝大多数个体是以一种非人的方式把自己对象化的。这就是马克思把前共产主义时期描述为"前历史"的原因,因为那是这样一段时间,在其中社会存在是人类活动的无意识的产物。只有当诸个体自觉地决定其生活并把物质世界置于合作性控制之下,恰当意义上的历史才真正开始。     

A Comparison of Latent Inhibition and Learned Irrelevance Pre-Exposure Effects in Rabbit and Human Eyeblink Conditioning

The learning of an association between a CS and a US can be retarded by unreinforced presentations of the CS alone (termed latent inhibition or LI) or by un-correlated presentations of the CS and US (termed learned irrelevance or LIRR). In rabbit eyeblink conditioning, there have been some recent failures to replicate LI. LIRR has been hypothesized as producing a stronger retardation effect than LI based on both empirical studies and computational models. In the work presented here, we examined the relative strength of LI and LIRR in eyeblink conditioning in rabbits and humans. In both species, a number of preexposure trials sufficient to produce LIRR failed to produce LI (Experiments 1 & 3). Doubling the number of CS pre-exposures did produce LI in rabbits (Experiment 2), but not in humans (Experiment 4). LI was demonstrated in humans only after manipulations including an increased inter-trial interval or ITI (Experiment 5). Overall, it appears that LIRR is a more easily producible pre-exposure retardation effect than LI for eyeblink conditioning in both rabbits and humans. Several theoretical mechanisms for LI including the conditioned attention theory, stimulus compression, novelty, and the switching theory are discussed as possible explanations for the differences between LIRR and LI. Overall, future work involving testing the neural substrates of pre-exposure effects may benefit from the use of LIRR rather than LI.     

Methodological improvements to a Procedure for Rapidly Establishing Steady-State Behavior

We performed three experiments to improve the quality and retention of data obtained from a Procedure for Rapidly Establishing Steady-State Behavior (PRESS-B; Klapes et al., 2020). In Experiment 1, 120 participants worked on nine concurrent random-interval random-interval (conc RI RI) schedules and were assigned to four conditions of varying changeover delay (COD) length. The 0.5-s COD condition group exhibited the fewest instances of exclusive reinforcer acquisition. Importantly, this group did not differ in generalized matching law (GML) fit quality from the other groups. In Experiment 2, 60 participants worked on nine conc RI RI schedules with a wider range of scheduled reinforcement rate ratios than was used in Experiment 1. Participants showed dramatic reductions in exclusive reinforcer acquisition. Experiment 3 entailed a replication of Experiment 2 wherein blackout periods were implemented between the schedule presentations and each schedule remained in operation until at least one reinforcer was acquired on each alternative. GML fit quality was slightly more consistent in Experiment 3 than in the previous experiments. Thus, these results suggest that future PRESS-B studies should implement a shorter COD, a wider and richer scheduled reinforcement rate ratio range, and brief blackouts between schedule presentations for optimal data quality and retention.     

Conversation: The challenges of teaching in a “nano department”

A panel at the 2016 American Academy of Religion conference staged, taped, transcribed, and edited this conversation about the challenges and opportunities of teaching in a “nano department” – an undergraduate religion or religious studies department (or combined religion and philosophy department) with only one, two, or three faculty members. Two things quickly become evident: one is the impossibility of coverage of the full religious studies curriculum, and the other is the necessity for collaboration with other departments. Neither of these is unique to nano departments, but there exists an intimacy between students and faculty in small departments, a necessary freedom to rethink the place of the study of religion in the liberal arts curriculum, and a disruptive value in what can be critiqued and contributed from a marginalized position. Arguably, nano departments are the canaries in the academic coal mine, charting the future of the humanities that cannot be discerned from the vantage point of Research‐1 contexts.