Gender differences in perceptions of the healthiness of foods

Abstract

Our perceptions of the healthiness of foods are thought to influence what we decide to eat. Reportedly, women (as compared to men) eat more nutritious foods and are more likely to consider health issues when deciding what to eat However, until now, few studies have investigated possible gender differences in perceptions of the healthiness of foods. In the present study, men and women answered questions pertaining to nutritional habits, then rated a variety of foods according to their healthfulness. Results indicated that women, compared to men, tended to emphasize fat content over nutrient levels when deciding what foods are healthy. If perceptions of food health influence consumption, it is likely that females, as compared to males, would be more likely to suffer from malnutrition.     

Emotional competence and quality of life of children with asthma: The mediating effect of coping strategies

This study explored the mediating effect of coping strategies on the relationship between emotional competence (EC) and quality of life (QOL) among children with asthma. Participants were 87 children (M age?=?11.72, SD?=?2.58) with controlled and partially controlled asthma, undergoing everyday treatment. They filled in questionnaires assessing EC, coping strategies and QOL. Results showed that the association between some ECs and the QOL of children with asthma was fully mediated by two maladaptive cognitive coping strategies. Among children with asthma, a greater ability to differentiate their emotions, a reduced attention to bodily signals of emotions and a reduced analysis of their current emotional state were related to decreased engagement in two coping strategies (‘Ignoring Asthma’ and ‘Worrying about Asthma’), which in turn increased their QOL. These findings show that EC has an indirect effect on QOL through very specific coping strategies. They also emphasise the importance of screening EC in children with asthma and the importance of developing and using multidisciplinary interventions for them.     

Implicit sequence learning in a continuous pursuit-tracking task

Assessing implicit learning in the continuous pursuit-tracking task usually concerns a repeated segment of target displacements masked by two random segments, as referred to as Pew’s paradigm. Evidence for segment learning in this paradigm is scanty and contrasts with robust sequence learning in discrete tracking tasks. The present study investigates this issue with two experiments in which participants (N = 56) performed a continuous tracking task. Contrary to Pew’s paradigm, participants were presented with a training sequence that was continuously cycled during 14 blocks of practice, but Block 12 in which a transfer sequence was introduced. Results demonstrate sequence learning in several conditions except in the condition that was obviously the most similar to previous studies failing to induce segment learning. Specifically, it is shown here that a target moving too slowly combined with variable time at which target reversal occurs prevents sequence learning. In addition, data from a post-experimental recognition test indicate that sequence learning was associated with explicit perceptual knowledge about the repetitive structure. We propose that learning repetition in a continuous tracking task is conditional on its capacity to (1) allow participants to detect the repeated regularities and (2) restrict feedback-based tracking strategies.     

Childhood amnesia in children and adolescents: Their earliest memories

Investigations of childhood amnesia have almost exclusively focused on the earliest memories of adults. Here we investigate the earliest memories of children of 6–19 years old. Parents confirmed the memory events and dated the memories. There were surprisingly few developmental differences between the earliest memories of children. Although 6–9-year-olds recalled earlier events than did older children, there were no differences between older age groups. Memories from all age groups were similar in structure, social orientation, and the nature of the recalled event. However, memories of older children were more likely to involve negative affect. There were also few gender differences, although girls were more likely to recall traumatic or transitional events while boys were more likely to recall play events. Overall, results deepen the paradox of early memory: 6–9-year-olds have verbally accessible memories from very early childhood that then seem to disappear as they get older.     

Team Coordination in Basketball: Description of the Cognitive Connections Among Teammates

This study investigated team coordination in basketball using the course-of-action theoretical framework. The focus was on how the players were connected with their teammates' activities. The activity of five French basketball players (17.60 ± .89 years) was studied during an official match. The data were collected and processed according to a procedure defined for course-of-action analysis. The results were used to characterize the coordination modes among players and the team coordination network that was built. The processes that underlie team coordination are discussed (i.e., mutuality and awareness), and some directions for practical applications are addressed.     

Margaret Atwood and Assisted Reproduction: From Fantasy to Reality

ABSTRACT

This article raises the bewildering impact of artificial reproduction techniques (ART) for analysts, for the family, for the couple, and for their children. It explores a number of concerns, some of which include: the dissociation of sex from reproduction; the relative absence of the usual time limits that people have traditionally taken into consideration to conceive; questions about generation and age; the risk of perceiving oneself as omnipotent; the need to renovate the story of how one came to be; the impact of ART on the way the primal scene and the Oedipal complex are worked through when there is no longer only a triangle, but more people involved in procreation; the children’s identity (Who are my real parents?) and the impact on the identity of the women involved in participating in the procreation such as the egg donor or surrogate. It also addresses the impact of ART on the analyst who has to deal with situations for which he or she is not prepared either personally or professionally. It begins by exploring Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, and its present day relevance to ART. Atwood’s vision was prescient. The similarity between the lives and experiences of her Handmaids and that of today’s commercial surrogates in India is often striking. It also presents some ways in which literature and media are predicting the challenges that ART will bring in the future. It explores how what was fiction a few decades ago has become reality and how what we presently think of as fiction will perhaps be a reality in the not-so-distant future. The second part of the article presents a clinical vignette in which a couple presents with infertility in the wife, whose infertility was the consequence of chemotherapy treatment she received as a young adult. She decided to look for a donor in a European country and succeeded at getting pregnant. However, though successful, the pregnancy proved to be extremely difficult. When a second pregnancy was desired, the same donor provided with her ova. To avoid the complications of the first pregnancies, the couple accepted the wife’s sister’s offer to carry the pregnancy. Their daughters are now two and four years old.     

How does information from low and high spatial frequencies interact during scene categorization?

Current models of visual perception suggest that, during scene categorization, low spatial frequencies (LSF) are rapidly processed and activate plausible interpretations of visual input. This coarse analysis would be used to guide subsequent processing of high spatial frequencies (HSF). The present study aimed to further examine how information from LSF and HSF interact and influence each other during scene categorization. In a first experimental session, participants had to categorize LSF and HSF filtered scenes belonging to two different semantic categories (artificial vs. natural). In a second experimental session, we used hybrid scenes as stimuli made by combining LSF and HSF from two different scenes which were semantically similar or dissimilar. Half of the participants categorized LSF scenes in hybrids, and the other half categorized HSF scenes in hybrids. Stimuli were presented for 30 or 100?ms. Session 1 results showed better performance for LSF than HSF scene categorization. Session 2 scene categorization was faster when participants attended and categorized LSF than HSF scene in hybrids. The semantic interference of a semantically dissimilar HSF scene on LSF scene categorization was greater than the semantic interference of a semantically dissimilar LSF scene on HSF scene categorization, irrespective of exposure duration. These results suggest a LSF advantage for scene categorization, and highlight the prominent role of HSF information when there is uncertainty about the visual stimulus, in order to disentangle between alternative interpretations.     

Big Five Personality Factors and Facets as Predictors of Openness to Diversity

Openness to diversity is a crucial component of cultural competence needed in the increasingly diversified modern society and a necessary condition for benefitting from diversity contacts and interventions (e.g., diversity training, cultural courses). Responding to the recent call for more research on personality and its relation to diversity outcomes, we examined the associations between Big Five personality (i.e., Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Conscientiousness) higher order factors and lower order facets and universal-diverse orientation (i.e., open attitude of appreciating human universality and diversity; Miville et al., 1999 Miville, M. L., Gelso, C. J., Pannu, R., Liu, W., Touradji, P., &; Holloway, P. (1999). Appreciating similarities and valuing differences: The Miville-Guzman universality-diversity scale. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 46, 291–307.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). In the Study 1 (N = 338) web survey on Big Five factors, Openness to Experience and Agreeableness were associated with universal-diverse orientation significantly. In the Study 2 (N = 176) paper survey on both Big Five factors and facets, Openness to Experience, low Neuroticism, and Conscientiousness, and various lower-order facets of all the Big Five personality were associated with universal-diverse orientation significantly. Practical implications were suggested on how personality facets could be incorporated into current diversity interventions to enhance their effectiveness of promoting openness to diversity.     

Integrating Criminological and Decision Research Theory: Implications for Understanding and Addressing Crime in Marginalized Communities

Minority groups are significantly overrepresented in crime. Theories of racial differences in crime developed using two separate and distinct approaches that highlight either increased exposure to criminogenic factors at the individual level or greater risk of crime due to disadvantaged neighborhood conditions. Neighborhood theories describe how structural disadvantage disrupts neighborhood social processes and produces oppositional street cultures. In the article, we advance theorizing on race and crime by linking the neighborhood experience to individual-level decision making via new conceptualizations of culture. Rather than a “values as goals” view of culture, culture may include a “tool kit” of ways to solve problems and this cultural toolkit may, in turn, influence how an individual makes decisions. Specifically, culturally learned toolkits may increase flaws in the decision process (e.g., fast and intuitive rather than deliberate decision processes, the use of decision heuristics) to produce more crime, which would explain the association between race and crime. We integrate this conceptualization of culture and these flaws in the decision-making process into rational choice theory at the individual level and describe how they may be exacerbated in disadvantaged neighborhood contexts. Implications for understanding race and crime and directions for future research are discussed.