Female physical attractiveness in Britain and Japan: a cross‐cultural study

Two purported cues to female physical attractiveness are body mass index (BMI) and body shape as measured by the waist‐to‐hip ratio (WHR). This study examined the relative contribution of both cues in two culturally distinct populations. Eighty‐two male participants from Britain and Japan were asked to rate a set of images of real women with known BMI and WHR. Results showed that BMI is the primary determinant of female physical attractiveness, whereas WHR failed to emerge as a significant predictor. Results also showed that there were significant differences in preferences for physical attractiveness, with Japanese participants preferring images of women with significantly lower BMIs than Britons. Finally, results showed that the Japanese are more reliant on body shape than Britons when judging physical attractiveness. The findings are discussed in terms of evolutionary psychological explanations of mate selection, and sociocultural theories which emphasise the learning of preferences in social and cultural contexts. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Zahnhartsubstanzschäden bei Essstörungen

Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa lead to several serious physical problems. One possible consequence is acid-related dental erosion. Dental erosion can be identified early and is caused by exogenic (selection of food) and / or endogenic (gastric acid) factors. That is why dentists play an important role in the early identification of eating disorders as well as in the prevention and therapy of dental erosion. They should be important collaborators of psychotherapists. We review characteristic damages to the teeth that are seen in eating disorders as well as preventive and therapeutic interventions. Psychotherapists should be informed about dental problems and preventive strategies to educate their patients.     

Self-regulated learning in female students with different cognitive styles: an exploratory study

In the present study, the relationship between the cognitive style called field-dependence/independence and learning strategies was explored. Acquisition, encoding, retrieval, support, and meta-cognitive strategies of first-year psychology and social education students (all women; M age = 19.2 yr., SD=1.7) with upper and lower quartile scores on field-dependence/independence were assessed on two self-report questionnaires and compared. Field-dependent students reported greater use of some learning strategies, specifically Self-instructions, Counter-distractions, Self-questioning, Self-monitoring, and Self-evaluation. The possible mediation of cognitive style on the influence of social desirability and a failure to activate appropriate strategies on accuracy of self-reports of learning strategies are discussed. Arguments and data are presented in favour of a distinction among the association of cognitive style with a tendency and capacity to use specific strategies and the benefits and manner of their application.     

Parent-Child Interactions Among Low-Income Mexican American Parents and Preschoolers: Do Clinic-Referred Families Differ From Nonreferred Families?

This study compared low-income Mexican American parents of young children referred for behavior problems to their nonreferred counterparts on an observational measure of parent-child interactions. Referred Mexican American parents demonstrated more negative behaviors than their nonreferred counterparts in both nondirective and highly directive situations. However, no differences were found at moderate levels of directiveness. The most and least directive situations in the Dyadic Parent-Child Interaction Coding System best differentiated referred from nonreferred Mexican American families, and families differed more in their negative behaviors than positive behaviors. Many of the parenting behaviors that have been found to differ between referred and nonreferred Caucasian families were also observed to differ between their Mexican American counterparts.     

Cueing the interpretation of a Necker Cube: a way to inspect fundamental cognitive processes

The term perceptual bistability refers to all those conditions in which an observer looks at an ambiguous stimulus that can have two or more distinct but equally reliable interpretations. In this work, we investigate perception of Necker Cube in which bistability consists of the possibility to interpret the cube depth in two different ways. We manipulated the cube ambiguity by darkening one of the cube faces (cue) to provide a clear cube interpretation due to the occlusion depth index. When the position of the cue is stationary the cube perceived perspective is steady and driven by the cue position. However, when we alternated in time the cue position (i.e. we changed the position of the darkened cube face) two different perceptual phenomena occurred: for low frequencies the cube perspective alternated in line with the position of the cue; however for high frequencies the cue was no longer able to bias the perception but it appears as a floating feature traveling across the solid with the cube whole perspective that returns to be bistable as in the conventional, bias-free, case.     

Attentional Orienting to Emotional Faces Moderates the Association Between Callous-Unemotional Traits and Peer-Nominated Aggression in Young Adolescent School Children

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are associated with aggressive behavior but preliminary research suggests this relationship is modified by patterns of emotional processing. This study examined whether attentional orienting to emotional faces moderated the association between CU traits and peer-nominated aggression in 251 middle school students (53% females, mean age = 13.24 years, SD = 0.73). Attentional orienting was assessed using an emotional faces (i.e., angry, fearful, happy, sad, and neutral) variant of the dot-probe task. Students also completed a self-report measure of CU traits and their classmates made peer nominations of aggression. Logistic regression analyses showed that peer-nominated aggression was positively related to CU traits at low levels of attentional orienting to angry faces, whereas aggression was unrelated to CU traits at high levels of attentional orienting to angry faces. That is, peer-nominated aggression was greatest for youth high on CU traits who were not engaged by angry faces. These findings support the importance of considering different patterns of emotional responding when studying the association between CU traits and aggressive behavior in youth.     

Profiles of emotional intelligence and demotivation to attend school in Chilean adolescents

The aim of this study was twofold: to identify different emotional intelligence (EI) profiles and to verify possible statistically significant differences in school refusal factors that result in a demotivation to attend school. Participants were 2362 Chilean adolescents aged from 13 to 17 (M?=?15.25; SD?=?1.33), who completed the Trait Meta-Mood Scale-24 (TMMS-24) and the School Refusal Assessment Scale-Revised (SRAS-R). Cluster analysis identified four EI profiles: high scores in repair and low in attention, high scores in attention and low in clarity and repair, low EI and high EI. Students with high scores in attention and low in repair scored higher in the first three factors of the SRAS-R, whereas in the fourth factor of the SRAS-R, students with high EI had significantly higher scores. Emotional regulation seems to be one of the determinant factors to prevent the appearance of school refusal. Based on these findings, we recommend that EI training be a part of future programs to overcome school attendance demotivation issues.     

Tests of encoding tradeoffs between item and associative information

The assumption that item and associative information are processed separately and that there is a tradeoff in the amount of each type of information that can be encoded in a given study interval (e.g., Anderson & Bower, 1972; Murdock, 1982, 1992) was examined. When item information was emphasized at study, recognition memory for associative information was poor, demonstrating that item information can be emphasized over associative information. In contrast, when associative information was emphasized, associative recognition greatly improved but item recognition did not suffer. This pattern of results was found at both fast and slow presentation rates, and for both high and low word concreteness and word frequency. Measures of confidence and response latency were also consistent with this pattern. Thus, the encoding of associative information did not measurably diminish item recognition performance.     

Pre-entry Characteristics,Perceived Social Support,Adjustment and Academic Achievement in First-Year Spanish University Students: A Path Model

Transition to university is a multifactorial process to which scarce consideration has been given in Spain, despite this being one of the countries with the highest rates of academic failure and attrition within the European Union. The present study proposes an empirical model for predicting Spanish students' academic achievement at university by considering pre-entry characteristics, perceived social support and adaptation to university, in a sample of 300 traditional first-year university students. The findings of the path analysis showed that pre-university achievement and academic and personal–emotional adjustment were direct predictors of academic achievement. Furthermore, gender, parents' education and family support were indirect predictors of academic achievement, mediated by pre-university grades and adjustment to university. The current findings supporting evidence that academic achievement in first-year Spanish students is the cumulative effect of pre-entry characteristics and process variables, key factors that should be taken into account in designing intervention strategies involving families and that establish stronger links between research findings and university policies.