Male/Male Sex in Hong Kong: Privacy,Please?

In August 2005, the age of consent for male/male sexual activity in Hong Kong was held to be arbitrarily and discriminatorily targeting gay men and thus in violation of an individual’s right to privacy and his right of equality on the basis of sexual orientation. While the decision has since been affirmed on appeal, it has been argued that judicial recourse to equality rights where privacy rights would have sufficed for the provisions to be struck down was a misguided, if not mistaken, effort that merely reinforced the stereotype that gay men are “hypersexualized” and was a setback for the gay rights movement in Hong Kong. This article examines whether the argument is a well-founded one and discusses the implications of confining a man’s right to have consensual sex with another man to his privacy rights alone.

Personality and leader effectiveness: a moderated mediation model of leadership self-efficacy, job demands, and job autonomy

The trait theory of leadership is advanced by a joint investigation of the mediating role of (a) leadership self-efficacy (LSE = leader's perceived capabilities to perform leader roles) in linking neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness with leader effectiveness and (b) the moderating role of job demands and job autonomy in influencing the mediation. Using K. J. Preacher, D. D. Rucker, and A. F. Hayes' (2007) moderated mediation framework, the authors tested the model (over a 2-year period) with matched data from 394 military leaders and their supervisors. Results showed that LSE mediated the relationships for neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness with leader effectiveness. Moderated mediation analyses further revealed that LSE mediated the relationships for (a) all 3 personality variables for only those leaders with low job demands; (b) neuroticism and conscientiousness for only those leaders with high job autonomy; and (c) extraversion, regardless of a leader's level of job autonomy. Results underscore the importance of accounting for leaders' situational contexts when examining the relationships between personality, LSE, and effectiveness.     

Can fixed views of ability boost performance in the context of favorable stereotypes?

Prior research has demonstrated that stereotypes affect negatively stereotyped groups in part through the implied immutability of group members’ abilities. Accordingly, a belief that ability is malleable through effort and hard work has been shown to boost the performance of negatively stereotyped groups. We predicted, however, that among favorably stereotyped groups, a belief that ability is fixed would reinforce the immutability of the group differences upon which stereotype-induced social comparisons are made [Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2003). Stereotype lift. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 456–467] and result in enhanced performance. We found experimental support for these predictions in two favorably stereotyped groups in math: Asians (Study 1) and men (Study 2). Perceived difficulty of the math test helped explain the performance effects in Study 2. Implications of schooling emphasizing innate ability for exacerbating achievement gaps are discussed.     

Behavioral evidence for task-dependent "what" versus "where" processing within and across modalities

Task-dependent information processing for the purpose of recognition or spatial perception is considered a principle common to all the main sensory modalities. Using a dual-task interference paradigm, we investigated the behavioral effects of independent information processing for shape identificationand localization ofobject features within and across vision and touch. In Experiment 1, we established that color and texture processing (i.e., a "what" task) interfered with both visual and haptic shape-matching tasks and that mirror image and rotation matching (i.e., a "where" task) interfered with a feature-location-matching task in both modalities. In contrast, interference was reduced when a "where" interference task was embedded in a "what" primary task and vice versa. In Experiment 2, we replicated this finding within each modality, using the same interference and primary tasks throughout. In Experiment 3, the interference tasks were always conducted in a modality other than the primary task modality. Here, we found that resources for identification and spatial localization are independent of modality. Our findings further suggest that multisensory resources for shape recognition also involve resources for spatial localization. These results extend recent neuropsychological and neuroimaging findings and have important implications for our understanding of high-level information processing across the human sensory systems.     

Strength and reversibility of stereotypes for a rotary control with linear scales

Using real mechanical controls, this experiment studied strength and reversibility of direction-of-motion stereotypes and response times for a rotary control with horizontal and vertical scales. Thirty-eight engineering undergraduates (34 men and 4 women) ages 23 to 47 years (M=29.8, SD=7.7) took part in the experiment voluntarily. The effects of instruction of change of pointer position and control plane on movement compatibility were analyzed with precise quantitative measures of strength and a reversibility index of stereotype. Comparisons of the strength and reversibility values of these two configurations with those of rotary control-circular display, rotary control-digital counter, four-way lever-circular display, and four-way lever-digital counter were made. The results of this study provided significant implications for the industrial design of control panels for improved human performance.     

Mortality of geriatric and younger patients with schizophrenia in the community

Little is known about the differences in mortality among non-institutionalized geriatric and younger patients with schizophrenia. In this study long-term mortality and suicidal behavior of all the geriatric (age > or = 65 years), middle-age (age 41-64 years), and young (age 15-40 years) subjects with schizophrenia living in a Chinese rural community were compared. A 10 year follow-up investigation among a 1994 cohort (n = 510) of patients with schizophrenia was conducted in Xinjin County, Chengdu, China. Compared with young subjects, geriatric subjects with schizophrenia were more likely to be female, have more previous physical illness, never accepted treatment, and practice religious (p < or = 0.01). There were no significant differences of suicide attempts among the three groups. Young subjects had a higher rate of suicide (1,033.8 per 100,000 person-years), and geriatric subjects had a higher rate of deaths due to other causes (accident and natural causes) (4,314.2 per 100,000 person-years). Standardized mortality ratios for both suicide and deaths due to other causes were highest in young subjects and the lowest in geriatric subjects. Patients with schizophrenia in all age groups had a marked increase in mortality and suicide. Specific intervention strategies for decreasing mortality and suicide should be developed for patients with schizophrenia in different age groups.     

Theoretical counselling orientations of teachers in Hong Kong

Thirty-seven Chinese teacher-counsellors in Hong Kong were assessed on their theoretical orientations using a 45-item self-report checklist at the beginning of their advanced training and at the end of a course on counselling theories. Based on their ratings on nine theoretical orientations, it could be inferred that the beliefs and values of these teachers were most congruent with those of the Person-Centred approach. With ratings above a cutoff score as endorsement, teachers were found to endorse more orientations in the post-course assessment, reflecting an increase in flexibility in approach. Despite the fact that teachers’ reported self-efficacy toward helping significantly increased in post-course assessment, teachers’ membership in low, medium, and high self-efficacy groups did not have any bearing on teachers’ changes in flexibility in approach or changes in primary approach. Implications of the findings for understanding teacher-counsellors’ process of finding an integrative approach personally meaningful for their future practice are discussed.     

Designing Health Communications: Harnessing the Power of Affect,Imagery, and Self‐Regulation

We review recent advances in self‐regulation theory and research, highlighting implications for communication strategies aimed at persuading individuals to adopt health‐protective behaviors. We focus on the role of affect and imagery processes in health persuasion, reviewing research on how fear arousal and imagery influence health information processing and decision‐making. Despite ongoing controversy over the use of fear‐arousing appeals, considerable empirical evidence supports their efficacy. Such threat appeals can backfire, however, if they fail to address key aspects of self‐regulation processes. Research on the cognitive and emotional influences of imagery and other concrete‐perceptual stimuli points to strategies for integrating them into health persuasion efforts. Mental simulation techniques represent another promising avenue for communications aimed at fostering health behavior change. New directions of inquiry include research on appeals that arouse emotions other than fear (e.g., positive emotions), more nuanced applications of fear arousal in communications, and applications for computer‐based and Internet communications.     

Structural equation modeling with heavy tailed distributions

Data in social and behavioral sciences typically possess heavy tails. Structural equation modeling is commonly used in analyzing interrelations among variables of such data. Classical methods for structural equation modeling fit a proposed model to the sample covariance matrix, which can lead to very inefficient parameter estimates. By fitting a structural model to a robust covariance matrix for data with heavy tails, one generally gets more efficient parameter estimates. Because many robust procedures are available, we propose using the empirical efficiency of a set of invariant parameter estimates in identifying an optimal robust procedure. Within the class of elliptical distributions, analytical results show that the robust procedure leading to the most efficient parameter estimates also yields a most powerful test statistic. Examples illustrate the merit of the proposed procedure. The relevance of this procedure to data analysis in a broader context is noted. The authors thank the editor, an associate editor and four referees for their constructive comments, which led to an improved version of the paper.