Watching pornographic pictures on the Internet: role of sexual arousal ratings and psychological-psychiatric symptoms for using Internet sex sites excessively

Excessive or addictive Internet use can be linked to different online activities, such as Internet gaming or cybersex. The usage of Internet pornography sites is one important facet of online sexual activity. The aim of the present work was to examine potential predictors of a tendency toward cybersex addiction in terms of subjective complaints in everyday life due to online sexual activities. We focused on the subjective evaluation of Internet pornographic material with respect to sexual arousal and emotional valence, as well as on psychological symptoms as potential predictors. We examined 89 heterosexual, male participants with an experimental task assessing subjective sexual arousal and emotional valence of Internet pornographic pictures. The Internet Addiction Test (IAT) and a modified version of the IAT for online sexual activities (IATsex), as well as several further questionnaires measuring psychological symptoms and facets of personality were also administered to the participants. Results indicate that self-reported problems in daily life linked to online sexual activities were predicted by subjective sexual arousal ratings of the pornographic material, global severity of psychological symptoms, and the number of sex applications used when being on Internet sex sites in daily life, while the time spent on Internet sex sites (minutes per day) did not significantly contribute to explanation of variance in IATsex score. Personality facets were not significantly correlated with the IATsex score. The study demonstrates the important role of subjective arousal and psychological symptoms as potential correlates of development or maintenance of excessive online sexual activity.     

Great oaks from giant acorns grow: How causal‐impact judgments depend on the strength of a cause

Causal impact is maximal when weak causes have strong effects. Do people understand this logic when they assess causal impact? In four experiments, participants judged the causal impact of strong or weak dietary treatments leading to strong or weak health effects in fictitious health studies. Rather than following the ratio of effect strength to treatment strength, judgments were influenced by three aspects of the detectability of a cause–effect relation. First, because detectability depends on the effect being strong more than on the cause being subtle, causal judgments were mainly determined by effect strength, whereas the strength of the causal treatment necessary to induce an effect was often neglected. Second, if causal input was not ignored, judgments increased when the maximal covariation between a strong causal treatment and a strong effect rendered the causal link most detectable. Or, third, causal judgments increased when a plausible causal schema facilitated detection. Consistent with sampling models of judgment and decision making, causal‐impact ratings were driven by an uncritical assessment of a detectable difference in a study sample. However, ratings were insensitive to the logical implications of the underlying causal treatment that was necessary to induce a detectable effect. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Conceptualizing the Prospective Relationship Between Social Support,Stress, and Depressive Symptoms Among Adolescents

The goal of the current study is to examine the relationship amongst social support, stress, and depressive symptoms within a transactional and diathesis-stress framework using a multi-wave, longitudinal design. At the initial assessment, adolescents (n = 258) completed self-report measures assessing social support (peer, classmate, parent, and total), dependent interpersonal stress, anxious symptoms, and depressive symptoms. Additionally, participants reported stress and symptomology in each of the four waves spanning six months. Results of time-lagged, idiographic, multilevel modeling indicated that stress mediated the relationship between lower parental, classmate, and total social support and subsequent depressive, but not anxious, symptoms. In contrast, lower levels of peer support were not associated with higher levels of stress and subsequent depressive symptoms. Additionally, only classmate support deficits significantly moderated the relationship between stress and depressive symptoms. Overall, the results suggest that deficits in parental and classmate support may play a greater role in contributing to adolescent depression as compared to deficits in peer support.     

Increased perceptual and conceptual processing difficulty makes the immeasurable measurable: negative priming in the absence of probe distractors

Negative priming (NP) refers to the finding that people's responses to probe targets previously presented as prime distractors are usually slower and more error prone than to unrepeated stimuli. In a typical NP experiment, each probe target is accompanied by a distractor. It is an accepted, albeit puzzling, finding that the NP effect depends on the presence of these probe distractors; for, without probe distractors, NP diminishes. This phenomenon causes severe problems for the majority of theoretical accounts of NP. In the present study, we follow a simple argument, namely that without probe distractors, the difficulty of responding to the probe is so low that NP becomes irrelevant. Hence, by increasing perceptual processing difficulty, as well as by increasing conceptual processing difficulty, significant NP effects with constantly absent probe distractors can be reliably observed. In addition, our results also show that NP without probe distractors can be found by exclusively manipulating probe display processing. This finding furthers our understanding of the processes causing NP.     

To use or not to use: Expanding the view on non-addictive psychoactive drug consumption and its implications

Proposing a change to the view on psychoactive drug use in non-addicts touches a sensitive issue because of its potential implications to addiction prevention, therapeutic practice, and drug policy. Commentators raised nine questions that ranged from clarifications, suggested extensions of the model to supporting data previously not regarded, to assumptions on the implications of the model. Here, we take up the suggestions of the commentators to expand the model to behavioral addictions, discuss additional instrumentalization goals, and review the evidence from laboratory animal studies on drug instrumentalization. We consider further the role of sociocultural factors and individual development in the establishment in drug instrumentalization and addiction. Finally, we clarify which implications we think this model may have. We conclude that drug instrumentalization theory can be further applied to other behaviors but will require a sensitive debate when used for drug and addiction policy that directly affects prevention and treatment.     

Stereotypes as justifications of prejudice

Three experiments investigate how stereotypes form as justifications for prejudice. The authors created novel content-free prejudices toward unfamiliar social groups using either subliminal (Experiment 1, N = 79) or supraliminal (Experiment 2, N = 105; Experiment 3, N = 130) affective conditioning and measured the consequent endorsement of stereotypes about the groups. Following the stereotype content model, analyses focused on the extent to which stereotypes connoted warmth or competence. Results from all three experiments revealed effects on the warmth dimension but not on the competence dimension: Groups associated with negative affect were stereotyped as comparatively cold (but not comparatively incompetent). These results provide the first evidence that-in the absence of information, interaction, or history of behavioral discrimination-stereotypes develop to justify prejudice.     

Contributions of contingencies in modern societies to "privacy" in the behavioral relations of cognition and emotion

The aim of this paper is to examine specific features of modern individualistic societies that contribute to "emotions" and "cognitions" becoming a matter of privacy. Although some behavior analysts identify emotions and cognitions as "private events," we argue with Skinner (1945) that cognitions and emotions are relations among events and that their origin is in public events in the contingencies of reinforcement maintained by other people. Guided by Elias (1939/1996), we suggest that the shift from feudal economies to market economies involved the increasing individualization of society's members. This individualizing process includes the socially maintained contingencies that bring some verbal responses under control of private stimulation and reduce the magnitude of some verbal responses to a covert level. Behavioral relations in which either stimuli or responses (or both) cannot be observed by others set the stage for a concept of "privacy." Changes in societal contingencies that gave rise to individualization and the attribution of privacy to cognitions and emotions are suggested to include the following: (a) increasing frequency of individual consequences that have no apparent or direct relevance to the group; (b) increasing numbers of concurrent contingencies and choice requirements; (c) conflicts between immediate and delayed consequences for the individual; and (d) conflicts between consequences for the individual and for the group.     

Individually-tailored, Internet-based treatment for anxiety disorders: A randomized controlled trial

Previous studies on Internet-based treatment with minimal to moderate therapist guidance have shown promising results for a number of specific diagnoses. The aim of this study was to test a new approach to Internet treatment that involves tailoring the treatment according to the patient’s unique characteristics and comorbidities.A total of 54 participants, regardless of specific anxiety diagnosis, were included after an in-person, semi-structured diagnostic interview and randomized to a 10 week treatment program or to a control group. Treatment consisted of a number of individually-prescribed modules in conjunction with online therapist guidance. Significant results were found for all dependent measures both immediately following treatment and at 1 and 2 year intervals. Mean between-group effect size including measures of anxiety, depression and quality of life was Cohen’s d = 0.69 at post-treatment, while the mean within-group effect size was d = 1.15 at post-treatment and d = 1.13 and d = 1.04 at 1 and 2 year follow-up respectively.The tentative conclusion drawn from these results is that tailoring the Internet-based therapy can be a feasible approach in the treatment of anxiety in a homogeneous population.     

The impact of school-based mentoring on youths with different relational profiles

Associations between youths' relationship profiles and mentoring outcomes were explored in the context of a national, randomized study of 1,139 youths (54% female) in geographically diverse Big Brothers Big Sisters school-based mentoring programs. The sample included youths in Grades 4-9 from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, the majority of whom were receiving free or reduced-price lunch. Latent profile analysis, a person-oriented approach, was used to identify 3 distinct relational profiles. Mentoring was found to have differential effects depending on youths' preintervention approach to relationships. In particular, youths who, at baseline, had satisfactory, but not particularly strong, relationships benefited more from mentoring than did youths with profiles characterized by either strongly positive or negative relationships. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

A two-process view of Facebook use and relatedness need-satisfaction: disconnection drives use, and connection rewards it

Does using Facebook help people to meet their relatedness needs? Study 1 shows that more frequent Facebook usage paradoxically correlates with more relatedness satisfaction (connection) and more relatedness dissatisfaction (disconnection). Study 2 supports a 2-process explanation of this finding, showing that disconnection motivates greater usage as a coping strategy, whereas connection results from greater usage. Study 3 examines the effects of depriving participants of Facebook use for 48 hr. Further supporting the 2-process view, connection decreased, but disconnection was unaffected during the deprivation period; however, those who became more disconnected during the deprivation period engaged in more Facebook use during a 2nd, unconstrained 48-hr period, whereas changes in connection did not predict later use. In Study 4, participants set a Facebook reduction goal; initial disconnection interfered with and predicted worse performance in this goal. Implications for theories of psychological needs, behavioral motives, and adaptive coping are considered.