System Justification, Right-Wing Conservatism, and Internalized Homophobia: Gay and Lesbian Attitudes toward Same-Sex Parenting in Italy

Adopting a system justification perspective (Jost and Banaji 1994), we investigated the manner and extent to which gay men and lesbians might internalize a sense of inferiority when it comes to parenthood. In an Italian sample of gay and lesbian individuals, we found that gay men who scored high (versus low) on system justification and right-wing conservatism regarded same sex parents as less competent; these effects were mediated by internalized homophobia. Lesbian women, however, perceived lesbian parents as more competent than opposite sex parents, regardless of ideological orientations. For gay men the internalization of societal discrimination harms perceptions of parental competence, whereas for lesbians gender stereotypes about parenting trump the negative effects of bias related to sexual orientation. These findings suggest that men??s and women??s perceptions of their own bodies and capacities are strongly affected by sociocultural processes, including ideological processes.     

The efficacy of a brief internet-based self-help intervention for the bereaved

Research so far has shown little evidence that written disclosure facilitates recovery from bereavement. There are good reasons to assume that written disclosure may only benefit those bereaved who are at risk for developing problems or who are experiencing significant psychological problems as a result of their loss, and only when appropriate writing instructions are used. Drawing on previous work in the area of post-traumatic stress, a writing intervention was designed to test these assumptions. Bereaved individuals, who were still significantly distressed by their loss, were randomly assigned to the intervention condition (N = 460) or a waiting-list control condition (N = 297). Both groups filled in questionnaires online at baseline, and 3 and 6 months later. The intervention was administered via e-mail immediately after baseline measurement. Results showed that writing decreased feelings of emotional loneliness and increased positive mood, in part through its effect on rumination. However, writing did not affect grief or depressive symptoms. Contrary to expectations, effects did not depend on participants' risk profile or baseline distress level. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Shifting spatial attention makes you flip: Exogenous visual attention triggers perceptual alternations during binocular rivalry

Although it has been argued that visual attention and the dynamics of binocular rivalry are closely linked, strong evidence for this proposition is still lacking. Here, we investigate how perceptual alternations during binocular rivalry are affected by spatial attention by employing a cuing paradigm. We show a tight link between the occurrence of perceptual alternations and the spatiotemporal properties of visual attention: Alternations occurred earlier and more frequently at locations where visual attention was summoned by an exogenous cue. We argue that cuing a location where rival images are presented leads to a transient increase in the effective contrast of these rival images. This transient increase in effective contrast increases the probability of an alternation at that location. Furthermore, we suggest that an occipito-fronto-parietal network known to be involved in selective attention and binocular rivalry mediates perceptual alternations by boosting the neural response at attended locations.     

The facing bias in biological motion perception: Effects of stimulus gender and observer sex

Under orthographic projection, biological motion point-light walkers offer no cues to the order of the dots in depth: Views from the front and from the back result in the very same stimulus. Yet observers show a bias toward seeing a walker facing the viewer (Vanrie, Dekeyser, & Verfaillie, 2004). Recently, we reported that this facing bias strongly depends on the gender of the walker (Brooks et al., 2008). The goal of the present study was, first, to examine the robustness of the effect by testing a much larger subject sample and, second, to investigate whether the effect depends on observer sex. Despite the fact that we found a significant effect of figure gender, we clearly failed to replicate the strong effect observed in the original study. We did, however, observe a significant interaction between figure gender and observer sex.     

Implicit and explicit self-esteem in the context of internet addiction

Previous research has repeatedly found that people suffering from some clinical disorders (e.g., bulimia nervosa, depression) possess low explicit (i.e., conscious, deliberate) self-esteem while at the same time displaying high implicit (i.e., unconscious, automatic) self-esteem. This phenomenon has been termed damaged self-esteem and was proposed to be an indicator of psychological distress. Although Internet addiction has been found to be associated with low levels of explicit self-esteem, as well as with high levels of psychological distress, its relation to implicit self-esteem has, to our knowledge, not been investigated thus far. We therefore hypothesized that the phenomenon of damaged self-esteem could also be found amongst people suffering from Internet addiction, and conducted two studies using the Initial Preference Task as a measure of implicit self-esteem. As expected, we found that individuals scoring high on Internet addiction possess low explicit and high implicit self-esteem. This effect was, however, only found for the first name initial of the Initial Preference Task, leading to the conclusion that first and last name initials might tap into different parts of implicit self-esteem.     

Matching the message source to attitude functions: Implications for biased processing

A study was conducted to examine the hypothesis that matching (vs. mismatching) the source of a persuasive message to the functional basis of recipients’ attitudes may lead to positively biased processing. Under conditions conducive to effortful processing, high and low self-monitors were presented with a persuasive message ascribed to a source that either matched or mismatched the functional basis of their attitudes (i.e., an expert source for low self-monitors and an attractive source for high self-monitors). The message content was either unambiguous strong, unambiguous weak, or ambiguous. As predicted, given an ambiguous message biased processing led to more agreement when the source matched (vs. mismatched) attitude functions. In contrast, an unambiguous strong message led to more agreement than an unambiguous weak message regardless of source matching (unbiased processing). Results are discussed with respect to the role of the activation and use of heuristics in biased processing.     

Western esotericism: Towards an integrative model of interpretation

Despite the fact that during the last fifteen years we have witnessed the emergence of a research field of ‘Western esotericism’, scholars are still far from agreeing on definitions of ‘esotericism’. For an academic ‘field’, however, that wants to establish international networks and to bring together scholars from various research areas and disciplines, it is highly desirable to provide an interpretational framework in which these different studies find their place. The main argument of this article is that such common ground can be found only when esotericism is seen not as a selection of historical ‘currents’, however defined, but as a structural element of Western culture. After reviewing the most influential approaches to Western esotericism, this article identifies two dimensions of an esoteric discourse: claims of higher knowledge and ways of accessing this ‘truth’. To these dimensions can be added certain world views that are typically involved in there discourses. The interpretative model proposed here aims at critically addressing basic aspects of Western self-understanding including the rhetorics of rationality, science, enlightenment, progress and absolute truth. It postulates that conflicts of religious world views, identities and forms of knowledge lie at the heart of Western cultural history.     

Telefonische Nachuntersuchungen bei postpartaler Depression

Interviews over the telephone with mothers with and without postnatal depressive symptoms are reported. Advantages and disadvantages of interviews by telephone are discussed. Especially in cases of long distance to the home of a client, telephone interviews have economic and logistic advantages. If there are special questions (e.g. depression), telephone interviews seem to be widely accepted by the people.     

Response inhibition and immediate arousal in children with high-functioning autism.

The current study compared high-functioning children with autism (HFA) and a peer control group on an immediate arousal task measuring response inhibition. In one condition go stimuli were presented whereas in another condition a tone preceded the go stimulus. The tone caused an immediate arousal effect, which resulted in a reaction time decrease and an error rate increase. It was expected that children with HFA would produce a higher error rate in comparison with normal peers, since they might be less able to suppress immediate arousal. However, the HFA group outperformed the control group, indicating neither arousal regulation deficit nor response inhibition deficit.