Are Traditional Gender Role Attitudes Associated With Risky Sexual Behavior and Condom-related Beliefs?

Traditional gender role attitudes, which emphasize an unequal distribution of power in the family and stereotypical norms about masculinity, may be associated with unsafe sexual behavior and beliefs in young men and women. This study was designed to examine associations between gender role attitudes including gender-based family role attitudes and masculinity ideology, sexual behaviors, and condom-related beliefs in a sample of sexually active college students (N = 154). Family role attitudes were related to risky condom-related beliefs but not to risky sexual behavior. Masculinity ideology was related to both sexual behaviors and condom-related beliefs but, in some cases, in a direction opposite to that predicted. These unexpected findings and the utility of examining masculinity ideology among women are discussed.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2002 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, New Orleans, Louisiana.     

Should Faculty Members be Exempt From a Mandate to Receive Instructional Design Training Because of Their Rights Under Academic Freedom?

The quality of the educational experience for students may be at risk if they are not taught in ways that are effective and pertinent. While educational institutions (administrators, faculty senates or a combination) may try to compel faculty members to gain knowledge of and utilize up-to-date learning and instructional design strategies, these faculty members may baulk at this mandate, citing academic freedom as their right to design their courses in any way they see fit. Following is a discussion exploring the issue, suggesting that regardless of how academic freedom is interpreted, faculty members have an ethical obligation to deliver instruction in ways that do not violate students' rights to learn. Consequently, institutions have a right as well as a duty to compel their faculty members to follow through with this obligation.     

Aging, Training, and the Brain: A Review and Future Directions

As the population ages, the need for effective methods to maintain or even improve older adults’ cognitive performance becomes increasingly pressing. Here we provide a brief review of the major intervention approaches that have been the focus of past research with healthy older adults (strategy training, multi-modal interventions, cardiovascular exercise, and process-based training), and new approaches that incorporate neuroimaging. As outcome measures, neuroimaging data on intervention-related changes in volume, structural integrity; and functional activation can provide important insights into the nature and duration of an intervention’s effects. Perhaps even more intriguingly, several recent studies have used neuroimaging data as a guide to identify core cognitive processes that can be trained in one task with effective transfer to other tasks that share the same underlying processes. Although many open questions remain, this research has greatly increased our understanding of how to promote successful aging of cognition and the brain.     

Maternal Attributions Related to Compliance with Cystic Fibrosis Treatment

This study examined mothers' attributions related to their children's compliance with various components of medical treatment for cystic fibrosis (CF). Mothers of children with CF were queried regarding adherence rates and reasons for child compliance with chest physiotherapy, inhalation therapy, exercise, medication, and dietary treatments. Maternal attributions for compliance were assessed on the dimensions of parental locus, stability, and controllability. Mothers reported significantly less compliance with diet than with other CF treatments; they also perceived the reasons for compliance with diet and exercise as more external and less under their control. These findings are discussed in relation to parent–child interactions that may be critical to improving treatment adherence, particularly in the context of nutritional interventions.     

Working models of attachment and person perception processes

This study investigated the effects of attachment working models on social perception processes. Participants estimated the number of behavioral instances they would require to confirm and disconfirm hypothetical others’ possession of various traits. The attachment dimension of avoidance was associated with a defensively conservative style of social perception. High scorers on avoidance required more evidence to make a positive judgment and also more evidence to reject a negative judgment. In contrast, the attachment dimension of anxiety was associated with a relatively impulsive and labile perceptional style. High scorers on anxiety tended to require less evidence to make both positive and negative judgments of others. Results are discussed in terms of their concordance with previous findings and their implications for research on attachment and social perception.     

The effect of induced compliance on relative left frontal cortical activity: a test of the action‐based model of dissonance

The action‐based model of dissonance and recent advances in neuroscience suggest that commitment to action should cause greater relative left frontal cortical activity. An induced compliance experiment was conducted in which electroencephalographic activity was recorded following commitment to action, operationalized with a perceived choice manipulation. Perceived high as compared to low choice to engage in the counterattitudinal action caused attitudes to be more consistent with the action. Also, high choice caused greater relative left frontal cortical activity than low choice. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coregulation, dysregulation, self-regulation: an integrative analysis and empirical agenda for understanding adult attachment, separation, loss, and recovery.

An integrative framework is proposed for understanding how multiple biological and psychological systems are regulated in the context of adult attachment relationships, dysregulated by separation and loss experiences, and, potentially, re-regulated through individual recovery efforts. Evidence is reviewed for a coregulatory model of normative attachment, defined as a pattern of interwoven physiology between romantic partners that results from the conditioning of biological reward systems and the emergence of felt security within adult pair bonds. The loss of coregulation can portend a state of biobehavioral dysregulation, ranging from diffuse psychophysiological arousal and disorganization to a full-blown (and highly organized) stress response. The major task for successful recovery is adopting a self-regulatory strategy that attenuates the dysregulating effects of the attachment disruption. Research evidence is reviewed across multiple levels of analysis, and the article concludes with a series of testable research questions on the interconnected nature of attachment, loss, and recovery processes.     

Justice as a dependent variable: subordinate charisma as a predictor of interpersonal and informational justice perceptions

Research in the organizational justice literature has shown that interpersonal and informational justice are significant predictors of subordinate attitudes and behaviors. However, scholars have neglected to explore whether certain subordinate characteristics might be associated with managers' adherence to interpersonal and informational justice rules. The current authors' study tested a model, inspired by approach-avoidance perspectives (e.g., Gray, 1990), in which manager ratings of subordinate charisma influenced subordinate ratings of interpersonal and informational justice through the mechanisms of positive and negative sentiments (i.e., emotions felt by the manager toward the subordinate). A field study of 181 employees of a large national insurance company revealed partial support for this model. Structural equation modeling revealed that subordinate charisma was related to interpersonal justice perceptions, a relationship that was fully mediated by positive and negative sentiments. However, subordinate charisma was not associated with informational justice perceptions. These findings signal the potential utility in examining subordinate-based predictors of justice variables.