Men's reactions to hypothetical female sexual advances: A beauty bias in response to sexual coercion

The study investigated 277 college men's reactions to a vignette in which they were to imagine receiving an uninvited sexual advance from a casual female acquaintance. Subjects were predominantly middle-class Caucasian students. The vignette varied in the degree of coercion used (low — touch, moderate — push, high — threat, and very high — weapon). For each coercion level, the initiator was described as either very attractive or very unattractive. Subjects rated acceptability of the act, feelings of being pleased, violated, and negatively affected by the incident, and indicated if they would consent to further sexual activity. Results showed that men had significantly more negative reactions to advances that employed high and very high levels of force as compared to low and moderate levels. A beauty bias was found in that men had more positive (or less negative) reactions to the actions of an attractive vs. an unattractive initiator. Men had generally positive reactions to the sexual advance of an attractive woman who used low or moderate levels of coercion. Reactions to all other vignette situations were predominantly negative. As a model for future research, it is proposed that male and female reactions to sexual coercion can be predicted by levels of violation of sexual standards, force used, initiator sexual desirability, and romantic relationship with the initiator.     

College men's and women's reactions to hypothetical sexual touch varied by initiator gender and coercion level

A sample of 152 men and 152 women (mostly Caucasian) rated their reactions to a vignette in which the subjects were to imagine receiving an uninvited genital touch from a college acquaintance. The vignette was varied so that the acquaintance was of the opposite or the same gender as the subject, and the touch was either gentle or forceful. Results indicated that women anticipated strong negative effects from receiving opposite- or same-gender touch, whether gentle or forceful. Men anticipated almost no negative effects from either a gentle or forceful touch from a female acquaintance, but expected strong negative effects from a gentle or forceful touch from a male acquaintance. Regression analyses revealed that women's reactions to opposite-gender touch were mediated by beliefs in a male norm promoting casual sex, and feelings of violation and fear of harm. Men's reactions to opposite-gender touch were influenced by feelings related to sexual arousal. Men and women's reactions to same-gender touch were related to feelings of violation and harm.     

Self-report measure of parental reflective functioning: A study of reliability and validity across three samples of varying clinical risk

The Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (PRFQ) provides an efficient way to measure a parent's capacity to recognize their child's mental states and to understand the relationship between underlying mental states and behavior. To date, limited work evaluates its psychometric properties beyond initial validation studies. Here we examined the reliability and validity of the PRFQ in three samples of varying clinical risk (e.g., community sample, previous mental health diagnosis, substance use disorder diagnosis). Across samples, the majority (e.g., 75%–78%) of mothers identified as White; all mothers were from the USA. We compared the PRFQ to task-based measures of mentalization, the Parent Development Interview (PDI), and measures of the parent-child relationship. The PRFQ was a reliable measure across samples, and it was associated in theoretically consistent ways with task-based measures of mentalization. Parental RF across the PDI and PRFQ were not highly correlated in a sample of mothers with substance use disorders. Existing RF measures may be tapping into a different component of the broader construct of parental reflective functioning (PRF). The PRFQ was further validated by demonstrating relationships with parent-report measures of the parent-child relationship. Taken together, these findings provide additional support for the reliability and validity of the PRFQ.     

Paying Attention to Time as One Gets Older

Age-related changes in attention and interval timing as a function of time of day were examined using a temporal bisection task with single and compound auditory and visual stimuli. Half of the participants in each age group were tested in the morning, and half were tested in the afternoon. Duration judgments were found to be shorter for visual signals than for auditory signals. This discrepancy was greater in the morning than in the afternoon and larger for the older than for the younger adults. Young adults showed equal sensitivity to signal duration for single and compound trials and higher sensitivity in the afternoon than in the morning for both signal modalities. In contrast, older adults showed impaired sensitivity on compound trials and the greatest sensitivity overall to single visual trials in the morning. These results suggest that age-related reductions in attentional resources may cause older adults to focus on signals that require controlled attention during specific phases of the circadian cycle.     

Mild memory deficits differentially affect 6-year changes in compensatory strategy use

The authors examined memory compensation techniques used by older adults from 2 memory status groups, not impaired control (NIC) and mild memory deficit (MMD), both at baseline and across a 6-year (3-wave) interval. The groups were derived from a parent sample of 55- to 85-year-old adults from the Victoria Longitudinal Study (NIC baseline, n = 276; memory > parent sample mean; MMD baseline, n = 79; memory > 1 standard deviation below parent sample mean). Multilevel modeling was used to test 3 research questions concerning differences in initial use of, and 6-year changes and variability in, memory compensation. Initial group differences were observed for both a memory compensation technique and a general compensation indicator. Significant differences in 6-year change patterns were observed for 2 memory compensation techniques (recruitment of human memory assistance, investment of extra effort in memory tasks). Interactions of group status and wave showed that older adults with MMD declined in their use of memory compensation strategies, whereas initially NIC older adults increased their use of compensatory techniques over the 6 years.     

Psychological interventions for arthritis pain management in adults: a meta-analysis.

CONTEXT: The psychosocial impact of arthritis can be profound. There is growing interest in psychosocial interventions for managing pain and disability in arthritis patients. OBJECTIVE: This meta-analysis reports on the efficacy of psychosocial interventions for arthritis pain and disability. DATA SOURCES: Articles evaluating psychosocial interventions for arthritis were identified through Cochrane Controlled Trials, EMBASE, Ovid MEDLINE, and Ovid PsycINFO data sources. STUDY SELECTION: Randomized controlled trials testing the efficacy of psychosocial interventions in arthritis pain management were reviewed. DATA EXTRACTION: Twenty-seven randomized controlled trials were analyzed. Pain intensity was the primary outcome. Secondary outcomes included psychological, physical, and biological functioning. DATA SYNTHESIS: An overall effect size of 0.177 (95% CI=0.256-0.094) indicated that patients receiving psychosocial interventions reported significantly lower pain than patients in control conditions (combined p=.01). Meta-analyses also supported the efficacy of psychosocial interventions for the secondary outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that psychosocial interventions may have significant effects on pain and other outcomes in arthritis patients. Ample evidence for the additional benefit of such interventions over and above that of standard medical care was found.     

Adolescents’ perceptions of health and well-being: Influences of urban contemporary music

The study aimed to explore adolescents’ perceptions of how urban contemporary music influences health and well-being among them. Data on health and well-being effects of music consumption were gathered from a convenience sample of 16 participants (male = 50%, females = 50%) between the ages of 15 and 17 in a series of two focus group interviews. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings suggest the adolescents to perceive both positive and negative influences of contemporary music on their health and well-being. Positive influences included emotional well-being and sense of social belongingness. Negative influences included promotion of risky behaviours, including substance use, misogyny, sexual behaviour and violence. The findings suggest that urban contemporary music serves as a tool of normalisation as well as a catalyst for encouraging risky behaviour in adolescence.     

Self-reference and emotional memory effects in older adults at increased genetic risk of Alzheimer’s disease

The present study investigated whether cognitively healthy older adults who are carriers of the ε4 allele of apolipoprotein E, the most prevalent genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, benefit from self-referential processing and emotional processing to the same degree as noncarriers of this gene. Participants encoded emotional and nonemotional narratives using a baseline-orienting task, semantic elaboration, or imagination-based self-referential processing and then completed a recognition memory test. Both groups of older adults showed enhanced recognition memory for narrative information following self-referential processing relative to semantic elaboration, and the magnitude of this memory effect was not affected by ε4 status. However, older adult ε4 carriers did not show an emotional enhancement effect, whereas older adult ε4 noncarriers did. These results indicate that whereas the self-reference effect is not attenuated in cognitively healthy older adults ε4 carriers, deficits in emotional memory may be an early cognitive marker of abnormal decline.