Intergenerational transmission of values: family generativity and adolescents' narratives of parent and grandparent value teaching

In this longitudinal study, we compared family stories told by 32 Canadian adolescents at ages 16 and 20 about how parents and grandparents had taught them values. Relations to parents' and children's levels of generativity were also examined. Adolescents' stories of grandparent value teaching were less readily recalled and less interactive in their content compared with stories about parents. Stories of value teaching by more generative parents were more likely to involve specific episodes, to be more interactive, to be more likely to emphasize caring content, and to be less likely to have their message rejected by the teens. Similarly, when parents were more generative, adolescents' stories about grandparents' value teaching were also more likely to involve specific and interactive episodes. Finally, stories told about parents and grandparents that were more positive on these dimensions predicted higher generative concern scores for the adolescents themselves, measured subsequently at age 24. Adolescents' stories about parent and grandparent socialization in more generative family contexts thus have features that suggest a more compelling process of intergenerational value transmission.     

A neuroscientific review of imagery and observation use in sport

Imagery and observation are multicomponential, involving individual difference characteristics that modify the processes. The authors propose that both imagery and observation function by offering effective routes to access and reinforce neural networks for skilled performance. The neural isomorphism with overt behaviors offers a tempting mechanism to explain the beneficial outcomes of the 2 processes. However, several limitations related to imagery indicate the possibility that imagery may not be as efficacious as the literature would indicate. The authors propose observation-based approaches to offer more valid and effective techniques in sport psychology and motor control.     

Color preferences in gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Color plays an important biological role in the lives of many animals, with some species exhibiting preferences for certain colors over others. This study explored the color preferences of two species of ape, which, like humans, possess trichromatic color vision. Six western lowland gorillas, and six chimpanzees, housed in Belfast Zoological Gardens, were exposed to three stimuli (cloths, boxes, sheets of acetate) in red, blue, and green. Six stimuli of the same nature, in each of the three colors, were provided to both species for 5 days per stimulus. The amount of interest that the animals showed toward each stimulus of each color was recorded for 1 hr. Results showed that the apes, both when analyzed as two separate groups, and when assessed collectively, showed significant color preferences, paying significantly less attention to the red-, than to the blue- or green-colored stimuli. The animals' interest in the blue- and green-colored stimuli did not differ significantly. Overall, the findings suggest that gorillas and chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, may harbor color preferences comparable to those of humans and other species.     

Impairment in attentional processing in a field survival environment

The suggestion that maladaptive behaviour often observed in survival incidents may be due to a restriction in attentional processing was tested using sub‐components of the Test of Everyday Attention in participants undergoing a field survival exercise. Compared to a baseline condition and control group those undergoing environmental duress showed significant impairment in selective and sustained attention which taken together suggests dysfunction in controlled attention. No impairment was found in either attentional switching or auditory‐verbal working memory. It is argued that this type of cognitive impairment makes flexible interaction with the survival environment difficult and the victim's behaviour becomes dominated by environmental cues at the expense of wilful, goal‐directed survival behaviour. This would begin to answer at least one anomaly that exists in survivorship: why so many people perish when there is no need. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Relationship between Religiosity and Drug Use among “At Risk” Women

This study focuses on the interplay between religiosity and drug use in a sample of 250 adult women from the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area who were interviewed between August 1997 and August 2000. The research addresses two principal questions: (1) Is there a relationship between the level of religiosity and the amount of illegal drug use reported? (2) If so, is this relationship maintained in multivariate analysis when the effects of other potentially relevant factors like demographic characteristics, childhood maltreatment experiences, psychosocial traits, and substance user-related measures are taken into account? We found that religiosity is related to the amount of drugs women used. Four variables were retained in the final multivariate drug use prediction model: religiosity, coping with everyday stresses, number of family members who are substance abusers, and amount of oral sex. Greater amounts of drugs were used by women who were less religious, less capable of coping with stress, had more drug-abusing family members, and reported having more oral sex. Together, these items explained nearly one-fifth of the variance in the dependent variable. The implications for substance abuse prevention and intervention efforts are discussed.     

Friendship as a moderator of the relationship between social skills problems and peer victimisation

Previous research, primarily in North America, has found that individual factors (e.g., ‘internalising problems’) and social factors (e.g., friendship) interact to influence children's levels of peer victimisation. Some research has found that the identity of children's friends and friendship quality (as ‘protective factors’) are more important than the sheer number of friends. However, studies have produced conflicting findings. A peer nomination inventory was used to assess social skills problems, peer victimisation, peer acceptance, and several different aspects of friendship. Four hundred and forty‐nine children aged 9 to 11 years completed the inventory at two time points over the course of an academic year. Social skills problems were found to predict an increase in peer victimisation over time. Two friendship variables were found to moderate this relationship: a) number of friends, and b) the peer acceptance of the very best‐friend. The relationship was found to be weaker for those children with lots of friends and for those children with a ‘popular’ best‐friend. The findings advance understanding of the factors that promote peer victimisation. Aggr. Behav. 32:110–121, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Right Motive, Wrong Action: Direct Consequentialism and Evaluative Conflict

In this paper I look at attempts to develop forms of consequentialism which do not have a feature considered problematic in Direct Consequentialist theories (that is, those consequentialist theories that apply the criterion of rightness directly in the evaluation of any set of options). The problematic feature in question (which I refer to as ‘evaluative conflict’) is the possibility that, for example, a right motive might lead an agent to perform a wrong act. Theories aiming to avoid this phenomenon must argue that causal relationship entails motives and acts (for example) having the same moral status. I argue that attempts to ensure such ‘evaluative consistency’ are themselves deeply problematic, and that we must therefore accept evaluative conflict.     

The Importance of Interpersonal Similarities in the Teacher Mentor/Protégé Relationship

The present study assessed the effect of interpersonal similarities between mentors and protégés in a large formal teacher mentoring program. The dependent variables included protégés’ satisfaction with the services provided by the program and perception of the program as influencing the decision to continue as a New York City Public School teacher. Two years of responses to surveys indicated that mentor-protégés similarities, most notably in the relatively intangible areas of outside interests, teaching styles, or personality types, fostered stronger relationships between mentors and protégés.     

Stripes within words affect reading

In a series of eight studies it is shown that the first peak in the horizontal autocorrelation of the image of a word (which captures the similarity in shape between the neighbouring strokes of letters) determines (i) the appearance of the words as striped; (ii) the speed with which the words are read, both aloud and silently; and (iii) the speed with which a paragraph of text can be searched. By subtly distorting the horizontal dimension of text, and thereby reducing the first peak in the horizontal autocorrelation, it is shown that the speed of word recognition can be increased. The increase in speed is greater in poor readers.