The Impact of AIDS on Gender Differences in Willingness to Engage in Casual Sex

The AIDS epidemic has had little impact on the gender differences in willingness to engage in casual sex encountered by dark and Hatfield (1989) 10 years ago. Whereas both men and women were willing to data a stranger, it was only the males who were willing to go to a female's apartment or to bed with her. These results from two experiments are consistent with the sociobiological framework. In addition, the results of Experiment 2 indicated that females were not saying no due to a concern for personal safety.     

Verbal uncertainty expressions: A critical review of two decades of research

The frequency with which verbal uncertainty expressions are employed suggests that they play an important role in the communication of states of uncertainty and may have an important role in emerging technologies such as Expert Systems. This article critically reviews empirical studies of verbal uncertainty expressions spanning two decades of research between 1967 and 1987 with the principal conclusions that: (1) People are highly internally consistent in their use of verbal uncertainty expressions; (2) No conclusions about between-subject variability are justified principally because (a) there is currently no consensus as to what is to count as consistent or inconsistent use and (b) there are several factors that confound purported analyses of between-subject consistency such as the composition of the stimulus set and the scaling tasks themselves; (3) One study suggests that assessments of the meaning of verbal uncertainty expressions may be conditioned by the prior perceived probabilities of the events they describe. However, other interpretations of this study are open. The review also discusses the more general epistemological question of whether the concept of uncertainty as manifest by verbal uncertainty expressions is really amenable to the unidimensional framework within which empirical studies have been conceived. I am indebted to Dylan Jones (UWIST) for his encouragement and support and to John Fox, (ICRF), Tom Wallsten and David Budescu for comments on earlier drafts. This work was supported, in part, by the Science and Engineering Research Council while the author was a postgraduate student at the Department of Applied Psychology, UWIST (now UWCC School of Psychology).     

Early adolescent age and gender differences in patterns of emotional self-disclosure to parents and friends

This study explored adolescent age and gender differences in patterns of emotional self-disclosure to parents and friends. The sample consisted of 174 junior high school students between the ages of 12 and 15. Results revealed that females exhibited greater emotional self-disclosure to parents and peers than did males, and that emotional self-disclosure to friends was greatest among older adolescents. In addition, while younger adolescents preferred to disclose information about their emotional state to parents, older adolescents chose friends. Exploratory hierarchical regression analyses revealed that emotional disclosure to parents was most strongly associated with adolescent perceptions of the openness of family communication, family cohesion, and satisfaction with family relationships. Emotional disclosure to friends was associated with adolescent self-esteem in the peer context and identity development. The results are discussed in terms of the complementary socializing processes that may operate within the contexts of family and friends.     

Affective responses to hyperventilation: a test of the cognitive model of panic

A cognitive explanation of the association between acute hyperventilation and panic attacks has been proposed: the extent to which sensations produced by hyperventilation are interpreted in a negative and catastrophic way is said to be a major determinant of panic. Non-clinical subjects were provided with a negative or a positive interpretation of the sensations produced by equivalent amounts of voluntary hyperventilation. As predicted, there was a significant difference between positive and negative interpretation conditions on ratings of positive and negative affect. Subjects in the positive interpretation condition experienced hyperventilation as pleasant, and subjects in the negative interpretation condition experienced hyperventilation as unpleasant, even though both groups experienced similar bodily sensations and did not differ in their prior expectations of the affective consequences of hyperventilation. When the subjects were given a positive interpretation, the number of their sensations correlated with positive affect; when a negative interpretation was given, the number of bodily sensations correlated with negative affect. The results provide support for a cognitive model of panic and are inconsistent with the view that panic is simply a symptom of hyperventilation syndrome.     

An experimental investigation of thought suppression

An experiment investigating the hypothesis that trying to suppress a thought will lead to an immediate and/or delayed increase in its occurrence is reported. Normal subjects listened to a taped story and then verbalized their stream of consciousness during two consecutive time periods. During the first period, one group (suppression) were asked not to think about the tape while two other groups (controls) were asked to think about anything or think about anything including the tape. During the second period, all three groups were instructed to think about anything. Results from the first period failed to support the immediate enhancement hypothesis as the suppression group reported less thoughts about the tape than the controls. However, results from the second period supported the delayed (rebound) hypothesis as subjects who had previously suppressed reported more thoughts about the tape than subjects who had not. The theoretical, methodological, and clinical implications of these results are discussed.     

Integrated versus modular theories of number skills and acalculia

This paper contrasts two views of the cognitive architecture underlying numerical skills and acalculia. According to the abstract-modular theory (e.g., McCloskey, Caramazza, & Basili, 1985), number processing is comprised of independent comprehension, calculation, and production subsystems that communicate via a single type of abstract quantity code. The alternative, specific-integrated theory (e.g., Campbell & Clark, 1988), proposes that visuospatial, verbal, and other modality-specific number codes are associatively connected as an encoding complex and that different facets of number processing generally involve common, rather than independent, processes. The hypothesis of specific number codes is supported by conceptual inadequacies of abstract codes, format-specific phenomena in calculation, the diversity of acalculias and individual differences in number processing, lateralization issues, and the role of format-specific codes in working memory. The integrated, associative view of number processing is supported by the dependence of modular views on abstract codes and other conceptual inadequacies, evidence for integrated associative networks in calculation tasks, acalculia phenomena, shortcomings in modular architectures for number-processing dissociations, close ties between semantic and verbal aspects of numbers, and continuities between number and nonnumber processing. These numerous logical and empirical considerations challenge the abstract-modular theory and support the encoding-complex view that number processing is effected by integrated associative networks of modality-specific number codes.     

Participant Retention in the Parents Matter! Program: Strategies and Outcome

We present a discussion of the literature addressing retention of ethnic minority samples in longitudinal studies. In addition, we describe the retention procedures implemented in the Parents Matter! Program (PMP), a community-based sexual risk reduction intervention for African American families. Finally, the results of PMP's retention strategies are presented.     

Open Theism: An Answer to My Critics

Abstract :  Open theism is a version of historic free will theism which posits God as granting to human beings significant freedom to cooperate with or to resist the will of God for their lives. God's goal is to make possible relationships of mutual love between God and creatures and therefore set up a dynamic give and take situation in which God can even be said to risk failure to the degree permitted by the overall plan. A debate has broken out as to whether open theism goes too far in its revision. I myself see it as a mere adjustment to standard Arminian thinking on the point of understanding the divine foreknowledge. In this article, I argue that, despite a goodly number of objections, the position deserves to be viewed as a legitimate option for Christian theology, yea even for "evangelical" theology.