Food-related stimuli increase desire to eat in hungry and satiated human subjects

In the present study, the effect of food-related cues on the desire to eat chocolate in hungry and satiated subjects was investigated. Subjects (n=46) were randomly assigned to either a hungry or satiated group and then assigned to a group receiving one of the following stimuli: taste (2 M&Ms), sight (a photograph of M&Ms), cognition (a passage describin M&Ms), or control (no stimulus). In each testing session, subjects rated their desire to eat chocolate before and after the 90-s presentation of the particular stimulus. Each subject was then given a half pound of M&Ms so that actual consumption could also be measured. Results indicated that, following the presentation of the sight and taste stimuli, the subjects’ desire to eat chocolate was significantly increased. Furthermore, no differences in chocolate consumption due to state of hunger or type of food-related stimulus presented were found.     

A Status Account of Gender Stereotypes: Beyond Communality and Agency

Women's lower status relative to men can account for people's differential attribution to women and men, of the constructs of the Extended Personal Attributes Questionnaire (EPAQ; Spence, Helmreich, & Holahan, 1979). Ratings in all three studies were made on the EPAQ scales. In Study 1a, participants rated their perceptions of the stereotypes of women and of men. In Study 1b, participants reported their own perceptions of women and men. In Study 2, participants were presented a minimal status manipulation (Conway, Pizzamiglio, & Mount, 1996) for which status is unconfounded with gender; participants then reported their perceptions of low- and high-status individuals. The men in Studies 1a and 1b were perceived as were high-status individuals in Study 2. Except for (i.e., verbal passive-aggression nagging, whining), women in Studies 1a and 1b were perceived as were low-status individuals in Study 2. Results are discussed in terms of status accounts of gender stereotypes and gender differences in social behavior.     

On Sex Roles and Representations of Emotional Experience: Masculinity,Femininity, and Emotional Awareness

The hypothesis was that individuals higher in femininity and lower in masculinity would evidence more complex representations of the emotions they and others might experience in a range of evocative situations. Participants initially completed the short form of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI-SF; S. Bem L. 1981). Approximately 2 months later, they completed an abridged Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS; R. D. Lane, D. M. Quinlan, G. E. Schwartz, P. A. Walker, & S. B. Zeitlin, 1990), which consists of describing, in an open-ended format, the emotional reactions another and oneself may experience in various scenes. Responses to the LEAS are scored for degree of complexity. As expected, higher masculinity was associated with lower complexity in representations of one's own and others' emotions. However, no relation was found between femininity and complexity of representation.     

Suicide and self-inflicted injuries

The present study addressed itself to the problem of self-inflicted injuries (SII) in the Israeli army, and to the wider question whether non-fatal self injuries and suicide are part of the same phenomenon. The findings show that in some cases SII is an unsucessful suicide while in others SII is anything but a reflection of a death wish. It appears that the modus operandi is a major indication as to the intentions of the actor. The study also demonstrates the difference between the population of the suiciders and that of the SII victims. While suiciders seem to score higher on the Performance Prediction Score (PPS) and Combat Suitability Scale, the SII population seems to be overly represented in the lower parts of the PPS and the Combat Suitability Scale. The study used a data set that represents a 5 year period, and followed the consequences of the SII in terms of medical status and occupational assignment of the actors. The findings yielded some possible policy implications, in terms of a better classification of the relevant populations, and a possible attribution of a more refined meaning to the behavior. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Selective pressures on the once and future contents of ethnic stereotypes: effects of the communicability of traits

It is hypothesized that traits that are most likely to be the subject of social discourse (i.e., most communicable) are most likely to persist in ethnic stereotypes over time and that this effect is moderated by the extent to which an ethnic group is the subject of social discourse. Study 1 yielded communicability ratings of 76 traits. Study 2 tested the relation between a trait's communicability and its presence in stereotypes of 4 Canadian ethnic groups. Study 3 tested the relation between a trait's communicability and its persistence over time in stereotypes of 8 American ethnic groups. Results supported the hypotheses. A communication-based analysis of stereotypes appears helpful in predicting persistence and change in the contents of stereotypes of real groups in the real world.     

Assessing the inhibitory account of retrieval-induced forgetting with implicit-memory tests

Five experiments examined whether retrieval-induced-forgetting effects are observed for implicit tests of memory. In each experiment participants first studied category-exemplar paired associates, then practiced retrieval for a subset of items from a subset of categories before finally completing memory tests for all the studied items. In standard fashion, inhibition was measured as the performance difference of unpracticed items from practiced categories and unpracticed items from unpracticed categories. Across the 5 experiments poorer performance for unpracticed items was seen in conceptual implicit memory (category generation and category matching) but not in perceptual implicit memory (stem completion, perceptual identification). Thus, retrieval-induced-forgetting effects are limited to tests of conceptual memory.