Examining “fat talk” experimentally in a female dyad: How are women influenced by another woman's body presentation style?

Fat talk, the verbal dissatisfaction that women express about their bodies, was studied in a female dyad whereby participants interacted with a female confederate who either self-derogated, self-accepted, or self-aggrandized. A 2 (participant body esteem: high vs. low) ×3 (confederate style of body image presentation) design was used. Results revealed that participants’ public disclosure of their body image varied according to confederate's style. Consistent with a reciprocity effect, participants disclosed the lowest public body image ratings in the self-derogate condition, with moderate ratings in the self-accept condition, and highest ratings in the self-aggrandize condition. Moreover, participants with low compared to high body esteem stated lower public body image. Participants’ judgments of the confederates’ likeability did not vary as a function of the confederate's body presentational style. Findings support the recursive nature of the social psychology of body image such that personal body image dissatisfaction is partially influenced by fat talk social norms.     

Surfing for sex: Studying involuntary celibacy using the internet

The Internet offers possibilities for sexuality research that could not have been imagined even a decade ago. Although Internet users are not representative of the general population, they are easily accessible, and the openness with which they discuss sensitive topics has created a tremendous and largely untapped pool of respondents for sex research. Moreover, the web provides access to populations that are largely hidden and difficult to reach using traditional methods. In this article, we explore such issues as sampling, research design, data collection and management, and the ethics of web-based research. In doing so, we review past research, investigate the advantages and disadvantages of using the Internet in sexuality studies, draw examples from our web-based study of involuntary celibacy, and recommend guidelines for future web based inquiries.     

The child as go-between: consulting with parents and teachers

In becoming a pupil a child also takes on the role of go-between and must negotiate daily the transitions from home to school. This puts the child in a triangular position in relation to his parents and teachers who often stand in a highly ambivalent relationship to each other, making it difficult for the child to keep a balance between the two systems. Coping mechanisms described include dissociating one system fromanother or skewing the triangle so that the child is cast in the role of victim either because the school or home is seen as unsatisfactory. The presence of 'themes' or issues around deprivation and authority, or the more familiar 'care' and 'control', aggravate the difficulties of the go-between. 'Good' parents are likely to produce 'good' pupils and successful go-betweens.     

INFANTS' RECOGNITION OF THE SOUND PATTERNS OF THEIR OWN NAMES

Abstract— Among the earliest and most frequent words that infants hear are their names Yet little is known about when infants begin to recognize their own names Using a modified version of the head-turn preference procedure, we tested whether 4 5-month-olds preferred to listen to their own names over foils that were either matched or mismatched for stress pattern. Our findings provide the first evidence that even these young infants recognize the sound patterns of their own names Infants demonstrated significant preferences for their own names compared with foils that shared the same stress patterns, as well as foils with opposite patterns. The results indicate when infants begin to recognize sound patterns of items frequently uttered in the infants' environments.     

In the Eye of the Beholder? Parental Ratings of Externalizing and Internalizing Symptoms

Variations in ratings of externalizing and internalizing symptoms may contain a trait (i.e., shared view) component when behavioral symptoms that generalize across context are perceived and an individual view component when they are misperceived or when each informant has access to different symptoms. Using a LISREL model, we estimated the trait and the informant-specific, individual view components in parental ratings of externalizing and internalizing symptoms of adolescent siblings. The model demonstrated that mothers' and fathers' ratings contained a substantial individual view component (from 21% to 50% of total rating variance, depending on rater and trait). Except for fathers' ratings of internalizing symptoms (13%), parental ratings also contained a substantial trait component (42% to 58%). Mother's, father's, and child's ratings may be averaged to estimate a trait of externalizing. To estimate an internalizing trait, it may be best to combine just the mother's rating with the child's self-rating.     

Picture Naming Deficits in Developmental Dyslexia: The Phonological Representations Hypothesis

The picture and word naming performance of developmental dyslexics was compared to the picture and word naming performance of non-dyslexic (“garden variety”) poor readers, reading age, and chronological age-matched controls. The stimulus list used for both tasks was systematically manipulated for word length and word frequency. In order to examine picture naming errors in more depth, an object name recognition test assessed each subject's vocabulary knowledge of those names which they were unable to spontaneously label in the picture naming task. Findings indicated that the dyslexic and the garden variety poor readers exhibited a picture naming deficit relative to both chronological and reading age-matched controls. Findings also indicated that both groups of impaired readers obtained superior scores in the word naming task than in the picture naming task, while both groups of controls showed no difference in performance across tasks. The dyslexics' picture naming errors, but not those of the garden variety poor readers, were particularly marked on polysyllabic and/or low frequency words, indicating a possible phonological basis to the picture naming deficit of the dyslexic children. These children also recognized significantly more unnamed target words than all comparison groups, suggesting a particular difficulty inretrievingthe phonological codes of known picture names rather than a vocabulary deficit. Results are discussed in terms of dyslexics' difficulty in encoding full segmental phonological representations of names in long-term memory and/or in processing these representations in order to generate required names on demand.     

Metamemories of memory researchers

In the present study, a metamemory questionnaire was completed by three groups of individuals: memory research psychologists who attended a small international convention on everyday memory processes in the aged, academic psychologists with a limited knowledge of the memory literature, and nonpsychologist college professors. There was little evidence that memory psychologists reported using strategies to remember things that were different from the strategies of other academics. The most used and most recommended technique for remembering was to write things down, followed by general internal mnemonic systems such as organization and rehearsal. The least used and least recommended strategies for all three groups were formal mnemonic systems, such as the peg-word system or the method of loci.