Contents of Volume 20

Volume Contents

Contents of Volume 20     

Culture and egocentric perceptions of fairness in conflict and negotiation

In this article, the authors advanced a cultural view of judgment biases in conflict and negotiation. The authors predicted that disputants' self-serving biases of fairness would be more prevalent in individualistic cultures, such as the United States, in which the self is served by focusing on one's positive attributes to "stand out" and be better than others, yet would be attenuated in collectivistic cultures, such as Japan, where the self is served by focusing on one's negative characteristics to "blend in" (S. J. Heine, D. R. Lehman, H. R. Markus, & S. Kitayama, 1999). Four studies that used different methodologies (free recall, scenarios, and a laboratory experiment) supported this notion. Implications for the science and practice of negotiation are discussed.     

Clinicians' ratings and self-reports of basic symptoms

A sample of 34 paranoid or undifferentiated schizophrenic outpatients were given the Rome Basic Disorders Scale, a self-rating questionnaire aimed to the assessment of basic symptoms, as defined by the Bonn Scale. These patients were then interviewed on the same 54 basic symptoms explored with the scale, by two independent clinicians blind to the outpatients' data. Self-ratings compared with clinicians' ratings by Student t for dependent samples yielded only one significant difference (p< .01) for the item measuring hypersensitivity to light. Present findings suggest that the Rome Basic Disorders Scale may be safely self-rated even by collaborative schizophrenic patients.     

Time course of brain activation during graphemic/phonologic processing in reading: an ERP study

The present study sought to investigate the time course of brain activation during grapheme-to-phoneme conversion and phonologic processing of legal Italian syllables. To this goal, we monitored a group of right-handed native Italian volunteers performing a phonologic decision task (same/different judgments). ERPs were recorded from 28 scalp sites during silent reading. Analysis of ERP latency showed faster responses to same syllables than to different ones as early as 105 ms at left temporal electrode site and 160 ms at frontal sites. The first effect of phonologic/graphemic incongruity on the amplitude of ERPs was observed at lateral occipital/posterior temporal sites (N185), where physiologic responses were enhanced to incongruous syllables.     

Spontaneous attention to word content versus emotional tone: differences among three cultures

A Stroop interference task was used to test the hypothesis that people in different cultures are differentially attuned to verbal content vis-à-vis vocal tone in comprehending emotional words. In Study 1, Americans showed greater difficulty ignoring verbal content than ignoring vocal tone (which reveals an attentional bias for verbal content); but Japanese showed greater difficulty ignoring vocal tone than ignoring verbal content (which reveals a bias for vocal tone). In Study 2, Tagalog-English bilinguals in the Philippines showed an attentional bias for vocal tone regardless of the language used, suggesting that the effect is largely cultural rather than linguistic. Implications for culture-and-cognition research are discussed.     

Differential involvement of NMDA and AMPA receptors within the nucleus accumbens in consolidation of information necessary for place navigation and guidance strategy of mice

Recent evidence now points to a role of glutamate transmission within the nucleus accumbens (Nacc) in spatial learning and memory. Unfortunately, the role of the distinct classes of glutamate receptors within this structure in mediating the different steps of the memorization process is not clear. The aim of this study therefore was to further investigate this issue, trying to assess the involvement of the two classes of glutamate receptors within the Nacc in consolidation of spatial information using an associative spatial task, the water maze. For this purpose, focal injections of the NMDA antagonist, AP-5, and of the AMPA antagonist, DNQX, have been performed immediately after the training phase, and mice have been tested for retention 24 h later. Two different versions of the water-maze task have been used: In the place version, animals could learn the position of the platform using visual distal cues, and in the cue version, the location of the platform was indicated by a single proximal cue. The results demonstrated that posttraining NMDA receptor blockade affects mice response in the place but not in the cue water-maze task. On the contrary, AMPA receptor blockade induced no effect in either version of the task. These data confirm a functional dissociation between glutamate receptors located in the Nacc in modulating spatial memory consolidation and indicate that they are specifically involved in consolidation of information necessary to acquire a place but not to a guidance strategy.     

Patterns of adaptation and personality disorders

Patterns of adaptation to conflict were explored with the Serial Color-Word Test, and personality disorders were assessed by means of the Coolidge Axis II Inventory in a group of 76 nonpsychotic women volunteers in the age range 18-50 yr. (M=29.1 yr., SD=8.3), who attended a psychiatric outpatients unit. Forward multiple regression analyses were performed to investigate whether patterns of adaptation were associated with personality disorders. 10 out of 13 personality scales, as measured by the Coolidge Axis II Inventory, were significantly predicted by adaptive variables. Some predictors were positive and others were negative. The variable R(AD) was a negative predictor of avoidant and dependent personalities, and a positive predictor of Extraversion, Aggressive personality, and Antisocial personality; this finding suggests that R(AD) may represent the regulative counterpart of a continuum from passive introversion to aggressive extraversion. The results encourage further research on nontrait laboratory correlates of personality disorders.     

Biological background knowledge and learning from a drug and alcohol education program

The authors asked whether having a base of relevant biological knowledge put school children in a better position to understand the effects of alcohol and cocaine and to learn about these effects when exposed to a curriculum presenting a physiological theory of drug action. Participants were 337 ethnically diverse 3rd- through 6th-grade students who were pretested, trained, and posttested. Multiple regression analyses revealed that knowledge of the basic functions of the heart, blood, and brain predicted certain drug-knowledge variables. Students with greater biological background knowledge also learned more from instruction, a finding with implications for enhancing drug and other health education programs.     

Teacher Ratings of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms in Hispanic Children

This study compared teacher's ratings of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in groups of nonreferred Hispanic and non-Hispanic White children via the Teacher Report Form, the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Scales—IV, and the Conners Abbreviated Teacher Rating Scale. A total of 61 non-Hispanic White teachers completed behavior ratings of 61 Hispanic and non-Hispanic White children between 6 and 11 years old. Significant differences were found between boys and girls, with girls showing fewer behavior problems and fewer hyperactive/inattentive symptoms compared to boys. In addition, Hispanics scored similar or lower than non-Hispanic Whites on multiple subscales measuring symptomatology related to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and overall behavioral disorders. In no instance did Hispanic children score as more pathological than non-Hispanic White children. The need to consider the rater's ethnicity is discussed, and findings are explained in terms of childhood socialization patterns that might help to discern the behavior displayed by Hispanic children in classroom settings.