Fat talk and self-presentation of body image: Is there a social norm for women to self-degrade?

The current investigations build upon previous ethnographic research, which identified a social norm for adolescent females to engage in “fat talk” (informal dialogue during which individuals express body dissatisfaction). In Study 1, participants were shown a vignette involving women engaging in fat talk dialogue and were subsequently asked to chose one of three self-presentational responses for a target female: (1) self-accepting of her body, (2) providing no information, or (3) self-degrading about her body. Male and female participants believed the target would be most likely to self-degrade, and that this would lead women to like her, while the self-accepting response would lead men to like her most. Study 2 used the same vignette but participants were asked to respond in an open-ended fashion. Participants again expected the target female to self-degrade. The present findings suggest college students perceive fat talk self-degradation of body image as normative.     

Identification, situational constraint, and social cognition: studies in the attribution of moral responsibility

In three experiments we studied lay observers' attributions of responsibility for an antisocial act (homicide). We systematically varied both the degree to which the action was coerced by external circumstances and the degree to which the actor endorsed and accepted ownership of the act, a psychological state that philosophers have termed "identification." Our findings with respect to identification were highly consistent. The more an actor was identified with an action, the more likely observers were to assign responsibility to the actor, even when the action was performed under constraints so powerful that no other behavioral option was available. Our findings indicate that social cognition involving assignment of responsibility for an action is a more complex process than previous research has indicated. It would appear that laypersons' judgments of moral responsibility may, in some circumstances, accord with philosophical views in which freedom and determinism are regarded to be compatible.     

True or false: do 5-year-olds understand belief?

In 3 studies (N = 188) we tested the hypothesis that children use a perceptual access approach to reason about mental states before they understand beliefs. The perceptual access hypothesis predicts a U-shaped developmental pattern of performance in true belief tasks, in which 3-year-olds who reason about reality should succeed, 4- to 5-year-olds who use perceptual access reasoning should fail, and older children who use belief reasoning should succeed. The results of Study 1 revealed the predicted pattern in 2 different true belief tasks. The results of Study 2 disconfirmed several alternate explanations based on possible pragmatic and inhibitory demands of the true belief tasks. In Study 3, we compared 2 methods of classifying individuals according to which 1 of the 3 reasoning strategies (reality reasoning, perceptual access reasoning, belief reasoning) they used. The 2 methods gave converging results. Both methods indicated that the majority of children used the same approach across tasks and that it was not until after 6 years of age that most children reasoned about beliefs. We conclude that because most prior studies have failed to detect young children's use of perceptual access reasoning, they have overestimated their understanding of false beliefs. We outline several theoretical implications that follow from the perceptual access hypothesis.     

The Effect of Text Coherence and Modality on Metamemory Judgements

This study examined the effects of text coherence and modality on the metamemory judgements of Ease of Learning (EOL) and Judgement of Learning (JOL), and on the object-level measure of recall. Previous work found that sentence material set in a coherent, ordered text context was not judged as more memorable than that presented in a context of sentences in a disordered sequence, even though an ordered sequence helped recall (Shaddock & Carroll, 1997). The current study modified Shaddock and Carroll's design by changing the texts used from expository to narrative text. The metamemory judgements and recall were now found to be significantly more sensitive to material learned in an ordered sequence than to material learned in a disordered sequence. Also, JOLs and recall were more sensitive to material that was originally learned in an auditory mode (spoken presentation) than in a visual mode (verbal presentation). The results are discussed in terms of a cue-utilisation approach to metamemory judgements.     

The genesis and microgenesis of sudden insight in the creation of literature

Examination of literary insight and inspiration experiences suggests the need to extend current notions of the concept as follows: (a) insight involves a family of phenomena which goes beyond problem‐solving and problem‐finding; (b) insights can reorganize thought, for example, by integrating previously unrelated elements, but they can also function to organize thought by providing a seminal idea from which the work then evolves; (c) the insight itself is a microgenetic process, more intricate than the subjectively experienced sudden flash suggests, and firmly yoked to prior and subsequent creative work; and (d) insights are either experienced in a specific modality or are multi‐modal.     

Within-Person Fluctuations of Proactive Behavior: How Affect and Experienced Competence Regulate Work Behavior

This article studies proactive work behavior from a within-person perspective. Building on the broaden-and-build model and the mood-as-information approach, we hypothesized that negative trait affect and positive state affect predict the relative time spent on proactive behavior. Furthermore, based on self-determination theory we argued that persons want to feel competent and that proactive behavior is one way to experience competence. In an experience-sampling study, 52 employees responded to surveys 3 times a day for 5 days. Hierarchical linear modeling confirmed the hypotheses on trait and state affect. Analyses furthermore showed that although a higher level of experienced competence at core task activities was associated with a subsequent increase in time spent on these activities, low experienced competence predicted an increase in time spent on proactive behavior.     

A description of 5- to 12-year old children's conception of health within the context of their daily life

Abstract

This study describes children's conception of health within the context of their daily life. Participants were boys and girls (n = 1,674) from three age groups (5–6, 8–9, and 11–12 years old) from different socio-economic living environments in urban and rural areas. In general, the results indicate that children's conception of health is multidimensional and is rooted in their daily-life experiences. Essentially, it is organized around three main dimensions, functionality, adherence to good lifestyle health habits, and mental health. Variations by age and living environment differences suggest that children's conception of health may reflect differences in their organization of information into schemata on the basis of their experience as well as structural changes in cognitive development.     

Socio-economic health inequalities: Their origins and implications

Abstract

Evidence attests to substantial variations in health contingent on socioeconomic position. It is argued that these effects cannot be dismissed as artefact nor can they be explained, in the main, by either social selection or an unequal distribution of accepted behavioural risk factors among different social groups. The most likely explanation would seem to be social causation. However, it is continuing social and material inequality that appears most implicated; accounts which locate the effects in childhood social and material causes are far less compelling. The persistence of socioeconomic health differentials into the materially better-off social strata and the possible determining role of relative as well as absolute living standards suggest that psychological, in addition to material, variables are likely to be involved. Isolating the key psychological variables and identifying the nature of their influences will not be easy tasks, although social relations, psychological stress, uplifts, and control have emerged as possible candidates. However, psychological mediators of this sort most probably constitute surface rather than basic causes. Socio-economic inequality, it is contended, remains the basic cause, and, as such, the proper target for intervention. Psychological interventions are unlikely to yield much in the way of dividends in this context and indeed could inadvertently contribute to victim blaming.     

Type D personality predicts poor medication adherence in myocardial infarction patients

Type D personality, the combination of negative affectivity (NA) and social inhibition (SI), is an emerging risk factor in cardiovascular disease. This study aimed to examine one possible behavioural mechanism to explain the link between Type D and ill-health. It was hypothesised that Type D personality would predict medication adherence in myocardial infarction (MI) patients. In a prospective study, 192 MI patients (54 females and 138 males) completed measures of Type D personality and provided demographic and medical information 1 week post-MI, and then 131 patients went on to complete a self-report measure of medication adherence 3 months post-MI. It was found that Type D personality predicts adherence to medication, after controlling for demographic and clinical risk factors. Critically, the constituent components of Type D, NA and SI, interact to predict medication adherence, after controlling for the effects of each component separately. Poor adherence to medication may represent one mechanism to explain why Type D cardiac patients experience poor clinical outcome, in comparison to non-Type D patients. Interventions, which target the self-management of medication, may be useful in these high-risk patients.