Body Satisfaction in Gym-active Males: An Exploration of Sexuality, Gender, and Narcissism

This study compared 80 gay and straight Australian males on self report measures of body satisfaction, masculinity, femininity, narcissism, and reasons for exercising at gyms to explore factors related to excessive exercise. Gay males are less satisfied with their bodies compared to straight males. Improving appearance was more important for gay men, while fun was considered more important for straight men. Only sexual orientation and masculinity contributed independently to body satisfaction. Straight males who scored high on masculinity were most satisfied with their bodies, while gay males who scored low on masculinity were least satisfied with their bodies, irrespective of femininity and narcissism. Hours exercising per week and fun as a reason for exercising, significantly contributed to body satisfaction.     

Substantial Change and Spatiotemporal Coincidence

Substantial change occurs when a persisting object of some kind either begins or ceases to exist. Typically, this happens when one or more persisting objects of another kind or kinds are subjected to appropriate varieties of qualitative or relational change, as when the particles composing a lump of bronze are rearranged so as to create a statue. However, such transformations also seem to result, very often, in cases of spatiotemporal coincidence, in which two numerically distinct objects of different kinds exist in exactly the same place at the same time, such as a statue and a lump of bronze. Various attempts to resist this way of describing the results of such transformations are examined and found wanting and objections to the possibility of cases of spatiotemporal coincidence are rebutted.     

Material Coincidence and the Cinematographic Fallacy: a Response to Olson

Eric T. Olson has argued that those who hold that two material objects can exactly coincide at a moment of time, with one of these objects constituting the other, face an insuperable difficulty in accounting for the alleged differences between the objects, such as their being of different kinds and possessing different persistence-conditions. The differences, he suggests, are inexplicable, given that the objects in question are composed of the same particles related in precisely the same way. In response, I show that the differences are not at all inexplicable once it is recognized that the conditions for a persisting object to be composed by certain particles at a moment of time must involve facts concerning other moments of time, and that the relevant facts are different for persisting objects of different kinds. Philosophers who neglect this sort of constraint on composition principles may be said to be victims of the 'cinematographic fallacy'.     

Perceived threat and control as moderators of peace activism: Implications for mobilizing the public in the pursuit of disarmament

The present study was designed to investigate what variables discriminate individuals who actively work to promote disarmament from individuals who share the same attitudes but remain inactive. It is argued that if a person appraises nuclear war as an unlikely event, then it is not necessary to contemplate what can be done to prevent it. In contrast, if a threat is perceived, several possible coping strategies might be available, one of which is activism. However, activism is viable only if an individual believes that collectively the public can make a difference. Results of two surveys, one conducted with 142 peace activists across Canada and another with a random sample of 33 adults from the cities of Kitchener and Waterloo, Ontario, who are not active in the peace movement, confirm that perceptions of threat and belief in collective control are powerful discriminating variables. The implications of these findings for educating and mobilizing the public in the pursuit of disarmament are discussed.     

Fixed-interval performance: The dynamics of behavior and the interval length

Postreinforcement pauses from successive intervals under various fixed-interval schedules (ranging from 15 seconds to 480 seconds in length) were subjected to lag-1 autocorrelation analysis. Results from both rats and pigeons suggested that there was a consistent tendency for pause values in successive intervals to be weakly positively related. This tendency did not appear to change systematically with interval length and was exhibited both when the reinforcer magnitude was constant and when it was variable at different interval values. The findings do not support suggestions that the dynamic properties of performance under fixed-interval schedules vary systematically with interval length, and are in the opposite direction from some previous findings suggesting that measures of behavior (such as post-reinforcement pause length or number of responses) in successive intervals are inversely related.     

A Winchester hard-disk integrated computer-assisted instructional laboratory: Hardware and data management considerations

The hardware configuration at the University of Kentucky is discussed with emphasis on a Winchester technology hard disk as the integrating feature. Advantages and disadvantages of this configuration are discussed in light of the issues of software transportability, ease of use for students, and system maintenance. The Winchester disk is compared to floppy drives as a means of program and data storage. The importance of proper, clear, and organized documentation is stressed. The conclusion is that each system can complement the other in a functional computer learning laboratory.     

S.I.M.P.L.E. control and measurement of auditory events

A SIMPLE interactive programming language is shown to be useful for psychological research involving auditory stimuli and responses. It is helpful in recording spoken stimulus tapes with program control of event sequencing and timing; it can control on-line interactive auditory and bisensory experiments; and it can calibrate the stimulus durations and pause times for auditory events.