Adolescent girls' and boys' weight-related health behaviors and cognitions: associations with reputation- and preference-based peer status.

In this study, the authors examined associations between preference- and reputation-based peer status and weight-related behaviors and cognitions for both adolescent boys and girls. Sociometric measures of peer like-ability and peer-perceived popularity, as well as self-reported measures of body size, dieting behavior, and weight-related cognitions were collected from a sample of 441 adolescents in Grades 11 and 12. Results revealed weight-related cognitions for girls (concerning obesity) and boys (concerning musculature/fitness). Peer-perceived popularity, but not like-ability, was significantly associated with both boys' and girls' body size and dieting. Lower levels of popularity were associated with heavier body shapes for girls and with both thin and heavier body shapes for boys. Findings suggest that peer status is an important source of social reinforcement associated with weight-related behaviors and cognitions.     

The impact of domain and subject specialization on knowledge organization

Thematic organization is the association of information that is observed within a given time frame or event, and taxonomic organization is characterized by class membership based on featural overlap. Research in cognitive psychology has suggested a developmental progression in preference from thematic organization to taxonomic organization, with a preference for taxonomic organization seen as cognitively more advanced. However, recent research has found thematic preferences in adults and shown that organizational preference can be influenced by context and experience. This study expanded on previous findings of individual differences and explored preferences across different domains. Specifically, preferences for knowledge organization were measured between student type (history and psychology) and across content type (general and history). The results indicated that history material was more likely to be organized thematically than general material.     

A receiver operator characteristics analysis of treatment outcome in binge eating disorder to identify patterns of rapid response

The purpose of this study was to perform a receiver operator characteristics (ROC) analysis on a treatment sample from a randomized controlled treatment trial of participants with binge eating disorder (BED). An ROC analysis was completed with 179 adults in a 20-week treatment trial for BED to predict abstinence from binge eating at end of treatment. Percent reductions in binge eating episodes were examined following weeks 1 through 10 of treatment. The rate of percent decrease in binge eating episodes during treatment for BED was a significant predictor of clinical outcome at end of treatment. Participants who demonstrated a 15% reduction in binge eating episodes at week one were more likely to respond positively to treatment and achieve clinical remission. Findings from the current study suggest that a significant reduction in binge eating during the first week of treatment may be predictive of end of treatment remission in those with BED.     

The effects of priming legal concepts on perceived trust and competitiveness, self-interested attitudes, and competitive behavior

Socio-legal scholars have suggested that, as a ubiquitous social system, law shapes social reality and provides interpretive frameworks for social relations. Across five studies, we tested the idea that the law shapes social reality by fostering the assumptions that people are self-interested, untrustworthy, and competitive. In Studies 1 and 2, we found that people implicitly associated legal concepts with competitiveness. Studies 3-5 showed that these associations had implications for social perceptions, self-interested attitudes, and competitive behavior. After being primed with constructs related to the law, participants perceived social actors as less trustworthy and the situation as more competitive (Study 3), became more against a political issue when it conflicted with their normative self-interest (Study 4), and made more competitive choices during a prisoner’s dilemma game when they believed that social relations were basically zero-sum in nature (Study 5). The implications and applications of these results are discussed.     

Moral virtue and practical wisdom: theme comprehension in children, youth, and adults

The authors tested 3 hypotheses about the relation of moral comprehension to prudential comprehension by contrasting comprehension of themes in moral stories with comprehension of themes in prudential stories among third-grade, fifth-grade, and college students (n = 168) in Study 1, and among college students, young and middle-aged adults, and older adults (n = 96) in Study 2. In both studies, all groups were statistically significantly better at moral theme comprehension than prudential theme comprehension, suggesting that moral comprehension may develop prior to prudential comprehension. In Study 2, all groups performed equally on moral theme generation whereas both adult groups were significantly better than college students on prudential theme generation. Overall, the findings of these studies provide modest evidence that moral and prudential comprehension each develop separately, and that the latter may develop more slowly.