Premarital Sexual Debut in Emerging Adults of South Asian Descent: The Role of Parental Sexual Socialization and Sexual Attitudes

Ethnicity is an important factor in premarital sexual debut as norms regarding appropriate sexual conduct outside of marriage vary considerably across cultures. Emerging adults of South Asian descent living in Western societies are an important demographic group, yet little is known about the factors that contribute to variations in their premarital sexual debut. The goal of this study was to investigate the contributions of parental sexual socialization and attitudes toward premarital sexual behaviors to premarital sexual debut in emerging adults of South Asian descent. University students of South Asian descent (N = 87) aged 18–24 completed a questionnaire containing measures of parental attitudes toward premarital sexual behaviors, their own attitudes toward premarital sexual behaviors, and experience with oral sex and intercourse. Mediation analyses showed that perceptions of mothers’ as more permissive toward premarital sexual behaviors was associated with respondents reporting more permissive attitudes toward premarital sexual behaviors, which in turn was associated with a greater likelihood of having engaged in oral sex and intercourse. No significant effect was found for fathers. These findings suggest that parental sexual socialization may influence emerging adults of South Asian descent’s decision to engage in premarital sexual behaviors through the process of sexual attitudes formation.     

Money, Work–Life Balance and Autonomy: Why do IT Professionals Choose Self-Employment?

This article deals with the reasons why IT professionals chose self-employment, as well as advantages and drawbacks of this form of employment. A growing number of workers in industrialized countries are now self-employed, most notably in the IT sector. In order to understand this trend better, we carried out a quantitative survey in collaboration with a professional association of independent IT workers in Quebec (Canada). We examined the different reasons why self-employment is attractive for IT professionals, the advantages they experience and the disadvantages they point out. While some authors postulate that self-employment is attractive because it facilitates work–life balance, our results show a strong predominance of the financial advantages and a weak impact of factors related to work–life balance. We also find high levels of job satisfaction, but the effects on work–life balance remain indirect.     

The components of love: Romantic attraction and sex role orientation

Hypotheses derived from both Erich Fromm and the feminist literature linking sex role orientation to type of love experienced were tested in a sample of 123 heterosexual dating couples Five components of love were identified through factor analysis romantic dependency, communicative intimacy, physical arousal, respect, and romantic compatibility Type of love was related to sex role orientation (p 01), with traditionals characterized by romantic dependency and romantic compatibility, while nontraditionals emphasized communicative intimacy Sex differences showed females being more emotionally expressive in then love than males and scoring higher on communicative intimacy (p's < 01)     

Increasing compliance with medical examination requests directed to children with autism: effects of a high-probability request procedure

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a high-probability (high-p) request sequence as a means of increasing compliance with medical examination tasks. Participants were children who had been diagnosed with autism and who exhibited noncompliance during general medical examinations. The inclusion of the high-p request sequence effectively increased compliance with medical examination tasks. In addition, the procedure was efficient, could be implemented by parents and medical professionals, and did not involve aversive procedures.     

Face-based categorization, context-based categorization, and distortions in the recollection of gender ambiguous faces

In three studies, we examined the impact of face-based and context-based categorization in the recollection of gender ambiguous faces. Gender ambiguous faces were created by morphing male and female source faces. In Study 1, the recollection of moderately ambiguous faces (i.e., 70% male-30% female faces and 70% female-30% male faces) was accentuated towards face distracters that were more typical of the spontaneous (i.e., face-based) categorization of these faces. In Study 2, the recollection of extremely ambiguous faces (50% male-50% female faces) was accentuated towards face distracters that were more typical of the gender category suggested by context cues attached to these faces prior to the face presentation. Study 3 relied on the same design as Study 2, but this time context cues were provided after face encoding. In line with predictions, no accentuation effect emerged under the latter conditions. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

For love or money? What motivates people to know the minds of others?

Mood affects social cognition and "theory of mind", such that people in a persistent negative mood (i.e., dysphoria) have enhanced abilities at making subtle judgements about others' mental states. Theorists have argued that this hypersensitivity to subtle social cues may have adaptive significance in terms of solving interpersonal problems and/or minimising social risk. We tested whether increasing the social salience of a theory of mind task would preferentially increase dyspshoric individuals' performance on the task. Forty-four dysphoric and 51 non-dysphoric undergraduate women participated in a theory of mind decoding task following one of three motivational manipulations: (i) social motivation (ii) monetary motivation, or (iii) no motivation. Social motivation was associated with the greatest accuracy of mental state decoding for the dysphoric group, whereas the non-dysphoric group showed the highest accuracy in the monetary motivation condition. These results suggest that dysphoric individuals may be especially, and preferentially, motivated to understand the mental states of others.     

Can brown lemurs (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Eulemur fulvus</Emphasis>) learn to deceive a human competitor?

In the present study we asked whether lemurs could learn to manipulate information in order to deceive a human competitive trainer. Four brown lemurs were trained to communicate about the location of a hidden reward to a cooperative trainer, who rewarded the subject if he indicated the baited bowl. Next, a competitive trainer was introduced who kept the reward for himself if the subject indicated the baited bowl. In a first experiment, sessions were randomly assigned to be with either the cooperative or competitive trainer. No subject was able to show an efficient tactic with both trainers. In a second experiment, the participation of the two trainers was randomized across the trials for each session. When trials were mixed, one subject significantly chose baited location when interacting with the cooperative trainer, and reliably increased his choices of the unbaited location when presented with the competitive trainer. As with most other primate species tested under the same paradigm, associative learning may explain deceptive pointing by lemurs in this study.     

Home, School, and Community Partnerships: Integrating Issues of Race, Culture, and Social Class

The current review is an examination of home–school–community partnerships utilizing an ecological approach to understand the influences of race, culture, and social class. The ecological approach recognizes that families and schools are embedded in communities, and that these settings influence each other and the development of children. The roles of race, culture, and social class in the development of partnerships between the home, school, and community settings are explored. Race, culture, and social class may interact with parent and family attributes, teacher and school qualities, and community context. These factors are often misunderstood either through underinvestigation or lack of integration. The implications for future research, practice, and policy are discussed.