So far away from one's partner, yet so close to romantic alternatives: avoidant attachment, interest in alternatives, and infidelity

Temptation pervades modern social life, including the temptation to engage in infidelity. The present investigation examines one factor that may put individuals at a greater risk of being unfaithful to their partner: dispositional avoidant attachment style. The authors hypothesize that avoidantly attached people may be less resistant to temptations for infidelity due to lower levels of commitment in romantic relationships. This hypothesis was confirmed in 8 studies. People with high, vs. low, levels of dispositional avoidant attachment had more permissive attitudes toward infidelity (Study 1), showed attentional bias toward attractive alternative partners (Study 2), expressed greater daily interest in meeting alternatives to their current relationship partner (Study 5), perceived alternatives to their current relationship partner more positively (Study 6), and engaged in more infidelity over time (Studies 3, 4, 7, and 8). This effect was mediated by lower levels of commitment (Studies 5-8). Thus, avoidant attachment predicted a broad spectrum of responses indicative of interest in alternatives and propensity to engage in infidelity, which were mediated by low levels of commitment.     

Groups perform better than the best individuals on letters-to-numbers problems: informative equations and effective strategies

One-hundred 3-person groups and 300 individuals solved 2 letters-to-numbers problems, requiring identification of the coding of 10 letters to 10 numbers by proposing an equation in letters, receiving the answer in letters, proposing a hypothesis, and receiving feedback on the hypothesis on each trial. There were 5 instruction conditions: (a). standard, (b). use at least 3 letters on all equations, (c). use at least 4 letters on all equations, (d). number 1 known before beginning problem, and (e). number 9 known before beginning problem. The groups had fewer trials to solution, proposed more complex equations, and identified more letters per equation than the best individuals. Performance was best under instructions to use at least 4 letters and with the number 9 known.     

Interoceptive fear conditioning and panic disorder: the role of conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus predictability

Interoceptive fear conditioning is at the core of contemporary behavioral accounts of panic disorder. Yet, to date only one study has attempted to evaluate interoceptive fear conditioning in humans (see Acheson, Forsyth, Prenoveau, & Bouton, 2007). That study used brief (physiologically inert) and longer-duration (panicogenic) inhalations of 20% CO(2)-enriched air as an interoceptive conditioned (CS) and unconditioned (US) stimulus and evaluated fear learning in three conditions: CS only, CS-US paired, and CS-US unpaired. Results showed fear conditioning in the paired condition, and fearful responding and resistance to extinction in an unpaired condition. The authors speculated that such effects may be due to difficulty discriminating between the CS and the US. The aims of the present study are to (a) replicate and expand this line of work using an improved methodology, and (b) clarify the role of CS-US discrimination difficulties in either potentiating or depotentiating fear learning. Healthy participants (N=104) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: (a) CS only, (b) contingent CS-US pairings, (c) unpaired CS and US presentations, or (d) an unpaired "discrimination" contingency, which included an exteroceptive discrimination cue concurrently with CS onset. Electrodermal and self-report ratings served as indices of conditioned responding. Consistent with expectation, the paired contingency and unpaired contingencies yielded elevated fearful responding to the CS alone. Moreover, adding a discrimination cue to the unpaired contingency effectively attenuated fearful responding. Overall, findings are consistent with modern learning theory accounts of panic and highlight the role of interoceptive conditioning and unpredictability in the etiology of panic disorder.     

Trauma and sex surveys meet minimal risk standards: implications for institutional review boards

Institutional review boards assume that questionnaires asking about "sensitive" topics (e.g., trauma and sex) pose more risk to respondents than seemingly innocuous measures (e.g., cognitive tests). We tested this assumption by asking 504 undergraduates to answer either surveys on trauma and sex or measures of cognitive ability, such as tests of vocabulary and abstract reasoning. Participants rated their positive and negative emotional reactions and the perceived benefits and mental costs of participating; they also compared their study-related distress with the distress arising from normal life stressors. Participants who completed trauma and sex surveys, relative to participants who completed cognitive measures, rated the study as resulting in higher positive affect and as having greater perceived benefits and fewer mental costs. Although participants who completed trauma and sex surveys reported slightly higher levels of negative emotion than did participants who completed cognitive measures, averages were very low for both groups, and outliers were rare. All participants rated each normal life stressor as more distressing than participating in the study. These results suggest that trauma and sex surveys pose minimal risk.     

Myosin II motor activity in the lateral amygdala is required for fear memory consolidation

Learning induces dynamic changes to the actin cytoskeleton that are required to support memory formation. However, the molecular mechanisms that mediate filamentous actin (F-actin) dynamics during learning and memory are poorly understood. Myosin II motors are highly expressed in actin-rich growth structures including dendritic spines, and we have recently shown that these molecular machines mobilize F-actin in response to synaptic stimulation and learning in the hippocampus. In this study, we report that Myosin II motors in the rat lateral amygdala (LA) are essential for fear memory formation. Pretraining infusions of the Myosin II inhibitor, blebbistatin (blebb), disrupted long term memory, while short term memory was unaffected. Interestingly, both post-training and pretesting infusions had no effect on memory formation, indicating that Myosin II motors operate during or shortly after learning to promote memory consolidation. These data support the idea that Myosin II motor-force generation is a general mechanism that supports memory consolidation in the mammalian CNS.     

Evaluation of an Internet-short message service-based intervention for promoting physical activity in Hong Kong Chinese adolescent school children: a pilot study

Evaluation of acceptability and preliminary efficacy of an Internet and short message service (SMS) intervention for promoting physical activity (PA) in Hong Kong Chinese school children. An 8-week quasi-experimental study non-randomly assigned 78 school children (mean age=12.8 years) to (a) an intervention group that received a stage-matched, Internet PA program two times a week and tailored SMS messages daily; or (b) a no-treatment control. Data were collected from September 2008 until June 2009. Acceptability measures included exposure rate and participant's satisfaction. Efficacy measures were changes in stage of motivational readiness (SMR) and self-reported PA level. Intervention participants demonstrated significant pre-post increments in SMR (Z=-2.558, p=0.011) and self-reported PA level [F(1, 76)=4.50, p=0.04]. There was a non-significant trend between groups in both SMR (p=0.24) and PA (p=0.13). Despite the similar ratings of satisfaction between Internet (M=3.12±0.74) and SMS (M=3.12±0.84), participants displayed distinct patterns of exposure with 66% exhibiting a weekly login rate of 0.5 times/person and an average of 3.75 minutes/visit/person. In contrast, 79% of participants read an average of 1.3 SMS/person/week and 47% voluntarily replied to ～3.8 SMS/person. These findings demonstrate the acceptability and preliminary efficacy of an Internet-SMS-based intervention for promoting PA in Hong Kong school children. The divergent exposure rates between the Internet and SMS may be a unique pattern for adolescents in early SMR. Future research should be cognizant of the importance of SMR since it may influence utilization and/or adherence.