Doing gesture promotes learning a mental transformation task better than seeing gesture

Performing action has been found to have a greater impact on learning than observing action. Here we ask whether a particular type of action – the gestures that accompany talk – affect learning in a comparable way. We gave 158 6‐year‐old children instruction in a mental transformation task. Half the children were asked to produce a Move gesture relevant to the task; half were asked to produce a Point gesture. The children also observed the experimenter producing either a Move or Point gesture. Children who produced a Move gesture improved more than children who observed the Move gesture. Neither producing nor observing the Point gesture facilitated learning. Doing gesture promotes learning better than seeing gesture, as long as the gesture conveys information that could help solve the task.     

The role of skin color and facial physiognomy in racial categorization: Moderation by implicit racial attitudes

Previous research has not sufficiently addressed factors that define and moderate racial categorization judgments. This study independently manipulated skin color and facial physiognomy to determine their relative weighting in racial categorization. Participants (N = 250) judged faces varying on 10 levels of facial physiognomy (from Afrocentric to Eurocentric) and 10 levels of skin color (from dark to light) under either no time constraints, a modest time constraint, and under a stringent time constraint. Skin color was a powerful predictor of racial typicality ratings at all levels of facial physiognomy, but participants relied upon facial physiognomy more when rating faces of light than dark skin color. Skin color was a more important cue than facial physiognomy under no time constraints, but as time constraints became more severe, skin color's importance decreased, yet it remained a more important cue at extreme physiognomy levels. The relationship between skin color and racial typicality ratings was stronger for those with more negative implicit racial attitudes. These findings suggest the primary role of skin color in racial categorization and underscore the importance of implicit attitudes in explicit categorization judgments.     

The present projects past behavior into the future while the past projects attitudes into the future: How verb tense moderates predictors of drinking intentions

Three studies examined how the use of the present versus the past tense in recalling a past experience influences behavioral intentions. Experiment 1 revealed a stronger influence of past behaviors on drinking intentions when participants self-reported an episode of excessive drinking using the present tense. Correspondingly, there was a stronger influence of attitudes towards excessive drinking when participants self-reported the episode in the past tense. Experiments 2 and 3 liked this effect to changes in construal level (Liberman, Trope, & Stephan, 2007; Trope & Liberman, 2003), with the present tense being similar to a concrete construal level and the past tense being similar to an abstract construal level.     

Self-generated persuasion: effects of the target and direction of arguments

Previous research has revealed that self-persuasion can occur either through role-playing (i.e., when arguments are generated to convince another person) or, more directly, through trying to convince oneself (i.e., when arguments are generated with oneself as the target). Combining these 2 traditions in the domain of attitude change, the present research investigated the impact on self-persuasion of the specific target of one's own persuasive attempt (i.e., others vs. oneself). We found that the efficacy of self-persuasion depended on whether people believed that they would have to put more or less effort in convincing the self or others. Specifically, we found opposite effects for self-generated arguments depending on whether the topic of persuasion was proattitudinal or counterattitudinal. Across 4 studies, it was shown that when the topic of the message was counterattitudinal, people were more effective in convincing themselves when the intended target of the arguments was themselves versus another person. However, the opposite was the case when the topic was proattitudinal. These effects were shown to stem from the differential effort perceived as necessary and actually exerted in trying to produce persuasion under these conditions.     

Comparison between immigrant and Spanish native-born pathological gambling patients

The study compared clinical, psychopathological, and personality profiles between immigrants and Spanish native-born pathological gambling patients. A total of 1,601 native-born and 133 immigrant patients attending treatment at a specialized hospital unit were administered a battery of questionnaires during clinical assessment. Outcome measures were compared between both groups and the incremental predictive accuracy of the area of origin was examined using a regression model. Native-born Spaniards showed a mean 2.6 yr. greater duration of the disorder, while immigrants scored higher on South Oaks Gambling Screen, frequency of going to casinos, and total money spent (in a single day and/or to recover losses). General psychopathology and personality scores did not differ between the cohorts. However, immigration from Asia had a statistically significantly incremental validity for pathological gambling in South Oaks Gambling Screen scores. Both cohorts shared more similarities than differences in their gambling profiles.     

Eye gaze versus arrows as spatial cues: two qualitatively different modes of attentional selection

This study aimed to evaluate the type of attentional selection (location- and/or object-based) triggered by two different types of central noninformative cues: eye gaze and arrows. Two rectangular objects were presented in the visual field, and subjects' attention was directed to the end of a rectangle via the observation of noninformative directional arrows or eye gaze. Similar experiments with peripheral cues have shown an object-based effect: faster target identification when the target is presented on the cued object as compared to the uncued object, even when the distance between target and cue was the same. The three reported experiments aimed to compare the location- and object-based attentional orienting observed with arrows and eye gaze, in order to dissociate the orienting mechanisms underlying the two types of orienting cues. Results showed similar cueing effects on the cued versus oppositely cued locations for the two cue types, replicating several studies with nonpredictive gaze and arrow cues. However, a pure object-based effect occurred only when an arrow cue was presented, whereas a pure location-based effect was only found for eye-gaze cues. It is suggested that attention is nonspecifically directed to nearby objects when a noninformative arrow is used as cue, whereas it is selectively directed to a specific cued location when noninformative eye gaze is used. This may be mediated by theory of mind mechanisms.     

Birth characteristics and developmental outcomes of infants of Mexican-origin adolescent mothers: Risk and promotive factors

Infants of adolescent mothers are at increased risk for negative developmental outcomes. Given the high rate of pregnancy among Mexican-origin adolescent females in the US, the present study examined health characteristics at birth and developmental functioning at 10 months of age in a sample of 205 infants of Mexican-origin adolescent mothers. Infants were relatively healthy at birth and had near average developmental functioning at 10 months. The educational attainment of adolescents and their mothers, and infants' temperamental regulation, promoted positive developmental functioning, while the combination of low adolescent parental self-efficacy and high infant temperamental negativity was associated with greater developmental delay. Findings are discussed with respect to implications for prevention with this at-risk population of mothers and infants.     

Sexual behavior in Spanish adolescents of divorced parents

Marital breakup has been associated with numerous behavioral problems in children, such as sexual risk behaviors. This research is the first to examine sexual behaviors of Spanish adolescents related to whether their parents were married or divorced. Participants were 342 boys and girls aged between 14 and 18 years. The sample provided confidential information about their sexual behavior and birth control methods. Significant differences were only found in percentages of adolescents who had engaged in mutual masturbation, intercourse, or oral sex, and who had practiced these sexual relations in the last six months, in both cases, they were higher when the parents had broken their marital relationship. Regarding adolescents of divorced parents, engaging in intercourse is more likely in older teenagers who live with a stepparent. Moreover, older adolescents who were younger when parents divorced and who live in a reconstituted family, have more sexual partners. These and other findings are discussed.     

Effects of category label activation about the elderly

The present research focuses on the study of behavioral effects of non-conscious activation of categories among outgroup (young people) and ingroup members (elderly people). Specifically, non-conscious activation of labels that designate the same group, but with different valence (old vs. elderly), showed an effect on a behavior not directly related to interaction with elderly. The first study with young individuals (N= 62) shows that, after non-conscious activation of a negative label (old), participants displayed longer RTs in the first phase of the task than in the case of positive label (elderly) priming. The second study (N= 40), performed with elderly people, shows a similar result, after non-conscious activation of a negative label (old), elderly people showed longer RTs in the first phase of the task, compared with the group in the non-conscious positive label activation condition. Results concerning the theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Sociodemographic, clinical and outcome differences among anxiety disorders

The aims of this paper are to analyze differences in sociodemographic and clinical characteristics among the various anxiety disorders treated in a Psychology Clinic, and the results of treatment in each anxiety disorder. Data from 282 patients of University Psychology Clinic at the Complutense University of Madrid, who had at least one diagnosis of anxiety according to DMS-IV-TR criteria, were analyzed. The most frequent anxiety disorders were nonspecific anxiety disorder (19.1%) and social phobia (18.8%). Significant differences were observed according to sex (in all disorders, the percentage of women was significantly higher than that of men, except for obsessive-compulsive disorder). Unspecific anxiety disorder required a smaller number of assessment and treatment sessions, whereas obsessive-compulsive disorder required a greater number of sessions. There were no significant differences between the percentage of patients who completed treatment and dropout rates in specific phobia, general anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Differences between epidemiological and clinical data are discussed.