Psychopathic traits,gender, and motivations for sex: Putative paths to sexual coercion

Evidence suggests that both men and women perpetrate sexual coercion. Psychological factors, including psychopathic traits and power motivations, have been proposed to characterize male-perpetrated sexual coercion; however, it is unclear whether these factors play a similar role in female-perpetrated coercion or whether other motivations (e.g., intimacy, affect regulation) should be considered. To improve our understanding in this area, the current study first examined relationships between psychopathic traits and sexual coercion in a sample of 1199 undergraduate students (756 women), with gender as a potential moderator of these relationships. Second, the role of motivations for sex (e.g., power, affect regulation) in accounting for the psychopathy-coercion relationship was examined in men and women. Data were collected using an online survey and analyzed using multigroup path analysis. Results implicated impulsive-antisocial traits as particularly important to male-perpetrated verbal (e.g., manipulative) and nonverbal (e.g., physical) coercion, and that this relationship was partially explained by motives for sex involving power. In contrast, psychopathic traits did not appear to play a major role in female perpetrated coercion; instead, emotional value (i.e., intimacy-related) motivations for sex were associated with verbal (e.g., manipulation) coercion in women. In sum, our results support a conceptual model of male perpetration where men who are high in impulsive-antisocial traits may engage in sexual coercion in an attempt to feel powerful. Further, the findings in the female sample suggest that factors other than psychopathy, such as gender role beliefs in regard to sexual encounters, may be particularly important to female perpetrated sexually coercive behavior.     

Effector-related sequence learning in a bimanual-bisequential serial reaction time task

In a bimanual-bisequential version of the serial reaction time (SRT) task participants performed two uncorrelated key-press sequences simultaneously, one with fingers of the left hand and the other with fingers of the right hand. Participants responded to location-based imperative stimuli. When two such stimuli appeared in each trial, the results suggest independent learning of the two sequences and the occurrence of intermanual transfer. Following extended practice in Experiment 2, transfer of acquired sequence knowledge was not complete. Also in Experiment 2, when only one stimulus appeared in each trial specifying the responses for both hands so that there was no basis for separate stimulus-stimulus or separate response-effect learning, independent sequence learning was again evident, but there was no intermanual transfer at all. These findings suggest the existence of two mechanisms of sequence learning, one hand-related stimulus-based and the other motor-based, with only the former allowing for intermanual transfer.     

Individual Pathways to Life Satisfaction: The Significance of Traits and Motives

This article examines the relationship between life satisfaction and specific facets of psychological well-being (positive relations with others and environmental mastery) by considering the moderating effect of significant components of personality, i.e., traits, values, and implicit motives. Constructs were assessed by the Satisfaction With Life Scale, the Scales of Psychological Well-Being (two subscales), the NEO Five-Factor Inventory, the Schwartz Value Survey (two value types), and a picture-story test (implicit motives for achievement and affiliation–intimacy). Analyses revealed that values, implicit motives, and personality traits moderated the relationship between both types of well-being measures. Findings indicate that personality components reflecting significant strivings and needs play a crucial role in seeking well-being by assigning meaning to given life domains.

Solving the $100 modal logic challenge

We present the theoretical foundation, design, and implementation, of a system that automatically determines the subset relation between two given axiomatizations of propositional modal logics. This is an open problem for automated theorem proving. Our system solves all but six out of 121 instances formed from 11 common axiomatizations of seven modal logics. Thus, although the problem is undecidable in general, our approach is empirically successful in practically relevant situations.     

The Attitude–Behavior Relationship: A Test of Three Models of the Moderating Role of Behavioral Difficulty1

The moderating role of behavioral difficulty in the attitude–behavior relationship remains a controversial topic in social psychology. Previous research has been unclear in establishing the direction of this moderation, and 3 theoretical models have been proposed: positive and linear; negative and monotonic; and quadratic. The current paper reports analyses of survey data from 5 different studies that afford measures of environmental attitude, behavior, and behavioral difficulty. Across these studies, we found a substantial and unmoderated average attitude–behavior relationship (r = .54). The data also show that the attitude–behavior relationship is weaker for extremely easy and extremely difficult behaviors. Additional analyses suggest, however, that these reductions in the attitude–behavior relationship are probably because of methodological reasons.     

Does familiarity or conflict account for performance in the word-stem completion task? Evidence from behavioural and event-related-potential data

The conflict monitoring theory (CMT) assumes that word-stems associated with several completions should lead to crosstalk and conflict due to underdetermined responding situation (Botvinick et al. in Psychol Rev 108(3):624–652, 2001). In contrast, the Multiple-Read-Out-Model (MROM) of Jacobs and Grainger (J Exp Psychol 20(6): 1311–1334, 1994) predicts a high level of general lexical activity (GLA) for word-stems with many completions, indicating a higher stimulus familiarity because these stems are more probable to be read. We compared word-stems with several completions against word-stems with one possible completion while measuring response times and electrophysiological recordings. Slowest response times and a distinct FN400 component, which has previously been related to the concept of familiarity (Curran in Memory Cogn 28(6):923–938, 2000), were apparent for word-stems that could only be associated with a single response. These findings support the claims of the MROM. Furthermore, the lack of the N2-component for word-stems with several completions continues to challenge the EEG-extension of the CMT (Yeung et al. in Psychol Rev 111(4):2004).     

Hindsight bias redefined: It’s about time

Four experiments introduced a new conceptual and methodological approach to hindsight bias, traditionally defined as the tendency to exaggerate the a priori predictability of outcomes after they become known. By examining likelihood estimates rooted to specific time points during an unfolding event sequence (videos and short text stories), judged both in foresight and hindsight, we conceptualized hindsight bias as a contrast between two “inevitability curves,” which plotted likelihood against time. Taking timing into account, we defined three new indicators of accuracy: linear accuracy (how well hindsight judgments capture the linear trend of foresight judgments over time), rate accuracy (how well hindsight judgments reflect the slope of foresight judgments over time), and temporal accuracy (how well hindsight judgments specify the overall timing of the full envelope of foresight judgments). Results demonstrated that hindsight judgments showed linear and rate accuracy, but were biased only in terms of lack of temporal accuracy. The oft-used catchphrase “knew it all along effect” was found to be a misnomer, in that participants were well aware in hindsight that their earlier foresight judgments reflected uncertainty. The current research therefore points to one way in which retrospective judgments can be considered biased, yet simultaneously suggests that considerable accuracy exists when people render such judgments.