The effects of wearing a costume on charitable donations

Retrospective reports of exposure to physical abuse by an adult during childhood was assessed in 874 adolescents (426 boys, 448 girls; M age = 11.5 yr., SD = 0.8) who also reported whether they had been victimized by school bullying. Having been hit by an adult was significantly more common among victims of school bullying (39.5%) than among adolescents not victimized by school bullying (16.8%). No sex difference was found. The finding raises questions about whether victimization by physical abuse puts a child at greater risk for developing a "victim personality".     

Young people's topography of musical functions: Personal, social and cultural experiences with music across genders and six societies

How can we understand the uses of music in daily life? Music is a universal phenomenon but with significant interindividual and cultural variability. Listeners’ gender and cultural background may influence how and why music is used in daily life. This paper reports the first investigation of a holistic framework and a new measure of music functions (RESPECT‐music) across genders and six diverse cultural samples (students from Germany, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, and Turkey). Two dimensions underlie the mental representation of music functions. First, music can be used for contemplation or affective functions. Second, music can serve intrapersonal, social, and sociocultural functions. Results reveal that gender differences occur for affective functions, indicating that female listeners use music more for affective functions, i.e., emotional expression, dancing, and cultural identity. Country differences are moderate for social functions (values, social bonding, dancing) and strongest for sociocultural function (cultural identity, family bonding, political attitudes). Cultural values, such as individualism–collectivism and secularism–traditionalism, can help explain cross‐cultural differences in the uses of music. Listeners from more collectivistic cultures use music more frequently for expressing values and cultural identity. Listeners from more secular and individualistic cultures like to dance more. Listeners from more traditional cultures use music more for expressing values and cultural identity, and they bond more frequently with their families over music. The two dimensions of musical functions seem systematically underpinned by listeners’ gender and cultural background. We discuss the uses of music as behavioral expressions of affective and contemplative as well as personal, social, and sociocultural aspects in terms of affect proneness and cultural values.     

Two dimensional Standard Deontic Logic [including a detailed analysis of the 1985 Jones–P?rn deontic logic system]

This paper offers a two dimensional variation of Standard Deontic Logic SDL, which we call 2SDL. Using 2SDL we can show that we can overcome many of the difficulties that SDL has in representing linguistic sets of Contrary-to-Duties (known as paradoxes) including the Chisholm, Ross, Good Samaritan and Forrester paradoxes. We note that many dimensional logics have been around since 1947, and so 2SDL could have been presented already in the 1970s. Better late than never! As a detailed case study illustrating the power of 2SDL, we examine the system DL of Deontic Logic of Andrew Jones and Ingmar P?rn offered in 1985 to solve the Chisholm paradox of Contrary to Duties. The critical examination is done using logics and methods available in 1985 and solutions are proposed using what was available in 1985.     

The time-course of threat processing in children: a temporal dissociation between selective attention and behavioral interference

Although selective attention to threatening information is an adaptive mechanism, exaggerated attention to threat may be related to anxiety disorders. However, studies examining threat processing in children have obtained mixed findings. In the present study, the time-course of attentional bias for threat and behavioral interference was analyzed in a community sample of 8-18-year-old children (N=33) using a pictorial dot probe task. Threatening and neutral stimuli were shown during 17 ms (masked), 500 ms, and 1250 ms. Results provide preliminary evidence of an automatic attentional bias for threat at 17 ms that persists during later, more controlled stages of information processing (500 and 1250 ms). Furthermore, participants showed a delayed response to threat-containing trials relative to neutral trials in the 500 and 1250 ms condition, which may indicate interference by threat. Together, these results suggest that an attentional bias for threat precedes behavioral interference in children. Furthermore, results indicate that performance in daily life can be temporarily interrupted by the processing of threatening information. In addition, results of earlier studies into selective attention in children using tasks based on behavioral responses may have been confounded by interference effects of threat. For future studies, we recommend to take behavioral interference into account.     

Lexical decision in children: sublexical processing or lexical search?

Length effects in the lexical decision latencies of children might indicate that children rely on sublexical processing and essentially approach the task as a naming task. We examined this possibility by means of the effects of neighbourhood size and articulatory suppression on lexical decision performance. Sixty-six beginning and 62 advanced readers performed a lexical decision task in a standard, articulatory suppression, or tapping condition. We found length effects on words and nonwords in the children's lexical decisions. However, the effects of neighbourhood size were similar to those reported for adult lexical decisions, rather than the effects previously found in children's naming. In addition, no effect was found of articulatory suppression. Both findings suggest that, despite clear length effects, children do not adopt a naming task approach but, like adults, base lexical decisions mainly on a lexical search. These results pose a challenge for several computational models of reading.     

The tenuous interface: Policymakers,researchers and user-publics the case of the netherlands’ development cooperation

In development cooperation, the linkage between research and policy is particularly tenuous due to the fact that user-publics are not only far removed, but also more numerous. The interests of the various parties involved in the research policy linkage tend to diverge even more than on the national level. Traditional models of linkage between research and policy therefore do not suffice, especially regarding the involvement of user-public(s) in research priority setting. A simple conceptual model is presented showing some elementary interfaces between the main actors involved, i.e., researchers, policymakers and user-publics. Through a case study of recent development policy changes in The Netherlands aimed at involving the relevant user-publics, issues are raised with regard to the mechanisms of priority setting.     

Threatened leadership and intergroup competition

In this paper three experimental studies are reported in which leaders were given a choice between intergroup competition or -cooperation under the threat of being deposed or not by their followers. Consistent with our predictions, threatened leaders were more likely to opt for intergroup competition, especially when their group was internally divided and when they had a strong bargaining position. However, they only chose intergroup competition, regardless of their chances of bringing the intergroup conflict to a successful conclusion, when their tenure of power was very precarious.     

Parental bond and life course transitions from adolescence to young adulthood

In this study the effects of life course transitions in adolescence and young adulthood (leaving the parental home, living together with a partner,entering parenthood, and becoming financially independent) on the parent-child bond are investigated. Data are presented from a three-wave study of 1,064 adolescents and young adults (aged 12-24 years at Wave 1) over a six-year period. As the youth in this study proceeded through the life course, they tended to report a closer parental bond. However, this age-related effect was counterbalanced by a tendency toward a weakened bond with parents following departure from the parental home. Results are in line with individuation theory, which contends that parent-child relationships become less close as a result of transitions leading to more autonomy.     

Central interference in driving: is there any stopping the psychological refractory period?

ABSTRACT— Participants attempted to perform two tasks concurrently during simulated driving. In the choice task, they responded either manually or vocally to the number of times a visual or auditory stimulus occurred; in the braking task, they depressed a brake pedal in response to the lead car's brake lights. The time delay between the onset of the tasks' stimuli, or stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), was varied. The tasks were differentially affected by the manipulations. Brake reaction times increased as SOA was reduced, showing the psychological refractory period effect, whereas the choice task showed large effects of the stimulus and response modalities but only a small effect of SOA. These results demonstrate that a well-practiced "simple" task such as vehicle braking is subject to dual-task slowing and extend the generality of the central-bottleneck model.