American and Japanese beliefs about self‐esteem

Cross‐cultural researchers have tended to share the Western assumption that self‐esteem (SE) is both desirable and consequential. However, no study has empirically investigated whether this assumption is shared across cultures. The present research compared the beliefs about SE of 89 American and 98 Japanese university students, in relation to personal levels of SE. It was found that American students view SE as desirable and consequential, whereas Japanese students view SE as desirable but not consequential. However, mediation analysis indicated that beliefs about self‐esteem did not mediate the relationship between culture and personal SE, indicating an, as yet, unidentified source for moderate Japanese SE scores.     

Physical Activity and Physical Self-Concept among Sedentary Adolescent Females; An Intervention Study

PROBLEM: Physical activity has been promoted as a means of enhancing self-concept, yet the evidence for this connection is far from compelling. In particular, experimental research investigating this association during adolescence, a period during which many youth struggle to maintain a positive self-image, is noticeably lacking. This study investigates the impact on self-concept of a 9-month physical activity intervention among sedentary adolescent females. METHOD: Female adolescents who were sedentary at baseline were assigned either to an exercise intervention or a comparison group as part of the controlled trial. The intervention was school-based, and assignment to groups was based on school attended. Intervention participants engaged in supervised activity 4 times per week and received didactic instruction promoting activity outside of school 1 day per week. Self-concept, physical activity participation, and cardiovascular fitness were assessed before, mid-way through, and after the 9-month intervention. RESULTS: The intervention had a significant positive impact on participation in vigorous activity and cardiovascular fitness. The intervention did not significantly influence any of the self-concept dimensions overall. There was, however, a three-way interaction such that there was an increase in global physical self-concept among those intervention participants who increased cardiovascular fitness. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that a physical activity intervention among sedentary adolescent females enhanced global physical self-concept for a subset of intervention participants who manifested positive changes in fitness.     

"Elicitation hooks": a discourse analysis of chaplain-patient interaction in pastoral and spiritual care

The article considers the communicative role of the hospital chaplain and maps some of the language strategies deployed to facilitate disclosure of the patients' concerns and achieve enhanced spiritual care. These include: i) involvement, ii) politeness and iii) encouraging disclosure or exploring emotion.     

Relationships Between Body-Shape Discrepancies With Favored Celebrities and Disordered Eating in Young Women

Disordered eating is linked to body shapes and images presented in the mass media. Favored celebrities may represent a particularly strong source of influence. We examined cross-sectional relationships between women's disordered eating and their perceptions of body-shape differences with favored celebrities. Women between the ages of 18 and 27 rated personal body shapes alongside those of self-selected favored celebrities. Multivariate analyses showed self/celebrity body-shape discrepancies to be linked to EAT-26 diet, bulimia, and oral control scales independent of personal body-shape and self/ideal discrepancies. For bulimia subscale scores, this relationship was moderated by a more favorable perception of the celebrity relative to the self. Celebrities might be important in creating an unrealistic social comparison standard that contributes to disordered eating.     

Improving Children's Attitudes Toward Refugees: An Evaluation of a School‐Based Multicultural Curriculum and an Anti‐Racist Intervention1

We evaluated the impact of the Friendship Project, a program designed to improve elementary school children's attitudes toward refugees. Participants either received 4 weekly lessons based on the program, or they received no lessons. All participants completed attitude measures before and after implementation of the program. Half completed the post‐test 1 week after completion of the program, while the other half completed the post‐test 7 weeks after its completion. The program led to more positive attitudes toward refugees in the short term, but not in the long term. Moreover, although it did not increase empathy, the program increased the proportion of participants who preferred an acculturation strategy of integration and reduced the number of participants who had conflictual acculturative fit.     

The effect of a red background on location backward masking by structure

It has been established that diffuse red light partially suppresses the magnocellular (M) visual pathway. Previous research reported that metacontrast masking is reduced (improved accuracy) with a red background, consistent with a reduction in M pathway response from the mask. In contrast, a recent study used location backward masking by noise and found that accuracy decreased with a red background--theoretically due to suppression of the M pathway's initial localization of the target. The present study provides the first report examining the effect of red light on performance in a location backward masking by structure task. Results revealed a main effect of a red (as opposed to a green) background on reducing masking (improved accuracy) with a medium effect size (eta2 = .23). This effect was strongest at the 47- and 60-msec stimulus onset asynchronies. Results suggest that red light primarily decreases interference from the mask in location backward masking by structure.     

Contemplative withdrawal in the Hellenistic age

I reject the traditional picture of philosophical withdrawal in the Hellenistic Age by showing how both Epicureans and Stoics oppose, in different ways, the Platonic and Aristotelian assumption that contemplative activity is the greatest good for a human being. Chrysippus the Stoic agrees with Plato and Aristotle that the greatest good for a human being is virtuous activity, but he denies that contemplation exercises virtue. Epicurus more thoroughly rejects the assumption that the greatest good for a human being is virtuous activity. He maintains that the greatest good for a human being is the tranquility that virtuous activity always and contemplative activity sometimes brings about.

A Comparison of “Direct” Versus “Derived” Extinction of Avoidance Responding

The Psychological Record - To establish a series of derived relations between arbitrary stimuli, 20 subjects were exposed to nonarbitrary and arbitrary relational training and testing procedures....