Self‐Presentational Cognitions for Exercise in Female Adolescents

The study's main purpose was to clarify the role of a range of self‐presentational cognitions in the relationship between social physique anxiety and exercise behavior. Female participants (N= 331; M age = 14.5 years) reported their exercise frequency and completed measures of self‐presentation. Exercise frequency was positively predicted by self‐presentational efficacy expectations (SPEE) and self‐presentational outcome value (SPOV). Moreover, SPEE moderated the relationship between social physique anxiety (SPA) and exercise frequency. SPA was negatively related to exercise frequency when SPEE was high, but positively related to exercise frequency when SPEE was low. Therefore, interventions designed to increase exercise frequency among adolescent girls should include strategies that both reduce SPA and enhance SPEE and SPOV.     

Attachment avoidance and feelings of connection in social interaction

Individuals high in attachment avoidance claim to be indifferent to the opinions of others. Carvallo and Gabriel (2006) showed that dismissive avoidants who received positive social feedback reported higher levels of positive affect and state self-esteem than dismissives in control conditions. Their data suggest that avoidant individuals are sensitive to acceptance cues, despite avoidants' claims to the contrary. However, the affect and self-esteem effects could represent feelings of hubristic pride (and thus superiority) rather than connection (and thus belongingness). In the current study, participants were randomly assigned to interact with either a highly positive or mildly negative research confederate. Low avoidant individuals felt more connected with the positive than negative confederate, but this effect of experimental condition was even stronger for those high in avoidance. These findings affirm that avoidantly attached invidividuals' feelings of belonging are sensitive to the positivity of social conditions, supporting the universality of the need to belong.     

Encouraging electricity savings in a university residential hall through a combination of feedback, visual prompts, and incentives

This experiment investigated the combined use of visual prompts, daily feedback, and rewards to reduce electricity consumption in a university residential hall. After a 17-day baseline period, the experimental intervention was introduced in the intervention hall, and no change was made in the control hall. Energy usage decreased in the intervention hall, but energy usage did not change appreciably in the control hall. In the intervention hall, mean daytime and nighttime savings were 16.2% and 10.7%, respectively, compared to savings of 3.8% (day) and 6.5% (night) in the control hall.     

Parenting programmes for parents of children and young people with behavioural difficulties

Children and young people exhibiting behavioural difficulties present a major challenge not only to parents but also to education and health professionals and to society as a whole. In this paper, I shall address some key issues regarding these parenting programmes, based particularly on a programme of research over 13 years in the Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal and Research at the University of Warwick. This has comprised large‐scale studies across all areas of England, both programmes targeted at parents whose children are presenting or at risk of developing behavioural difficulties: the Parenting Early Intervention Pathfinder and Parenting Early Intervention Programme; and universal programmes aimed at all parents, as a positive contribution to behavioural development across the population: the CANparent trial. All were funded by the Department for Education plus the continuation of the CANparent trial was funded by the Department of Health. In addition, I consider studies that have built on this research to examine the use of parenting programmes with parents of children and young people with special educational needs; and also the effectiveness of programmes during sustained implementation, beyond formal trials and similar research initiatives, that is, as day‐to‐day practice. I show that well‐constructed parenting programmes that are acceptable to parents are effective, that these positive effects on parents can remain over time, and also that the positive effects found in well‐organised trials can be maintained when programmes are delivered by community services as part of their normal practice.     

Mortality salience reduces attentional bias for fear-relevant animals

This research investigated the influence of reminders of mortality on biased attention for fear-relevant animals across 2 studies. In each study, participants completed a baseline dot-probe test of attention to fear-relevant animals (snakes and spiders). After random assignment, participants completed a mortality salience or control writing task (about watching television in Study 1 and about writing an important exam in Study 2). Finally, participants completed the dot-probe measure a second time. In both studies, those in the mortality salience condition showed a significant reduction in bias for fear-relevant animals from baseline to post-manipulation, whereas no change was found for those in the control conditions. These data suggest that the previously demonstrated lack of emotional response to mortality salience may, in part, result from the avoidance of fear-relevant stimuli.

Mythos and Mental Illness: Psychopathy, Fantasy, and Contemporary Moral Life

Medical accounts of the absence of conscience are intriguing for the way they seem disposed to drift away from the ideal of scientific objectivity and towards fictional representations of the subject. I examine here several contemporary accounts of psychopathy by Robert Hare and Paul Babiak. I first note how they locate the truth about their subject in fiction, then go on to contend that their accounts ought to be thought of as a "mythos," for they betray a telling uncertainty about where "fact" ends and "fantasy" begins, as well as the means of distinguishing mental health from mental illness in regard to some social roles.     

Man, I feel like a woman: when and how gender-role motivation helps mind-reading

Two experiments were undertaken with 3 goals: (a) to determine whether manipulating the desirability of including empathy as part of one's gender-role identity motivates accurate mind-reading, (b) to ascertain whether target readability moderates the strength of this effect, and (c) to test whether these effects are mediated by the complexity of perceivers' inferential strategies. Participants viewed videotapes of 2 couples discussing relationship problems and attempted to infer each partner's thoughts and feelings. Both experiments demonstrated that motivation improved accuracy when male and female perceivers valued the empathy-relevant aspects of the traditional female gender role. However, as predicted, high levels of motivation facilitated the accurate reading of easy targets but not of difficult targets. Several mediational models were tested, the results of which showed that the complexity of perceivers' attributions mediated the link between motivation and mind-reading accuracy.     

Competitive anxiety in young athletes: differentiating somatic anxiety, worry, and concentration disruption

The age-appropriate Sport Anxiety Scale-2 (SAS-2; Smith, Smoll, Cumming, & Grossbard, 2006) was used to assess levels of cognitive and somatic anxiety among male and female youth sport participants. Confirmatory factor analyses with a sample of 9-14 year old athletes (N=1038) supported the viability of a three-factor model of anxiety involving somatic anxiety, worry, and concentration disruption previously demonstrated in high school and college samples. Tests for factorial invariance revealed that the three-factor model was an equally good fit for 9-11 year olds and 12-14 year olds, and for both males and females. Gender and age were modestly related to anxiety scores. Worry about performing poorly was highest in girls and in older athletes, whereas boys reported higher levels of concentration disruption in competitive sport situations. Implications for emotional perception and for the study of competitive anxiety in young athletes are discussed.