PREFERRING "HOUSEWIVES" TO "FEMINISTS"

Four studies are described outlining the favorability of attitudes toward women. In Study 1, participants indicated their attitudes toward women and men and their construal of the term "women". The results revealed that women were evaluated more favorably than men, but that male right-wing authoritarians (RWAs) who construed women as referring primarily to feminists were least favorable in their attitudes. In Study 2, participants indicated their attitudes toward both "housewives" and "feminists". The results revealed that feminists were evaluated less favorably than housewives, and that the most negative attitudes toward feminists were expressed by authoritarian men. Study 3 revealed that high-RWA males held more negative symbolic beliefs concerning feminists (i.e., beliefs that feminists failed to promote participants'values) and that these beliefs accounted for variation in attitudes among high RWAs and much of the RWA-attitude relation. Finally, Study 4 revealed that high RWAs perceived greater value dissimilarity between them-selves and feminists. The implications of the findings for future research are discussed.     

Behavioral techniques in the treatment of obesity: A comparative analysis

The relative efficacy of the major techniques typically used in behavioral treatment programs for weight reduction was investigated using obese adult volunteers. Study 1 compared the effects of self-monitoring, self-control procedures, monetary rewards, aversive imagery and relaxation training. These procedures resulted in significantly greater weight reduction than either a no treatment group or subjects who graphed and recorded daily weight. Self-monitoring of daily caloric intake was as effective as the other methods, both singly and combined, over a 4 week treatment period. Study 2 compared the long-term effects of self-monitoring vs the full complement of behavioral techniques used in Study 1. The full behavior management program was significantly more effective, both during the treatment period and at 3 and 12 week follow-ups, although self-monitoring again produced substantial weight loss.     

The influence of one memory retrieval on a subsequent memory retrieval

Ss produced an instance of a category and following zero or two intervening items produced a second instance of the same category. The second instance was produced more quickly than the initial instance. This finding, in conjunction with other data reported in the paper, indicate that the reduction in latency for the second instance is due mostly to a reduction in the rate with which the category is searched.     

Object-substitution masking degrades the quality of conscious object representations

Object-substitution masking (OSM) is a unique paradigm for the examination of object updating processes. However, existing models of OSM are underspecified with respect to the impact of object updating on the quality of target representations. Using two paradigms of OSM combined with a mixture model analysis we examine the impact of post-perceptual processes on a target’s representational quality within conscious awareness. We conclude that object updating processes responsible for OSM cause degradation in the precision of object representations. These findings contribute to a growing body of research advocating for the application of mixture model analysis to the study of how cognitive processes impact the quality (i.e., precision) of object representations.     

Predicting Short‐Term Remembering as Boundedly Optimal Strategy Choice

It is known that, on average, people adapt their choice of memory strategy to the subjective utility of interaction. What is not known is whether an individual's choices are boundedly optimal. Two experiments are reported that test the hypothesis that an individual's decisions about the distribution of remembering between internal and external resources are boundedly optimal where optimality is defined relative to experience, cognitive constraints, and reward. The theory makes predictions that are tested against data, not fitted to it. The experiments use a no‐choice/choice utility learning paradigm where the no‐choice phase is used to elicit a profile of each participant's performance across the strategy space and the choice phase is used to test predicted choices within this space. They show that the majority of individuals select strategies that are boundedly optimal. Further, individual differences in what people choose to do are successfully predicted by the analysis. Two issues are discussed: (a) the performance of the minority of participants who did not find boundedly optimal adaptations, and (b) the possibility that individuals anticipate what, with practice, will become a bounded optimal strategy, rather than what is boundedly optimal during training.     

On Taking Back Forgiveness

I argue that the effectiveness of forgiveness in the healing of relationships is dependent on both the givers and recipients of forgiveness understanding that once it has been granted, forgiveness is not normally able to be retracted. When we forgive, we make a firm commitment not to return to our former state of moral resentment against the offender, replacing it by good-will. This commitment can be broken only where the forgiving party makes some significant cognitive adjustment to her appraisal of either the offender or the offence, believing that her original forgiveness was granted in error. I reject the view (defended, for example, by Anthony Bash) that forgiveness can lapse or be withdrawn on the basis of a return of hurt or disappointed feelings, arguing that these do not amount to a restoration of the resentment that is extinguished when forgiveness is granted. I contend that a person who ‘forgives’ and later takes back that ‘forgiveness’ because certain negative feelings have returned either did not genuinely forgive in the first place or shows that she has not fully grasped the nature of forgiveness.