Is BodyThink an efficacious body image and self-esteem program? A controlled evaluation with adolescents

This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of BodyThink, a widely disseminated body image and self-esteem program. Participants were 277, grade 7 students from 4 secondary schools in Australia. The intervention group (62 girls, 85 boys) participated in BodyThink during four 50-min lessons, while the control group (65 girls, 65 boys) received their usual classes. All participants completed baseline, postintervention and 3-month follow-up questionnaires. For girls, the intervention group reported higher media literacy and lower internalization of the thin ideal compared to the control group. For boys, the intervention group reported higher media literacy and body satisfaction than the control group. Although some positive outcomes were observed, it would be valuable to find ways to enhance the impact of BodyThink, especially in light of its wide dissemination. Suggestions for improving BodyThink are presented.     

Comparison of two TAGteach error-correction procedures to teach beginner yoga poses to adults

Teaching with acoustical guidance involves auditory feedback (e.g., a click sound when a desired behavior occurs) as part of a multicomponent intervention known as TAGteach. TAGteach has been found to improve performance in sport, dance, surgical technique, and walking. We compared the efficacy and efficiency of the standard TAGteach error-correction procedure and a modified TAGteach error-correction procedure to teach 4 novice adult yoga practitioners beginner yoga poses. Both error-correction procedures were effective for all participants; however, the relative efficiency of these error-correction procedures was unclear. Results are discussed in terms of limitations and considerations for future research.     

Art,Ethics, and Critical Pluralism

Those who have views about the relation between aesthetic and ethical value often also have views about the nature of art criticism. Yet no one has paid much attention to the compatibility of views in one debate with views in the other. This is worrying in light of a tension between two popular kinds of view: namely, between critical pluralism and any view in the art and ethics debate that presupposes an invariant relation between aesthetic value and ethical value. Specifically, the tension with invariance arises insofar as critical pluralism accommodates the aesthetic value of interpretive richness, including the aesthetic value of ethically conflicted interpretive richness. Given this tension, a shift of focus is needed in the art and ethics debate; from specifying the criteria for the aesthetic relevance of a work's ethical qualities to defending the fundamental nature of the aesthetic‐ethical value relation.     

Information continuity across the response selection bottleneck: Early parallel Task 2 response activation contributes to overt Task 2 performance

Several studies of dual-task performance have demonstrated Task 2 to Task 1 response priming (backward compatibility effects), indicating some degree of parallel response computation for concurrent tasks and suggesting that the well-established response selection bottleneck (RSB) model may be incomplete. However, the RSB might be considered to remain informationally intact if this early parallel Task 2 response information does not persist across the attentional shift between tasks to contribute to overt Task 2 performance. We used an adapted psychological refractory period paradigm with an additional early transient Task 2 stimulus to examine whether response information generated for Task 2 in parallel with overt Task 1 response selection could persist across the bottleneck to influence eventual overt Task 2 performance. After controlling for potential indirect effects of Task 1 processing stage variability propagating onto Task 2 reaction time via locus of slack effects, we observed reliable and consistent effects of early Task 2 response information facilitating Task 2 reaction times. These effects were observed only when the responses to both tasks of the dual-task pair were compatible, under both univalent and bivalent response mappings across tasks. These findings may represent evidence of a variably sensitive response gating or suppression mechanism in dual-task performance and support the idea that backward response compatibility effects represent transient informational influences on central response codes, rather than later postbottleneck response execution processes.     

From the Question Concerning Technology to the Quest for a Democratic Technology: Heidegger,Marcuse, Feenberg

Frederick Olafson criticizes Hubert Dreyfus's interpretation of Being and Time on a number of points, including the meaning of being, the nature of intentionality, and especially the role of das Man in Heidegger's account of social existence. But on the whole Olafson's critique is unconvincing because it rests on an implausible account of presence and perceptual intuition in Heidegger's early philosophy, and because Olafson maintains an over‐individuated notion of Dasein and consequently a one‐sided conception of the role of das Man. Unfortunately, since Dreyfus confines his commentary exclusively to Division I, he in effect forgoes any attempt to explain how das Man might be understood as playing the simultaneously constitutive and destructive role Heidegger seems to have envisioned for it. I conclude by arguing that the conformity and the conformism represented by das Man are bound together by Heidegger's notion of standoffishness (Abständigkeit).     

Media multitasking and failures of attention in everyday life

Using a series of online self-report measures, we examine media multitasking, a particularly pervasive form of multitasking, and its relations to three aspects of everyday attention: (1) failures of attention and cognitive errors (2) mind wandering, and (3) attentional control with an emphasis on attentional switching and distractibility. We observed a positive correlation between levels of media multitasking and self-reports of attentional failures, as well as with reports of both spontaneous and deliberate mind wandering. No correlation was observed between media multitasking and self-reported memory failures, lending credence to the hypothesis that media multitasking may be specifically related to problems of inattention, rather than cognitive errors in general. Furthermore, media multitasking was not related with self-reports of difficulties in attention switching or distractibility. We offer a plausible causal structural model assessing both direct and indirect effects among media multitasking, attentional failures, mind wandering, and cognitive errors, with the heuristic goal of constraining and motivating theories of the effects of media multitasking on inattention.     

Seeking congruity for communal and agentic goals: a longitudinal examination of U.S. college women’s persistence in STEM

Social Psychology of Education - An abundance of literature has examined barriers to women’s equitable representation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, with many...     

Testing the bi‐dimensional effects of attitudes on behavioural intentions and subsequent behaviour

Attitudes are typically treated as unidimensional predictors of both behavioural intentions and subsequent behaviour. On the basis of previous research showing that attitudes comprise two independent, positive and negative dimensions, we hypothesized that attitudes would be bi‐dimensional predictors of both behavioural intentions and subsequent behaviour. We focused on health‐risk behaviours. We therefore also hypothesized that the positive dimension of attitude (evaluations of positive behavioural outcomes) would better predict both behavioural intentions and subsequent behaviour than would the negative dimension, consistent with the positivity bias/offset principle. In Study 1 (cross sectional design), N = 109 university students completed questionnaire measures of their intentions to binge‐drink and the positive and negative dimensions of attitude. Consistent with the hypotheses, both attitude dimensions independently predicted behavioural intentions and the positive dimension was a significantly better predictor than was the negative dimension. The same pattern of findings emerged in Study 2 (cross sectional design; N = 186 university students) when we predicted intentions to binge‐drink, smoke and consume a high‐fat diet. Similarly, in Study 3 (prospective design; N = 1,232 speed limit offenders), both the positive and negative dimensions of attitude predicted subsequent (6‐month post‐baseline) speeding behaviour on two different road types and the positive dimension was the better predictor. The implications for understanding the motivation of behaviour and the development of behaviour‐change interventions are discussed.     

A structural equation model of pre‐service teachers' perceptions of future goals and current course‐related motivation

This study examined relationships between pre‐service teachers' perceptions of future goals and motivation to complete current tasks required in teacher education courses. Using 351 pre‐service teachers' survey responses from two southern universities in the USA, a full‐structural modeling was conducted. Results showed pre‐service teachers' perceived endogenous instrumentality (value of the current course “content” to attain future goals) had a direct effect on their intrinsic motivation, and their perceived exogenous instrumentality (value of the current “grade” to attain future goals) had a direct effect on their extrinsic motivation. This research suggests students' understanding of a relationship between their course content and future goal encourages their motivation to learn for enjoyment. Furthermore, students' understanding of a relationship between the course grade of the current course and their future goal encourages their motivation to get a high course grade, not necessarily because they enjoyed the course content. This study contributes to understanding pre‐service teachers' cognitive/motivational characteristics and to developing appropriate learning environments of teacher education that align with pre‐service teachers' learning characteristics to promote their effective learning.