Gendered Appearances among Young Children and in the Media: An East-West Cultural Comparison

Sex Roles - Many young children often exhibit a strong desire to wear extremely gender-typed clothing (appearance rigidity), reflecting their emerging gender identities. However, research on...     

Truthiness and law: Nonprobative photos bias perceived credibility in forensic contexts

Nonprobative but related photos can increase the perceived truth value of statements relative to when no photo is presented (truthiness). In two experiments, we tested whether truthiness generalizes to credibility judgments in a forensic context. Participants read short vignettes in which a witness viewed an offence. The vignettes were presented with or without a nonprobative, but related photo. In both experiments, participants gave higher witness credibility ratings to photo-present vignettes compared to photo-absent vignettes. In Experiment 2, half the vignettes included additional nonprobative information in the form of text. We replicated the photo presence effect in Experiment 2, but the nonprobative text did not significantly alter witness credibility. The results suggest that nonprobative photos can increase the perceived credibility of witnesses in legal contexts.     

Shopping-Life Balance: Towards a Unifying Framework

Based on a review of the literature we introduce a conceptualization of shopping-life balance, defined as a state of balanced satisfaction between shopping life and other life domains. The new construct involves two dimensions: engagement in shopping life and minimal conflict between social roles in shopping life and roles in other life domains. We argue that engagement in shopping life contributes to satisfaction in shopping life, which in turn contributes to subjective well-being through a bottom-up process. However, engagement in shopping life can lead to role conflict, which causes dissatisfaction in other life domains (e.g., family life, social life, financial life), and in turn detracts from subjective well-being through a bottom-up process. Role conflict may also detract from shopping engagement, thereby reducing satisfaction in shopping life. In the context of this unifying framework we explain much of the research conducted in relation to both shopping engagement and role conflict—predictors or antecedents of shopping engagement and role conflict, namely personal, situational, institutional, and cultural factors involved in shopping-life balance. Research and policy implications are also discussed.

     

Some brief considerations on the relationship between theory and practice

The present crisis in models of training and in psychoanalytical education in general can be linked to the gulf that has come to be created between analytical theory and clinical practice. The paper(1) examines the historical facts that have led to this split and suggests the need to return to the models of Freud and Jung. Both these fathers of depth psychology stressed the dangers inherent in the dogmatic use of theory and both insisted that theory must always spring from and be able to account for clinical practice rather than vice versa, as is so often the case today. The paper also looks at how theory should be taught in our analytical institutes in order to ensure that what we transmit to our candidates is not knowledge in the form of dogma but rather a way of proceeding that will enable them to think creatively about their clinical practice and thus produce new knowledge, essential if depth psychology is to remain relevant to our post-modern culture.     

Rapid acquisition of preference in concurrent chains when alternatives differ on multiple dimensions of reinforcement

Pigeons responded in a concurrent-chains procedure in which terminal-link reinforcer variables were changed unpredictably across sessions. In Experiment 1, the terminal-link schedules were fixed-interval (FI) 8 s and FI 16 s, and the reinforcer magnitudes were 2 s and 4 s. In Experiment 2 the probability of reinforcement (100% or 50%) was varied with immediacy and magnitude. Multiple-regression analyses showed that pigeons' initial-link response allocation was determined by current-session reinforcer variables, similar to previous studies which have varied only immediacy (Grace, Bragason, & McLean, 2003). Sensitivity coefficients were positive and statistically significant for all reinforcer variables in both experiments. Analyses of responding within individual sessions showed that final levels of preference for dominated sessions, in which all reinforcer variables favored the same terminal link, were more extreme than for tradeoff sessions in which at least one reinforcer variable favored each alternative. This result implies that response allocation was determined by multiple reinforcer variables within individual sessions, consistent with the concatenated matching law. However, in Experiment 2, there was a nonlinear (sigmoidal) relationship between response allocation and relative value, which suggests the possibility that reinforcer variables may interact during acquisition, contrary to the matching law.     

Attention allocation under varied workload and effort perception in rowers

ObjectivesTenenbaum's effort-related model has proposed that as physical workload increases, attention allocation shifts from dissociation to association. Owing to equivocal research results regarding gender and experience differences in attention and perceived exertion reports, this study was designed to examine whether attention allocation varied as a function of perceived effort manipulated by physical workload, and whether gender and experience differences would emerge in regards to attention use.DesignA within-subjects study design was employed using measures of attention, perceived exertion, heart rate, and power output.MethodsSixty high school and collegiate rowers were recruited, and were divided into 30 experienced (15 men and 15 women) and 30 novice rowers (15 men and 15 women). After establishing a maximal power output value for each rower using the rowing ergometer, participants were asked to row at 30%, 50%, and 75% relative workload intensities for 10 min in a counterbalanced order. At each minute, measures of heart rate, attention, and perceived exertion were taken. Participants also recorded their thoughts during the session after each task.ResultsResults demonstrated that attention significantly (p<.01) shifted from dissociation to association as workload increased. The workload increase also resulted in elevated perceived exertion and heart rate. Similarly, thought classifications validated attention shift as workload increased. Experience and gender were not found to be discriminatory factors for attention allocation.ConclusionsAttention shifted from dissociation to association as workload increased; as environmental demands increase, physiological sensations dominate the individual's attention. Attention is forced to shift internally and narrow (i.e., associative) to adapt to these demands. During low or moderate workload, attention can be more flexible and voluntarily shift between associative and dissociative modes because the task demands are not overwhelming.     

Dostoevskij’s guide to spiritual epiphany in The Brothers Karamazov

The essay examines the three main epiphanic experiences in The Brothers Karamazov and shows how Dostoevskij’s treatment of these experiences may offer a guide to spiritual renewal. The three experiences are Alësha’s vision of the resurrected Zosima and transfigured Christ, Dmitrij’s vision of the suffering babe, and Ivan’s vision of the devil (which serves as a counter example to the first two). By examining the content of each of these visions, as well as the parallels and variations in the scenes leading up to these visions, this essay seeks to explore Dostoevskij’s understanding of transformational revelatory experience.     

Why stereotypes don't even make good defaults

Many concepts have stereotypes. This leaves open the question of whether concepts are stereotypes. It has been argued elsewhere that theories that identify concepts with their stereotypes or with stereotypical properties of their instances (e.g., Rosch, E. (1978). Principles of categorization. In E. Rosch & B. B. Lloyd (Ed.), Cognition and Categorization. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; Smith, E. E., Medin, D. L. (1981). Categories and Concepts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.) fail to provide an adequate account of the compositionality of concepts (Fodor, J., Lepore, E. (1996). The red herring and the pet fish: Why concepts still cannot be prototypes. Cognition, 58, 253-270.; Fodor, J. (1998). Concepts: Where cognitive science went wrong. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.). This paper extends this argument and reports an experiment suggesting that participants do not assume, even as a default strategy, that complex concepts inherit the stereotypes of their constituents. Thus propositions such as "Baby ducks have webbed feet" were judged to be less likely to be true than propositions like "Ducks have webbed feet." Moreover, manipulation of the type and number of noun phrase modifiers revealed a systematic departure from the unmodified noun's stereotype both with the addition of stereotypical modifiers ("Quacking ducks have webbed feet" versus "Ducks have webbed feet") and with the addition of a second modifier ("Baby Peruvian ducks have webbed feet" versus "Baby ducks have webbed feet"). Thus, in the general case the stereotypical properties of a head noun are systematically discounted when that head noun combines with modifiers. This effect represents a general principle of conceptual combination that argues against the inheritance of stereotypical features of concepts as a default strategy. Instead, we advocate a model of conceptual combination where concepts remain inert under combination, supported by a separate machinery that introduces pragmatic and knowledge-dependent inferences.     

The description of gay and lesbian families in second-parent adoption cases

Lesbians and gay men are turning to the courts to recognize their family relationships. In this article every reported court decision where a lesbian or gay couple has successfully completed a second-parent adoption is reviewed to analyze the presentation and judicial analysis of the petitioning parties in conjunction with the current debates within family theory. Traditional family theorists argue that the contemporary family is in transition but will always be recognizable as the traditional family; postmodern theorists argue that the traditional “family” is a fiction. Results from this study indicate that judges in second-parent adoption cases rely on a traditional definition and vision of the family in evaluating the gay and lesbian petitioners before them. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An Analysis of Judicial Opinions in Same-Sex Visitation and Adoption Cases

There are two broad categories of family court decisions involving same-sex “second-parents”: first, cases where a second-parent is seeking visitation with her former partner's children; and second, adoption cases where the couple is seeking legal recognition of the second-parent's role in raising the children. Several jurisdictions grant same-sex second-parent adoptions; however, lesbian or gay second-parents, without a formal legal relationship with the children have rarely been successful in their attempts for visitation. In this paper the courts' analyses of the legal arguments made by the parties is reviewed. The results indicate that similar arguments are used in each of the different types of cases, but that the courts rely more heavily on statutory interpretation in the adoption cases.