Humor in romantic contexts: do men participate and women evaluate?

Several lines of research illustrate that humor plays a pivotal role in relationship initiation. The current article applies sexual selection theory to argue that humor production is a fitness indicator, allowing men to transmit information tacitly about their underlying qualities. And whereas prior research has emphasized women's appreciation of humor as a signal of interest, the focus here is on how women evaluate prospective suitors' humorous offerings. Two studies, including an ecologically valid study of online dating advertisements, provided evidence for men's production and women's evaluation of humor in romantic contexts. A third study revealed that women's evaluations of potential mates' humor are predictive of their romantic interest. Moreover, this article shows that preferences for and perceptions of humor are associated with preferences for and perceptions of intelligence and warmth, consistent with the argument that one function of humor is as a fitness indicator that provides information about underlying mate quality.     

Gleaning Information for Cognitive Operations from Don’t Know Responses in Cognitive and Noncognitive Assessments

The Don’t Know (DK) response – taking the form of an omitted response or not-reached at the end of a cognitive test, or explicitly presented as a response option in a social survey – contains important information that is often overlooked. Direct psychometric modeling efforts for DK responses are few and far between. In this article, the linear logistic test model (LLTM) is proposed for delineating the impacts of cognitive operations for a test that contains DK responses. We assume that the DK response is a valid response. The assumption is reasonable for many situations, including low-stakes cognitive tests and attitudinal assessments. By extracting information embedded in the DK response, the method shows how DK can inform the latent construct of interest and the cognitive operations underlying the response to stimuli. Using a proven recoding scheme, the LLTM could be implemented through commonly used programs such as PROC GLIMMIX. Two simulation experiments to evaluate how well the parameters can be recovered were conducted. In addition, two real data examples, from a noncognitive test of health belief assessment and a cognitive test of knowledge in diabetes, are also presented as case studies to illustrate the LLTM for DK response.     

Theory of crisis intervention

Pastoral Psychology -     

Comparing single and serial homicide offenses

Serial homicide has attracted much attention, but little empirical scientific investigation. This exploratory study reports demographic information on a large sample of serial homicide offenders (157 offenders, 608 victims), and compares a subsample of serial homicide offenses with a control group of single homicide offenses. Results show that serial homicide offenders target more women than men, and kill more strangers than family or friends. Single homicide offenders kill men and women in equal frequency, but kill family and friends more often than strangers. Serial homicide offenders kill for apparent sexual motivation more often than for any other reason, while single homicide offenders kill most often out of anger.     

Female laryngectomees' satisfaction with communication methods and speech-language pathology services

132 female laryngectomees responded to a questionnaire regarding satisfaction with their communication methods as postlaryngectomees and speech-language pathology services. Respondents were satisfied overall with their primary communication selection; however, most would like to try a method that produced a more feminine-sounding voice. 68% were satisfied with their speech-language pathology services.     

An eye-movement-contingent probe paradigm

A new eye-movement-contingent probe task is presented in which readers’ eye movements are monitored as they read sentences and respond to a probe word; the timing of the display of the probe word is dependent on fixation of a target word. The present study examined semantic priming effects. The target word was either related (doctor) or unrelated (lawyer) to the probe word (nurse), and the probe appeared 120, 250, 500, or 750msec after the reader first fixated on the target word. When the probe word appeared (in the location of the target word), the rest of the sentence disappeared until the participant named the probe word. Then the sentence reappeared, and the participant continued reading the sentence. Naming times to the probe word were recorded, as was sentence reading time and the eye movement behavior relative to the onset of the probe word. Priming effects were observed, since probe reaction time to related probes was faster than that to unrelated probes. Ways in which this paradigm can be used to study various issues in language processing are discussed.     

'Minor GAD': characteristics of subsyndromal GAD in older adults

Subsyndromal emotional symptoms are common in older adults and are associated with increased disability, health care utilization, and risk for developing psychiatric disorders. The purpose of this study was to examine subsyndromal generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) in older adults. Participants included 30 older adults with diagnosable GAD, 19 with subsyndromal anxiety symptoms [minor GAD; (MGAD)], and 21 normal control volunteers (NC). Participants were assessed using the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-IV and completed self-report measures of anxiety, worry, depression, and life satisfaction. Excessive worry on more days than not, difficulty controlling worry, and clinically significant distress or impairment were the diagnostic criteria endorsed by MGAD participants least often. Therefore, these criteria may be useful in distinguishing between GAD and subsyndromal GAD. Self-reported anxiety and worry also systematically differed across groups in the expected directions, with a discriminant analysis yielding good classification of the GAD and NC groups based on these measures. Categorization of MGAD participants generally was poor, with most misclassified as GAD patients. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Preference for numerical information and academic achievement of African-American students

Viswanathan's Preference for Numerical Information scale was used to investigate the attitudes of 236 African-American college students toward using numerical information in their thinking and problem solving. The results showed that the participants expressed a positive preference for numerical information, statistically similar in size to the preferences reported in prior research for other groups of students. Also, participants' scores correlated positively (r=.27) with their academic achievement (fraction answered correctly) on examination questions requiring the use of numerical information but were nonsignificantly related to their academic achievement on questions not requiring the use of numerical information. This pattern of correlations persisted, at reduced levels, when the effects of variations in SAT scores were partialled out. Moreover, for the men correlations between Preference for Numerical Information scores and achievement on examination questions involving numerical information significantly exceeded the correlations between the test scores and academic achievement on questions not involving numerical information. This contrasted with results obtained for women. For them, the correlations did not vary significantly by question type. Thus, for reasons yet to be uncovered, Preference for Numerical Information scores of the African-American men appear to reflect an aspect of cognitive style related to proficiency in using and manipulating numerical information.     

The staying power of intercultural learning through reflective inquiry

This paper focuses on the staying power of intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes for adult students who were engaged in reflective inquiry during a travel course. It addresses a need to assess whether new learning gained from reflection on experience persists over time and what factors may influence staying power. The main finding of the study is that intercultural competence developed through reflective inquiry is maintained and often deepened over time. This builds upon previous findings that skills and characteristics of effective intercultural interaction are advanced through using reflective inquiry to analyze observations and resolve puzzling problems triggered by uncertainty. The context for this qualitative inquiry is with undergraduate adult students participating in a travel course designed to develop intercultural competence. They responded to reflective prompts throughout the course and 18 months after completion. Cases are presented that analyze course and post-course responses. I conclude that the intersection of reflective inquiry and intercultural competence frameworks can influence the ongoing persistence of learning over time.