Evaluations,Attitude Similarity,and Interpersonal Attraction: Testing the Hypothesis of Weighting Interference Across Responses

The greater effect of negative than positive stimuli on judgments—the positive-negative asymmetry (PNA)—is rather pervasive. However, the effects of the valence of evaluations of the participant by the partner and attitude similarity between them on attraction have been inconsistent with PNA. The hypothesis that the weighting rule instigated by the first response interferes with the weighting rule normally expected for the second response was tested. As hypothesized, evaluations and attitude similarity interacted when attraction response was assessed prior to competence response but not when competence response was assessed first. The effects in the first measured response fully mediated the effects in the second measured response but not vice versa. Implications of the finding for attraction and PNA are discussed.     

Transgender Youth of Color and Resilience: Negotiating Oppression and Finding Support

This qualitative study explored the resilience of 13 transgender youth of color in the southeastern region of the U.S. The definition of resilience framing this study was a participant’s ability to “bounce back” from challenging experiences as transgender youth of color. Using a phenomenological research tradition and a feminist, intersectionality (intercategorical) theoretical framework, the research question guiding the study was: “What are the daily lived experiences of resilience transgender youth of color describe as they negotiate intersections of transprejudice and racism?” The researchers’ individuated findings included five major domains of the essence of participants’ daily lived experiences of resilience despite experiencing racism and transprejudice: (1) evolving, simultaneous self-definition of racial/ethnic and gender identities, (2) being aware of adultism experiences, (3) self-advocacy in educational systems, (4) finding one’s place in the LGBTQQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning) youth community, and (5) use of social media to affirm one’s identities as a transgender youth of color. Implications for practice, research, and advocacy, in addition to the study’s limitations are discussed.     

The influence of visual noise in the binding of irrelevant features to responses

ABSTRACT

In order to efficiently control our actions, stimuli and responses made to them are stored and integrated into event files. This integration is not restricted to relevant stimuli. Even irrelevant stimuli or features that co-occur at responding can be integrated with the response. In the presence of only one irrelevant feature, binding effects for that feature are generally observed. In the presence of more than one irrelevant features, empirical evidence is inconsistent. The present experiments tested feature-response binding effects for irrelevant features when more than one irrelevant feature was present. In two experiments feature-response binding effects for three irrelevant features (colour, shape, and location) were tested in a block-wise manner. In each block one feature was orthogonally varied to the response while the others were held constant (Experiment 1) or always changed (Experiment 2). Significant binding effects were observed for each of three features when the other two were held constant (Exp. 1). However, when the other two features were varied, significant binding effects were only observed for colour and location, but not for shape (Exp. 2). The results suggest that strength of feature-response binding effects is influenced by the variation of simultaneously presented features.     

The role of parenting and dopamine D4 receptor gene polymorphisms in children's inhibitory control

Temperamental effortful control has important implications for children's development. Although genetic factors and parenting may influence effortful control, few studies have examined interplay between the two in predicting its development. The current study investigated associations between parenting and a facet of children's effortful control, inhibitory control (IC), and whether these associations were moderated by whether children had a 7‐repeat variant of the DRD4 exon III VNTR. A community sample of 409 3‐year‐olds completed behavioural tasks to assess IC, and observational measures of parenting were also collected. Negative parenting was associated with lower child IC. The association between children's IC and positive parenting was moderated by children's DRD4 7‐repeat status, such that children with at least one 7‐repeat allele displayed lower IC than children without this allele when positive parenting was lower. These effects appeared to be primarily influenced by parent support and engagement. Results extend recent findings suggesting that some genetic polymorphisms may increase vulnerability to contextual influences.     

Precarious life and the ethics of care: Subjectivity in an Indian religious phenomenon

This article relates certain figures of the subject in an emergent Indian pilgrimage. On the basis of ethnographic research and 15 in-depth interviews, I show that these religious subjectivities, phenomenologically immersed in highly precarious material conditions, are radically relational. Observations on the pilgrimage (en)counter the cognitivist assumptions of a body of scholarly opinion on contemporary religious practice. The analyst's attention to pilgrimage rituals and narratives traverses sociological, phenomenological, and psychoanalytic theories, and is, thereby, drawn to important questions of self, ethics, and time.     

In the letter of mere reason: Rethinking the universal secular intellectual with Immanuel Kant,Jacques Derrida and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

This article reconsiders a question, ‘Is Critique Secular?’, which ostensibly polarised Saba Mahmood and Stathis Gourgouris in the 2008 exchange forum of Public Culture. After positing that Mahmood and Gourgouris are mutually invested in challenging and overcoming the intransigence of epistemic secularism, the article canvasses Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's deconstruction of the Kantian ‘universal secular intellectual’. The article suggests that Spivak's reading of Kant's Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone constitutes a vital exercise in democratic criticism that sets into relief an important convergence between Mahmood and Gourgouris as interlocutors. Delineating imbrications among Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Judgment and Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, the article synthesises Jacques Derrida's work on Kantian aesthetics and Spivak's recalibration of the Kantian intellectual as a means to unsettle the recalcitrance of epistemic secularism in academic debate and public culture.     

Exploring the Relations between Cattell–Horn–Carroll (CHC) Cognitive Abilities and Mathematics Achievement

As standardized measures of cognitive abilities and academic achievement continue to evolve, so do the relations between the constructs represented in these measures. A large, nationally representative sample of school‐aged children and youth between 6 and 19 years of age (N = 4,194) was used to systematically evaluate the relations between cognitive abilities and components of academic achievement in mathematics. The cognitive abilities of interest were those identified from the Cattell–Horn–Carroll model of intelligence. Specific areas of mathematics achievement included math calculation skills and math problem solving. Results suggest that fluid reasoning (Gf), comprehension‐knowledge (Gc), and processing speed (Gs) have the strongest and most consistent relations with mathematics achievement throughout the school years.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Shape and Significance of Feminine Beauty: An Evolutionary Perspective

Evolutionary and feminist perspectives on female beauty are compatible in some respects, such as the oppressive and destructive outcomes for women as a consequence of the importance attached to female beauty. The perspectives tend to differ on the issue of the origins of (some) beauty standards. Evolutionary scientists have proposed that beauty is a reliable cue for women??s health and fertility. However, as the factors regulating health and reproductive capabilities cannot be directly observed, sexual selection has fashioned psychological adaptations to attend to bodily features that are correlated with health and fertility. It is proposed that people resonate to such bodily features and find them attractive. One such bodily feature in women is gynoid body distribution (i.e., female-normative body shape in which fat distribution is concentrated around hips and thighs). Gynoid body fat distribution is measured by the ratio of waist and hips circumferences (WHR). In this paper we summarize empirical evidence showing that WHR is an independent predictor for risks for major diseases, optimal hormonal profile, and reproductive capabilities. Next, we present findings from studies that demonstrate systematic variations in the size of WHR produce systematic changes in judgment of female attractiveness within diverse societies throughout the world. Such widespread appeal of low WHR suggests that people have evolved mental mechanisms to judge body features indicative of good health as attractive, meaning that some standards of beauty are not arbitrary or constructed. We conclude that a better understanding and appreciation of the beauty-health linkage can be empowering to women.