Adult attachment and the transition to parenthood

This study examined how a major life stressor--the transition to parenthood--affects marital satisfaction and functioning among persons with different attachment orientations. As hypothesized, the interaction between women's degree of attachment ambivalence and their perceptions of spousal support (assessed 6 weeks prior to childbirth) predicted systematic changes in men's and women's marital satisfaction and related factors over time (6 months postpartum). Specifically, if highly ambivalent (preoccupied) women entered parenthood perceiving lower levels of support from their husbands, they experienced declines in marital satisfaction. Women's ambivalence also predicted their own as well as their husbands' marital satisfaction and functioning concurrently. The degree of attachment avoidance did not significantly predict marital changes, although women's avoidance did correlate with some of the concurrent marital measures. These findings are discussed in terms of attachment theory.     

“Ladettes,” Social Representations,and Aggression

The increasing share of arrests for violent offences by young women in Britain has prompted the media to brand such offenders as ladettes. Their behavior is argued to result from their adoption of laddish attitudes that in turn is derived from new, aggressive images of women in the media. These images explicitly portray female aggression as an instrumental act in contrast to the traditionally expressive stereotype of female aggression. We examine the relationship, in an undergraduate sample, among laddishness (here operationalized as attitudes that support the acceptability of traditionally working-class youthful male social behavior by young women), instrumental and expressive social representations of aggression, and self-reported aggression. In both genders, measures of aggression are correlated with holding a more instrumental representation of aggression. For young women, there is no relationship between laddish attitudes and either aggression or social representations. For young men, approval of laddish behavior by women is negatively associated with an instrumental view of aggression that is positively correlated with three measures of aggression.     

The experience of body dissatisfaction in men

Evidence suggests that the prevalence of body dissatisfaction (BD) is increasing amongst men. However, research has commonly examined the phenomenon in predominantly female groups. In view of this, the current study used a qualitative methodology to explore the experience of BD in men. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 men. The data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Analysis yielded themes across four domains (societal, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and social presentation). Whilst participants exhibited a range of appearance concerns, there was commonality in the processes by which these were experienced and managed. These generic issues are the focus of the themes, and could usefully be incorporated into a new assessment tool. Findings are considered in relation to existing (cognitive behavioural, self-discrepancy, and sociocultural) theories, and implications for clinical practice and future research are discussed.     

Psychological entitlement: interpersonal consequences and validation of a self-report measure

Nine studies were conducted with the goal of developing a self-report measure of psychological entitlement and assessing its interpersonal consequences. The Psychological Entitlement Scale (PES) was found to be reliable and valid (Study 1, 2), not associated with social desirability (Study 2), stable across time (Study 3), and correlated negatively with two of the Big Five factors: agreeableness and emotional stability (Study 4). The validity of the PES was confirmed in studies that assessed willingness to take candy designated for children (Study 5) and reported deservingness of pay in a hypothetical employment setting (Study 6). Finally, the PES was linked to important interpersonal consequences including competitive choices in a commons dilemma (Study 7), selfish approaches to romantic relationships (Study 8), and aggression following ego threat (Study 9). Psychological entitlement has a pervasive and largely unconstructive impact on social behavior.     

Doing Community Research Without a Community: Creating Safe Space for Rape Survivors

This paper describes how the values of a feminist research team influenced methodological decisions in a study of rape survivors. Building upon concepts from community psychology and urban sociology, the authors created a community-based research design that respected the emotional needs of rape survivors without sacrificing methodological rigor. We developed relationships with community members in diverse settings, such as nail and hair salons, child care centers, churches, and bookstores, to advertise the study and recruit participants. Consistent with feminist approaches to interviewing, our goal was to create a safe setting for survivors to tell their stories. Although the purpose of this study was research rather than intervention, most survivors reported that participating in these interviews was healing. Our experiences in this project suggest that allowing values to influence the process of research may have beneficial outcomes for both researchers and participants.     

Interactive effects of numerical surface form and operand parity in cognitive arithmetic

In Experiment 1, adults (n = 48) performed simple addition, multiplication, and parity (i.e., odd-even) comparisons on pairs of Arabic digits or English number words. For addition and comparison, but not multiplication, response time increased with the number of odd operands. For addition, but not comparison, this parity effect was greater for words than for digits. In Experiment 2, adults (n = 50) solved simple addition problems in digit and word format and reported their strategies (i.e., retrieval or procedures). Procedural strategies were used more for odd than even addends and much more for word than digit problems. The results indicate that problem encoding and answer retrieval processes for cognitive arithmetic are interactive rather than strictly additive stages.     

Effects of GABA modulators on the repeated acquisition of response sequences in squirrel monkeys

The present study investigated the effects of positive and negative GABA(A) modulators under three different baselines of repeated acquisition in squirrel monkeys in which the monkeys acquired a three-response sequence on three keys under a second-order fixed-ratio (FR) schedule of food reinforcement. In two of these baselines, the second-order FR schedule and the discriminative stimuli for the response sequence were manipulated ("chain-strained" and "tandem-strained"). In the third baseline condition, response-independent tail shock was presented during acquisition of the response sequence. All of these baselines maintained high error levels and produced slow rates of acquisition. Under both the chain-strained and tandem-strained conditions, the positive GABA(A) modulator triazolam (0.0032-0.1 mg/kg) and the negative GABA(A) modulators beta-CCE (ethyl-beta-carboline-3-carboxylate; 0.01-1 mg/kg), beta-CCM (methyl-beta-carboline-3-carboxylate; 0.0032-0.1 mg/kg), and FG-7142 (methyl-beta-carboline-3-carboxamide; 0.18-10 mg/kg) dose-dependently decreased overall response rate compared to administration of saline (control). Under the same two conditions, triazolam and the negative GABA(A) modulators also increased the percentage of errors; however, the effects on accuracy frequently depended on the baseline condition and the particular modulator. In contrast, triazolam only decreased errors and enhanced acquisition in the presence of concurrent response-independent tail shock when compared to saline administration under this condition. The neutral GABA(A) modulator, flumazenil (1 mg/kg), had no effect on rate or accuracy of responding when administered alone, but antagonized the rate-decreasing and error-increasing effects produced by the negative GABA(A) modulators. Together, these data suggest that the effects of both the positive and negative GABAA modulators on acquisition can be similar in squirrel monkeys (i.e., both types of modulator may produce rate-decreasing and error-increasing effects) and that their effects on acquisition depend, in part, on the environmental conditions maintaining acquisition.     

The structure of working memory from 4 to 15 years of age

The structure of working memory and its development across the childhood years were investigated in children 4-15 years of age. The children were given multiple assessments of each component of the A. D. Baddeley and G. Hitch (1974) working memory model. Broadly similar linear functions characterized performance on all measures as a function of age. From 6 years onward, a model consisting of 3 distinct but correlated factors corresponding to the working memory model provided a good fit to the data. The results indicate that the basic modular structure of working memory is present from 6 years of age and possibly earlier, with each component undergoing sizable expansion in functional capacity throughout the early and middle school years to adolescence.     

Priming race in biracial observers affects visual search for Black and White faces

We examined whether or not priming racial identity would influence Black-White biracial individuals' ability to visually search for White and Black faces. Black, White, and biracial participants performed a visual search task in which the targets were Black or White faces. Before the task, the biracial participants were primed with either their Black or their White racial identity. All participant groups detected Black faces faster than White faces. Critically, the results also showed a racial-prime effect in biracial individuals: The magnitude of the search asymmetry was significantly different for those primed with their White identity and those primed with their Black identity. These findings suggest that top-down factors such as one's racial identity can influence mechanisms underlying the visual search for faces of different races.