Negotiating Dominant Masculinity Ideology: Strategies Used by Gay, Bisexual and Questioning Male Adolescents

In the context of a U.S. dominant masculinity ideology, which devalues men who are not heterosexually identified, many gay, bisexual and questioning (GBQ) adolescent males must develop their own affirming and health-promoting sense of masculinity. In order to promote the well-being of GBQ young men, exploration of their reactions and responses to dominant images of masculinity is needed. We qualitatively analyzed interviews with 39 GBQ African American, Latino, and European American male adolescents (15–23 years old). Participants reported a range of responses to traditional masculinity ideologies, most of which centered on balancing presentations of masculine and feminine characteristics. Negotiation strategies served a variety of functions, including avoiding anti-gay violence, living up to expected images of masculinity, and creating unique images of personhood free of gender role expectations. These data suggest a complex picture of GBQ male adolescents’ management of masculinity expectations and serve as a basis for culturally and developmentally specific HIV prevention programs.     

Fallibilism,Contextualism and Second‐Order Skepticism

Fallibilism is ubiquitous in contemporary epistemology. I argue that a paradox about knowledge, generated by considerations of truth, shows that fallibilism can only deliver knowledge in lucky circumstances. Specifically, since it is possible that we are brains‐in‐vats (BIVs), it is possible that all our beliefs are wrong. Thus, the fallibilist can know neither whether or not we have much knowledge about the world nor whether or not we know any specific proposition, and so the warrant of our knowledge‐claims is much reduced and second‐order skepticism is generated. Since this is the case in both skeptical and everyday contexts, contextualism cannot resolve the paradox.     

A Psychometric Evaluation of the Family Rules From the Past Questionnaire

This study describes an initial psychometric evaluation of a new 15–item self-report instrument, the Family Rules from the Past questionnaire (FRP), which measures perceived dysfunctional rules from the past. Reliability and validity tests were conducted including a factor analysis to determine the underlying dimensions of the FRP. A sample of 943 young adults completed the FRP, a demographic questionnaire, and measures of family health and competence, alcoholism in the family, and social desirability. Results showed support for internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, construct validity, concurrent validity, and criterion-related validity for the FRP. Individuals from dysfunctional families and adult children of alcoholics scored significantly higher on the FRP than individuals from more functional families. Implications for the uses of the FRP in individual, couple, and family therapy are discussed.     

Evaluating the separate and combined effects of positive and negative reinforcement on task compliance

Positive and negative reinforcement are effective for treating escape-maintained destructive behavior. The current study evaluated the separate and combined effects of these contingencies to increase task compliance. Results showed that a combination of positive and negative reinforcement was most effective for increasing compliance.     

Bayesian chance

This paper explores how the Bayesian program benefits from allowing for objective chance as well as subjective degree of belief. It applies David Lewis??s Principal Principle and David Christensen??s principle of informed preference to defend Howard Raiffa??s appeal to preferences between reference lotteries and scaling lotteries to represent degrees of belief. It goes on to outline the role of objective lotteries in an application of rationality axioms equivalent to the existence of a utility assignment to represent preferences in Savage??s famous omelet example of a rational choice problem. An example motivating causal decision theory illustrates the need for representing subjunctive dependencies to do justice to intuitive examples where epistemic and causal independence come apart. We argue to extend Lewis??s account of chance as a guide to epistemic probability to include De Finetti??s convergence results. We explore Diachronic Dutch book arguments as illustrating commitments for treating transitions as learning experiences. Finally, we explore implications for Martingale convergence results for motivating commitment to objective chances.     

Neuroanatomy and Neuropathology Associated with Korsakoff’s Syndrome

Although the neuropathology of Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) was first described well over a century ago and the characteristic brain pathology does not pose a diagnostic challenge to pathologists, there is still controversy over the neuroanatomical substrate of the distinctive memory impairment in these patients. Cohort studies of KS suggest a central role for the mammillary bodies and mediodorsal thalamus, and quantitative studies suggest additional damage to the anterior thalamus is required. Rare cases of KS caused by pathologies other than those of nutritional origin provide support for the role of the anterior thalamus and mammillary bodies. Taken together the evidence to date shows that damage to the thalamus and hypothalamus is required, in particular the anterior thalamic nucleus and the medial mammillary nucleus of the hypothalamus. As these nuclei form part of wider memory circuits, damage to the inter-connecting white matter tracts can also result in a similar deficit as direct damage to the nuclei. Although these nuclei and their connections appear to be the primary site of damage, input from other brain regions within the circuits, such as the frontal cortex and hippocampus, or more distant regions, including the cerebellum and amygdala, may have a modulatory role on memory function. Further studies to confirm the precise site(s) and extend of brain damage necessary for the memory impairment of KS are required.     

Elimination of position-biased responding in individuals with autism and intellectual disabilities

Five individuals with autism or other developmental disabilities participated in paired-stimulus preference assessments during repeated baseline probes. All subjects initially showed a pronounced bias by typically selecting the stimulus placed in either the left or right position. Biased responding for 3 subjects was eliminated when training trials were conducted in which a stimulus of known lesser quality was presented as one of the choices. Reinforcer-quality training was unsuccessful for 2 subjects, as was a condition in which reinforcer magnitude was modified to favor unbiased responding. These subjects' biased responding was eliminated only when a correction procedure (repetition of error trials) was implemented.