Athlete or Sex Symbol: What Boys Think of Media Representations of Female Athletes

Little research has investigated males?? reactions to non-objectified media images of women, including those that depict women in instrumental activities like playing a sport. Using a survey methodology, this study examined U.S. adolescent boys?? open-ended responses to images of performance athletes, sexualized athletes, and sexualized models. Participants were 104 adolescent boys from California (ages 12?C17, primarily European-American). They remarked on the performance athletes?? physical competence and focused on the athletic context depicted in the photograph. In contrast, participants focused on the physical appearance and attractiveness of the sexualized athletes and sexualized models. Overall, findings suggest that performance images of women evoke instrumental evaluations of women from male viewers, while sexualized images induce objectified appraisals.     

How linguistic and cultural forces shape conceptions of time: English and Mandarin time in 3D

In this paper we examine how English and Mandarin speakers think about time, and we test how the patterns of thinking in the two groups relate to patterns in linguistic and cultural experience. In Mandarin, vertical spatial metaphors are used more frequently to talk about time than they are in English; English relies primarily on horizontal terms. We present results from two tasks comparing English and Mandarin speakers' temporal reasoning. The tasks measure how people spatialize time in three-dimensional space, including the sagittal (front/back), transverse (left/right), and vertical (up/down) axes. Results of Experiment 1 show that people automatically create spatial representations in the course of temporal reasoning, and these implicit spatializations differ in accordance with patterns in language, even in a non-linguistic task. Both groups showed evidence of a left-to-right representation of time, in accordance with writing direction, but only Mandarin speakers showed a vertical top-to-bottom pattern for time (congruent with vertical spatiotemporal metaphors in Mandarin). Results of Experiment 2 confirm and extend these findings, showing that bilinguals' representations of time depend on both long-term and proximal aspects of language experience. Participants who were more proficient in Mandarin were more likely to arrange time vertically (an effect of previous language experience). Further, bilinguals were more likely to arrange time vertically when they were tested in Mandarin than when they were tested in English (an effect of immediate linguistic context).     

Memories of Me: Comparisons from Osnabrueck (Germany) and Delhi (India) Students and Their Mothers

The present study explores the dialogical relationship between autobiographical remembering, self and culture from a developmental and trans-generational perspective. It draws on a comparative design including self-describing memories of 10 Indian students from Delhi and 13 German students from Osnabrueck. Moreover, stories often told about oneself during childhood were investigated from the students’ as well as from their mothers’ perspective. Analysis revealed not only culture-specific ways of telling about one’s past that point to different prevailing socio-cultural philosophies, but also trans-generational similarities of stories repeatedly told to and about the child. The findings suggest that self-defining stories develop and are dialogically intertwined with the cultural narrative practices that children engage in during the course of socialization. Theoretical implications for our understanding of self-development are discussed from a Bakhtinian perspective.     

Schutzraum Familie

Extensively presented is the case history of an internationally noticed incest offender who incarcerated his daughter over a time span of 24 years, fathering 7 children and keeping her and most of the children successfully unnoticed by anyone over the whole period of time. The case history is followed by a brief compilation of some aspects of the phenomenon known as the family tyrant.     

Attitudes Toward Divorce: Embeddedness and Outcomes in Personal Relationships

Divorce attitudes, attitude embeddedness, parental marital status and conflict, and personal relationship outcomes were examined in a sample of 289 undergraduate students. Results indicated that highly embedded divorce attitudes were more predictive of evaluations of divorce issues and relationship scenarios than were less embedded attitudes. Consistent with findings that divorce attitudes influence personal relationships ( Amato & DeBoer, 2001 ), participants with embedded divorce attitudes reported greater conflict and influence of relationship partners. Recollections of high parental conflict were associated with greater relationship conflict; and individuals from high-conflict intact families reported greater relationship closeness, conflict, and embedded divorce attitudes. Consequences of parental divorce and conflict for offspring divorce attitudes are discussed, as well as future research on divorce attitudes and their strength.     

Mood and memory for tightly organized social information

The frequently cited finding that mood-congruent information can be better recalled than mood-incongruent information is tested using categorically organized stimulus material which imposes a systematic structure on the recall process. A target person was described with respect to six categories of social behaviour, with predominantly desirable behaviours in some categories and predominantly undesirable behaviours in others. Participants were induced either an elated mood state or a neutral state using Velten's procedure. Instructions (impression formation versus memory) were also manipulated. Although the mood manipulation apparently worked and did influence the impression judgments of the target person, it did not selectively facilitate the recall of mood-congruent material, neither at the level of specific items nor at the categorical level. However, when only deviating behaviours are considered which do not fit the structural constraints, mood-congruent information is indeed better recalled. To interpret these results, it is argued that the manifestation of mood effects depends on the restrictions of different tasks or response modes. Three other findings were obtained: Superior recall of redundant, structurally consistent information compared with deviating information; an advantage of positive over negative information which is confined to the impression formation condition; and, surprisingly, an incongruency effect for the encoding mood which may reflect the deeper processing of incongruent material.     

Children's attitudes toward physically handicapped peers

The present study is a detailed exploration of children's attitudes toward physically handicapped peers. Subjects were 52 children, 26 handicapped and 26 nonhandicapped, ranging from 2nd through 8th grade. Along with 11 drawings depicting various physical impairments, children were administered an adjective checklist measure to assess affective responses toward target pictures, a preference questionnaire to assess behavioral intentions toward target pictures, a ranking task to assess perceptions of the physical capabilities of the target pictures, and a social desirability questionnaire to assess the children's desire to appear socially acceptable. In general, results indicated that older nonhandicapped children were more positive toward handicapped peers than were younger children and this was especially true for target pictures they perceived as least physically active. In addition, handicapped children held less positive attitudes toward the more “normal” target pictures than did nonhandicapped children. The present findings have important implications for the mainstreaming of physically handicapped children.     

Rorschach characteristics of mothers of incest victims

Investigated the Rorschach characteristics of 28 mothers of incest victims, using the Rorschach Comprehensive System. Their characteristics were compared to those from a control group of 28 women, matched with the target group for socioeconomic status (SES), age, education, marital status, and the presence of children. Chi-square, analysis of variance, and a stepwise linear discriminant function analysis were used to evaluate Rorschach differences between the control and target groups. Major findings indicate that mothers of incest victims demonstrated significantly greater weaknesses in reality testing, more frequent signs of depression, and greater interpersonal guardedness than control group mothers. Discriminant function analysis, based on scores from the schizophrenia index (SCZI), conventional form (chi + %), and texture responses (t), yielded an overall accurate classification rate of 87.5% for placement of women into the target and control group categories.     

Problem-Solving Appraisal and the Prediction of Depression During Pregnancy and in the Postpartum Period

Based on the presumed mood-regulatory properties of the problem orientation component delineated in the social problem-solving model, a positive problem orientation was predicted to influence ongoing levels of positive and negative affect during pregnancy. Higher levels of positive affect and lower levels of negative affect would then in turn predict depression during pregnancy and in the postpartum period. This hypothesis was tested in 100 women. Path analyses supported the predicted relation of the problem orientation components to trait affectivity, and indirectly to peripartum and postpartum depression. Trait negative and positive affectivity was also associated with peripartum depression, and indirectly with postpartum depression, as expected. Implications for the integrated social problem-solving model are discussed. Recommendations for assessment and counseling interventions with expectant women are offered.