The evolution of human intrasexual competition: tactics of mate attraction

Darwin's theory of sexual selection suggests that individuals compete with members of their own sex for reproductively relevant resources held by members of the opposite sex. Four empirical studies were conducted to identify tactics of intrasexual mate competition and to test four evolution-based hypotheses. A preliminary study yielded a taxonomy of tactics. Study 1 used close-friend observers to report performance frequencies of 23 tactics to test the hypotheses. Study 2 replicated Study 1's results by using a different data source and subject population. Study 3 provided an independent test of the hypotheses in assessing the perceived effectiveness of each tactic for male and female actors. Although the basic hypotheses were supported across all three studies, there were several predictive failures and unanticipated findings. Discussion centers on the heuristic as well as predictive role of evolutionary theory, and on implications for other arenas of intrasexual competition.     

Depression and mental control: the resurgence of unwanted negative thoughts

In three experiments we examined depressed individuals' mental control abilities and strategies. Experiment 1 revealed that although depressed college students were initially successful in suppressing negative material, they eventually experienced a resurgence of unwanted negative thoughts. Analysis of subjects' stream-of-consciousness reports indicated that this resurgence was associated with the use of negative thoughts as distracters from the unwanted item. In Experiment 2 depressed subjects acknowledged that positive distracters were more effective than negative ones in suppressing negative thoughts. This acknowledgement suggests that depressed subjects in Experiment 1 did not deliberately focus on negative distracters but that those thoughts automatically occurred because they were highly accessible. Experiment 3 demonstrated that depressed subjects' use of positive distracters could be increased somewhat when we provided such distracters and made them easily accessible. Taken together, the findings suggest that depression involves an enhanced accessibility of interconnected negative thoughts that can undermine mental control efforts.     

Coping, locus of control, social support, and combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder: a prospective study

We examined the relations between coping, locus of control, and social support and combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The sample consisted of 262 Israeli soldiers who suffered a combat stress reaction episode during the 1982 Lebanon war and were followed 2 and 3 years after their participation in combat. Cross-sectional analyses revealed significant relations between locus of control, coping, and social support and PTSD at the two points of assessment. Changes in PTSD from Time 1 to Time 2 were also associated with changes in coping. We discuss theoretical and methodological implications of the findings.     

Effects of Playing Videogames on Children's Aggressive and Other Behaviors1

Noting the pervasiveness of videogames in American culture, the authors set out to examine the effects that playing videogames has on children. Thirty-one children were matched on sex, randomly assigned to play either a violent (karate) videogame or a nonviolent (jungle vine swinging) videogame, and then observed during free play. The main results were that the children who had played the jungle swing videogame later played more with a jungle swing toy and that the children who played the violent videogame later showed more aggression. The authors interpreted the findings as an indication that young children who play videogames later tend to act similarly to how their videogame character acted.     

Local Opposition to the Construction of a Nuclear Power Station: Differential Salience of Impacts1

This study examined attitudes among 290 residents of three villages in South-West England toward proposals to build a nuclear power station nearby. Respondents were split into four groups according to whether they were neutral or in favor of a new power station either locally or elsewhere in the UK (Group PN), against one locally but neutral or pro elsewhere (LO), or moderately (MO) or extremely (XO) against a new power station both locally and elsewhere. The perceived impact of a nuclear power station on local life was assessed by 30 items. The PN group expected most benefit or least damage on all 30 items. On a majority of items the mean ratings of the LO group resembled those of the XO's more than did those of the MO's. A stepwise discriminant analysis yielded two interpretable functions. The first reflected a trend over the groups in the order PN-LO-MO-XO and was marked particularly by concern with impact on personal peace of mind. The second fuction discriminated the LO's from the other groups, suggesting that they were relatively less concerned with specifically nuclear risks, but more concerned with environmental conservation.     

On the Integration of Nomothetic and Idiographic Research Methods in the Study of Personal Meaning

ABSTRACT This study presents the technique of self-investigation as a research tool for the study of personal meaning from the perspective of the general and the particular After reviewing the nomothesis-idiography debate, I argue that personality psychology can benefit from a combination of nomothetic and idiographic research methodologies This creates a need for new theoretical frameworks that incorporate both nomo-concepts, enabling the study of people in general and idio-concepts, enabling the psychologist to understand the particular world of the individual Allport's term “value” is reformulated as the idio-concept “valuation,” which refers to personal meaning in an individual's history The term “affect,” as a central component in the process of valuation, is treated as a nomo-concept The relation between the two concepts is demonstrated by studying specific concerns in the history of an individual as recurrent expressions of general winner and loser experiences     

Influence of positive affect on the subjective utility of gains and losses: it is just not worth the risk

A modification of the procedure originally used by Davidson, Suppes, and Siegel (1956) to measure subjective utility was used to study the influence of positive affect on individuals' perceived value (utility) functions. Results indicated, as expected, that persons in whom positive affect had been induced showed a more negative subjective utility for losses than did controls. This indicates that losses seem worse to people who are feeling happy than to those in a control condition. The subjective utility functions of the two groups did not differ as much, however, when people were considering potential gain. Thus, at least in the situation tested in this study, potential gains did not seem to be more appealing (nor less so) for affect subjects than they did for controls. These findings are discussed in relation to theoretical issues in decision making and work suggesting that positive affect can promote increased sensitivity to losses in situations of potential meaningful loss.     

The effects of contextual information and gender on the prediction of hypnotic susceptibility

Council, Kirsch, and Hafner (1986) obtained empirical support for the hypothesis that significant correlations between questionnaire measures of absorption and hypnotic susceptibility are an artifact of subjects' beliefs about their own hypnotizability. We tested this hypothesis in a two-session experiment. During Session 1, subjects completed questionnaire measures of absorption, mystical experience, daydreaming frequency, and paranormal beliefs. During Session 2, subjects were tested for hypnotic susceptibility. Subjects were also exposed to one of three information manipulations: They were told about hypnotic testing either before or after filling out the questionnaires or were not told about hypnotic testing. The information manipulation moderated the prediction of susceptibility by the questionnaire measures for women, but not for men. For women, scores on the absorption questionnaire predicted susceptibility only when subjects were informed about hypnotic testing. In the told-after condition, this effect generalized to all of the remaining questionnaire measures. For men, none of the questionnaires was a reliable predictor of susceptibility.     

The recognition of threatening facial stimuli

Two studies examined the information that defines a threatening facial display. The first study identified those facial characteristics that distinguish between representations of threatening and nonthreatening facial displays. Masks that presented either threatening or nonthreatening facial displays were obtained from a number of non-Western cultures and scored for the presence of those facial features that discriminated between such displays in the drawings of two American samples. Threatening masks contained a significantly higher number of these characteristics across all cultures examined. The second study determined whether the information provided by the facial display might be more primary nonrepresentational visual patterns than facial features with obvious denotative meaning (e.g., diagonal lines rather than downturned eyebrows). The subjective response to sets of diagonal, angular, and curvilinear visual stimuli revealed that the nonrepresentational features of angularity and diagonality in the visual stimulus appeared to have the ability to evoke the subjective responses that convey the meaning of threat.