Sexual Desire and Depression Following Spinal Cord Injury: Masculine Sexual Prowess as a Moderator

Men’s adherence to masculine norms stressing sexual prowess may contribute to their adjustment to changes in sexual functioning following spinal cord injury. The authors test this hypothesis by examining the moderating role of men’s conformity to gender norms for sexual prowess on the relationship between sexual desire and depression. One hundred and sixteen male citizens of the United States with spinal cord injuries were recruited for participation in the internet-based survey. Results indicated that participants with strong sexual desire evinced higher rates of depression when they conformed to masculine norms emphasizing sexual prowess. Men with little reported sexual desire, by contrast, demonstrated lower rates of depression when they endorsed norms for prowess. Directions for future research and treatment interventions are offered.     

The development of hand preference in children: The effect of task demands and links with manual dexterity

Lateralisation of hand preference and manual dexterity are known to develop over childhood, while in adulthood strength of hand preference has been shown to interact with extrinsic task demands. Some evidence exists to suggest that strength of hand preference and motor skill may be related. In the current study a handedness inventory, midline crossing (QHP) and peg-moving tasks were used to investigate: (1) the development of hand preference between 4 and 11 years; (2) whether extrinsic task demands affect strength of hand preference, and (3) whether strength of hand preference was associated with manual dexterity. Younger children (4–5 years) showed weak hand preference in comparison to older children (8–11 years), and extrinsic task demands influenced willingness to cross the body’s midline with the preferred hand. Age and peg-moving speed were associated with midline crossing in certain task conditions. Overall, results suggest a coupling between manual dexterity and brain maturation in typical development.     

“Hooking Up” at College: Does Religion Make a Difference?

Recent attention from media, scholars, and religious leadership has focused on the dating activities of college students, particularly in relation to casual physical encounters or what some have termed "hooking up." In this article, we examine the impact of both individual and institutional religious involvement on "hooking up" in a national sample of college women ( N = 1,000). The results of our analysis reveal several important patterns. First, Catholic college women are more likely to have "hooked up" while at school than college women with no religious affiliation. Second, conservative Protestant college women are less likely to have "hooked up" while at school than college women with no religious affiliation; however, this difference is mediated or explained by church attendance, which is protective against "hooking up." Finally, women who attend colleges and universities with a Catholic affiliation are more likely to have hooked up while at school than women who attend academic institutions with no religious affiliation, net of individual-level religious involvement.     

Organizational context and face-to-face interaction: Influences on the development of trust and collaborative behaviors in computer-mediated groups

Using adaptive structuration theory as a framework [DeSanctis, G., & Poole, M. S. (1994). Capturing the complexity in advanced technology use: Adaptive structuration theory. Organization Science, 5(2), 121–147], we examined the influence of organizational context (competitive versus cooperative) and introductory meeting communication medium (face-to-face versus electronic) on the development of trust and collaborative behaviors of dyads communicating electronically. Based on a sample of 208 senior business students operating in computer-mediated (CM) dyads while performing a strategic decision-making simulation, we found that context, introductory communication medium, and time interacted to influence trust and collaborative behaviors. The pattern of development of trust and collaborative behaviors differed for the same introductory communication medium in different context conditions. Further, the level of trust and collaboration for dyad members in the competitive/electronic introductory meeting condition lagged significantly behind those in the other conditions. The findings suggest that introductory face-to-face interaction plays a more important role in facilitating the development of trust and collaboration in a CM environment when the context is competitive.     

Fighting the Elephant in the Room: Ethical Reflections on White Privilege and Other Systems of Advantage in the Teaching of Religion

This article contends that teaching more effectively for diversity requires a radical re‐envisioning of pedagogical practice. Drawing on qualitative interviews with religion and theology professors of color throughout the United States, it explores how faculty can re‐imagine their teaching by engaging students where they are, acknowledging the reality of oppression, and dealing with resistance. Stressing mindfulness of social location, it provides examples of liberating teaching activities and competences and shows how literary and visual “texts” from the margins and personal metaphors of embodiment can challenge captivities to hegemonic paradigms in the classroom. The article concludes with responses from colleagues who have worked closely with the author. Ethicist Melanie Harris brings Hill's method into dialogue with Womanist pedagogy, and historian of religion Hjamil Martínez‐Vázquez reflects on the role of suffering in building a revolutionary/critical pedagogy.     

Televised sexual content and parental mediation: Influences on adolescent sexuality

Little research has been conducted to examine the influence of exposure to televised sexual content on adolescent sexuality or how parental intervention may reduce negative effects of viewing such content. This study uses self-report data from 1,012 adolescents to investigate the relations among exposure to sexually suggestive programming, parental mediation strategies, and three types of adolescent sexuality outcomes: participation in oral sex and sexual intercourse, future intentions to engage in these behaviors, and sex expectancies. As predicted, exposure to sexual content was associated with an increased likelihood of engaging in sexual behaviors, increased intentions to do so in the future, and more positive sex expectancies. Often, parental mediation strategies were a significant factor in moderating these potential media influences.     

Involvement of the rostral anterior cingulate cortex in consolidation of inhibitory avoidance memory: interaction with the basolateral amygdala

Previous findings suggest that the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) is involved in memory for emotionally arousing training. There is also extensive evidence that the basolateral amygdala (BLA) modulates the consolidation of emotional arousing training experiences via interactions with other brain regions. The present experiments examined the effects of posttraining intra-rACC infusions of the cholinergic agonist oxotremorine (OXO) on inhibitory avoidance (IA) retention and investigated whether the BLA and rACC interact in enabling OXO effects on memory. In the first experiment, male Sprague-Dawley rats were implanted with bilateral cannulae above the rACC and given immediate posttraining OXO infusions. OXO (0.5 or 3 ng) induced significant enhancement of retention performance on a 48-h test. In the second experiment, unilateral posttraining OXO infusions (0.5, 3.0 or 10 ng) enhanced retention when infused into rACC, but not caudal ACC, consistent with previous evidence that ACC is composed of functionally distinct regions. A third experiment investigated the effects of posttraining intra-rACC OXO infusions (0.5 or 10 ng) in rats with bilateral sham or NMDA-induced lesions of the BLA. The BLA lesions did not impair IA retention, but blocked the enhancement induced by posttraining intra-rACC OXO infusions. Lastly, unilateral NMDA lesions of rACC blocked the enhancement of IA retention induced by posttraining ipsilateral OXO infusions into the BLA. These findings support the hypothesis that the rACC is involved in modulating the storage of emotional events and provide additional evidence that the BLA modulates memory consolidation through interactions with efferent brain regions, including the cortex.     

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Reconciling Deflationary Semantics with Correspondence Intuitions

This paper has three main concerns. First, it proposes a deflationary theory of the concept of truth, arguing thatthe concept can be explicitly defined in terms of substitutionalquantification. Second, it attempts to describe and explainthe intuitions that have traditionally been thought tofavor correspondence theories of truth over deflationarytheories. And third, it argues that these intuitions areultimately compatible with deflationism, maintaining,among other things, that the relation of semantic correspondence can itself be characterized in terms ofsubstitutional quantification.