AN ACQUAINTANCE RAPE PREVENTION PROGRAM

The present study investigated the effects of an acquaintance-rape prevention program on college students' attitudes toward rape and attitudes toward women, perceptions of acquaintance-rape scenarios, and rape empathy. Participants were led to believe that they were participating in two separate experiments in order to decrease demand characteristics. Results indicated that intervention group men and women became more empathic toward the victim than the control group, postintervention. Within the intervention group, men changed more in their attitudes toward women postintervention than did women. In addition to positive attitude change, results with the date-rape scenarios suggested that intervention-group men became more certain of their definitions of rape situations postintervention. Prior to the intervention, women were generally more certain of their definitions than were men, with intervention-group men approximating women's responses postintervention.     

Relationship of drug use to involvement in school, home, and community activities: results of a large survey of adolescents.

All 7th, 9th, and 11th grade students in 129 school districts responded to a 466-variable survey that primarily assessed drug use but also contained questions about involvement in various activities. Meaningful relationships were obtained between students' involvement in school, family, and church activities and reported use of tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana. Factors reflecting the extent of parental supervision were also related to the reported use of those substances.     

Managing stress and managing illness: Survival and quality of life in chronic disease

Interest has been steadily building in the impact of stress on psychological and physiological functioning, in particular on immune system responses, furthering the concept of a strong connection between the mind and the body. Implications for prevention of disease onset or treatment of stress-induced illness or immunocompromised conditions have been explored through the implementation of stress management techniques. Cognitive behavioral stress management interventions, biofeedback, relaxation, guided imagery, hypnosis, individual and group psychotherapy, aerobic exercise, and guided self-efficacy treatment are briefly reviewed to identify possible treatment mechanisms that may affect immune function and promote quality of life. The application of behavioral techniques to reduce distress and sharpen coping skills has great promise in reducing the costs associated with chronic disease and in enhancing quality of life among those afflicted.Presented at the APA Presidential Miniconvention, To Your Health: Psychology Through the Life Span, Session VIII, Assuring a Healthy Lifestyle: Psychology Delivers. Chair: Diane J. Willis, Ph.D. The third author received partial funding through the Terry Fox Research Fellowship 5257, National Cancer Institute of Canada.     

The conjunction fallacy?

Tversky and Kahneman (1983) showed that when subjects are asked to rate the likelihood of several alternatives, including single and joint events, they often make a "conjunction fallacy." That is, they rate the conjunction of two events as being more likely than one of the constituent events. This, they claim, is a fallacy, since the conjunction of two events can never be more probable than either of the component events. In addition, they found that prior training in probability theory does not decrease the likelihood of making this fallacy. We argue that in some contexts, an alternative that contains the conjunction of two events can be more probable than an alternative that contains only one of the conjunction's constituent events. We carried out four experiments in which we manipulated this context. The frequency of making a conjunction fallacy was affected by the manipulation of context. Furthermore, when the context was clearly specified, prior training in statistics influenced the ratings.     

A 64-station computer-assisted teaching and research facility

A 64-subject computer-controlled laboratory for use in research and as a teaching aid is described. The laboratory hardware includes an 8K minicomputer, a 64-channel input multiplexor, and a video display generator. The software includes a complete operating system and an easy-to-use programming language. The entire laboratory, including the computer, was built for under $12,000.     

Thinking “Outside the Box”: Unconstrained Creative Generation in Adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Creative generation is structured around existing knowledge and task examples, yet overreliance on specific examples may limit imagination (Ward, T. B., Finke, R. A., & Smith, S. M., 1995). The constraining influence of knowledge during creative generation may be offset by conceptual expansion, a process of thinking outside traditional conceptual boundaries, which may be heightened by distractibility and mild executive dysfunction (Abraham, A., Windmann, S., Daum, I., & Güntürkün, O., 2005). The present study explored the constraining effects of knowledge in adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a disorder characterized by impaired attention and inhibitory control (Barkley, R. A., 1997). College students with and without ADHD were compared on two creative generation measures: an alien fruit invention task that required participants to imagine fruit that might exist on another planet (Ward, T.B., 1994), and a product label invention task wherein the goal was to invent product names without using elements of task examples (Kray, L.J., Galinski, A.D. & Wong, E.M., 2006). ADHD participants created alien fruit that diverged more from Earth fruit and labels that conformed less to examples, relative to non-ADHD peers. Results suggest that adults with ADHD may be less constrained by knowledge during creative generation. Findings are discussed in terms of theoretical import and practical implications for individuals with ADHD.     

College Students’ Perceptions of and Responses to Academic Dishonesty: An Investigation of Type of Honor Code,Institution Size,and Student–Faculty Ratio

College students (n = 928) from small, medium, and large institutions with either a modified or no honor code were presented with cheating scenarios and asked to rate how dishonest they perceived the behavior to be and the likelihood that they would report it. No main effects were found for institution size or type of honor code. Student–faculty ratio was not correlated with responses to the cheating scenarios. Students from modified honor code schools perceived more severe punishments for cheating and understood the reporting process better than students from non–honor code schools. Implications for modified honor code systems are discussed.