Thin Is In? Think Again: The Rising Importance of Muscularity in the Thin Ideal Female Body

Research has documented an increased emphasis on fitness in media targeting women. However, it is unclear whether this emphasis has resulted in increased muscularity in the perceived ideal female body shape. We sought to evaluate whether the ideal female figure has incorporated increased muscularity into the existing ideal body type that already emphasizes thinness. In Study 1, 78 female undergraduates evaluated images of U.S. beauty pageant winners over the past 15 years on dimensions of thinness, muscularity, and attractiveness. Results indicated that muscularity and thinness ratings of pageant winners significantly increased over time. In Study 2, 64 female undergraduates evaluated two different versions of the same image of a model: a Thin Muscular image and a Thin Only image in which the appearance of muscularity was removed through digital editing. When images were presented in pairs, results indicated that participants found the Thin Muscular image more attractive than the Thin Only image. These results suggest that the current perceived ideal female figure includes both extreme thinness and muscularity and that women prefer this muscular thin figure to a solely thin figure. These findings have implications for clinical treatments related to body image, compulsive exercise, and media literacy.     

Childhood contact predicts hemispheric asymmetry in cross-race face processing

Participants typically process same-race faces more quickly and more accurately than cross-race faces. This deficit is amplified in the right hemisphere of the brain, presumably due to its involvement in configural processing. The present research tested the idea that cross-race contact tunes cognitive and perceptual systems, influencing this asymmetric race-based deficit in face processing. Participants with high and low levels of contact performed a lateralized recognition task with same- and cross-race faces. Replicating prior work, participants with minimal contact showed cross-race deficits in processing that were larger in the right hemisphere. For participants with more contact, this lateralized deficit disappeared. This effect of contact seems to be independent of race-based attitudes (e.g., prejudice).     

More or less: spontaneous quantity discrimination in the domestic cat

We examined spontaneous quantity discrimination in untrained domestic cats in three food choice experiments. In Experiment 1, we presented the cats with two different quantities of food in eight numerical combinations. Overall, the subjects chose the larger quantity more often than the smaller one, and significantly so when the ratio between the quantities was less than 0.5. In Experiment 2, we presented the cats with two pieces of food in four different size combinations. Again, subjects chose the larger piece above chance, although not in the combination where the largest item was presented. In Experiment 3, a subset of the cats was presented multiple times with two different quantities of food, which were hidden from view. In this case, the cats did not choose the larger quantity more often than the smaller one, suggesting that in the present experiments they mainly used visual cues when comparing quantities. We conclude that domestic cats are capable of spontaneously discriminating quantities when faced with different numbers or sizes of food items, and we suggest why they may not always be motivated to choose the larger quantity. In doing so, we highlight the advantages of testing spontaneous choice behavior, which is more likely to reflect animals’ everyday manner of responding than is the case when training them in order to test their absolute limits of performance which may not always coincide with their daily needs.     

Tips to make research teaching and learning enjoyable and productive for counsellors,psychotherapists and their tutors

This article identifies the learning expectations and experiences of qualified counsellors and psychotherapists undertaking higher education awards with specific regard to research activity. Drawing on the current literature and some early findings from focus group research with students, combined with our personal and professional experiences, we identify what contributes to a productive research experience. This is used as a basis to provide tips for both teachers and those new to research to make counselling and psychotherapy research enjoyable and productive. A full research paper is in preparation.     

The diminishing marginal value of happy people

Thomas Hurka has recently proposed a utilitarian theory which would effect a compromise between Average and Total utilitarianism, the better to deal with issues in population ethics. This Compromise theory would incorporate the principle that the value which an extra happy person contributes to a possible world is a decreasing function of the total population of that world: that happy people are of diminishing marginal value. In spite of its initial plausibility I argue against this principle. I show that the Compromise theory is actually no improvement over the two original versions of utilitarianism; in particular, it is subject to almost all the objections which are fatal to Average utilitarianism, and more besides. And I attempt to dispell the appearance that intuition supports the Compromise theory as against Total utilitarianism, by arguing that the latter's Repugnant Conclusion, when properly understood, is not intuitively unacceptable. Total utilitarianism remains a plausible ethical theory, while both the Average and the Compromise theories should be definitely rejected.     

Formal operations, the imaginary audience and the personal fable

One hundred twenty-nine 6th, 8th, 10th/11th, and 12th graders were administered Enright, Lapsley, and Shukla's Adolescent Egocentrism Scale (AES) and How Is Your Logic?, a Piagetian-based, group-administered, written test of cognitive development. A series of ANOVAs on four scales of the AES (imaginary audience, personal fable, self-in-general, nonsocial) provided partial support for Inhelder and Piaget's, and Elkind's views that adolescent egocentrism is a function of beginning formal operations. Discussion focused on the difficulty of assessing the true thoughts/feelings of persons who are worried how they will appear to others.     

Working memory in chess

Three experiments investigated the role of working memory in various aspects of thinking in chess. Experiment 1 examined the immediate memory for briefly presented chess positions from master games in players from a wide range of abilities, following the imposition of various secondary tasks designed to block separate components of working memory. Suppression of the articulatory loop (by preventing subvocal rehearsal) had no effect on measures of recall, whereas blocking the visuospatial sketchpad (by manipulation of a keypad) and blocking the central executive (by random letter generation) had equivalent disruptive effects, in comparison with a control condition. Experiment 2 investigated the effects of similar secondary tasks on the solution (i.e., move selection) of tactical chess positions, and a similar pattern was found, except that blocking the central executive was much more disruptive than in Experiment 1. Experiment 3 compared performance on two types of primary task, one concerned with solving chess positions as in Experiment 2, and the other a sentence-rearrangement task. The secondary tasks in each case were both designed to block the central executive, but one was verbal (vocal generation of random numbers), while the other was spatial in nature (random generation of keypresses). Performance of the spatial secondary task was affected to a greater extent by the chess primary task than by the verbal primary task, whereas there were no differential effects on these secondary tasks by the verbal primary task. In none of the three experiments were there any differential effects between weak and strong players. These results are interpreted in the context of the workingmemory model and previous theories of the nature of cognition in chess.     

A behaviour modification project with chronic schizophrenics in the community

A major shortcoming of token economies is their failure to ensure carry over of behavioural gains into the community; hence it is logical to investigate the feasibility of behavioural programmes for schizophrenics in their own homes. The token economy literature and the literature on behavioural interventions in the natural environment provide guidelines but also indicate possible difficulties arising from the nature of the illness and the use of the family setting.

Despite numerous accounts of effective behavioural treatment of schizophrenics (Ullman and Krasner, 1965; Ayllon and Azrin, 1968; Atthowe and Krasner, 1968; Stoffelmayr et al., 1973) here and there in the literature a note of caution is sounded. Meyer and Chesser(1970) and Yates (1970) suggest that there is undue optimism. Kazdin (1973) notes that reports of non-response in psychotics range from 10 per cent (Atthowe and Krasner. 1968) to 52 per cent (Panek 1969). Non-response is sometimes attributed to practical or administrative obstacles (Ayllon and Azrin, 1968; Hall and Baker, 1973) or shortcomings in the application or Operant principles (Ayllon and Azrin, 1965; Atthowe and Krasner, 1968; Kazdin and Bootzin, 1972). but more serious objections stem from the view that Operant principles may be applicable only to certain aspects of the behaviour of psychotics, such as apathy and withdrawal fostered by institutional environments. Operant technology may fail to take into account the antecedents of behaviour, including anxiety, delusions and hallucinations or covert consequences such as relief of anxiety (Davison, 1969). ‘Non-functioning’ behaviour, particularly deficit in social interaction, and paranoid behaviour, have been found especially resistant, the former because of initial low levels of the desired behaviour, the latter because of covert self-reinforcement (Libermann, 1968). Kazdin (1973) suggests that there is support from laboratory studies for the view that response patterns in psychotics may be atypical. A further qualification is that one cannot readily generalise from the American ‘chronic schizophrenic’ to his British counterpart (Cooper et al., 1972) nor from the long-stay patient to the chronic schizophrenic in the community.

The literature on behavioural intervention in the family setting gives further cause for caution. Thomas and Walter (1973) report a 27 per cent dropout, and suggest this was due to client inaccessibility, “countervailing environmental influences”, non-compliance, crises and unstable domestic situations. Patterson (1972) and Sajwaj (1973) cite parents' personal problems. Tharp and Wetzel (1969) rejection of Operant methods, and Salzinger et al. (1972) parents' poor verbal ability and low educational achievement as factors related to unsuccessful outcome. In the Project described below, it was hoped that problems would be more clearly identified and that a beginning might be made in selecting suitable cases for behaviour modification in the family setting.