Clinical Utility of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) in the Spanish Transsexual and Nontranssexual Population

The aim of the study is to evaluate the usefulness of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI; Bem, 1974), an overall measurement of the cultural construct of masculinity and femininity, in the psychological assessment of Spanish transsexuals. Seventy male-to-female transsexuals (MF), 51 female-to-male transsexuals (FM), 77 control men, and 79 control women completed the Spanish version of the BSRI. Statistically significant differences between groups were only found on the femininity scale, on which MF transsexuals and control women scored significantly higher than FM transsexuals and control men. The results indicate that (a) only the femininity scale of the BSRI appears to be useful today for evaluating differences in the sex-role identification in Spanish controls and transsexuals; and (b) MF and FM transsexuals score as a function of their gender identity instead of their anatomical sex on the BSRI femininity scale.     

Exploring the perception of social characteristics in faces using the isolation effect

The age, sex, and distinctiveness of faces can be judged from objective and partially independent facial features. In contrast, the physical basis of other social judgements, such as attractiveness, intelligence, and trustworthiness is not as yet entirely understood, despite the consistency of these judgements from faces. The present set of experiments investigated the perception of social characteristics in faces, using an adaptation of the von Restorff/isolation paradigm to determine which social characteristics are spontaneously encoded from the face. The isolation effect involves enhanced memory for perceptually salient items in a list (items that are isolated in the sense that they are in numeric minority) and our results suggested that its locus is at the encoding stage of the recognition memory experiment. Isolation in the present experiments was achieved by manipulating the number of faces included in the sets on the basis of certain characteristics. Because the manipulation of the characteristics of faces in a set to be learnt was not mentioned in most of the experiments, any resulting memory increment for the isolated items could be taken as an index of spontaneous processing of the manipulated social characteristic. Age and sex were found to be spontaneously encoded from faces. Results for other characteristics were mixed, ranging from distinctiveness and attractiveness, for which there was some indication of spontaneous processing, to intelligence and trustworthiness, which did not seem to be spontaneously encoded from faces. For intelligence, an isolation effect was found only when the experiment required a judgement that led to activation of the appropriate stereotype.     

When intuition fails to align with data: A reply to Rossion (2013)

Holistic processing, a hallmark of face perception, is often measured in the so-called composite paradigm, in which participants are asked to match part of a stimulus while ignoring another part. In prior work, we recommended against the use of one version of the composite task we call the partial design, on the basis of confounds with response biases. Rossion wrote a lengthy piece that reviews the work that he has published using this design, raising a large number of criticisms, both about an alternative measure of holistic processing that we have used and advocated (which we call the complete design) and about our work in general. In this reply, we have limited our discussion to those issues that would be relevant to a researcher looking to decide which version of this composite paradigm to use, as we doubt a comprehensive reply would be of significant interest outside a very small circle.     

The phonological loop in task alternation and task repetition

It has recently been proposed that task repetition is easier than task alternation because the appropriate task settings are already present in working memory, whereas during task alternation task settings must be retrieved from long-term memory (Mayr & Kliegl, 2000). The present study tested whether the phonological loop is involved in keeping the relevant task settings active in working memory. It may then be expected that concurrent articulatory suppression would diminish the facilitation associated with task repetition because the phonological loop could no longer maintain the appropriate task settings active in working memory. Both during task repetition and task alternation the relevant task settings should then be retrieved from long-term memory. Three dual-task experiments were conducted. The results of Experiment 1 were in support of our prediction. Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1 and showed that the task settings probably represent the adequate response mappings. Experiment 3 ruled out the involvement of the visuo-spatial sketchpad and more general coordination demands during dual tasking.     

A gendered approach to workforce participation patterns over the life course for an Australian baby boom cohort

Population ageing and its future implications for governments and individuals have been central to much policy debate and research targeted to retain older people in the workforce. This study identified workforce participation patterns across the adult life course for women and men entering later life, and explored the influences of various early and adult life socio-demographic circumstances. Data were collected from 1261 men and women aged 60 to 64 years in the Life History and Health (LHH) Survey (a sub-study of the Sax Institute's 45 and Up Study, Australia) in 2010–11. LHH provides detailed information on personal histories of paid work, socio-economic resources from childhood (number of books and father's occupation) and adult life factors such as educational attainment, marital histories, childcare and informal caring. Latent class analysis (LCA) was undertaken to identify patterns of workforce participation for participants across their adult life. Significant gender differences were confirmed. Further analysis (LCA with covariates) showed that women who reported having books during childhood, and those who had post-school qualification, were more likely to have mostly been in paid work and less likely to have not been in paid work; while ever partnered women had significantly higher odds of increasing part time work over time. Men who had reported ever having had informal caring activities were likely to have had decreasing participation in paid work over time, and were highly likely to be not in paid work after 55 years. Ever partnered status was protective for being in paid work for men. These findings indicate the need for gender-specific policies and strategies to enable continued workforce participation throughout adult life and into later working years, particularly for people who had fewer social or economic opportunities earlier in life.     

Now you see it,now you don't: Explaining inconsistent evidence on gender stereotyping of newborns

Parental gender‐stereotyped perceptions of newborns—particularly their physical characteristics—have been discussed as important determinants of sex role socialization from birth on. However, corresponding empirical evidence is inconclusive. We propose that inconsistent findings on gender‐correlated perceptions are due to whether or not actual physical differences between newborn girls and boys are properly (statistically or experimentally) taken into account. In our study, 55 mother–father pairs rated both their own and two unknown newborns, labeled either female or male. Although we successfully replicated the typical gender‐correlated perceptions of own newborns' physical characteristics, all effects were explainable by actual physical sex differences in length and weight at birth. Similarly, no gender‐specific rating differences emerged as a function of labeled gender of unknown children matched in actual physical characteristics. Altogether, the findings demonstrate the vital importance of considering existing sex differences between newborn girls and boys for drawing valid conclusions on gender stereotyping of newborns.     

The free and cued selective reminding test: Validation for mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease

The International Working Group on Alzheimer's disease (AD) suggested the free and cued selective reminding test (FCSRT) to assess memory, as it showed high sensitivity and specificity in the differentiation of AD from healthy controls and other dementias. The FCSRT involves the use of selective reminding with semantic cueing in memory assessment. This study aims to validate the FCSRT for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD through the analysis of the diagnostic accuracy and the suggestion of cut‐off scores. Patients were classified into two groups according to standard criteria: MCI (n = 100) and AD (n = 70). A matched control group (n = 101) of cognitively healthy subjects was included. The reliability and the validity of the FCSRT were analysed on the immediate (IR) and delayed (DR) recalls. The Cronbach's alpha was 0.915 for the IR and 0.879 for the DR. The total recall measures revealed good areas under the curve for MCI (IR: .818; DR: .828) and excellent for AD (IR: .987; DR: .991). Furthermore, the MCI group was subdivided with respect to a non‐similar/similar AD pattern of impairment, with almost half of the subjects showing an AD‐like decline. This analysis represents a novel contribution regarding the properties of the FCSRT in illustrating the heterogeneity of MCI at baseline. The FCSRT has proved to be a very useful tool in the characterization of the memory impairment of the AD spectrum.     

A Short Form of the Portuguese Version of the Youth Self-Report

The youth self-report (YSR), which is theoretically based in the field of developmental psychopathology and follows a dimensional approach, is an important instrument to assess the behavioral and emotional problems and the psychosocial competencies of adolescents between the ages of 11 and 18 years in both clinical and research contexts. Our main aims were to propose a short form of the YSR, conduct a first validation study, and compare the short-form YSR with the full version of the Portuguese YSR. We conducted the first study (Study 1) in a sample of 1,266 Portuguese community adolescents between the ages of 11 and 21 years to analyze the factor structure of the YSR. We conducted the second study (Study 2) in a sample of 302 community adolescents between the ages of 11 and 21 years to validate the factor structure of the short form of the YSR, which consisted of 33 items that focused on the dimensions of internalization-depression, internalization-anxiety, externalization-destructiveness and externalization-exhibitionism. Our findings confirmed that the YSR-SF provides a good fit to the data, explains similarly the variance on several criteria compared with the longer version, and is sensitive to sex and age differences.