Information and attitudes about HIV/AIDS in Portuguese adolescents: state of art and changes in a four year period

The incidence of infection with HIV/AIDS among the heterosexual population has been increasing in young adults. The goal of this research was to deepen knowledge of preventive sexual behavior in Portuguese adolescents, including knowledge and attitudes about HIV/AIDS, and assessing whether they changed from 2002 to 2006. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire from the Portuguese sample of the Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC), a collaborative WHO study. The study provides national representative data of 7093 Portuguese adolescents, randomly chosen from those attending 8th and 10th grade of high school. Results showed there was an increase in the age of first sexual intercourse and a decrease in the number of teenagers who reported having had sexual intercourse, also in the level of information regarding HIV/AIDS transmission/prevention and in positive attitudes towards people with HIV/AIDS. In general, adolescents have good knowledge about how to protect themselves from becoming infected. However, comparing to 2002, there was a reduction of knowledge and consequent increase in the doubts regarding HIV/AIDS. Given the incipient state of sex education in 2006, the results cannot be attributed to sex education, but they will be relevant for comparison with the 2010 HBSC results.     

The Effect of Religious Clothing on Gaze Behavior: An Eye-Tracking Experiment

There are very few experimental studies regarding religious clothing. In the current study, we hypothesized that the function of conservative clothing hiding female curvaceous body features is to restrict visual access and consequently decreases female physical attractiveness. Using eye-tracking, we quantified dwell times and number of fixations on religious clothing, ranging from conservative to liberal. Results showed that conservative religious clothing decreased visual access to female curvaceous body features and instead focused visual attention to the head/face region. Results were discussed in terms of the roles of conservative clothing in women’s clothing choice, men’s mate retention tactics, and parent-offspring conflict over mate choice.     

Going for Gold: Understanding Talent Development Through the Lived Experiences of US Female Olympians

Using qualitative methods design, this research examined the talent development process of US female Olympians. In addition, models of talent development in gifted women in other domains assisted in understanding the development of talent in elite female athletes. Interpretation of the experiences of the participants indicated that the models of talent development for gifted women contribute to an understanding of female athletic talent development. Yet, models presented in both sport and other professional domains do not capture all aspects of talent development as lived by the participants in this project. Within current models of talent development for athletes there is no discussion regarding what occurs after an athlete reaches the elite level of participation. A more fully integrated model of talent development must also include the contributions of athletic talent development toward development as fully actualized human beings. The participants in this research acknowledged significant development that occurred following their elite level of participation.     

Evaluation of the effects of a childhood depression prevention program

The study aimed to design and evaluate a program for the prevention of childhood depression (“Pozik-Bizi” [in English, “Live-Happily”]), comparing its effects with a socio-emotional intervention program based on cooperative play. The sample comprised 420 students aged 7 to 10?years from the Basque Country, 51.9% were randomly assigned to the experimental condition (“Pozik-Bizi”) program and 48.1% to the control group (“Play program”). Using a pretest-posttest repeated measures experimental design, 7 evaluation instruments were administered. When comparing the two interventions, it was confirmed that those who participated in the “Pozik-Bizi” program significantly decreased their level of clinical maladjustment, school maladjustment, emotional, and behavioral problems, and they increased positive behaviors that inhibit depression. However, the cooperative play program improved self-concept and social skills significantly more than the “Pozik-Bizi” program. The effect size in all the variables was small. The discussion analyzes the effectiveness of specific programs of prevention of childhood depression versus global programs of social-emotional development. This work provides a program to prevent childhood depression that has been shown to be effective in the reduction of clinical variables. In addition, this study confirms the positive potential of programs of cooperative play, to increase self-concept and social skills.     

When insecurity dampens desire: Attachment anxiety in men amplifies the decline in sexual desire during the early years of romantic relationships

Sexual desire is typically high during early relationship stages and decreases gradually over time. In the present research, we adopted an attachment-theoretical perspective to investigate why sexual desire for romantic partners erodes more rapidly for some people than others. We employed two samples of developing relationships (dating couples, N = 62; and newlyweds, N = 175) and examined the effects of attachment insecurities on sexual desire in prospective longitudinal designs. Results showed that attachment anxiety moderated the trajectory of men's sexual desire, such that over time, highly anxious men declined in desiring their partner, whereas less anxious men's desire did not drop. Attachment avoidance also predicted lower levels of initial desire in both sexes. These findings suggest that avoidance generally interferes with relationship initiation for both sexes, whereas anxiety in men interferes with the maintenance of desire over time, possibly because of sensitivity to increasing interdependence.     

“We Need to Make Action NOW,to Help Keep the Language Alive”: Navigating Tensions of Engaging Indigenous Educational Values in University Education

Despite centuries of contact and conquest, Indigenous communities persist in maintaining their cultures and psychologies. Key to this success in cultural survival is the maintenance of Indigenous languages, which contain distinct worldviews. However, Indigenous languages are at risk, with fewer and fewer fluent Elder speakers. Fortunately, there remain committed groups of community educators who carry out Indigenous language education. Current mainstream teacher education programs do not typically introduce the importance of Indigenous language education to teacher candidates, who are the next generation of K‐12 teachers. We view this as highly problematic, and thus carried out a proof‐of‐concept project in which one U.S. university's American Indian/Alaska Native teacher candidates collaborated with, and learned from, Indigenous language educators during a two‐week‐long summer institute at the university. In our article, we share three main findings, based on qualitative analyses of daily‐written student journals collected during the two‐week pilot project: (a) Indigenous language education supports the social justice vision in the American Psychological Association's Multicultural Guidelines; (b) intergenerational educational opportunities are invaluable for affirming Indigenous psychologies; and (c) Indigenous community language educators do important survivance work. Our findings provide insight into how Indigenous language education is crucial for advancing education that honors Indigenous community psychological well‐being.     

The influence of emotional awareness and expressiveness on care-giving burden and health complaints in women and men

This study was designed to investigate the role of emotional awareness and expressiveness as influences on the experience of burden and impaired health for women and men maintaining a spouse or relative at home who had been diagnosed as having dementia. One hundred and thirty-one Caucasian care givers, 41 males and 90 females, participated in the study. Multivariate analysis of variance indicated that women scored higher than men on measures of burden, health complaints, and awareness of others' emotions. Regression analysis indicated that self-awareness of emotions interacted with care-giver gender to decrease health complaints for female care givers but increased health complaints for male care givers. Self-awareness of emotions also increased feelings of burden for male care givers in general and for female care givers experiencing low levels of burden. Awareness of others' emotions tended to reduce feelings of burden. Emotional expressiveness did not influence burden or health complaint scores.This research was funded by grants from the Health Research Funds of Quebec, the Quebec Council for Social Research, and the Montreal Alzheimer Society. The authors would like to express their gratitude to Valerie Takeda, Charlene Stamegna, and Helene Fyfe for their work on the project, and to the families, patients, and staff of the various referral agencies for their cooperation with the study.To whom reprint requests should be addressed at Centre for Research in Human Development, Concordia University, 1455 de Maisonneuve Boulevard West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3G 1M8.     

Neuronal NT-3 Is not Required For Synaptic Transmission or Long-Term Potentiation in Area CA1 of the Adult Rat Hippocampus

Neurotrophic factors, including BDNF and NT-3, have been implicated in the regulation of synaptic transmission and plasticity. Previous attempts to analyze synaptic transmission and plasticity in mice lacking the NT-3 gene have been hampered by the early death of the NT-3 homozygous knockout animals. We have bypassed this problem by examining synaptic transmission in mice in which the NT-3 gene is deleted in neurons later in development, by crossing animals expressing the CRE recombinase driven by the synapsin I promoter to animals in which the NT-3 gene is floxed. We conducted blind field potential recordings at the Schaffer collateral–CA1 synapse in hippocampal slices from homozygous knockout and wild-type mice. We examined the following indices of synaptic transmission: (1) input-output relationship; (2) paired-pulse facilitation; (3) post-tetanic potentiation; and (4) long-term potentiation: induced by two different protocols: (a) two trains of 100-Hz stimulation and (b) theta burst stimulation. We found no difference between the knockout and wild-type mice in any of the above measurements. These results suggest that neuronal NT-3 does not play an essential role in normal synaptic transmission and some forms of plasticity in the mouse hippocampus.     

Fear of failure in males: A more salient factor than fear of success in females?

Sex differences in self-attributions following winning or losing in a highly competitive achievement-type situation were investigated. Subjects competed in same- or mixed-sex pairs on an anagram task which was prearranged in difficulty so that one subject would clearly defeat his/her partner. A significant sex of subject × outcome interaction emerged. Males were more likely to attribute their successes to skill and failures to luck. Females attributed both their successes and failures to a relatively equal amount of skill. This self-defensive bias in males was interpreted as indicating a greater fear of failure in males. The relatively rational and objective attributions of females did not support a female fear of success hypothesis. No significant interactions with sex of partner on this variable were found. Finally, subjects were asked to rate their opponents on a series of personality, attractiveness, and happiness dimensions. Neither males nor females were differentially evaluated as a function of winning or losing.The research reported here was partially supported by a grant to the first author from the California State University, Fresno Foundation.