Interpreting Survey Questions About Sexual Aggression in Cross-Cultural Research: A Qualitative Study with Young Adults from Nine European Countries

Examining equivalence in the interpretation of survey items on sexual assault by participants from different cultures is an important step toward building a valid international knowledge base about the prevalence of sexual aggression among young adults. Referring to the theoretical framework of contextualism, this study presents qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 128 young adults from nine EU countries on their understanding of survey items from the Sexual Aggression and Victimization Scale (SAV-S). The measure had previously been used to collect quantitative data on the prevalence of sexual aggression perpetration and victimization in the same countries that had yielded substantial differences in the rates of victimization and perpetration between countries. Based on the methodological approach of a mixed research design, the current study was conducted as a follow-up to the quantitative study with a new sample to explore whether systematic differences in the interpretation of the survey items in the different countries might explain part of the variation in prevalence rates. The interviews showed that participants from the nine countries interpreted the items of the SAV-S in a similar way and as intended by the authors of the scale. Systematic differences between men and women in interpreting the survey items were revealed. Implications of the findings for conducting survey research on sexual aggression across cultures are discussed.     

Sport participation and stress among women and men

ObjectivesIn-depth analysis of the relationship between sports participation and stress among adult women and men.Design644 women and 783 men, 20–65 years, from the SPAH Flemish-Policy-Research-Centre, reported data on participation in favourite sports and mental health.MethodGender-specific multiple MANOVAs with stress appraisal and the stress response of emotional distress as dependent variables, and participation in 15 different types of sports as independent variables, including effect sizes (Cohen’s d) per sport-type.ResultsVery little difference in perceived-stress and emotional-distress existed in women and men who participated in different sport-types, suggesting that “one-activity-fits-all recommendations” are likely inappropriate. Different sports are suitable for different individuals, and it is important that one finds the sport that suits one best. Conversely, significant associations between participation in walking and in meditation sports manifested with both stress appraisal and emotional distress among women, and significant associations between participation in ball games and in water sports manifested with emotional distress among men.ConclusionsThe paper gathered substantial comprehensive insight and connected its quantitative data to existing qualitative data, presenting stimulating theoretical arguments. Sport-type related variations in the physical activity – mental health relationship were analyzed, based on the theory of mindful movement and the complexity paradigm identifying 3 coordinates on which the physical activity – mental health complexity unravels, based on: activity domains, mental health dimensions, and individual characteristics. The mindful movement theory proposes an underlying mechanism that could explain the positive physical activity – mental health relationship, and the complexity paradigm provides basis for creating a workable definition for ther concept of mindful physical activity.     

Happy but unhealthy: The relationship between social ties and health in an emerging network

Social connections are essential to health and well‐being. However, when pursing social acceptance, people may sometimes engage in behavior that is detrimental to their health. Using a multi‐time‐point design, we examined whether the structure of an emerging network of students in an academic summer school program correlated with their physical health and mental well‐being. Participants who were more central in the network typically experienced greater symptoms of illness (e.g., cold/flu symptoms), engaged in riskier health behaviors (e.g., binge drinking), and had higher physiological reactivity to a stressor. At the same time, they were happier, felt more efficacious, and perceived less stress in response to a strenuous math task. These outcomes suggest that social ties in an emerging network are associated with better mental well‐being, but also with poorer physical health and health behaviors. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Failures to induce implicit evaluations by means of approach-avoid training

Woud, Becker, and Rinck (2008) asked participants to repeatedly push pictures of certain faces away and to pull pictures of other faces towards them using a joystick. Performance in a subsequent affective priming task showed that previously pulled faces evoked more positive implicit evaluations then previously pushed faces. We report five studies in which we failed to find consistent evidence for the effect of approach-avoid training on implicit evaluations. We also failed to reproduce the effect reported by Woud et al. when reanalysing their data. An overall analysis that included our data, the data of Woud et al. and additional data provided by Woud and colleagues also did not reveal a significant effect of approach-avoid training on implicit evaluations. We conclude that the impact of approach-avoid training on implicit evaluations is subject to subtle boundary conditions.     

The assessment of effortful control in childhood: Questionnaires and the Test of Everyday Attention for Children compared

A community sample ages 8–17 years completed questionnaire measures of effortful control (EC), the Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEA-Ch) and measures of psychopathology. EC questionnaires showed sufficient construct validity and were significantly associated with TEA-Ch performance, the latter albeit only in younger children and for parent-reports of EC. EC questionnaires were stronger and more consistent predictors of psychopathology than TEA-Ch performance, especially for externalizing problems. EC questionnaires seemed to be more appropriate for use in broader age ranges than the TEA-Ch, due to the ceiling effects in the latter among older children and adolescents. Future studies should examine the concurrent validity of EC questionnaires using other performance-based tasks which differentiate well in older age groups.     

Syntactic priming and the lexical boost effect during sentence production and sentence comprehension: An fMRI study

Behavioral syntactic priming effects during sentence comprehension are typically observed only if both the syntactic structure and lexical head are repeated. In contrast, during production syntactic priming occurs with structure repetition alone, but the effect is boosted by repetition of the lexical head. We used fMRI to investigate the neuronal correlates of syntactic priming and lexical boost effects during sentence production and comprehension. The critical measure was the magnitude of fMRI adaptation to repetition of sentences in active or passive voice, with or without verb repetition. In conditions with repeated verbs, we observed adaptation to structure repetition in the left IFG and MTG, for active and passive voice. However, in the absence of repeated verbs, adaptation occurred only for passive sentences. None of the fMRI adaptation effects yielded differential effects for production versus comprehension, suggesting that sentence comprehension and production are subserved by the same neuronal infrastructure for syntactic processing.     

Identification of fragmented object outlines: A dynamic interplay between different component processes

The speed of fragmented picture identification depends on a large number of factors whose effects might change in time during an identification attempt. Using survival analysis and fixed fragmentation levels, previous research has shown that effects of complexity, fragment curvature, and time interact. Here, we study the effects of presentation duration and dynamic fragmentation levels. Fragmented object outlines were presented repetitively every 2.25 s, and at each presentation longer fragments were shown (possibly until closure). We recorded the lowest presentation number (minimum 1, maximum 10) that resulted in correct naming by the participants (N=84). Survival analysis was employed to investigate whether and when different factors like presentation duration, complexity, object category (natural vs. artifactual), symmetry, proximity, and fragment curvature influence correct identification. The results confirm and extend previous findings, and are interpreted within a dynamic, interactive processing framework.     

Reasons of love: an introduction

One of the main reasons for philosophers to have embraced Humean constructivism rather than Kantian constructivism is a negative one: they believe that in the end Kantian constructivism is an unstable position. Their idea is that the Kantian constructivist can either choose to hold on to the idea of categorical reasons for action but in that case she has to be prepared to commit to (robust) moral realism (which both Humean and Kantian constructivists reject) or alternatively, she might reject (robust) moral realism but in that case she has to give up on the idea of categoricity. The aim of this paper is to defend Kantian constructivism against Humean constructivism and more specifically against recent objections raised by Sharon Street. I will do so by arguing that Kantian constructivism follows from formal, normative commitments that pertain to instrumental reasoning that Humean constructivists like Sharon Street themselves accept. More specifically I will argue that categorical reasons for action follow from applying the principle of instrumental rationality to the first-person perspective of an agent, provided that there are certain necessary means for action in general. From this follows, I will argue, that Humean constructivists should either become Kantian constructivists or that they have to become sceptics about normativity.