Plasticity and language: an example of the Baldwin effect?

In recent years, many scholars have suggested that the Baldwin effect may play an important role in the evolution of language. However, the Baldwin effect is a multifaceted and controversial process and the assessment of its connection with language is difficult without a formal model. This paper provides a first step in this direction. We examine a game-theoretic model of the interaction between plasticity (represented by Herrnstein reinforcement learning) and evolution in the context of a simple language game. Additionally, we describe three distinct aspects of the Baldwin effect: the Simpson–Baldwin effect, the Baldwin expediting effect and the Baldwin optimizing effect. We find that a simple model of the evolution of language lends theoretical plausibility to the existence of the Simpson–Baldwin and the Baldwin optimizing effects in this arena, but not the Baldwin expediting effect.     

Beliefs about God,Psychiatric Symptoms,and Evolutionary Psychiatry

The present study analyzed the association between specific beliefs about God and psychiatric symptoms among a representative sample of 1,306 U.S. adults. Three pairs of beliefs about God served as the independent variables: Close and Loving, Approving and Forgiving, and Creating and Judging. The dependent variables were measures of General Anxiety, Depression, Obsessive-Compulsion, Paranoid Ideation, Social Anxiety, and Somatization. As hypothesized, the strength of participants’ belief in a Close and Loving God had a significant salutary association with overall psychiatric symptomology, and the strength of this association was significantly stronger than that of the other beliefs, which had little association with the psychiatric symptomology. The authors discuss the findings in the context of evolutionary psychiatry, and the relevance of Evolutionary Threat Assessment Systems Theory in research on religious beliefs.     

Making Daddies into Fathers: Community-based Fatherhood Programs and the Construction of Masculinities for Low-income African American Men

In this analysis, we explore how low-income African American fathers build understandings of successful manhood in the context of community-based responsible fatherhood programs. Drawing on life history interviews with 75 men in Illinois and Indiana, we explore men’s attempts to fulfill normative expectations of fatherhood while living in communities with limited resources. We examine the efforts of community-based fatherhood programs to shape alternative African American masculinities through facilitation of personal turning points and “breaks with the past,” use of social support and institutional interventions, and the reframing of provision as a priority of successful fatherhood. We refer to Connell’s hegemonic masculinity framework (Connell in Masculinities, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995) and discuss how both men and programs borrow from hegemonic and street masculinities to develop alternative approaches to paternal involvement for marginalized men.     

No role for lightness in the perception of black and white? Simultaneous contrast affects perceived skin tone, but not perceived race

Faces of individuals with African and European heritage (henceforth referred to as Black and White respectively) feature two major differences: those of skin tone and morphological characteristics. Although considerations of perceived race are important to various psychological subdisciplines, to date the relative influence of morphological versus photometric characteristics has not been investigated. We attempted to influence the perceived racial typicality of a central target face by manipulating perceived skin tone using the well-known lightness contrast illusion. As expected, ratings of skin tone were influenced by surround faces, yet ratings of perceived racial typicality were not, suggesting a dissociation between the two judgments. Surprisingly, skin tone contributes little to perceived race, leaving facial morphology as the dominant cue. These results may shed light on failures to find effects of racial typicality in studies of prejudice where judgments were based on photographs with altered skin tone alone.     

Propositions for the Study of Moral Personality Development

Most of us have at one point speculated about why one individual grew up to be honest and fair while another became wicked and untrustworthy. In the current review, we present the case that new directions in the empirical study of moral personality development are needed. We set the stage for this future work by presenting six propositions that should serve as the foundation for future research in the field. We conclude by providing an example of how using a more integrative and inclusive framework for studying personality can readily incorporate these propositions.     

‘It's a boy because he's painting a picture’: Age differences in children's conventional and unconventional gender schemas

Two studies investigated the development of children's gender knowledge using a procedure designed to tap into children's unconventional gender beliefs. Study 1 revealed a developmental progression with 34 3‐ to 4‐year‐old children providing more unconventional reasons than conventional reasons to explain the gender of a series of drawings. By contrast, 39 5‐ to 6‐year‐old and 42 7‐ to 8‐year‐old children provided more conventional than unconventional reasons. Study 2 found that a second sample of 42 3‐ to 4‐year‐old children mastered a close‐ended assessment of gender stereotyping, while they relied on unconventional and conventional reasoning equally when explaining the gender of a series of drawings displaying conventional cues only. This research supports the model that children's conventional gender schemas do not develop before their unconventional gender schemas.     

Attributions for Health‐Related Physical Activity

Tenets of Weiner's (1985, 1986 ) attribution theory were examined in the context of being active enough for health benefits, including associations between attributions, emotions, and future expectations. Participants completed questionnaires assessing activity, perceived success/failure to be active enough for health benefits, attributions, emotions, and future expectancy. Perception of being active enough for health benefits was associated with more internal, personally controllable, and stable attributions. Support was found for relationships between perceived outcome and emotions, but not for attributions and emotions. Finally, a positive relationship was found between stability of attributions and certainty of achieving similar future activity outcomes. Given the interest in promoting activity for health, examining attributions for being sufficiently active for health may be considered an important advance.     

The Cinema of Control: On Diabetic Excess and Illness in Film

While not rare, films that represent diabetes must work around the disease’s banal invisibility, and images of diabetics in film are especially susceptible to metaphor and exaggeration. This essay is the first to outline a diabetic filmography, discussing medical and cinematic strategies for visualizing the disease as well as how the illness informs family plots and heroic characters in horror films. Doing so, it participates in a larger discussion of the manner in which film images of ill or disabled groups sustain notions of “normalcy” by both representing and denying otherness.