Measuring Meaning in Life

The present studies addressed the need for a comprehensive, economical, and psychometrically adequate measure of existential meaning. In Study 1, principal-axis factor analysis of participants’ responses to popular meaning measures identified five latent constructs underlying them, labelled purposeful life, principled life, valued life, exciting life, and accomplished life. These dimensions resonate with the meaning in life concept as understood by Frankl (1963. Man’s search for meaning. (Revised Ed.) London: Hodder & Stoughton) and the panoply of subsequent theoretical definitions (e.g. Battista and Almond. (1973). Psychiatry, 36, 409–427; 2000. Exploring existential meaning: Optimising human development across the life span (pp. 39–55). USA: Sage; 1998. The human quest for meaning: A handbook of psychological research and clinical applications (pp. 11–140). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum). Study 2 used these results as a foundation for developing a psychometrically satisfactory self-report questionnaire of each of these aspects of meaning in life. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) validated a five-factor structure, with each factor loading on a common second-order factor. Study 3 provided evidence for this new measure’s convergent validity and economic property. The final Meaningful Life Measure is reported and provides comprehensive but differentiated measurement of the meaning in life construct.     

Fetal testosterone and autistic traits

Studies of amniotic testosterone in humans suggest that fetal testosterone (fT) is related to specific (but not all) sexually dimorphic aspects of cognition and behaviour. It has also been suggested that autism may be an extreme manifestation of some male‐typical traits, both in terms of cognition and neuroanatomy. In this paper, we examine the possibility of a link between autistic traits and fT levels measured in amniotic fluid during routine amniocentesis. Two instruments measuring number of autistic traits (the Childhood Autism Spectrum Test (CAST) and the Child Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ‐Child)) were completed by these women about their children (N=235), ages 6–10 years. Intelligence Quotient (IQ) was measured in a subset of these children (N=74). fT levels were positively associated with higher scores on the CAST and AQ‐Child. This relationship was seen within sex as well as when the sexes were combined, suggesting this is an effect of fT rather than of sex per se. No relationships were found between overall IQ and the predictor variables, or between IQ and CAST or AQ‐Child. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that prenatal androgen exposure is related to children exhibiting more autistic traits. These results need to be followed up in a much larger sample to test if clinical cases of ASC have elevated fT.     

CAN YOU THINK MY 'I'-THOUGHTS?

If tokens of 'I' have a sense as well as a reference the question immediately arises of what account to give of their sense. One influential kind of account, of which Gareth Evans provides the best developed instance, attempts to elucidate the sense of 'I' partly in terms of the distinctive functional role possessed by thoughts containing this sense ('I'-thoughts). Accounts of this kind seem to entail that my 'I'-thoughts cannot be entertained by anyone other than me, a consequence generally thought unacceptable. I defend it. I also justify a functional role account of the sense of 'I'. The result should be to make plausible an account of the sense of 'I' in terms of the functional role of 'I'-thoughts.     

Adolescent Place Attachment, Social Capital, and Perceived Safety: A Comparison of 13 Countries

In adolescence, children become increasingly independent and autonomous, and spend more time in neighborhood settings away from home. During mid-to-late adolescence, youth often become more critical about the place they live. Their attachment to home and even community may decrease as they explore and develop new attachments to other specific places. The aim of this study is to understand how 15-year-old students from 13 countries perceive their local neighborhood area (place attachment, social capital and safety), and how these different community cognitions are interrelated. We hypothesize that their place attachment predicts safety, and that the relationship is mediated in part by social capital. Result show that, despite cross-cultural differences in neighborhood perceptions, the proposed theoretical model fits robustly across all 13 countries.     

Gray matter and intelligence factors: Is there a neuro-g?

Heterogeneous results among neuro-imaging studies using psychometric intelligence measures may result from the variety of tests used. The g-factor may provide a common metric across studies. Here we derived a g-factor from a battery of eight cognitive tests completed by 6929 young adults, 40 of whom also completed structural MRI scans. Regional gray matter (GM) was determined using voxel-based-morphometry (VBM) and correlated to g-scores. Results showed correlations distributed throughout the brain, but there was limited overlap with brain areas identified in a similar study that used a different battery of tests to derive g-scores. Comparable spatial scores (with g variance removed) also were derived from both batteries, and there was considerable overlap in brain areas where GM was correlated to the respective spatial scores. The results indicate that g-scores derived from different test batteries do not necessarily have equivalent neuro-anatomical substrates, suggesting that identifying a “neuro-g” will be difficult. The neuro-anatomical substrate of a spatial factor, however, appears more consistent and implicates a distributed network of brain areas that may be involved with spatial ability. Future imaging studies directed at identifying the neural basis of intelligence may benefit from using a psychometric test battery chosen with specific criteria.     

Sexual Self-Esteem in American and British College Women: Relations with Self-Objectification and Eating Problems

The present study extended Objectification Theory (Fredrickson and Roberts, Psychol Women Q 21:173–206, 1997) to test the role of sexual self-esteem in models of disordered eating. Measures of self-objectification, sexual well-being, and disordered eating were completed by American (N?=?104) and British (N?=?111) college women. In Study 1, higher self-objectification was associated with lower sexual self-esteem, which, in turn, mediated the relationship between self-objectification and disordered eating in American women. In Study 2, path analyses indicated that self-objectification led to sexual self-esteem and body shame, which led to disordered eating in British women. This pattern of results was replicated, albeit weaker, when sexual self-competence replaced sexual self-esteem in the model. Discussion considers the significance of self-objectification and sexual self-esteem for women’s well-being.     

COMPLIMENTARY WEIGHTISM: THE POTENTIAL COSTS OF APPEARANCE-RELATED COMMENTARY FOR WOMEN's SELF-OBJECTIFICATION

Little is known about the effects of receiving compliments about appearance. An ethnically diverse sample of 220 college women completed self-report measures of appearance commentary, trait self-objectification, body surveillance, and body dissatisfaction. Results indicated that the impact of appearance criticisms and compliments, but not their frequency, predicted higher body surveillance and more body dissatisfaction. Moderated mediation analyses indicated that increased body surveillance partially explained the relationship between feelings about appearance comments and body dissatisfaction and that this effect was moderated by level of trait self-objectification. Higher self-objectifying women reported higher levels of body surveillance and more body dissatisfaction regardless of whether they felt positively or negatively about the appearance comments, whereas lower self-objectifying women were less stable in their reports. Importantly, all women reported higher body surveillance and more body dissatisfaction in association with feeling good about receiving appearance compliments, which supports the idea of complimentary weightism , whereby appearance compliments represent a seemingly innocuous type of interpersonal feedback that may have detrimental consequences for women's self-objectification and body image.