Predicting Divorce among Newlyweds from the First Three Minutes of a Marital Conflict Discussion

This study tested the hypothesis that how a discussion of a marital conflict begins--in its first few minutes--is a predictor of divorce. The marital conflict discussion of 124 newlywed couples was coded using the Specific Affect Coding System, and the data were divided into positive, negative, and positive-minus-negative affect totals for five 3-minute intervals. It was possible to predict marital outcome over a 6-year period using just the first 3 minutes of data for both husbands and wives. For husbands this prediction improved as the groups diverged in the remaining 12 minutes; for wives the prediction remained equally powerful for the remaining 12 minutes as it had been in the first 3 minutes.     

Effects of social labeling on giving to charity

This field experiment tested the hypothesis that social labeling influences an actor's self-concept and his perception of the consequences of his behavior. Subjects who gave to charity were labeled charitable or not labeled and subjects who refused to give were labeled uncharitable or not labeled. Subjects were later asked to contribute to a second charity by a canvasser who was either highly involved in his cause, and hence likely to dispense social reinforcements, or uninvolved in it. Subjects labeled charitable gave more and subjects labeled uncharitable gave less than their respective control groups (p < .05). However, labeling did not cause subjects to distinguish more between the involved and the uninvolved canvassers. All subjects contributed more to the involved than to the uninvolved canvasser (p < .05).     

Comment on Relationships and the social brain: integrating psychological and evolutionary perspectives

This article is a commentary on ‘Relationships and the social brain: Integrating psychological and evolutionary perspectives’ (Sutcliffe, Dunbar, Binder, & Arrow, 2012).     

Inhibitory control gains from higher-order cognitive strategy training

The present study examined the transfer of higher-order cognitive strategy training to inhibitory control. Middle school students enrolled in a comprehension- and reasoning-focused cognitive strategy training program and passive controls participated. The training program taught students a set of steps for inferring essential gist or themes from materials. Both before and after training or a comparable duration in the case of the passive controls, participants completed a semantically cued Go/No-Go task that was designed to assess the effects of depth of semantic processing on response inhibition and components of event-related potentials (ERP) related to response inhibition. Depth of semantic processing was manipulated by varying the level of semantic categorization required for response selection and inhibition. The SMART-trained group showed inhibitory control gains and changes in fronto-central P3 ERP amplitudes on inhibition trials; whereas, the control group did not. The results provide evidence of the transfer of higher-order cognitive strategy training to inhibitory control and modulation of ERPs associated with semantically cued inhibitory control. The findings are discussed in terms of implications for cognitive strategy training, models of cognitive abilities, and education.     

Visibility distances with halogen and conventional headlights

Abstract.— Using visibility distance as a criterion, halogen and conventional continental European high and low-beam headlights were compared in a series of field experiments. On high-beam without opposing light the halogen headlights offered about 25% longer visibility distances than the conventional headlights. With both opposing cars using low-beam there was a slight advantage (<5 m) in favour of halogen headlights. The optimal dipping distance was a function of high-beam system (intensity) rather than low-beam system. Small differences in aiming, atmosphere etc. caused larger differences in visibility distance than did the headlight system.