Alcohol consumption,dating relationships,and preliminary sexual outcomes in collegiate natural drinking groups

This study tested the effects of committed relationships and presence of dates on alcohol consumption and preliminary sexual outcomes in natural drinking groups (NDGs). Undergraduate drinkers (N = 302) answered an online questionnaire on their most recent participation in a NDG. The interaction between relationship commitment and presence of a date on alcohol consumption was significant. Among students not in committed relationships, those dating within their NDG reported heavier drinking than those not dating. Students in committed relationships drank less than those who were not committed only when their partners were present. The positive correlation between drinking and sexual contact was significant only for those who were not in committed relationships. Implications for future research and interventions are discussed.     

Activating Culture Through Persuasion Appeals: An Examination of the Bicultural Consumer

In this research, I examined how biculturals, or individuals who have been equally influenced by an East Asian and Western cultural orientation, respond to various types of persuasion appeals that promote values unique to a particular culture. In the first experiment, I found that biculturals, relative to monoculturals, tend to react favorably toward both individually and interpersonally focused appeals due to their having 2 equally developed and accessible cultural dispositions. In the second experiment, I identified boundary conditions under which having relatively equal access to both cultural dispositions leads to favorable responses. Results indicate that biculturals who tend to compartmentalize each culture react less favorably toward appeals that are both individually and interpersonally focused than biculturals who tend to integrate the 2 cultures. In other words, the former type of bicultural prefers appeals that activate one cultural disposition, whereas the latter type of bicultural favors appeals that activate both cultural dispositions. These findings are discussed in light of the growing trend toward multiculturalism and the increasing need for researchers to understand the impact of this trend on various consumer behavior issues.     

Cerebral lateralization in bilinguals: Methodological issues

The literature on lateralization for language in bilinguals manifests two apparent contradictions. Some papers demonstrate differences in lateralization between bilinguals and monolinguals; others demonstrate none. In studies with exclusively bilingual subjects, some papers demonstrate differences between the lateralization for the two languages, while others demonstrate none. This paper discusses the range of methodological parameters which must be borne in mind when conducting or evaluating studies of lateralization for language in bilinguals. These include issues of subject selection, language and stimulus selection, testing procedures, data analysis, and interpretation of results.     

The influence of aging on preferences for sequences of mixed affective events

Research on preferences among sequences of mixed affective events has mostly used young adults as participants. Given differences due to aging in people's ability to regulate emotion, one could expect differences due to aging in preferences for different sequences. Study 1 demonstrated age‐related differences in how older adults (age 65 and older) versus young adults (age 18–25) choose to order mixed affective events that will occur over time. The tendency to choose sequences in which the final event is positive was greater among older adults versus young adults. And, more so than young adults, older adults preferred that the positive and negative events in a sequence be separated in time by a neutral event. Studies 2–3 investigated age‐related differences in overall retrospective evaluations of presented sequences of mixed affective events. In contrast to young adults, older adults' retrospective evaluations were not affected by: (1) whether the final trend of the sequence improved monotonically; (2) whether the last event in the sequence was positive; or (3) the temporal proximity of positive and negative events in the sequence. Results of Study 3 suggest that these age‐related differences are due to differences in older (vs. young) adults' ability to regulate emotion. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The intersensory origins of word‐comprehension: an ecological–dynamic systems view

How do infants begin to understand spoken words? Recent research suggests that word comprehension develops from the early detection of intersensory relations between conventionally paired auditory speech patterns (words) and visible objects or actions. More importantly, in keeping with dynamic systems principles, the findings suggest that word comprehension develops from a dynamic and complementary relationship between the organism (the infant) and the environment (language addressed to the infant). In addition, parallel findings from speech and non‐speech studies of intersensory perception provide evidence for domain general processes in the development of word comprehension. These research findings contrast with the view that a lexical acquisition device with specific lexical principles and innate constraints is required for early word comprehension. Furthermore, they suggest that learning of word–object relations is not merely an associative process. The data support an alternative view of the developmental process that emphasizes the dynamic and reciprocal interactions between general intersensory perception, selective attention and learning in infants, and the specific characteristics of maternal communication.     

Mental Health Diversion Courts: A Two Year Recidivism Study of a South Australian Mental Health Court Program

The need to develop specialized judicial processes to deal with offenders with mental illnesses is now widely recognized and has led to the introduction of mental health court diversion programs around the world. At present, however, there is only limited evidence from which to assess the impact of these initiatives. This paper describes the South Australian model of diversion, with specific reference to the relationship between identified participant characteristics, program compliance rates, and re‐offending outcomes. The results of a two‐year recidivism study suggest that involvement with the program has a positive impact on recidivism, but that this is independent from the individual's level of success in the program. Lower risk offenders were more likely to achieve successful outcomes than those in the higher risk categories. The implications of these results, as well the factors that might inform the ongoing development of mental health court programs, are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cross-language lexical connections in the mental lexicon: evidence from a case of trilingual aphasia

Despite anecdotal data on lexical interference among the languages of multilingual speakers, little research evidence about the lexical connections among multilinguals' languages exists to date. In the present paper, two experiments with a multilingual speaker who had suffered aphasia are reported. The first experiment provides data about inter-language activation during natural conversations; the second experiment examines performance on a word-translation task. Asymmetric patterns of inter-language interference and translation are evident. These patterns are influenced by age of language learning, degree of language recovery and use, and prevalence of shared lexical items. We conclude that whereas age of language learning plays a role in language recovery following aphasia, the degrees of language use prior to the aphasia onset and of shared vocabulary determine the ease with which words are accessed. The findings emphasize the importance of patterns of language use and the relations between the language pair under investigation in understanding lexical connections among languages in bilinguals and multilinguals.     

Gender and Truthfulness in Daily Life Situations

To determine the extent to which perceivedgender enters into judgments of credibility indaily-life situations, 46 raters (23 males and 23females matched for age and education) read a set ofaccusations and rated synthetic speakers' audiotapedresponses to the accusations on how believable the maleand female synthetic speakers were. The results suggestthat on the daily-life scenarios posed, both male and female speakers are equally likely to judgefemale speakers to be more credible than male speakers,whether the accusation is deemed to reflect anintentional or negligent act.     

Altering Reinforcer Variety or Intensity Changes the Within-Session Decrease in Responding

Operant responding often changes systematically within experimental sessions. McSweeney, Hinson, and Cannon (1996) argued that sensitization and habituation produce within-session changes in responding. The present study tested two predictions of the sensitization–habituation explanation. In two experiments, rats pressed a lever for reinforcers delivered by a multiple variable interval 15-s variable interval 15-s schedule. In Experiment 1, the variety of reinforcers delivered during the session was manipulated by varying the percentage of programmed reinforcers replaced with qualitatively different reinforcers from 0 to 75%, in five different conditions. In Experiment 2, the intensity of the reinforcer was manipulated by varying the concentration of sucrose in the sucrose and water solution used as the reinforcer from 0 to 30%, in five different conditions. Increasing the variety or the intensity of the reinforcers slowed the within-session decrease in responding. The results are consistent with the predictions of a sensitization–habituation explanation of within-session changes in responding.     

Standardized measures of alcohol-related problems: a review of their use among college students

College students' alcohol consumption has received considerable attention in the scientific literature and the media for its impact on students and the college community. Misuse of alcohol can lead to a wide range of consequences, the most severe being alcohol abuse, dependence, and death. Researchers have struggled to develop effective methods to assess problems related to alcohol, and the literature on college drinking lacks a strong theoretical framework for such assessment. The authors contend that measures of alcohol-related problems for college students should assess specific dimensions pertaining to 3 main domains: alcohol abuse, alcohol dependence, and what the authors define as risky drinking. The authors examined how existing measures fit into this model. In a comprehensive review of the college literature, the authors identified 9 measures (and their revised versions) assessing alcohol-related problems. Their analysis revealed that most measures do not assess comprehensively the domains outlined, and instead provide only partial assessments of the potential consequences of drinking for college students. The authors include directions for future research so that measurement of drinking consequences for college students can be refined.