Sexual Attitudes and Double Standards: A Literature Review Focusing on Participant Gender and Ethnic Background

We conducted a review of literature regarding sexual attitudes and double standards, focusing on participant gender and ethnic background. We found that men had more permissive sexual attitudes than women, and that African Americans had the most permissive sexual attitudes, followed by White Americans, then by Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans. The literature regarding sexual double standards was mixed; some studies showed evidence of continued sexual double standards and some studies showed the absence of sexual double standards. In some studies, men were more likely to endorse the sexual double standard than women. We found only one article addressing sexual double standards using ethnic background as a quasi-independent variable; this research revealed that non-North American (Russian and Japanese) samples were more likely to endorse the traditional double standard, that sex is more acceptable for men than for women.

Aging and inhibition of a prepotent motor response during an ongoing action

Inhibitory functions are key mechanisms underlying age related decline (Park & Gutchess, 2000, in: Cognitive aging: A primer. Hove: Psychology Press), yet few studies have investigated their impact on everyday tasks involving action as well as cognition. Using an everyday-based go/no-go task we devised a motor analogy of traditional neuropsychological tests to investigate in 134 older (aged 60-88) and 133 younger adults (aged 20-59) the ability to inhibit a prepotent motor response during an ongoing action. Older adults produced more inhibition failures as expected, but more strikingly inhibitory errors were not all or none; even when the inappropriate response was successfully inhibited, difficulties controlling ongoing movements emerged from as young as people in their 40s. The ability to inhibit therefore does not ensure control of ongoing tasks, and traditional cognitive tests may be unable to detect such difficulties. Furthermore, performance did not covary with education or action speed. Implications for neuropsychological theory and assessing/enhancing functional ability are discussed.     

Different clues from different views: the role of image format in public perceptions of neuroimaging results

We examined whether different types of brain images affect readers' evaluations of scientific reports. Five different brain images were selected from the neuroscience literature: a whole brain, an inflated brain, a cross-sectional brain slice, a glass brain, and a topographic map. First, the images were subjectively rated by 31 nonexperts for qualities associated with realism and perceived complexity. Each of the five images was later presented alongside one of five fictitious neuroscience articles (image-text pairings counterbalanced), and a different group of 122 novices rated the accompanying articles for scientific reasoning. They also separately reported their familiarity with each image type. Brain images previously rated as more three-dimensional produced more positive evaluations of the articles with which they were presented. Perceived image complexity also showed a marginal nonlinear relationship with article credibility ratings. Our findings suggest that choice of image format matters when disseminating neuroscience research to the general public.     

Learning a spatial skill for surgery: how the contributions of abilities change with practice

We examined changes in performance as people learned to use an angled laparoscope, a challenging spatial skill that must be mastered by surgeons who perform minimally invasive techniques. In Experiment 1, novices took tests of spatial and general reasoning ability, and then learned to operate an angled laparoscope, simulated in a virtual environment, over 12 learning sessions. Initial performance showed considerable variability among learners, with performance related to general and spatial abilities. As learning progressed, interindividual variability diminished and all learners attained proficiency; the correlation with general ability diminished but the correlation with spatial ability remained significant. In Experiment 2, performance by highly experienced surgeons on the simulation was excellent from the first session, confirming its ecological validity. The findings contribute to theories of skill acquisition. They also have practical implications for the selection of surgeons and for the potential use of virtual environments in surgical training. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Frauds,Posers And Sheep: A Virtue Theoretic Solution To The Acquaintance Debate

The acquaintance debate in aesthetics has been traditionally divided between pessimists, who argue that testimony does not provide others with aesthetic knowledge of artworks, and optimists, who hold that acquaintance with an artwork is not a necessary precondition for acquiring aesthetic knowledge. In this paper I propose a reconciliationist solution to the acquaintance debate: while aesthetic knowledge can be had via testimony, aesthetic judgment requires acquaintance with the artwork. I develop this solution by situating it within a virtue aesthetics framework based on Ernest Sosa's virtue epistemology. I go on to apply the solution to the debates on moral testimony and expert testimony. An interesting variant on Gettier cases emerges: cases in which subjects have knowledge, but it has been formed by the wrong competence.     

Thinking of critical words during study is unnecessary for false memory in the Deese,Roediger, and McDermott procedure

Do participants in the Deese, Roediger, and McDermott (DRM) procedure demonstrate false memory because they think of nonpresented critical words during study and confuse them with words that were actually presented? In two experiments, 160 participants studied eight visually presented DRM lists at a rate of 2 s or 5 s per word. Half of the participants rehearsed silently: the other half rehearsed overtly. Following study, the participants' memory for the lists was tested by recall or recognition. Typical false memory results were obtained for both memory measures. More important, two new results were observed. First, a large majority of the overt-rehearsal participants spontaneously rehearsed approximately half of the critical words during study. Second, critical-word rehearsal at study enhanced subsequent false recall, but it had no effect on false recognition or remember judgments for falsely recognized critical words. Thinking of critical words during study was unnecessary for producing false memory.     

Testosterone as a social inhibitor: two case studies of the effect of testosterone treatment on language

This study aimed to correlate testosterone levels with natural written language in 2 people undergoing testosterone therapy. Two participants, a man receiving treatment for loss of upper-body strength and a female-to-male transgendered individual, supplied records of injections over 1-2 years along with e-mails or journal entries as writing samples. Results showed that higher testosterone levels correlated with reduced use of words related to social connections. Language relating to anger, sexuality, and achievement was unrelated to testosterone levels. It appears that testosterone steers attention away from social connections but not necessarily toward concerns with aggression or sexual activity.     

Daily Parent-Adolescent Digital Exchanges

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - The present study tracked adolescents via mobile phones to describe how parents and their adolescent children are using digital technologies in...     

Hostile/Helpless maternal representations in pregnancy and later child removal: A pilot study

This article presents the results of a small pilot study examining links between Hostile/Helpless (HH) representations of caregiving in pregnancy and later child removal by child protective services. The sample was drawn from a replication study of the Minding the Baby^® attachment‐based home‐visiting intervention conducted in the United Kingdom, serving young first‐time mothers in under resourced communities. The HH classification system (Lyons‐Ruth et al.) was adapted for use with the Pregnancy Interview (PI) (Slade); 26 PIs were assessed (coders blinded) in a sample that included 13 mothers whose infants were removed from custody due to anticipated or documented maltreatment within 2 years of childbirth, and 13 mothers who did not have their infants removed. Mothers whose infants were removed from their custody had significantly higher HH scores than mothers of infants who were not removed from their care (F(1, 24) = 14.500, p < .001), and the relation between overall HH classification and infant removal status was also significant (χ²(1, N = 26) = 12.462, p < .001). Results suggest that prenatal maternal caregiving representations may predict postnatal relationship disruptions, and indicate the need for larger studies further testing this prenatal approach to maltreatment risk assessment in at‐risk populations.     

Childhood self-regulatory skills predict adolescent smoking behavior

Cigarette smoking is the primary preventable cause of premature death. Better self-regulatory capacity is a key psychosocial factor that has been linked with reduced likelihood of tobacco use. Studies point to the importance of multiple forms of self-regulation, in the domains of emotion, attention, behavior, and social regulation, although no work has evaluated all of these domains in a single prospective study. Considering those four self-regulation domains separately and in combination, this study prospectively investigated whether greater self-regulation in childhood is associated with reduced likelihood of either trying cigarettes or becoming a regular smoker. Hypotheses were tested using longitudinal data from a cohort of 1709 US children participating in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics – Child Development Supplement. Self-regulation was assessed at study baseline when children ranged in age from 6 to 14 years, using parent-reported measures derived from the Behavior Problems Index and Positive Behavior Scale. Children ages 12–19 self-reported their cigarette smoking, defined in two ways: (1) trying and (2) regular use. Separate multiple logistic regression models were used to evaluate odds of trying or regularly using cigarettes, taking account of various potential confounders. Over an average of five years of follow-up, 34.5% of children ever tried cigarettes and 10.6% smoked regularly. Higher behavioral self-regulation was the only domain associated with reduced odds of trying cigarettes (odds ratio (OR) = .85, 95% confidence interval (CI) = .73–.99). Effective regulation in each of the domains was associated with reduced likelihood of regular smoking, although the association with social regulation was not statistically significant (ORs range .70–.85). For each additional domain in which a child was able to regulate successfully, the odds of becoming a regular smoker dropped by 18% (95% CI = .70–.97). These findings suggest that effective childhood self-regulatory skills across multiple domains may reduce future health risk behaviors.