Sociocultural influences on body image and body changes among adolescent boys and girls

In 2 studies, the authors evaluated the role of parents, peers, and the media in body image and body-change strategies among adolescent boys and girls. The respondents for Study 1 (423 boys and 377 girls) completed the Body Image and Body Change Inventory (L. A. Ricciardelli & M. P. McCabe, 2002) and the Perceived Sociocultural Influences on Body Image and Body Change Questionnaire (M. P. McCabe & L. A. Ricciardelli, 2001b). Body mass index and age were also included in the analyses. Regression analyses demonstrated that sociocultural influences and feedback from the participant's best male friend were important predictors for all body-change strategies among boys. For girls, sociocultural influences and feedback from the participant's best female friend and mother were important predictors for body-change strategies. The most consistent predictor of weight loss, weight gain, and strategies to increase muscles was body-image importance. In Study 2, the authors examined the influence of the same sociocultural variables, as well as negative affect and puberty on body image and body-change strategies among a second group of 199 boys and 267 girls. The results demonstrated that a broad range of sociocultural influences predicted body-change strategies for boys and girls, with negative affect also having a unique influence for boys but not for girls. Puberty played a minor role, once other sociocultural variables were entered into the regression equation. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Are survival processing memory advantages based on ancestral priorities?

Recent research has suggested that our memory systems are especially tuned to process information according to its survival relevance, and that inducing problems of “ancestral priorities” faced by our ancestors should lead to optimal recall performance (Nairne & Pandeirada, Cognitive Psychology, 2010). The present study investigated the specificity of this idea by comparing an ancestor-consistent scenario and a modern survival scenario that involved threats that were encountered by human ancestors (e.g., predators) or threats from fictitious creatures (i.e., zombies). Participants read one of four survival scenarios in which the environment and the explicit threat were either consistent or inconsistent with ancestrally based problems (i.e., grasslands–predators, grasslands–zombies, city–attackers, city–zombies), or they rated words for pleasantness. After rating words based on their survival relevance (or pleasantness), the participants performed a free recall task. All survival scenarios led to better recall than did pleasantness ratings, but recall was greater when zombies were the threat, as compared to predators or attackers. Recall did not differ for the modern (i.e., city) and ancestral (i.e., grasslands) scenarios. These recall differences persisted when valence and arousal ratings for the scenarios were statistically controlled as well. These data challenge the specificity of ancestral priorities in survival-processing advantages in memory.     

Psychometric properties of the social phobia inventory: further evaluation

This study investigated the psychometric properties of the Social Phobia Inventory [SPIN; Connor, K. M., Davidson, J. R. T., Churchill, L. E., Sherwood, A., Foa, E., Wesler, R.H., 2000. Psychometric properties of the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN). British Journal of Psychiatry, 176, 379-386], a measure of severity in social phobia (social anxiety disorder). Participants included 132 participants with social phobia, 57 participants with panic disorder and agoraphobia (PDA), and 62 participants with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Confirming findings from an initial validation study, the SPIN was found to have excellent internal consistency and good test-retest reliability. It also distinguished well between those with social phobia and those with either PDA or OCD. Good convergent and discriminant validity were established by examining correlations with other conceptually related and unrelated scales. Finally, the SPIN was sensitive to changes in social phobia severity following cognitive behavioral group treatment. In conclusion, the SPIN is both reliable and valid for the measurement of social phobia severity and outcome following psychological treatment.     

The Relationship Between Religion, Spirituality, Psychological Adjustment, and Quality of Life Among People with Multiple Sclerosis

The present research was comprised of two studies that aimed to explore the role of religious and spiritual variables in the psychological adjustment and quality of life of people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). In study 1, religious behavior and objective levels of spirituality and religiosity were not significantly related to psychological adjustment or quality of life among people with MS. Positive religious coping was negatively related to psychological adjustment and quality of life. In study 2, Intrinsic religious orientation and Quest religious orientation were related to poor psychological adjustment. Implications of the present research for people with MS and other chronic illnesses are discussed.     

Quality of Life and Multiple Sclerosis: Comparison Between People with Multiple Sclerosis and People from the General Population

This paper evaluated the quality of life (QOL) of people with multiple sclerosis (MS) and people from the general population. Gender differences between the 2 groups of respondents and the influence of coping style on adjustment were also evaluated. The participants were 381 (144 males, 237 females) people with MS, and 291 (101 males, 190 females) people from the general population. The results demonstrated that people with MS experienced lower levels of QOL than people from the general population for both the objective and subjective dimensions of all domains (physical health, psychological adjustment, social relationships, environmental adjustment). All coping strategies (problem-focused, focusing on the positive, detachment, wishful thinking, seeking social support) were important predictors of QOL for both males and females with MS, with wishful thinking being the strongest predictor of poor QOL. These results are discussed in terms of the various factors that impact on QOL among people with MS, and the types of coping strategies that are most adaptive in improving the QOL of people with this illness.     

What makes a good story

Three different ways have been selected for analyzing a story's structure, each focusing on different types of information. (a) Episodic or story grammar approaches stories as problem-solving episodes, emphasizing goals and activities to achieve them. (b) Labov's high point structure emphasizes affective information and sees stories as organized around emotional high points or crisis events. (c) Deese's dependency analysis emphasizes linguistic complexity and, in particular, the way propositions are related to each other through a relationship of either coordination or subordination. Stories were scored according to how well they realized good structure in each system, and the three scoring systems were relatively independent of each other. Adults were asked to rate 3-to 9-year old children's personal narratives in terms of how good a story each was, and their ratings were compared to how the stories were scored in terms of all three systems. None of the systems completely explained the subjective quality ratings; rather, all three seemed to contribute in different ways to subjects' ratings, with the best narratives generally deemed sophisticated and complex in at least two of the three systems.The authors wish to acknowledge their great debt to James Deese and Christine Glenn. This research was supported by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Grant A-7911 to Carole Peterson.     

Spatial topological constraints in a bimanual task.

Previous research has shown that the concurrent performance of two manual tasks results in a tight temporal coupling of the limbs. The intent of the present experiment was to investigate whether a similar coupling exists in the spatial domain. Subjects produced continuous drawing of circles and lines, one task at a time or bimanually, for a 20 s trial. In bimanual conditions in which subjects produced the circle task with one hand and the line task with the other, there was a clear tendency for the movement path of the circle task to become more line-like and the movement path of the line task to become more circle-like, i.e., a spatial magnet effect. A bimanual circle task and a bimanual line task did not exhibit changes in the movement path when compared to single-hand controls. In all bimanual conditions, the hands were tightly temporally locked. The evidence of temporal coupling and concomitant accommodation in the movement path for the conditions in which the hands were producing different shapes suggests that spatial constraints play a role in the governance of bimanual coordinated actions.     

An analysis of age differences in perceptual speed

Tests of the generalized slowing hypothesis have demonstrated the strong predictive power of tests of perceptual comparison speed in accounting for age differences across a range of cognitive domains. The goals of this study were to determine whether short-term memory (STM) and perceptual demands contribute to age differences on two commonly used tests of perceptual comparison speed, the letter and pattern comparison tests, and to test whether these task components account for unique variance in predicting age differences in working memory and reasoning. Results showed that, after controlling for visual contrast sensitivity and a general slowing factor, age differences increased with increases in both STM load and perceptual degradation. Only STM load, however, accounted for a significant portion of the relationship of age with higher level cognition. We concluded that perceptual comparison tests are dependent on multiple age-sensitive abilities, not all of which are related to age differences in higher level cognition.     

Context effects on remembering and knowing: the expectancy heuristic

Three experiments are reported examining the effect of context on remember-know judgments. In Experiments 1 and 2, medium-frequency words were intermixed with high-frequency or low-frequency words at study or at test, respectively. Remember responses were greater for medium-frequency targets when they were studied or tested among high-frequency, as compared with low-frequency, words. The authors proposed a decision-based mechanism called "the expectancy heuristic" to explain why remember responses were more likely when items were studied or tested in the context of words that were relatively less distinct. According to the expectancy heuristic, when items on a recognition test exceed an expected level of memorability they will be given a remember judgment but when they do not, but are still more familiar than new words, they will be given a know judgment. Experiment 3, which varied expectancies about the strength of tested targets, demonstrated the use of the expectancy heuristic, indicating that it operates by selectively influencing the remember criterion rather than by influencing recollection of studied items.