Negative attitudes toward masturbation and pelvic vasocongestion: A thermographic analysis

The present study examined differences in pelvic vasocongestion as a function of negative attitudes toward masturbation. Pelvic vasocongestion was measured thermographically, which is a noninvasive means of detecting and photographing individual heat patterns to indicate physiological condition and functional changes within. The results indicated that women, with positive attitudes toward masturbation, who read an erotic story, experienced the greatest increase in pelvic vasocongestion. This and other findings were discussed in terms of masturbation acting to facilitate the patterning of sexual arousal and orgasmic functioning, especially in regard to creating the capacity for pelvic engorgement.     

Interactive effects of generalized and situational expectancies on the arousal of cognitive and emotional components of social anxiety

This study examined the arousal of social anxiety in an interview setting as a function of anticipated self-disclosure. Of 88 college students who completed the Social Avoidance and Distress (SAD) scale and other measures of social anxiety, self-disclosure, need to affiliate, and interpersonal trust, 24 volunteered for the interview. During the interview, both components of anxiety (worry and emotionality) were affected by expectancy conditions, and emotionality was higher for high- than for low-SAD subjects. The prediction of an interaction between SAD level and expectancy condition on worry was confirmed: only high-SAD subjects exposed to the negative-expectancy condition experienced significant elevations in worry. Though social anxiety and self-disclosure measures correlated negatively, anxiety did not affect self-disclosure during the interview.     

Ear differences in simple reaction time: The influence of attentional factors

Simple motor reaction times (right-handed) to tape-recorded consonant-vowel syllables were obtained from 12 subjects under two conditions of monotic stimulation: “expected” presentation (subject informed as to ear of presentation) and “random” presentation (ear of presentation varied randomly). Significantly faster left ear reaction times were obtained in the “expected” condition. The rank order of subjects' standard dichotic listening task scores correlated negatively with reaction time ear differences in the “expected” presentation condition. Results are discussed in terms of existing theories of response lateralization in simple reaction time tasks, and an expanded hypothesis is offered. Specifically, it is suggested that two or more distinct but potentially overlapping mechanisms may be responsible for observed asymmetries in monotic auditory perception. Both an attentional or lateralized motor response bias and an inherent lateralization of function may operate side by side, differentially activated by task demands, mode of stimulus presentation, and nature of stimuli.     

“Sleeper effects” in development: Fact or artifact?

The evolution of the concept of “sleeper effects” is traced from the work of J. Kagan and H. A. Moss (Birth to Maturity. New York: Wiley, 1962) to the present time. The phenomenon was originally inferred, without cross-validation, in the domain of personality, from correlations with early events which were stronger late in development than earlier. More recently it has been extended to account for long-term attainment differences associated with the presence or absence of preschool intervention. It seems possible that the original evidence may have capitalized upon chance fluctuations of few among many correlations. What is more certain, however, is that as currently used the term is imprecise, usually unjustified, and irrelevant to the supposed later effects of brief early intervention.     

Personality and the topography of the conditioned eyelid response

One-hundred and four women were tested on an eyelid conditioning paradigm in a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design where two levels of US intensity (1 vs 3 p.s.i.) were balanced against two rest pause interpolations (after 25 and after 50 trials), and the presence or absence of a warning stimulus prior to CS-US presentation. Subjects were later classified as high, low or intermediate extraverts on the basis of a personality questionnaire. A very detailed analysis of conditioned responses was carried out, using both simple and composite measures including work-ratio, utility-ratio, CR frequency, peak latency, peak amplitude, response area and effective response area, degree of avoidance amplitude and latency, etc. Major findings related to similar effects of high intensity US vs low intensity US, and introversion vs extraversion; introverts react as if they were responding to more intense stimuli than extraverts. This finding cuts across other parameter variables, and supports Eysenck's formulation of personality-conditioning relationships in terms of higher cortical arousal in introverts as compared with extraverts.