Momentum in Child Compliance and Opposition

Several event-dependent properties of child-mother interactions were studied to investigate momentum in child oppositional and compliant behavior. It was hypothesized that: (a) compared to an episode of child opposition, an episode of child compliance would be related to an increased likelihood of subsequent child compliance, and (b) the association between a target episode of child opposition and the likelihood of subsequent compliance or opposition would be mediated by the history of the dyadic interaction. These hypotheses were supported. In addition, the presence of interactional sequences predictive of child compliance was inversely related to mother dysphoria and unrelated to mother-reported child externalizing behavior disorder symptoms. Discussion focuses on antecedent interactional patterns as determinants of future child behavior.     

Belief in a Just World and Jury Decisions in a Civil Rape Trial

When people's belief in a just world (BJW) is challenged, it can be restored by attributing blame to the victim or alleviating the victim's suffering. In criminal cases, jurors can attribute responsibility to victims, but cannot alleviate suffering. Participants ( n = 106) heard a taped civil rape case. The effect of age of plaintiff, gender of participant, and type of participant on mock jurors' reactions to a plaintiff were examined. Participants evaluated responsibility of plaintiff and awarded monetary damages. It was hypothesized that, given this opportunity to compensate the victim, jurors would be less likely to derogate the victim. As hypothesized, women with high and low BJW attributed the same level of responsibility to the plaintiff but those with a high BJW awarded more monetaly damages. Men with high BJW awarded much less in damages than did men with low BJW. The just-world theory appears to explain many of the decisions made by mock jurors.     

The affect heuristic in judgments of risks and benefits

This paper re‐examines the commonly observed inverse relationship between perceived risk and perceived benefit. We propose that this relationship occurs because people rely on affect when judging the risk and benefit of specific hazards. Evidence supporting this proposal is obtained in two experimental studies. Study 1 investigated the inverse relationship between risk and benefit judgments under a time‐pressure condition designed to limit the use of analytic thought and enhance the reliance on affect. As expected, the inverse relationship was strengthened when time pressure was introduced. Study 2 tested and confirmed the hypothesis that providing information designed to alter the favorability of one's overall affective evaluation of an item (say nuclear power) would systematically change the risk and benefit judgments for that item. Both studies suggest that people seem prone to using an ‘affect heuristic’ which improves judgmental efficiency by deriving both risk and benefit evaluations from a common source—affective reactions to the stimulus item. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparison of treatment seeking compulsive buyers in Germany and the United States

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this pilot study was to compare a German (Bavaria) and an American (North Dakota) sample of women suffering from compulsive buying. METHOD: Thirty-eight German and 39 American female compulsive buyers were screened with the Compulsive Buying Scale (CBS), and the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale-Shopping Version (Y-BOCS-SV) prior to entering a group treatment study. Psychiatric co-morbidity was assessed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I disorders (SCID). RESULTS: There were no statistically significant differences between the German sample and the American sample with regard to age (mean 43.7 and 45 years, respectively), and with regard to the scores on the CBS and the Y-BOCS-SV. A high lifetime co-morbidity rate with Axis I disorders, especially mood disorders, anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, OCD, and binge eating disorder was detected in both samples. Almost all participants met criteria for at least one lifetime Axis I disorder. However, German compulsive buyers showed significantly higher current prevalence rates of any affective disorder, and higher current and lifetime prevalence rates of any anxiety disorder and somatoform disorder. In addition, German compulsive buyers were significantly more likely to have more than one Axis I disorder. CONCLUSION: The groups did not differ with regard to age and with regard to the severity of compulsive buying and showed a high co-morbidity with Axis I disorders. However, the German compulsive buying sample presented with significantly more psychiatric co-morbidity compared to the American sample. Further research is needed to provide a better understanding of this disorder in general and cross-culturally.     

Visual categorization of natural stimuli by domestic dogs

One of the fundamental issues in the study of animal cognition concerns categorization. Although domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) are on the brink to become one of the model animals in animal psychology, their categorization abilities are unknown. This is probably largely due to the absence of an adequate method for testing dogs’ ability to discriminate between large sets of pictures in the absence of human cueing. Here we present a computer-automated touch-screen testing procedure, which enabled us to test visual discrimination in dogs while social cueing was ruled out. Using a simultaneous discrimination procedure, we first trained dogs (N = 4) to differentiate between a set of dog pictures (N = 40) and an equally large set of landscape pictures. All subjects learned to discriminate between the two sets and showed successful transfer to novel pictures. Interestingly, presentation of pictures providing contradictive information (novel dog pictures mounted on familiar landscape pictures) did not disrupt performance, which suggests that the dogs made use of a category-based response rule with classification being coupled to category-relevant features (of the dog) rather than to item-specific features (of the background). We conclude that dogs are able to classify photographs of natural stimuli by means of a perceptual response rule using a newly established touch-screen procedure. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Examinations of identity invariance in facial expression adaptation

Faces provide a wealth of information essential to social interaction, including both static features, such as identity, and dynamic features, such as emotional state. Classic models of face perception propose separate neural-processing routes for identity and facial expression (Bruce & Young, 1986), but more recent models suggest that these routes are not independent of each other (Calder & Young, 2005). Using a perceptual adaptation paradigm in the present study, we attempted to further examine the nature of the relation between the neural representations of identity and emotional expression. In Experiment 1, adaptation to the basic emotions of anger, surprise, disgust, and fear resulted in significantly biased perception away from the adapting expression. A significantly decreased aftereffect was observed when the adapting and the test faces differed in identity. With a statistical model that separated surface texture and reflectance from underlying expression geometry, Experiment 2 showed a similar decrease in adaptation when the face stimuli had identical underlying prototypical geometry but differed in the static surface features supporting identity. These results provide evidence that expression adaptation depends on perceptual features important for identity processing and thus suggest at least partly overlapping neural processing of identity and facial expression.     

Awareness of Genetic Counseling and Perceptions of its Purpose: A Survey of the Canadian Public

Genetic counseling can result in better outcomes when clients understand what to expect, and at least theoretically, at some point in their lifespan, anyone could be referred for or benefit from genetic counseling. Thus, in order to identify (and ultimately address) issues around awareness of genetic counseling and perceptions of its purpose, we surveyed the Canadian general population. We acquired 1,000 telephone numbers corresponding to a demographically representative sample of Canada from Survey Sampling International, and invited individuals to participate in a telephone-based survey. We administered a purpose-designed survey (in either French or English) comprising questions regarding: demographics, whether or not the individual had heard of genetic counseling, and 15 Likert scale-rated (strongly disagree—strongly agree) items about the possible purposes of genetic counseling. Responses to these 15 items were used to generate a total “knowledge score”. Of the 1,000 numbers, n?=?372 could not be reached, and the survey was successfully administered to n?=?188 individuals (response rate 30 %). Most respondents (n?=?129, 69 %) had not heard of genetic counseling, and substantial proportions thought that genetic counseling aims to prevent genetic diseases and abnormalities, help couples have children with desirable characteristics, and help people to understand their ancestry. These data could be used to inform the strategy for development of future awareness efforts, and as a baseline from which to measure their effects.