Relationship between schizotypal and borderline traits in college students

The main objective of the present investigation was to analyze the relationship between self-reported schizotypal and borderline personality traits in a sample of 759 college students (M = 19.63 years; SD = 2.03). For this purpose, the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief (SPQ-B; Raine and Benishay, 1995) and Borderline Personality Questionnaire (BPQ; Poreh et al., 2006) were administered. The results showed that schizotypal and borderline features are partially related at subclinical level. The exploratory factor analysis conducted on the subscales revealed a three-factor solution comprised of the following factors: Identity/Interpersonal, Lack of Control and Schizotypal. The canonical correlation analysis showed that schizotypal features and borderline personality traits shared 34.8% of the variance. The data highlight the overlap between schizotypal and borderline personality traits in nonclinical young adults. Future studies should continue to examine the relationship and the degree of overlap between these traits in community samples.     

How many lives can bloody and shocking road safety advertising save? The case of Spain

At the beginning of the 21st century, the punishment strategies used by the Spanish administration were considerably hardened to achieve a reduction in road accidents. This hardening could also be seen in the mass-media public advertising campaigns, with a marked shift from gentle messages to threat-based advertisements.The goal of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of this radical change in terms of main road accident indicators and the time that the effects last using multivariate unobserved component models set up in a state space framework applied to monthly series for the 1980–2008 period. The main conclusion is that the effect on reducing road accidents is no greater when citizens are subjected to a greater level of threats in advertising campaigns than would on average be achieved using campaigns with a low level of threats. Secondly, the impact of bloody advertising in Spain is limited to the most serious accidents, those that cause deaths, either on highways or in built-up areas. Moreover, the positive effects progressively decrease as the average lifespan for significant effects of medium and high level campaigns on deaths on highways or in built-up areas was 8 months and almost 12 days. The results show that a reduction in numbers of deaths and injuries is always achieved when the level of harshness in the messages is increased after a period of several years of mild advertising.     

Explanatory style and immunoglobulin A (IgA)

The construct of explanatory style has been related to numerous aspects of human psychology, including health. Our research has focused on the effects of various psychological variables on the immune system, in particular Immunoglobulin A (IgA). We had participants fill out the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ), the predominant measure of explanatory style, and assayed saliva samples for secretory IgA. No relationship was observed between overall ASQ score and IgA, or composite optimism score and IgA. However we observed significant negative correlations between both the composite pessimism score and IgA, as well as the hopelessness score and IgA. Pessimistic explanatory style may therefore be related to immune system deficits and poor health.     

Is Traditional Gender Ideology Associated with Sex-Typed Mate Preferences? A Test in Nine Nations

Social role theory (Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000) predicts that traditional gender ideology is associated with preferences for qualities in a mate that reflect a conventional homemaker-provider division of labor. This study assessed traditional gender ideology using Glick and Fiske's (1996, 1999) indexes of ambivalent attitudes toward women and men and related these attitudes to the sex-typed mate preferences of men for younger mates with homemaker skills and of women for older mates with breadwinning potential. Results from a nine-nation sample revealed that, to the extent that participants had a traditional gender ideology, they exhibited greater sex-typing of mate preferences. These relations were generally stable across the nine nations.     

Barriers between mental health services and Mexican Americans: An examination of a paradox

The paradox of underutilization of mental health services by Mexican Americans is critically examined. It is argued that Mexican Americans live under high levels of psychological and environmental stress that would ordinarily lead to mental health problems and an increased utilization of mental health services. A number of barriers to the use of mental health services by Mexican Americans are examined. Included among these barriers are such factors as the relationship between social class and treatment offered, stereotypes concerning Mexican American folk psychiatry, limitations imposed by language differences, and the effects of stereotypes between Anglo Americans and Mexican Americans. Paradoxical findings in some studies which show a positive perception of mental health services by Mexican Americans are seen to further underscore the need for more research on the Mexican American's position. Stereotypes and generalizations about Spanish-speaking and bilingual Mexican American's approaches to psychotherapy are challenged in the light of recent empirical findings. Recommendations for future research directions and for improving the delivery of mental health services are presented.     

Deductive reasoning and creativity: a cross-cultural study

The present cross-cultural study examined the relationship between deductive reasoning and creativity among college students (M age=20.4 yr., SD= .6) from Hong Kong (n=39) and the United States (n=38). Participants performed tasks designed to measure deductive reasoning, creative writing, and insight problem-solving, all in verbal form. No correlation was found between the performance for deductive reasoning and creativity as measured by creative writing. Insight problem-solving performance correlated significantly with that for both reasoning and creativity. Significant cultural differences favoring the American participants were only found on the creative writing and insight problem-solving tasks, both of which supposedly involve creative thinking. There seems to be cultural dependence for creativity but not for deductive reasoning which suggests a qualification of a strong cultural-relevance view positing pervasive cultural influences on human thinking processes.     

Contextual effects on number-time interaction

Time perception has long been known to be affected by numerical representations. Recent studies further demonstrate that when participants estimate the duration of Arabic numbers, number magnitude, though task-irrelevant, biases duration judgment to produce underestimation for smaller numbers and overestimation for larger numbers. Such effects were found in the present study to be significantly reduced when a weight unit gram was suffixed to the numbers rendering the mental magnitude differences between different numbers less distinctive. The effects were enhanced when a different unit kilogram was suffixed to the numbers enlarging the perceived magnitude differences between different numbers. The results indicate that effects of number magnitude on duration estimation should not be attributed to the mathematical differences between numbers but to how the numbers are perceived to differ from each other in magnitude in specific contexts when they denote concrete items. The results also provide new evidence for the theoretical proposal of a common generalized magnitude system and indicate that the system must be extended to include other action-oriented magnitudes, such as weight.     

Social Perception of Rape Victims in Dating and Married Relationships: The Role of Perpetrator’s Benevolent Sexism

Two hypothetical scenario studies examined how situational, perpetrator, and observer factors affect blame towards rape victims. In Study 1, Spanish high school students (N?=?206) read about a rape committed by a boyfriend or husband who was described as benevolently sexist or not. Study 2 (N?=?201 British college students) replicated and extended Study 1 by adding a condition in which the rapist was described as a hostile sexist. In both studies, participants’ benevolent sexism scores predicted more victim blame when the rapist was described as a husband (but not a boyfriend) who held benevolently sexist attitudes. Study 2 showed that participants’ hostile sexism scores predicted more victim blame when the rapist was described as a hostile sexist.     

The effect of mother-infant skin-to-skin contact on plasma cortisol and β-endorphin concentrations in preterm newborns

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of mother-infant skin-to-skin contact on plasma β- endorphin and cortisol concentrations in stable, preterm infants on a newborn intensive care unit. Blood samples were obtained before and at the end of a 20-min period of skin-to-skin contact. Similarly paired samples, obtained at the same times and after the same interval, without skin-to- skin contact, were obtained on another day and served as controls. Both cortisol and β-endorphin concentrations fell significantly after the skin-to-skin session (cortisol: geometric mean change 66%, p=0.008; β-endorphin: geometric mean change 74%, p=0.002). There was also a significant fall in cortisol levels during the control session (geometric mean change 78%, p=0.02), in contrast to β-endorphin levels, in which there was no significant change. Analysis of variance showed that the fall in β-endorphin, but not the fall in cortisol, during the skin-to-skin session was significant when compared with the control session. These results emphasize the hormonal responsiveness of the preterm newborn to relatively minor interventions. We conclude that maternal skin-to-skin contact results in a significant reduction in circulating β-endorphin in the newborn; there was no evidence of any adverse effect.