The expulsion from Disneyland: the social psychological impact of 9/11

People expressed many different reactions to the events of September 11th, 2001. Some of these reactions were clearly negative, such as political intolerance, discrimination, and hate crimes directed toward targets that some, if not many, people associated with the attackers. Other reactions were more positive. For example, people responded by donating blood, increasing contributions of time and money to charity, and flying the American flag. The goal of this article is to review some of Americans' negative and positive reactions to 9/11. We also describe two frameworks, value protection and terror management theory, that provide insights into Americans' various reactions to the tragedy of 9/11.     

The organization of narrative discourse in Lewy body spectrum disorder

Narrative discourse is an essential component of day-to-day communication, but little is known about narrative in Lewy body spectrum disorder (LBSD), including Parkinson’s disease (PD), Parkinson’s disease with dementia (PDD), and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). We performed a detailed analysis of a semi-structured speech sample in 32 non-aphasic patients with LBSD, and we related their narrative impairments to gray matter (GM) atrophy using voxel-based morphometry. We found that patients with PDD and DLB have significant difficulty organizing their narrative speech. This was correlated with deficits on measures of executive functioning and speech fluency. Regression analyses associated this deficit with reduced cortical volume in inferior frontal and anterior cingulate regions. These findings are consistent with a model of narrative discourse that includes executive as well as language components and with an impairment of the organizational component of narrative discourse in patients with PDD and DLB.     

Cerebral perfusion in chronic stroke: implications for lesion-symptom mapping and functional MRI

Lesion-symptom mapping studies are based upon the assumption that behavioral impairments are directly related to structural brain damage. Given what is known about the relationship between perfusion deficits and impairment in acute stroke, attributing specific behavioral impairments to localized brain damage leaves much room for speculation, as impairments could also reflect abnormal neurovascular function in brain regions that appear structurally intact on traditional CT and MRI scans. Compared to acute stroke, the understanding of cerebral perfusion in chronic stroke is far less clear. Utilizing arterial spin labeling (ASL) MRI, we examined perfusion in 17 patients with chronic left hemisphere stroke. The results revealed a decrease in left hemisphere perfusion, primarily in peri-infarct tissue. There was also a strong relationship between increased infarct size and decreased perfusion. These findings have implications for lesion-symptom mapping studies as well as research that relies on functional MRI to study chronic stroke.     

Breaking down unitization: Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?

Memory impairments are often observed in aging. Specifically, older adults have difficulty binding together disparate elements (relational memory). We have recently shown that a cognitive strategy known as unitization can mitigate impaired relational learning in the transverse patterning task (TP) in both amnesia and healthy aging. This strategy allows items to be fused together through an interaction such that one item acts upon another. In the context of TP, unitization is comprised of three component processes: (1) fusion, (2) motion, and (3) semantic comprehension of action/consequence sequences. Here, we examine which of these components are sufficient to mitigate age-related impairments. Four groups of older adults were given either the full unitization strategy or one of the three component strategies. Each group of older adults showed impairments in memory for the relations among items under standard training instructions relative to a threshold that marks learning of a winner-take-all rule (elemental threshold). However, participants who were given either the full unitization strategy or the action/consequence-only strategy showed improved performance, which was maintained following the 1-hour delay. Therefore, semantically rich action/consequence interactions are sufficient to mitigate age-related relational memory impairments.     

Against the possibility of historical evidence for miracles

In his bookThe Concept of Miracle and his paper ‘For the Possibility of Miracles’ Swinburne claims that there are no logical difficulties in supposing that there could be strong historical evidence for the occurrence of miracles. This claim is based on three assertions; two of which I demonstrate are only true contingently. In this paper I identify several logical difficulties regarding the possibility of attaining historical evidence for the occurrence of miracles. On the strength of these logical difficulties I hope to demonstrate that there is sufficient reason to doubt Swinburne’s central claim.     

IMPRESSIONS OF MOTHERS AND FATHERS ON THE PERIPHERY OF CHILD CARE

This study was designed to assess impressions of employed mothers and fathers who do not provide the primary child care in their familial context. Participants read a story about an employed mother or father who demonstrated very little direct involvement in the care of his or her child. As hypothesized, impressions of a mother who did not play a central role in caregiving were more affected by whether or not she had a clear situational reason for not providing care (i.e., she was out of town) than impressions of a father. These findings imply continuing differences in child care expectations for mothers and fathers.     

Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? Reality Dating Television Programs, Attitudes Toward Sex, and Sexual Behaviors

Past research has revealed associations between television viewing and sexual attitudes and behaviors. We examined a burgeoning new television genre, reality dating programs (RDPs). Undergraduate students (ages 18–24) reported their overall television viewing, their RDP viewing, and their involvement with RDPs (watching in order to learn and watching in order to be entertained). They also completed measures of attitudes toward sex, dating, and relationships, and answered questions about sexual behavior. Most participants were occasional or frequent viewers of at least one RDP. Men reported using RDPs for learning more than did women; there was no gender difference in use of RDPs for entertainment. Total amount of RDP viewing was positively correlated, for both men and women, with adversarial sexual beliefs, endorsement of a sexual double standard, and the beliefs that men are sex-driven, that appearance is important in dating, and that dating is a game. In all cases, however, these relationships were partially or totally mediated through viewer involvement. Men and women who watched RDPs tended to be less sexually experienced; there were few other correlations with sexual behaviors.     

Perseverance in solving Sudoku: role of grit and cognitive flexibility in problem solving

Problem solving is a higher order cognitive capacity with implications for everyday functioning. Although Grit predicts academic outcomes, the relation between facets of Grit, Consistency and Perseverance, and problem solving remain unknown. We report the results of two studies conducted to examine the impact of facets of grit on problem solving within the context of solving Sudoku puzzles. In Study 1, Grit-Perseverance predicted performance on the hard versus easy puzzle. In Study 2, we increased the difficulty level of the puzzles and assessed cognitive flexibility using the Wisconsin Card Sort Test. Grit-Perseverance was associated with effort on both the hard and very hard puzzles. Further, mediation analyses revealed that Grit-Perseverance indirectly predicted increased effort on the very hard puzzle through decreased cognitive flexibility. Overall our results demonstrate that Grit-Perseverance, not Consistency, impacts problem solving and highly gritty individuals may be most successful in solving challenging problems that are moderately constrained.