Positive Contact with Feminist Women as a Predictor of Feminist Solidarity,Gender Privilege Awareness,and Public and Domestic Support for Gender Equality in Straight Men

Men can play an important role in supporting gender equality. In the present research, we draw on Intergroup Contact Theory to examine positive intergroup contact with feminist women as one factor that can encourage men to support gender equality. In one cross-sectional study (N?=?170) and one half-longitudinal panel study (N?=?240), we found that straight men who reported more positive contact with feminist women also reported greater feminist solidarity. Cross-sectional results indicated that straight men’s solidarity with feminists, in turn, predicted more support for gender equality in public and domestic spheres and greater awareness of their gender privilege. The longitudinal results also supported the association between solidarity with feminists and gender privilege awareness, but not public and domestic support for gender equality. Decades of research has shown that positive intergroup contact can change attitudes. Our research suggests that, when it comes to gender equality, positive contact with feminist women may also encourage men to identify with feminists and raise their gender consciousness.

     

“Big” Sounds Bigger in More Widely Spoken Languages

Larger communities face more communication barriers. We propose that languages spoken by larger communities adapt and overcome these greater barriers by increasing their reliance on sound symbolism, as sound symbolism can facilitate communication. To test whether widely spoken languages are more sound symbolic, participants listened to recordings of the words big and small in widely spoken and less common languages and guessed their meanings. Accuracy was higher for words from widely spoken languages providing evidence that widely spoken languages harbor more sound symbolism. Preliminary results also suggest that widely spoken languages rely on different sound symbolic patterns than less common languages. Community size can thus shape linguistic forms and influence the tools that languages use to facilitate communication.     

Religion and Spirituality among American Indian,South Asian,Black, Hispanic/Latina,and White Women in the Study on Stress,Spirituality, and Health

Social scientists have increasingly recognized the lack of diversity in survey research on American religion, resulting in a dearth of data on religion and spirituality (R/S) in understudied racial and ethnic groups. At the same time, epidemiological studies have increasingly diversified their racial and ethnic representation, but have collected few R/S measures to date. With a particular focus on American Indian and South Asian women (in addition to Blacks, Hispanic/Latinas, and white women), this study introduces a new effort among religion and epidemiology researchers, the Study on Stress, Spirituality, and Health. This multicohort study provides some of the first estimates of R/S beliefs and practices among American Indians and U.S. South Asians, and offers new insight into salient beliefs and practices of diverse racial/ethnic and religious communities.     

Increasing relational memory in childhood with unitization strategies

Young children often experience relational memory failures, which are thought to result from immaturity of the recollection processes presumed to be required for these tasks. However, research in adults has suggested that relational memory tasks can be accomplished using familiarity, a process thought to be mature by the end of early childhood. The goal of the present study was to determine whether relational memory performance could be improved in childhood by teaching young children memory strategies that have been shown to increase the contribution of familiarity in adults (i.e., unitization). Groups of 6- and 8-year-old children were taught to use visualization strategies that either unitized or did not unitize pictures and colored borders. Estimates of familiarity and recollection were extracted by fitting receiver operator characteristic curves (Yonelinas, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 20, 1341–1354, 1994, Yonelinas, Memory & Cognition 25, 747–763, 1997) based on dual-process models of recognition. Bayesian analysis revealed that strategies involving unitization improved memory performance and increased the contribution of familiarity in both age groups.     

Decomposing item-method directed forgetting of emotional pictures: Equivalent costs and no benefits

Using an item-method directed forgetting task, we presented negative, neutral, and positive photographic pictures, one at a time, each followed by an instruction to remember or forget. We determined that the directed forgetting effect, defined as better subsequent recognition of to-be-remembered (TBR) items than to-be-forgotten (TBF) items, was equivalent across negative, neutral, and positive pictures. To disentangle the underlying costs (i.e., decrease in memory for TBF items) and benefits (i.e., increase in memory for TBR items), we compared recognition memory performance in the directed forgetting task to that of a novel within-subjects remember-all control condition (Experiment 1) and to a between-subjects remember-all control group (Experiment 2). We observed costs without benefits across all three emotions—negative, neutral, and positive—in both experiments. These results demonstrate that equivalent directed forgetting effects for emotional stimuli are not attributable to different underlying component processes. Instead, our results suggest that selection for encoding is accomplished in similar ways, regardless of emotional content.     

Subtypes of Adaptive and Maladaptive Perfectionism in Anorexia Nervosa: Associations with Eating Disorder and Affective Symptoms

Perfectionism is hypothesized to contribute to the etiology of anorexia nervosa (AN). However, there is little research regarding whether individuals with AN can be classified according to maladaptive (e.g., evaluative concerns) and adaptive (e.g., high personal standards) facets of perfectionism that predict distinct outcomes and might warrant different intervention approaches. In this study, a latent profile analysis was conducted using data from adults with AN (n?=?118). Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Frost et al. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 14(5), 449–46, 1990) subscales were used to identify subgroups differing according to endorsed perfectionism features (e.g., adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism). Generalized linear models were used to compare subgroups on eating disorder and affective symptoms measured through questionnaire and ecological momentary assessment. Four subgroups were identified: (a) Low Perfectionism; (b) High Adaptive and Maladaptive Perfectionism; (c) Moderate Maladaptive Perfectionism; and (d) High Maladaptive Perfectionism. Subgroups differed on overall eating disorder symptoms (p?<?.001), purging (p?=?.005), restrictive eating (p?<?.001), and body checking (p?<?.001) frequency, depressive (p?<?.001) and anxiety (p?<?.001) symptoms, and negative (p?=?.001) and positive (p?<?.001) affect. The Low Perfectionism group displayed the most adaptive scores and the Moderate and High Maladaptive Perfectionism groups demonstrated the most elevated clinical symptoms. The High Adaptive and Maladaptive Perfectionism group demonstrated low affective disturbances, but elevated eating disorder symptoms. Results support the clinical significance of subtyping according to perfectionism dimensions in AN. Research is needed to determine if perfectionism subtyping can enhance individualized treatment targeting in AN.     

Christian–Muslim Relations in China and Japan in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries

ABSTRACT

Building on entries written for Christian–Muslim Relations: A Bibliographic History, this article explores Christian–Muslim relations in China and Japan in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The first half of the article considers Christian–Muslim relations amongst the Japanese in and outside Japan. Direct, indirect and potential interactions and contemporaneous commentaries are explored in order to build a picture of the sort of Christian–Muslim interactions that took place. However, due to the sparsity of sources, this section seeks more to develop and open potential avenues of enquiry than to provide definitive answers. The second section focuses on Christian–Muslim interactions in the work of Matteo Ricci and suggests that Christian–Muslim interactions in East Asia generally, and in China more specifically, were significant not only to the Jesuit mission itself, but also to the shaping of European knowledge of the East.     

Using subjective and objective measures to predict level of reading fluency at the end of first grade

This study compared reading rate to reading fluency (as measured by a rating scale). After listening to first graders read short passages, we assigned an overall fluency rating (low, average, or high) to each reading. We then used predictive discriminant analyses to determine which of five measures—accuracy, rate (objective); accuracy, phrasing, pace (subjective)—would best predict our fluency ratings. The objective measure of rate and the subjective measure of phrasing were clearly the best predictors, classifying approximately 90% of the cases correctly. The results support the use of reading rate as a proxy for reading fluency in first grade.