Priming in interpersonal contexts: implications for affect and behavior

Priming stereotypes can lead to a variety of behavioral outcomes, including assimilation, contrast, and response behaviors. However, the conditions that give rise to each of these outcomes are unspecified. Furthermore, theoretical accounts posit that prime-to-behavior effects are either direct (i.e., unmediated) or mediated by cognitive processes, whereas the role of affective processes has been largely unexplored. The present research directly investigated both of these issues. Three experiments demonstrated that priming a threatening social group ("hoodies") influences both affect and behavior in an interpersonal context. Hoodie priming produced both behavioral avoidance and several affective changes (including social apprehension, threat sensitivity, and self-reported anxiety and hostility). Importantly, avoidance following hoodie priming was mediated by anxiety and occurred only under conditions of other- (but not self-) focus. These results highlight multiple routes through which primes influence affect and behavior, and suggest that attention to self or others determine the nature of priming effects.     

Effects of the Inclusion and Refutation of Peripheral Details on Eyewitness Credibility

The present study examines the effects of including trivial details in eyewitness testimony on witness credibility, as well as the effects of discrediting presented details. Participants ( N = 155) read 2 brief, contradictory depositions from fictional witnesses about a fictional car accident. One of the depositions included a short set of details unrelated to the accident itself. After participants rated the credibility of the witnesses, the trivial details were refuted and the participants rated the credibility of the witnesses again. Contrary to previous research (Bell & Loftus, 1989), the inclusion of trivial details had no effect on witness credibility. However, significant effects on witness credibility were obtained when the details were refuted. As expected, the credibility of the witness presenting the trivial details significantly decreased after detail refutation. More interestingly, refutation appeared to increase the credibility of the other witness.     

Mutant Spiritualities in a Secular Age: The ‘Fasting Body’ and the Hunger for Pure Immanence

This article will explore the ‘return of the repressed’ of secular materialism, in the form of ‘mutant spiritualities’, with a particular focus on the significance of the fasting body, once an accepted product of ascetic spiritual practice, and now cultivated by those seeking a range of experiences; including the anorexic, the model or celebrity trading in beauty and elegance, and those in search of a new age spiritual enlightenment. I argue that further exploration of the range of contexts in which the fasting body is cultivated reveal that what is desired is a lost experience of the body as an expanded field of energetic confluences, an assemblage of affects in the manner of Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘body without organs’. Such an experience of the body is termed as expanded, light and even ecstatic by those following fasting regimes, in that it overcomes the experience of the body as ‘heavy’, burdensome or limiting. The word ecstasy derives from the Greek ‘ekstasis’, meaning to stand outside oneself. Through a textual analysis of web content of cyber communities dedicated to these food practices, I suggest that fasting expresses a hunger for ‘self transcendence’ as pure immanence, that is both subversive of secular materialism and limited by narcissistic pathology.Jo Nash, PGDip Ed, PhD (Psychotherapy Studies), MA., BA (Hons) has taught on the Masters in Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Sheffield since 1998 and became Course Director in October 2001. Before becoming an academic she worked in mental health services for over 15 years as a student nurse, social worker, advocate, trainer and researcher. She is currently working on a series of essays on the application of psychodynamic theory to the study of social processes, in relation to new spiritualities, religion and political processes, and gender and mental health. Correspondence to Dr Jo Nash, Mental Health Section, School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield. Regent Court, 30 Regent Place, Sheffield, UK: S1 4DA. J.T.Nash@shef.ac.uk She can be contacted by email at J.T.Nash@shef.ac.uk     

Cosmetics: They Influence More Than Caucasian Female Facial Attractiveness

The study explored whether 4 Caucasian women would be evaluated differently on 4 social measures depending on whether they were presented with or without makeup. Participants—152 men and 171 women—were split into 2 groups and were presented with the women's facial photographs either with or without cosmetics. Women presented wearing cosmetics were perceived as healthier and more confident than when presented without. Participants also awarded women wearing makeup with a greater earning potential and with more prestigious jobs than the same women without cosmetics. The results suggest that women can successfully employ cosmetics to manipulate how they are assessed, which may be advantageous in social situations where women may be judged on their appearance, such as job interviews.     

Neurotherapy with Adults

Several possible conceptualizations of neurotherapy are discussed: EEG operant conditioning; EEG homeostatic normalization; and utilization of EEG biofeedback as a means of accessing particular states of consciousness. Attention is given to how neurotherapy is actually done and when it may be a useful adjunct to psychological or medical therapies. Integration of neurotherapy with the larger framework of cognitive behavior therapy and the biopsychosocial model is discussed. Three case studies of adults involving the use of neurotherapy are described.     

Working memory capacity and the antisaccade task: individual differences in voluntary saccade control

Performance on antisaccade trials requires the inhibition of a prepotent response (i.e., don't look at the flashing cue) and the generation and execution of a correct saccade in the opposite direction. The authors attempted to further specify the role of working memory (WM) span differences in the antisaccade task. They tested high- and low-span individuals on variants of prosaccade and antisaccade trials in which an eye movement is the sole requirement. In 3 experiments, they demonstrated the importance of WM span differences in both suppression of a reflexive saccade and generation of a volitional eye movement. The results support the contention that individual differences in WM span are not exclusively due to differences in inhibition but also reflect differences in directing the focus of attention.     

Open-Field Foraging: The Influence of Prior Taste-Aversion Conditioning

The Psychological Record - Two experiments evaluating open-field foraging behavior of rats that had received prior taste aversion conditioning to liquid saccharin are reported. In both studies each...     

BRCA1 Testing: Genetic Counseling Protocol Development and Counseling Issues

This article discusses the genetic counseling protocols which were developed and counseling issues that have arisen in the first 2 years of evaluating a large kindred with a BRCA1 mutation. The rationale for the development of the genetic counseling protocols and specific genetic counseling visual aids are presented and discussed. The protocols and counseling aids can serve as models for other programs offering cancer susceptibility testing. The observations of study counselors about study subject concerns and responses to genetic testing at the time of the pretest and posttest counseling sessions are presented.     

Individual differences in imagination inflation

Garry, Manning, Loftus, and Sherman (1996) found that when adult subjects imagined childhood events, these events were subsequentlyjudged as more likely to have occurred than were not-imagined events. The authors termed this effect imagination inflation. We replicated the effect, using a novel set of Life Events Inventory events. Further, we tested whether the effect is related to four subject characteristics possibly associated with false memory creation. The extent to which subjects inflated judged likelihood following imagined events was associated with indices of hypnotic suggestibility and dissociativity, but not with vividness of imagery or interrogative suggestibility. Results suggest that imagination plays a role in subsequent likelihood judgments regarding childhood events, and that some individuals are more likely than others to experience imagination inflation.