The importance of feeling sexually attractive: Can it predict an individual's experience of their sexuality and sexual relationships across gender and sexual orientation?

Limited research exists on the implications of feeling sexually attractive for various aspects of sexuality and sexual relationships. This article examined associations between self‐perceived sexual attractiveness and sexual esteem, sexual satisfaction and amount of sexual experience, among both men and women who identified as heterosexual (n = 1017), gay or lesbian (n = 1225) or bisexual (n = 651). Results of the study demonstrated that positive self‐perceptions of sexual attractiveness predicted greater sexual esteem, greater sexual satisfaction, a higher frequency of sexual activity with others and a larger number of sexual partners among both men and women who identified as heterosexual, gay, lesbian or bisexual. The findings suggest that feeling sexually attractive may have implications for how an individual experiences their sexuality and sexual relationships regardless of their gender or sexual orientation. The importance of considering an individual's self‐perceptions of sexual attractiveness when they present with concerns related to their sexual experiences or relationships, and the potential benefits of educational and therapeutic interventions designed to enhance self‐perceptions of sexual attractiveness are discussed.     

The economics of the law of effect.

A corollary of the law of effect predicts that the larger the reinforcement, the greater the rate of responding. However, an animal must eat more small portions than large portions to obtain the same daily intake, and one would predict, therefore, that when eating smaller portions an efficient animal would eat less (conserving time and energy) and/or respond faster (conserving time). The latter of these predictions was supported by the present experiments with free-feeding rats for which portion size (pellet size or duration of feeder presentation) and portion price within meals were varied. Response rate was a function of the unit price (responses/g) of food: Rats responded faster when portions were smaller or when prices were higher. Meal size and frequency were relatively unaffected by unit price, but were influenced by the price of meal initiation. The results are discussed in relation to the economic differences between traditional operant and free-feeding paradigms and to both traditional and more recent formulations of the law of effect.     

A path-analytic approach to the relations between parental traits and acceptance and adolescent adjustment

A path-analytic model was employed to examine relations between parent-reported instrumental and expressive traits, child-reported parental acceptance, and adolescent self-esteem and self-consciousness. Analyses were run separately for each parent-child dyad. It was predicted that any relations between parental traits and child adjustment would be mediated by parental acceptance, especially for expressive traits. This prediction was confirmed for families with daughters. The findings suggest, for the daughter dyads, that parents with expressive traits are more likely to communicate acceptance which, in turn, fosters child adjustment. Of the total variance accounted for in the child adjustment indices, most was due to the contribution of parental acceptance to the model. A comparison of these results with those of previous studies suggests that relations between parental traits and the other variables in the path model are less dramatic when parents' report of their own personality characteristics are employed than when child report is employed. Future research may be improved by serious consideration of mediating variables rather than examining relations between distally-related parent and child variables.The research reported here was supported by Father Flanagan's Boys Home, Inc., by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Family Relations in Early Adolescence, and by a Graduate School Research Fellowship awarded to the senior author from Virginia Commonwealth University. The authors are grateful to Karl Kelley for his statistical advice.     

On the status of nonconscious processes in human cognition: comment on Reber

Two issues are discussed. The first one pertains to the generality of the nonconscious learning processes and their somewhat paradoxical status in cognitive psychology. We argue that the ability of the human cognitive system to nonconsciously acquire complex knowledge structures is one of its elementary and indispensable properties. Moreover, the existence of this ability constitutes one of the necessary metatheoretical assumptions of contemporary cognitive psychology. Nevertheless, the contemporary cognitive psychology literature often implies that it is only one of many controversial and unusual phenomena. The second issue pertains to the distinction between the so-called primitive unconscious and the sophisticated unconscious as proposed by Reber (1989).     

The proselytizing of jews: Its history and consequences

Psychologists, sociologists, and others have, for the past century, sought to explain the motivations for religious conversion beyond the simple theological explanation of Divine intervention. Specifically, they have raised the possibility that suggestion, hypnosis, and/or schizoid tendencies, for example, have played decisive roles in the process. Conflict has resulted from the publication of disparate viewpoints, especially between those who accept converts' narratives about their pre-conversion motives at face value and those who question the validity of such recollections.Less often considered, except perhaps in cases of great historical import, are the psychological consequences of conversion. The ripple effects of conversion, as well as the impact on the individual, are examined here. Consideration of psychological antecedents and consequences, in historical and contemporary settings, underlie tentative conclusions regarding today's sudden conversion experiences.Lita Linzer Schwartz and Natalie Isser are co-authors ofProselytization, Conversion, and Commitment, and of several articles and papers focused on historical and contemporary examples of religious conversion.     

Imagery mnemonic training in a patient with primary degenerative dementia

A visual-imagery mnemonic was used as a memory training aid for a 66-year-old patient with primary degenerative dementia. Length of retention time was used as the primary outcome measure. The application of the mnemonic procedure extended the length of retention time for name-face recall from baseline. Performance gains were sustained at one month.     

Hartsoeker's homonculus: a corrective note

Contrary to what is reported in many psychology texts, microscopists of the preformationist era in embryology, particularly Nicholas Hartsoeker and Antony van Leeuwenhoek, did not claim to have seen tiny homonculi, or fetuses, within human spermatozoa. This common misconception is based on the fact that both Hartsoeker and Leeuwenhoek had at one time included drawings of homonculi in their writings, but they did so only to suggest their possible appearance (Hartsoeker) or to refute allegations that they existed (Leeuwenhoek).