The concept of citizenship and attitudes toward women in combat

Since the American and French revolutions, the right to bear arms has been an integral aspect of the normative definition of citizenship. Citizenship rights were won by people who were given the opportunity to prove their loyalty through the defense of the state. This right has been denied women who, although they have served in the United States armed forces in relatively low numbers, have been systematically excluded from combat specialties. Attitude data collected from both Army and civilian samples show public opinion to be opposed to women in combat. Women in the Army are less opposed than are men, political liberals less than political conservatives, and respondents with no religious affiliation less than those with church ties. In no group, however, is there majority support for extending the right to fight to women.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Fifth Symposium on Psychology in the Air Force, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado, April 8–10, 1976.     

Neural fetal tissue transplants: old and new issues

Abstract. Neural fetal tissue transplantation offers promise as a treatment for devasting neurologic conditions such as Parkinson's disease. Two types of issues arise from this procedure: those associated with the use of fetuses, and those associated with the use of neural tissue. The former issues have been examined in many forums; the latter have not. This paper reviews issues and arguments raised by the use of fetal tissue in general, but focuses on the implications of the use of neural tissue for basic concepts of personnood and personal identity.     

Ongoing development of social cognition in adolescence

Age differences in social cognition between adolescents and young adults were investigated. Two large groups of adolescents and young adults were given tasks of theory of mind and emotion recognition. In addition, to control for possibly related basic cognitive development, working memory, speed of processing, and verbal ability were assessed. A strong age effect was revealed across both measures of social cognition. Adolescents performed with a lower accuracy than adults. Further analyses indicated that those age differences remained significant even after controlling for basic cognitive abilities. Exploratory analyses indicated no influence of pubertal phase on social cognition. Results suggest ongoing development of social cognition across adolescence, independent of individual differences in more basic cognitive abilities.     

Intelligence and interpersonal sensitivity: A meta-analysis

A meta-analytic review investigated the association between general intelligence and interpersonal sensitivity. The review involved 38 independent samples with 2988 total participants. There was a highly significant small-to-medium effect for intelligence measures to be correlated with decoding accuracy (r = .19, p < .001). Significant moderators included the type of decoding judgment (emotion vs. intended meaning judgments), decoding channel (audio-only vs. audio-plus-video channel), and target gender (both male-and-female targets vs. female-only targets). Interpersonal decoding accuracy requires some level of social sophistication and results of this meta-analysis suggest that part of that social sophistication involves the cognitive abilities comprising general intelligence.     

How focus at encoding affects children’s source monitoring

Retention of source information is enhanced by focus on speakers’ feelings about statements even though recognition is reduced for both adults and children. However, does any focus on another person lead to enhanced source monitoring, or is a particular kind of focus required? Does other-focus enhance source monitoring, or does self-focus detract from it? In Experiment 1, 4- and 6-year-olds watched two speakers make statements in a no-focus control or with focus directed on how they (or a speaker) felt about the statements or on perceptual features about themselves (or the speaker). Source monitoring decisions were enhanced by other-focus in both the perceptual and emotional conditions. However, the effect was larger for the emotional condition, and source monitoring exceeded no-focus controls only for this condition. Experiment 2 showed no effect of other-focus versus self-focus on source monitoring when questions were semantic.     

Young children's use of features to reorient is more than just associative: further evidence against a modular view of spatial processing

Proponents of a geometric module have argued that instances of young children's use of features as well as geometry to reorient can be explained by a two-stage process. In this model, only the first stage is a true reorientation, accomplished by using geometric information alone; features are considered in a second stage using association ( Lee, Shusterman & Spelke, 2006 ). This account is contradicted by the data from two experiments. Experiment 1a sets the stage for Experiment 1b by showing that young children use geometric information to reorient in a complex geometric figure without a single principal axis of symmetry (an octagon). In such a figure, there are two sets of geometrically congruent corners, with four corners in each set. The addition of a colored wall leads to the existence of three geometrically congruent but, crucially, all unmarked corners; using the colored wall to distinguish among them could not be done associatively. In Experiment 1b, both 3- and 5-year-old children showed true non-associative reorientation using features by performing at above-chance levels on all-white trials. Experiment 2 used a paradigm without distinctive geometry, modeled on Lee et al. (2006) , involving an equilateral triangle of hiding places located within a circular enclosure, but with a large stable feature rather than a small moveable one. Four-year-olds (the age group studied by Lee et al.) used features at above-chance levels. Thus, features can be used to reorient, in a way not dependent on association, in contradiction to the two-stage version of the modular view.     

Smoking cessation among Norwegian adolescents and young adults: preferred cessation methods

Despite generally declining smoking rates, particularly among young people, a large number of people remain smokers and many young people still pick up smoking. Helping smokers quit therefore remains a high priority for the public health sector. In the present study we examined adolescents and young adults' preferences regarding cessation methods and if these differed between genders and depended on smoking frequency. The data came from a nationally representative survey in Norway among 16-20 year olds. Only regular (weekly and daily) smokers were included in the statistical analyses (n = 509, 51% females). The findings suggest that the majority of both male (83.6%) and female (78.4%) smokers would prefer to quit smoking without help. More males than females reported that they would consider using snus as a cessation aid, while females more often reported willingness to attend cessation classes or use brochures and diaries as cessation aids. Both males and females had similar preferences albeit low, regarding the use of health services, nicotine gum or patches and internet and sms-services to quit smoking. Daily smokers would more often than weekly smokers prefer to attend cessation classes, seek help from health services, use nicotine gum or patches or use brochures and diaries. In contrast, weekly smokers preferred to use snus as a cessation aid more often than daily smokers. Identifying and making appropriate cessation methods attractive may lead to successful quitting and consequently public health gains.