Spatial selection via feature-driven inhibition of distractor locations

The allocation of spatial attention was measured with detection probes at different locations. Response times were faster for probes at the location of the target digit, which subjects reported, than at the locations of distractor digits, which they ignored. Probes at blank locations between stimuli produced fast responses, indicating that selection was accomplished by inhibiting distractor locations but not other areas. Unlike earlier studies using location cuing with simpler stimuli, these experiments showed no attentional differences across horizontal or vertical midlines. Attention varied little with distance from the target, although blank locations far from the target were somewhat less attended than were those near the target, and attention was only slightly affected by expectations for stimulus location. This task demonstrates a form of feature-driven spatial attention, in which locations with objects lacking target features are inhibited.     

Effects of high-pass and low-pass spatial filtering on face identification

If face images are degraded by block averaging, there is a nonlinear decline in recognition accuracy as block size increases, suggesting that identification requires a critical minimum range of object spatial frequencies. The identification of faces was measured with equivalent Fourier low-pass filtering and block averaging preserving the same information and with high-pass transformations. In Experiment 1, accuracy declined and response time increased in a significant nonlinear manner in all cases as the spatial-frequency range was reduced. However, it did so at a faster rate for the quantized and high-passed images. A second experiment controlled for the differences in the contrast of the high-pass faces and found a reduced but significant and nonlinear decline in performance as the spatial-frequency range was reduced. These data suggest that face identification is preferentially supported by a band of spatial frequencies of approximately 8-16 cycles per face; contrast or line-based explanations were found to be inadequate. The data are discussed in terms of current models of face identification.     

Work and Family Variables, Entrepreneurial Career Success, and Psychological Well-Being

The study examines the influence of work and family variables on the career success and psychological well-being of 111 men and women entrepreneurs. The results show that work-domain variables account for significant variation in time commitment to work, whereas family-domain variables explain substantial variation in time commitment to family. Time commitment to work and time commitment to family play an important role in mediating the effects of gender, work and family characteristics, and role demands on work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict. These two types of work–family conflict in turn mediate the effects of time commitment to work and family and selected work and family variables on entrepreneurs’ career success and life stress. Implications of the findings and directions for further research are discussed.     

GENDER, JEALOUSY, AND REASON

Abstract— Research has suggested that men are especially bothered by evidence of their partner's sexual infidelity, whereas women are troubled more by evidence of emotional infidelity. One evolutionary account (Buss, Larsen, Westen, & Semmelroth, 1992) argues that this is an innate difference, arising from men's need for paternity certainty and women's need for male investment in their offspring. We suggest that the difference may instead be based on reasonable differences between the sexes in how they interpret evidence of infidelity. A man, thinking that women have sex only when in love, has reason to believe that if his mate has sex with another man, she is in love with that other. A woman, thinking that men can have sex without love, should still be bothered by sexual infidelity, but less so because it does not imply that her mate has fallen in love as well. A survey of 137 subjects confirmed that men and women do differ in the predicted direction in how much they think each form of infidelity implies the other, proposing innate emotional differences may, therefore, be gratuitous.     

Laughter and Stress in Daily Life: Relation to Positive and Negative Affect

The present study investigated the proposal that increased laughter can serve to moderate the affective impact of negative life events. Community participants kept a record of their actual frequency of laughter for a 3-day period, and completed a measure of stressful life events each evening. Current levels of positive and negative affect were also obtained in the morning and evening of each day. A series of simple correlations, computed on a daily basis, provided little evidence for any direct relationships between amount of daily laughter and either positive or negative affect. Instead, more complex moderator analyses revealed that greater negative affect was clearly associated with a higher number of stressful life events, but only for those individuals with a lower frequency of actual laughter. In contrast, and in support of a stress buffering hypothesis, it was found that individuals with a higher frequency of laughter did not show greater levels of negative affect as stressful life events increased. When considering positive affect, it was found that only males showed a significant moderating effect of laughter. For males who laughed more frequently, a greater number of stressful life events was associated with higher levels of positive affect. These findings are discussed in terms of several possible mechanisms which may account for the moderating effects of laughter on affect, including the use of cognitive appraisals and emotion-focused coping strategies.     

Women and the Social Movements of the 1960s: Activists, Engaged Observers, and Nonparticipants

Many women in the generation that attended college during the 1960s have reported that they were influenced by the social movements of that era, even women who did not participate in them. In addition to political activists, social movements also appear to include "engaged observers"—individuals who are attentive to movement writings and activities, and express moral and even financial support for them, but who take no other action. Although activism in a movement may be the best predictor of future political action, engaged observation may be related to other indicators of political socialization, such as a powerful felt impact of the movement and well-developed political attitudes. Evidence to support this notion is drawn from studies of three samples of college-educated white and black women.     

Interrole conflict among married women: The influence of husband and wife characteristics on conflict and coping behavior

The present research investigated the conflict that women experience between their home and nonhome roles. All of the women in the sample (N = 115) were married and living with their husbands, had at least one child living at home, and were college students. It was found that women who placed a similar level of importance on work as their husbands experienced less intense conflict than women who differed from their husbands in career orientation. In addition, the number of children at home was positively related to a woman's conflict when her husband was highly work oriented. A woman's use of reactive coping strategies was negatively related to her life satisfaction when her husband was dissatisfied with his own life.     

Some models of balance applied to children's perceptions of international relations

Data obtained from four national samples of 6–11 year old children are presented, showing preference for four countries, perceived friendship of these countries with the subject's own country and perceived relationships among the target-countries. Two quantitative analogues of Heider's balance theory are used to examine the relations between these sets of data, one employing a multiplicative and the other a distance approach. Both models were found to fit the data adequately, further research being needed to discriminate between them. An explanation in terms of ‘ethnocentric correspondence’ is given to explain why prediction is noticeably better for British and Austrian than for Belgian and Greek samples.