Semen Loss and Sexual Anxiety Among Young Unmarried Men: Being Young and Vulnerable in Rural India

Premarital sex remains stigmatized even as the unmarried period of life is lengthening in India. This paper examines how young unmarried men in rural central India conceptualize and understand their sexual health and vulnerability. The data is qualitative, derived from four focus group discussions (N = 38 persons) of young unmarried males that were carried out in conjunction with a larger study on male involvement in reproductive health in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh in 2005. Young, unmarried rural men experience a wide range of functional situations which are culturally defined as health problems, such as “weakness,” thought to be caused by masturbation, nocturnal ejaculations, and the loss of semen. Despite constraints on communication on sexuality with married men, young unmarried men largely share with them the culturally hegemonic notion of semen loss as a health hazard. All four discussions pointed to the negative image of psycho-physiological changes related to maturation and further, to the belief that the reproductive functions of men can render them vulnerable and even harm them. Sexual anxiety in young men may in part reflect young men’s socially dependent and insecure life situation and social suffering. Young, unmarried rural men see marriage as the only release from sexual health problems although temporary relief is sought from private health care providers. In the future, men’s unmarried life stage is bound to lengthen in rural India, and consequently sexual health prior to the commencement of active intercourse should receive more attention in public health services and sex education.     

Effects of training condition on the contribution of specific items to relational processing in baboons (Papio papio)

Relational processing involves learning about the relationship between or among stimuli, transcending the individual stimuli, so that abstract knowledge generalizable to novel situations is acquired. Relational processing has been studied in animals as well as in humans, but little attention has been paid to the contribution of specific items to relational thinking or to the factors that may affect that contribution. This study assessed the intertwined effects of item and relational processing in nonhuman primates. Using a procedure that entailed both expanding and contracting sets of pictorial items, we trained 13 baboons on a two-alternative forced-choice task, in which they had to distinguish horizontal from vertical relational patterns. In Experiment 1, monkeys engaged in item-based processing with a small training set size, and they progressively engaged in relation-based processing as training set size was increased. However, in Experiment 2, overtraining with a small stimulus set promoted the processing of item-based information. These findings underscore similarities in how humans and nonhuman primates process higher-order stimulus relations.     

Associations between symptoms of maternal postpartum depression,gestational age and infant social withdrawal: A longitudinal study in a community cohort

Infant social withdrawal is a risk factor for non-optimal child development; thus, it is important to identify risk factors associated with withdrawal. In a large community sample (N = 19,017), we investigate whether symptoms of maternal and partner postpartum depression (PPD; measured with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale) and prematurity are predictors of infant social withdrawal (measured with the Alarm Distress Baby Scale). Withdrawal was assessed at 2–3, 4–7 and 8–12 months postpartum. Linear regressions showed that prematurity predicted higher infant social withdrawal at all time points, and maternal symptoms of PPD were positively associated with withdrawal at 2–3 months. Logistic regressions showed that odds for elevated social withdrawal were increased with elevated levels of maternal symptoms of PPD at 2–3 and 8–12 months. Partner's symptoms of PPD were not associated with withdrawal. Future studies should investigate how PPD symptoms and prematurity may impact the individual development of social withdrawal.     

Effect on Comprehension of Preposed versus Postposed Adverbial Phrases

A challenge for psycholinguistics is to describe how linguistic cues influence the construction of the mental representation resulting from the comprehension of a text. In this paper, we will focus on one of these linguistic devices: the sentence-initial positioning of spatial adverbials such as In the park.... Three self-paced reading experiments were conducted to test the ‘Discourse Framing Hypothesis’ according to which preposed adverbials can be seen as frame builders announcing that incoming contents satisfy the same informational criterion specified by the adverbial. Our results indicate that spatial adverbials do not play the same role when they are in sentence-initial and in sentence-final position. These results are discussed in the framework of Zwaan’s Event Indexing Model.     

Individual differences in timing of discrete and continuous movements: a dimensional approach

This study investigated aspects of individual differences in timing of continuous and discontinuous movements to different pacing signals (auditory or visual), pacing intervals (500, 650, 800, 950 ms), and across effectors (dominant versus non-dominant hand). Correlation and principal component analysis demonstrated that a single statistical dimension accounted for up to 60 % of the explained variance in discontinuous tasks and 25 % of the variance in continuous tasks, when applied to performance obtained from tasks conducted with different effectors and at different pacing rates. Correlation analysis of factor scores representing effector and rate independent task performances showed that timing of discrete or continuous movements can be associated with modality independent mechanisms. Timing variability from discrete and continuous trials was not significantly correlated. This study goes beyond previous correlational work on individual differences in discrete and continuous movements, demonstrating that individual differences in discrete (event-based) or continuous (emergent) motor timing tasks can be modeled as distinctive statistical components with dissimilar capability to capture effector, rate, and modality independent variance.     

Canadian Arab Youth at the Border: Cultural Dissociation,Fear Management,and Disciplining Practices in Securitized Spaces

In this paper, we explore what Canadian Arab youth do to navigate border and travel transit sites. Arab youth are the focus for this study because they are a neglected demographic of research in ethnic studies, compared to the more copious studies on Canadian Arabs. Our research empirically investigates the struggles that this youth demographic faces, and the efforts they undertake to manage their marginalization. Some of these efforts involve practices of cultural dissociation, fear management, and self-disciplining through behavioral self-surveillance. Drawing upon an existing body of research that recognizes the highly fraught and securitized nature of air travel and border transfer, particularly for Arab/Muslim populations, we use the findings from focus groups conducted in Kitchener-Waterloo to theoretically situate some of the real struggles of Canadian Arab youth. As prominent racialized and securitized identities in the War on Terror (WoT), Arab youth are often forced, or feel that they are forced to perform their Canadian-ness to substantiate their innocence, and in some cases, this requires minimalization, or even erasure of part of who they are.     

The Role of Family in Latino Males’ Occupational Identity Development: A Thematic Analysis Based on Participants’ Occupation Outcomes

The continued growth of the Latino population in the United States is reshaping the nation’s workforce. Given that the majority of Latino children are raised in circumstances that limit their psychosocial development and success in the labor market, and given that Latino men continually lag behind their female peers in educational attainment, understanding how this population develops an occupational identity vis-à-vis their family contexts has become increasingly important. This study, utilizing a qualitative design, retrospectively explored the occupational identity development experiences vis-à-vis family of Latino boys born, raised, and living in California. Following a constructivist grounded theory approach, the purpose of the study was to generate a middle range theory of how Latino boys develop an occupational identity in the home that also explains the divergence of working-class and white-collar occupational paths. Interviews with Latino Americans were conducted using semi-structured interviewing techniques. Nine themes emerged from the data that, when pieced together, produce a model of the occupational identity development trajectories of the participants. Implications of the findings include a need for continued research into the Latino concept of family and parent roles.     

Treating Procrastination Using Cognitive Behavior Therapy: A Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing Treatment Delivered via the Internet or in Groups

Procrastination is a common problem among university students, with at least half of the population reporting great difficulties initiating or completing tasks and assignments. Procrastination can have a negative impact on course grades and the ability to achieve a university degree, but can also lead to psychological distress. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is believed to reduce procrastination, but few studies have investigated its effectiveness in a regular clinical setting. The current study explored its effects using a pragmatic randomized controlled trial comparing treatment delivered during 8 weeks as self-guided CBT via the Internet (ICBT) or as group CBT. In total, 92 university students with severe procrastination were included in the study (registered as a clinical trial on Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT02112383). Outcome measures on procrastination, depression, anxiety, and well-being were distributed at pre- and posttreatment as well as 6-month follow-up. An outcome measure of procrastination was administered weekly. Linear mixed and fixed effects models were calculated, along with improvement and deterioration rates. The results showed large within-group effect sizes on procrastination, Cohen’s d of 1.29 for ICBT, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) [0.81, 1.74], and d of 1.24 for group CBT, 95% CI [0.76, 1.70], and small to moderate benefits for depression, anxiety, and well-being. In total, 33.7% were regarded as improved at posttreatment and 46.7% at follow-up. No differences between conditions were observed after the treatment period, however, participants in group CBT continued or maintained their improvement at follow-up, while participants in self-guided ICBT showed some signs of deterioration. The findings from the current study suggest that CBT might be an effective treatment for those struggling with severe procrastination, but that a group format may be better for some to sustain their benefits over time and that the clinical significance of the results need to be investigated further.