A cross-cultural study of trait self-enhancement, explanatory variables, and adjustment

We investigated trait self-enhancement, explanatory variables, and adjustment in European American (n = 141), Asian American (n = 72), Mexican (n = 141), and Filipino (n = 174) college students. Consistent with trait perspectives, students in all cultural groups rated their traits with moderate to high accuracy, using peer ratings as a criterion. European Americans did not exhibit self-enhancement relative to peers, but both self and peer ratings were higher (i.e., more positive) for European Americans than for the other three groups. Support was found for some, but not all, cultural psychology explanations of self-enhancement. In all cultural groups, self-enhancement was more associated with personal (intrapsychic) adjustment than interpersonal adjustment, as judged by peers. The results provided support for an integration of trait and cultural psychology perspectives.     

Antecedents of consumers' citizenship behaviour towards organic foods

Within the consumer behaviour literature, there has been little research on factors that influence customers' choices for organic foods. This study investigates three aspects of the Taiwanese organic food market. The first aspect considers how argument quality, source credibility, and social comparison affect consumer‐social venture identification. The second aspect examines how identity attractiveness, social media engagement, and self‐determination affect personal relevance. The third and final aspect investigates how consumer‐social venture identification and personal relevance influence customer citizenship behaviour. The results show that consumer‐social venture identification and personal relevance have significant and positive effects on customer citizenship behaviour. Furthermore, argument quality, source credibility, and social comparison all have significant and positive effects on consumer‐social venture identification. Finally, identity attractiveness, social media engagement, and self‐determination have significant and positive effects on personal relevance. This study makes three contributions regarding consumers' behaviour of purchasing organic foods. First, it explores whether consumer‐social venture identification and personal relevance are antecedents of customer citizenship behaviour. Second, it investigates whether argument quality, source credibility, and social comparison are antecedents of consumer‐social venture identification. Last, it examines whether identity attractiveness, social media engagement, and self‐determination are antecedents of personal relevance. The practical implications of this study indicate that firms must pay more attention to consumers' information search/sharing and perceptions of a credible environment for sharing information and their awareness about healthy items and personal images on social networking sites.     

Lipreading in the prelingually deaf: what makes a skilled speechreader?

Lipreading proficiency was investigated in a group of hearing-impaired people, all of them knowing Spanish Sign Language (SSL). The aim of this study was to establish the relationships between lipreading and some other variables (gender, intelligence, audiological variables, participants' education, parents' education, communication practices, intelligibility, use of SSL). The 32 participants were between 14 and 47 years of age. They all had sensorineural hearing losses (from severe to profound). The lipreading procedures comprised identification of words in isolation. The words selected for presentation in isolation were spoken by the same talker. Identification of words required participants to select their responses from set of four pictures appropriately labelled. Lipreading was significantly correlated with intelligence and intelligibility. Multiple regression analyses were used to obtain a prediction equation for the lipreading measures. As a result of this procedure, it is concluded that proficient deaf lipreaders are more intelligent and their oral speech was more comprehensible for others.     

Learning orthography in adulthood: A magnetoencephalographic study

Previous work demonstrated that there were differences between literate and comparable illiterate adult subjects. These differences were found in the performance on several tests and on patterns of activation on PET and fMRI. In the present study subjects that learned to read and to write in adulthood (being previously completely illiterate) were compared to controls, that is subjects that learned at school at the proper age. Magnetoencephalography was done while subjects were reading words. Results showed that, although the reading performance was the same in both groups while performing the task, the pattern of source distribution was different between groups. There were more late sources in right temporo‐parietal areas of late literates compared to controls and more late sources in left inferior frontal cortex in control subjects. It is concluded that learning to read in adulthood is a process supported by different brain structures from the ones used when learning occurs at the proper age. This may suggest that the same task can be similarly performed by relying on diverse functional brain anatomic networks.     

Social factors influence haloperidol-induced catalepsy in rat

This study employed manipulations which presumably influence social interactions in rats: (1) paired housing with a heavier conspecific and (2) exposure to the odors of other rats. The dependent variable was the akinetic state induced by haloperidol, a neuroleptic and dopamine antagonist. In Experiment 1, adult male Long-Evans hooded rats were matched by weight and caged alone or in pairs with one rat 30 g heavier than its cagemate. All rats received haloperidol (1.5 mg/kg) and catalepsy testing. Heavy rats showed more catalepsy than the lighter member of pairs or weight-matched, singly housed controls. In Experiment 2, adult male rats were left unrecaged or were recaged into cages with bedding recently soiled by females or other adult males. After haloperidol (1.0 mg/kg), the rats exposed to bedding soiled by other adult males showed more catalepsy than did the control groups. Thus, the results of both experiments indicated that social factors can influence the akinesia induced by dopamine antagonists.     

Tracking the Logos

Anna-TeresaTymieniecka writes of a “dynamic skeleton for future fusions of sense” rising from the seemingly disjointed situation of philosophy and details how her phenomenology of life can put flesh on it. Examined here are her efforts to: uncover the deep-lying intelligibility of life by emphasizing the role of the logos of life in connection with meaning structures developed by Husserl; undertake a critique of phenomenological reason; delineate life’s path, not from cognition in isolation, but from within the fullness of human functioning in all its complexity; give Husserl’s phenomenology a metaphysico-existential foundation; analyze the human creative process penetrating the very individualized meanderings of life; show how the creative logos reaches into communal/societal life and opens the way to spiritual and sacral horizons of experience.     

The Cultivation of Social Perceptions of Latinos: A Mental Models Approach

This survey investigates the relationship between exposure to television portrayals of Latinos and real world perceptions of Latinos in the U.S. To aid in this assessment, contributions from the research on mental models were incorporated into a cultivation framework. From this mental models-based cultivation perspective, it was expected that amount of television exposure and existing cognitions regarding representations of Latinos in the media would interact in predicting real world perceptions of Latinos. Additionally, the amount of real world interracial contact with Latinos was predicted to moderate these effects. Findings provide support for the proposed relationships, indicating that as television consumption rates increase, extant cognitions regarding media depictions of Latinos and real world contact guide subsequent evaluations of Latinos.     

No Association between Music Ability and Hand Preference in Children

Hand preference was studied in 2 groups of children—children with musical ability and children without musical ability—to examine whether particular markers that may connect with handedness patterns, such as bias away from dextrality or mixed-handedness, stabilize during childhood and are associated with musical ability. Children were administered the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory to determine levels of right, left, and mixed handedness. Results demonstrated no differences in hand preference between both cohorts of children, suggesting the relative independence of musical ability and handedness. However, the inclusion of handedness as a motor marker for musical ability in children in conjunction with other preexisting neurocognitive factors cannot be entirely discounted.     

Cross-cultural generalizability of the Personality and Role Identity Structural Model (PRISM): Implications for trait and cultural psychology

The cross-cultural generalizability of the Personality and Role Identity Structural Model (PRISM; Wood & Roberts, 2006) was tested in the United States, Mexico, Malaysia, China, and Japan. Participants rated their general and role identities, as defined by the PRISM, using Big Five trait adjectives, then rated their personality states (i.e., role experiences) in various roles in multiple daily interactions for 14 days. Structural predictions based on the PRISM were supported in all five cultures. Cultural differences were limited and did not reflect cultural differences in individualism–collectivism, dialecticism, or cultural tightness. The results supported the cross-cultural generalizability of the PRISM and the merits of contextualized trait measures in the prediction of role experiences. Implications for trait and cultural psychology are discussed.     

Adaptation of a behavioral parent‐training curriculum for Hispanic caregivers: HOT DOCS Español

This article presents the process utilized to adapt a behavioral parent‐training curriculum for Hispanic caregivers from a program currently available in English. Throughout this process, a number of cultural and language elements were identified as needing to be modified to meet the needs of the Hispanic population served. Fidelity and fit were balanced to develop a curriculum acceptable to diverse Hispanic caregivers while also incorporating all the essential elements of a theory‐based approach to training caregivers. The lessons learned from this adaptation may assist others in their attempts to meet the needs of Hispanic families.