A longitudinal study of basal cortisol in infants: Intra-individual variability, circadian rhythm and developmental trends

Mothers with normally developing babies were visited in their homes during 13 consecutive weeks, when the babies were around 5–8 months of age. Basal salival cortisol measures were taken for both the baby and the mother on arrival.The infants’ basal cortisol decreased linearly with age, was negatively related to sleep, and did not show adult-like circadian declines from morning to mid-afternoon. Furthermore, while the infants showed relative stability across individuals, they displayed great intra-individual variability across assessments. Contrarily, the mothers displayed important inter-individual variability, together with a relative stability across assessments. The infants’ important intra-individual variability was not affected by gender, nor time of visit, nor was it related to the mothers’ basal cortisol. Daily measures of basal cortisol taken in a subgroup of infants indicated the day-to-day intra-individual variability to be of the same magnitude as the week-to-week variability.The question of how the intra-individual variability in basal cortisol affects assessments of cortisol in infancy is addressed. The aggregation of data with the goal of increasing the reliability of the assessments is shown to be inadequate for infant basal cortisol.     

All Against All: How Beliefs about Human Nature Shape Foreign Policy Opinions

Although the American public's increasingly cynical views about human nature have drawn considerable attention from scholars, existing research says little about how interpersonal trust shapes mass foreign policy opinions. This study analyzes survey data to test the claim that citizens use their beliefs about human nature to reason about international affairs. The results indicate that cynical citizens are more likely than trusting citizens to endorse the principle of isolationism and to oppose cooperative forms of intervention in other nations' problems. Citizens' use of interpersonal trust as an information shortcut helps them to make inferences regarding a topic about which they typically know little, but such inferences are not necessarily realistic ones.     

The discovery that water is H2O

What are the criteria determining the individuation of chemical kinds? Recent philosophical discussion, which puts too much emphasis on microstructure, seems to presuppose a reductionist conception not motivated by the scientific facts. The present article traces the development of the traditional notion of a substance with the rise of modern chemistry from the end of the 18th century with a view to correcting this speculative distortion.     

Managerial Stress in Greater China: The Direct and Moderator Effects of Coping Strategies and Work Locus of Control

La présente étude examine les effets directs et modérateurs des stratégies de défense (contrôle et support) et de la perception de contrôle au travail (extérieure) sur des relations stresseur-tension entre des gestionnaires de la grande Chine (la République populaire de Chine, Hong Kong, et Taiwan). Les données ont été recueillies, via un questionnaire autoadministré, auprès de 876 gestionnaires soit 249 (164 hommes, 85 femmes) en République populaire de Chine, 280 à Hong Kong (159 hommes, 120 femmes, 1 non classifié), et 347 (191 hommes, 151 femmes, 5 non classifiés) au Taiwan. Des effets directs et modérateurs pour les stratégies de défense et pour la perception de contrôle ont été démontrés pour quelques relations stresseur-tension dans les divers échantillons étudiés.
The present study aims at examining the direct and moderator effects of coping strategies (control and support coping) and work locus of control (externality) on the stressor-strain relationships among managers in Greater China (the People's Republic of China [PRC], Hong Kong, and Taiwan). A self-administered survey method was employed to collect data from 249 (164 male, 85 female) managers in the PRC, 280 (159 male, 120 female, 1 unclassified) managers in Hong Kong, and 347 (191 male, 151 female, 5 unclassified) managers in Taiwan. The direct and moderator effects of control coping, support coping, and work locus of control on some stressor-strain relationships were demonstrated in the studied samples.     

Success and Gender: Determining the Rate of Advancement for Intercollegiate Athletic Directors

Since the demise of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW), female sport administrators have continued their struggle to reestablish their place as athletic directors. The purpose of this study was to assess the rate of advancement (success ratio) of intercollegiate athletic directors, with a primary focus on gender. Athletic directors from 157 NCAA (National Collegiate Athletics Association) member institutions participated in the study. The preliminary results confirmed the expected findings that hegemonic masculinity was entrenched within intercollegiate athletics. The success ratio of male athletic directors differed from that of female athletic directors, and the difference was significant (p ≤ .05). The success ratio for men was higher than the ratio for women. Further analyses, however, showed that female athletic directors had higher success ratios than their male peers at lower level institutions. Although parity in numbers has not yet been achieved across the NCAA, the glass ceiling at Division I institutions may begin to crack as more women achieve success at the lower level institutions.     

Ego-Identity Achievement and Perception of Risk in Intimacy in Survivors of Stranger and Acquaintance Rape

One hundred twenty-two women participated in a study of the relationship between acquaintance/stranger rape and the respective variables of ego-identity achievement (attainment of self-image during adolescence that integrates one's ideas of what one is and what one wants to be) and perception of risk in intimacy (perception of close interpersonal relationships as a risky proposition). Results showed that compared to women who had not been sexually assaulted, survivors of rape in general reported lower ego-identity achievement and greater perception of risk in intimacy. Focusing on acquaintance rape and stranger rape with age at the time of assault as possible moderator, it was found that lower ego-identity achievement was systematically related to acquaintance rape in women who had been raped during their adolescent years, but not in survivors of rape during adulthood. Perception of risk in intimacy was significantly higher among women who had been raped when adolescents compared to those who had been raped during adulthood, but only in relation to acquaintance rape.     

Learning Journals as a Counseling Strategy

This article explores the use of learning journals as a counseling strategy that can be used to complement a counselor's therapeutic orientation. The authors postulate that learning journals will have therapeutic effects on clients that will lead to enduring positive changes, discuss the development of appropriate learning taxonomies to evaluate learning journals, and make recommendations for practice.     

The effects of feedback format on dynamic decision making

The tendency for people to perform poorly on dynamic decision-making tasks has been attributed to their inability to form adequate mental models of dynamic systems (Sterman, 1994). An alternative explanation is that the tabular feedback formats used in previous studies do not facilitate mental representations of the dynamic task and lead to processing overload. Drawing on research in the human factors area, this study examined the impact of graphical versus tabular feedback formats on performance, response times, and learning on a dynamic inventory control task under differing levels of complexity. The graphical feedback group performed better but the tabular group showed stronger evidence of learning. The two groups did not differ in response times. Records of decision rationales showed that participants were aware of complexity factors but were unable to cope with them effectively under either feedback format. The proximity compatibility principle ( Wickens & Carswell, 1995) from human factors, which argues that feedback must be matched to the processing requirements of the task, provides a useful theoretical framework for the design and testing of feedback formats for organizational tasks and criteria.     

Perfectionism Cognitions, Rumination, and Psychological Distress

The current study examined the extent to which dimensions of perfectionism are associated with a ruminative response orientation and the experience of cognitive intrusions in response to stressful events. Our main goal was to test the hypothesis that individuals characterized by frequent automatic thoughts involving perfectionistic themes would also be characterized by a ruminative response orientation when distressed and they would report intrusive thoughts and images following the experience of a stressful event. A sample of 65 students completed several measures, including the Perfectionism Cognitions Inventory, the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, the Response Styles Questionnaire, the Impact of Events Scale, and indices of depression and anxiety. Correlational analyses confirmed that high scores on the Perfectionism Cognitions Inventory were correlated with a ruminative response orientation and the reported experience of intrusive thoughts and images following the experience of a stressful event. High levels of perfectionism cognitions, socially prescribed perfectionism, and rumination were also correlated with measures of depression and anxiety representingthe tripartite model. The results support the view that there is a salient cognitive aspect to perfectionism and the experience of frequent perfectionistic cognitions and related forms of rumination contribute to levels of psychological distress.     

Recognition memory for tactile sequences.

In three experiments participants were required to compare the similarity in item order for two temporally separated sequences of tactile stimuli presented to the fingers of the hand. Between-sequence articulatory suppression but not tactile interference impaired recognition accuracy (Experiment 1), and the null effect of tactile interference was not due to the second tactile sequence overwriting the sensory record of the first sequence (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 showed that compared to a condition where the second sequence was presented in the tactile modality only, recognition was enhanced when the second sequence was seen presented either to the hand or on a diagrammatic representation of a hand. A final experiment showed that the effects of Experiment 1 were replicated when the underside of the forearm was used for stimulus presentation, suggesting that the data are not idiosyncratic to the first method of presentation. The pattern of results suggests memory for a sequence of tactile stimuli involves the deployment of strategies utilising a combination of verbal rehearsal and visuo-spatial recoding rather than relying solely on the retention of sensory traces. This is taken to reflect limitations in both the capacity and duration of tactile sensory memory.