Personality traits as predictors of intentions to seek online information about STDs and HIV/AIDS among junior and senior college students in Taiwan.

The purpose of this cross-sectional study is to examine how personality traits such as sensation- seeking and impulsive decision-making affect Taiwanese college students' intentions to seek online information about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). Five hundred thirty-five (n = 535) junior and senior college students in Taiwan were recruited and completed self-report questionnaires. This study found high sensation-seekers were more likely to seek information about STDs and HIV/AIDS on the Internet than low sensation-seekers. Impulsive decision-makers were less likely than rational decision-makers to seek information about STDs and HIV/AIDS on the Internet. These findings suggest that personality needs to be considered as an exploratory factor which potentially influences intentions to seek STD and HIV/AIDS information on the Internet among Taiwanese college students.     

Discrepancy Between Self‐Report and School‐Record Grade Point Average: Correlates With Psychosocial Outcomes Among African American Adolescents1

The purpose of this study is to better understand the implications for using self‐reported grade point average (GPA) versus school‐record GPA in academic achievement research. First, we found that nearly half the youths interviewed overreported their GPAs by at least 2 half grades. Second, youth who overreported their GPAs also reported less psychological distress, more successful academic beliefs, and fewer problem behaviors. Third, we found that self‐reported GPA was associated with all 3 sets of variables, but school‐record GPA was associated with only problem behaviors. The findings suggest that it may be useful for researchers to consider how different measures of GPA may influence their results.     

Spontaneous Trait Associations and the Case of the Superstitious Banana

We explored whether spontaneous trait transference (STT) occurs in cases where inanimate objects, rather than human bystanders, are presented in the context of trait-implicative behavior. The results provide a vivid demonstration of the associability of primed trait constructs by demonstrating STT to inanimate objects to which one does not normally attribute traits (e.g., superstitious being associated with a banana). This finding is consistent with the notion that the trait associations involved in STT are formed independent of person perception processes. The implications of this finding for the types of associative processes exposed by the popular savings in relearning methodology are discussed.     

A test of foreign language acquisition: paired‐association learning

This experiment investigated college student difficulties with foreign language acquisition. We developed a word‐sound, paired‐associates learning test that discriminated 92% of the control participants and 95% of the experimental participants. The results are interpreted in terms of an associative model of foreign language learning disability. We discuss how to integrate the test into a larger diagnostic battery for predicting the facility with which a person will be able to learn a foreign language. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reasons-Responsiveness and Ownership-of-Agency: Fischer and Ravizza's Historicist Theory of Responsibility

No one has done more than John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza toadvance our understanding of the important dispute in the theoryof responsibility between structuralists and historicists.This makes it all the more important to take the measure of Responsibility and Control, their mostrecent contribution to the historicist side of the discussion. In this paper I examine some novelfeatures of their most recent version of responsiblity-historicism,especially their new notions of ``moderate reasons-responsiveness' and ``ownership-of-agency.' Fischer and Ravizza intend these newelements to solve two problems untouched by earlier versions of theirtheory: the ``problem of strange preference patterns' and the ``reasons-responsivenessproblem of induction.' I argue that they cannot solve these problemswithin the theoretical strictures they place upon themselves, namely aminimalist meta-ethics of value and practical reason, and attentiononly to certain formal features of preference-acquisition. I concludethat historicist compatibilists cannot hope to meet the challenge ofstructuralist compatibilism, from the one side, and of incompatibilism,from the other, unless they take on the full task of accounting for thedifference between the child's acquisition (via education) of autonomoussubstantive preferences and values and her acquisition (viaindoctrination) of heteronomous ones.     

Screening for trauma histories,posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and subthreshold PTSD in psychiatric outpatients

The ability of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) module's screening question to identify individuals with PTSD or subthreshold PTSD was examined. First, the screen's sensitivity for detecting a trauma history was determined. Second, the incremental validity of a more thorough trauma assessment was examined by determining how many individuals responded negatively to the screen but then were diagnosed with PTSD or subthreshold PTSD. Last, the optimal SCID termination point for assessing subthreshold PTSD was determined. Using a trauma list increased the number of participants reporting a trauma; however, the SCID screen captured almost all individuals who had PTSD or subthreshold PTSD. When one screens for subthreshold PTSD, the SCID can be terminated on failure to meet Criterion B.     

Mimicry and prosocial behavior

Abstract— Recent studies have shown that mimicry occurs unintentionally and even among strangers. In the present studies, we investigated the consequences of this automatic phenomenon in order to learn more about the adaptive function it serves. In three studies, we consistently found that mimicry increases prosocial behavior. Participants who had been mimicked were more helpful and generous toward other people than were nonmimicked participants. These beneficial consequences of mimicry were not restricted to behavior directed toward the mimicker, but included behavior directed toward people not directly involved in the mimicry situation. These results suggest that the effects of mimicry are not simply due to increased liking for the mimicker, but are due to increased prosocial orientation in general.     

Autism clinical trials: biological and medical issues in patient selection and treatment response

Biomedical measures are critical in the initial patient-screening and -selection phases of a clinical trial in autism and related disorders. These measures can also play an important role in the assessment and characterization of response and can provide an opportunity to study underlying etiologic and pathophysiologic processes. Thus, biomedical measures, including clinical laboratory analyses, metabolic screening, and chromosomal analysis, are used to screen for potential safety-related problems, to decrease biological and genetic heterogeneity, and to define subgroups. Neurobiological measures can be examined as possible predictors, modifiers or surrogates of therapeutic response, and adverse effects. Neurobiological research measures can also be used to study mechanisms and extent of drug action and to perform baseline and longitudinal investigations of possible pathophysiologic alterations. The potential utility and desirability of specific measures are considered and the general approach to choosing measures for incorporation is discussed.