Grammar,Gender and Demonstratives in Lateralized Imagery for Sentences

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - We investigated biases in the organization of imagery by asking participants to make stick-figure drawings of sentences containing a man, a woman and a...     

More attentional focusing through binaural beats: evidence from the global–local task

Psychological Research - A recent study showed that binaural beats have an impact on the efficiency of allocating attention over time. We were interested to see whether this impact affects...     

Project KICK: A school‐based drug education health promotion research project

The purpose of this research‐based design was to address drug prevention and health promotion strategies through the combination of: (1) parent education and involvement; (2) community partnership, and (3) positive peer influence. These strategies were implemented using a four‐cornered partnership among Florida State University, an elementary school, a middle school, and a community advisory board. Expected outcomes were improved self‐concept, improved drug knowledge and awareness, improved decision making and drug refusal skills, and improved perceptions of family coping and adaptability. Bimonthly parent education courses and weekly peer role modeling sessions between middle and elementary school students comprised the interventions for this research. Results were encouraging as increases were found in the predicted direction for the experimental group on all of the major variables.     

Personality Foundations of Ideological Divide: A Comparison of Women Members of Parliament and Women Voters in Italy

Empirical research is crucial for understanding the personality foundations of political preferences in modern democracies. However, few studies have addressed the personality of top politicians using standard methods to assess basic traits and personal values. In the current research, traits and values of 106 female members of the Italian Parliament were assessed in accordance with the Five‐Factor Model of personality and Schwartz's taxonomy. The same variables were measured in a sample of 864 voters taken from the general population. We investigate the extent to which differences in traits and values contribute to ideological orientation of politicians and voters of rival coalitions. A similar pattern of relations was found in both groups. Yet, traits and values contributed to partisanship of politicians much more than to political preferences of voters. Whereas values fully mediated the contribution of traits to voting, energy/extraversion and agreeableness contributed to political partisanship both directly and indirectly, through values.