Young Children's Reactions to Mothers’ Disclosure of Maternal HIV+ Serostatus

Little is known about the impact of maternal disclosure of HIV-positive serostatus on young children. The objective of this study was to explore this topic, utilizing in-depth qualitative interviews. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 47 mothers who had disclosed to their young, well child, and with the children. The most prevalent child response was anxiety, primarily focused on the mother's health and fear of her death. A number of children also worried about other people finding out, and seemed aware of the stigma surrounding HIV. For most children anxiety decreased over time, although for a small number it sustained and became maladaptive. The majority of children appeared to adjust well to maternal disclosure. Mothers who are planning to disclose their serostatus to their young children should be encouraged to plan for appropriate psychosocial follow-up following the disclosure, with special focus on the stigma associated with HIV.     

Spare the rod: The figure of the dominatrix in the literary canon

The commonly cited maxim, “Spare the rod and spoil the child” is often traced incorrectly back to the biblical book of Proverbs when its point of origin lies instead first in Langland’s Piers Plowman and then, in the highly satirical and sexualized text of Samuel Butler’s Hudibras. Thus, from a religious origin, it has metamorphosed into a woman-man relationship. Indeed to follow the evolution of this phrase is to uncover the extent to which the disciplining impulses of religious rhetoric are eroticized in one Western European literary theme, that of feminine dominance, from the tenth century when the word Dominatrix appeared in the writings of Hroswitha of Gandersheim. The period leading up to the 1650s, when Butler turned the phrase into one line of a heroic iambic couplet in the middle of a stanza on an amorous jaileress, was also a time when medical research on human and animal anatomy and physiology had unravelled the pathways of libido-lifting buttock-beating. Far from demonizing woman the literary image of the whip-wielding mistress did not degrade the female sex but instead apotheosized the dominatrix as a major erotic image of the twentieth century.     

Cognitive biases in moral judgments that affect political behavior

Cognitive biases that affect decision making may affect the decisions of citizens that influence public policy. To the extent that decisions follow principles other than maximizing utility for all, it is less likely that utility will be maximized, and the citizens will ultimately suffer the results. Here I outline some basic arguments concerning decisions by citizens, using voting as an example. I describe two types of values that may lead to sub-optimal consequences when these values influence political behavior: moralistic values (which people are willing to impose on others regardless of the consequences) and protected values (PVs, values protected from trade-offs). I present evidence against the idea that voting is expressive, i.e., that voters aim to express their moral views rather than to have an effect on outcomes. I show experimentally that PVs are often moralistic. Finally, I present some data that citizens’ think of their duty in a parochial way, neglecting out-groups. I conclude that moral judgments are important determinants of citizen behavior, that these judgments are subject to biases and based on moralistic values, and that, therefore, outcomes are probably less good than they could be.     

Speech Perception Among School-Aged Skilled and Less Skilled Readers

This study investigated the relationship between speech perception, phonological processing and reading skills among school-aged children classified as ‘skilled’ and ‘less skilled’ readers based on their ability to read words, decode non-words, and comprehend short passages. Three speech perception tasks involving categorization of speech continua differing in voicing, place and manner of articulation were administered and compared to phonological processing skills in phonological awareness, speeded naming and verbal short-term memory. The results obtained suggested that (a) speech categorization among skilled readers differed from that of less skilled readers, (b) speech perception skills were associated with both reading and phonological processing skills among both skilled and less skilled readers, however, (c) a strong association between speeded naming and both word and passage reading skills found among skilled readers was absent among less skilled readers. These results suggested that phonological representations and/or activation may not be as well developed in less skilled readers.     

决策与判断研究中的个体分析(英文)

决策与判断研究中(甚至是实验心理学研究中)的许多问题关注某效应是否真实存在,及其背后的解释是什么。这些问题不关注该效应在某一特殊群体中是否显著。因此,可以通过分析单个被试来检验效应的显著性。如果有一个被试表现出了该效应,那么,这个效应就是存在的。根据这一观点,有时也可通过跨案例或者轮次(across cases or rounds)分析来验证效应的显著性,而不需要进行跨被试分析(across subjects)。这一观点也暗示在一些实验中可能存在反方向的效应。本文建议通过进行基于被试个体的统计分析来检验这样的效应,并介绍了一些不同形式的方法:PP概率图(probability probability plots);P值分布检验(tests of the distribution of p-values);分层取样多重检验的矫正(correction for multiple testing with step-down resampling)。这些方法都可以用于处理在对同样假设进行多重检验时无法避免的问题。另外,本文也列举了一些例子,其中有一部分例子存在反方向的效应,另一部分例子不存在。     

Intensive Home Based Services Within a Comprehensive System of Care for Youth

Within a comprehensive mental health service array for youth, Intensive Home Based Services (IHBS) are designed to meet the needs of youth with significant emotional and behavioral problems in their home communities, avoiding the need for out-of-home services, particularly residential care. We examined youth receiving IHBS as their first service in the state of Hawaii system of care (N = 163) to determine how successful IHBS were in preventing the need for more restrictive services within 12 months of intake. Subsequently, we investigated characteristics that might be predictive of a youth’s need for service intensification within 12 months. Logistic regression analyses found that greater age, level of service need, and functional impairment at intake predicted use of more restrictive services within 12 months of intake, whereas gender, ethnicity, diagnosis, service intensity, and clinician credentials did not. Overall, our findings suggested that IHBS were reasonably successful in preventing residential placements, and provided some basis for determining characteristics of youth likely to require more restrictive placements within a one year period.     

Children’s Psychosocial Problems Presenting in a Family Medicine Practice

Primary care physicians have an important role in identifying, treating, and referring children with psychosocial problems. However, there is a limited literature describing whether and how family physicians address psychosocial problems and why parents may not discuss children’s problems with physicians. The current study examined how family physicians address psychosocial problems and reasons that parents do not discuss children’s psychosocial problems with physicians. Results indicated that there are a variety of reasons involving parents, their perceptions of physicians, and the number of psychosocial problems reported, that may lead to fewer discussions of psychosocial problems.     

Distinguishing between perceiver and wearer effects in clothing color-associated attributions

Recent studies have noted positive effects of red clothing on success in competitive sports, perhaps arising from an evolutionary predisposition to associate the color red with dominance status. Red may also enhance judgments of women's attractiveness by men, perhaps through a similar association with fertility. Here we extend these studies by investigating attractiveness judgments of both sexes and by contrasting attributions based on six different colors. Furthermore, by photographing targets repeatedly in different colors, we could investigate whether color effects are due to influences on raters or clothing wearers, by either withholding from raters information about clothing color or holding it constant via digital manipulation, while retaining color-associated variation in wearer's expression and posture. When color cues were available, we found color-attractiveness associations when males were judged by either sex, or when males judged females, but not when females judged female images. Both red and black were associated with higher attractiveness judgments and had approximately equivalent effects. Importantly, we also detected significant clothing color-attractiveness associations even when clothing color was obscured from raters and when color was held constant by digital manipulation. These results suggest that clothing color has a psychological influence on wearers at least as much as on raters, and that this ultimately influences attractiveness judgments by others. Our results lend support for the idea that evolutionarily-derived color associations can bias interpersonal judgments, although these are limited neither to effects on raters nor to the color red.     

The interaction of attention and action: From seeing action to acting on perception

We discuss evidence indicating that human visual attention is strongly modulated by the potential of objects for action. The possibility of action between multiple objects enables the objects to be attended as a single group, and the fit between individual objects in a group and the action that can be performed influences responses to group members. In addition, having a goal state to perform a particular action affects the stimuli that are selected along with the features and area of space that is attended. These effects of action may reflect statistical learning between environmental cues that are linked by action and/or the coupling between perception and action systems in the brain. The data support the argument that visual selection is a flexible process that emerges as a need to prioritize objects for action.