Aggression Toward Gay Men as Gender Role Enforcement: Effects of Male Role Norms, Sexual Prejudice, and Masculine Gender Role Stress

ABSTRACT This study examined sexual prejudice and masculine gender role stress as mediators of the relations between male gender norms and anger and aggression toward gay men. Participants were 150 self-identified heterosexual men who completed measures of adherence to male gender role norms, sexual prejudice, masculine gender role stress, and state anger. Participants then viewed a video depicting intimate relationship behavior between 2 gay men, reported state anger a second time, and competed in a laboratory aggression task against either a heterosexual or a gay male. Results indicated that adherence to the antifemininity norm exerted an indirect effect, primarily through sexual prejudice, on increases in anger. Adherence to the status and antifemininity norms exerted indirect effects, also through sexual prejudice, on physical aggression toward the gay, but not the heterosexual, male. Findings provide the first multivariate evidence for determinants of aggression toward gay men motivated by gender role enforcement.     

Effect of trait anger on cognitive processing of emotional stimuli

In the present experiment, the authors examined whether trait anger was associated with cognitive biases for anger-related semantic stimuli. Fifty-two undergraduate students completed the Trait Anger Scale (TAS; C. D. Spielberger, G. Jacobs, S. Russell, & R. Crane, 1983), and those reporting TAS scores in the upper (n = 17) or lower (n = 13) quartiles of the sample were assigned to high- and low-anger groups, respectively. The 30 participants then engaged in a lexical decision task that presented various emotion words, neutral words, and nonwords. Results indicated that individuals who reported high levels of trait anger displayed facilitative biases in the processing of semantic anger-related stimuli. This predisposition to more readily process anger-related information may underlie their propensity to experience intense feelings of anger when provoked.     

When First Comes Love (or Lust): How Romantic and Sexual Cues Bias First Impressions in Online Social Networking

Three experimental studies (N = 286) tested how priming the concepts of sex or romance influence the way people perceive other social media users. Participants first completed a word-search task containing sexual (intercourse, lust), romantic (love, heart), or control words. Participants then evaluated a target’s sexual qualities and romantic qualities based on social media profiles, as well as rated their acceptance of the priming stimuli. Results suggested that sex primes led participants to judge targets as being more alluring, racy, and provocative, whereas romance primes led participants to judge targets as being more tender, sentimental, and kind. Both men and women found all primes to be equally acceptable content; women were not averse to these mainstream, non-explicit sexual stimuli. Findings are discussed in terms of viewing sex and romance as distinct, yet related networks of concepts and the need to disentangle sex, romance, and sexualized views of romance.     

Spatial navigation deficits in amnestic mild cognitive impairment with neuropsychiatric comorbidity

Aims: To find out whether neuropsychiatric comorbidity (comMCI) influences spatial navigation performance in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI).

Methods: We recruited aMCI patients with (n = 21) and without (n = 21) neuropsychiatric comorbidity or alcohol abuse, matched for global cognitive impairment and cognitively healthy elderly participants (HE, n = 22). They completed the Mini-Mental State Examination and a virtual Hidden Goal Task in egocentric, allocentric, and delayed recall subtests.

Results: In allocentric navigation, aMCI and comMCI performed significantly worse than HE and similarly to each other. Although aMCI performed significantly worse at egocentric navigation than HE, they performed significantly better than patients with comMCI.

Conclusions: Despite the growing burden of dementia and the prevalence of neuropsychiatric symptoms in the elderly population, comMCI remains under-studied. Since trials often assess “pure” aMCI, we may underestimate patients’ navigation and other deficits. This finding emphasizes the importance of taking account of the cognitive effects of psychiatric disorders in aMCI.     

Embarrassment: Actual vs. typical cases,classical vs. prototypical representations

Abstract

Theories of embarrassment were investigated by having subjects either recall an occasion when they were embarrassed or describe their idea of a typical instance of embarrassment. Subjects then rated their account on a questionnaire designed to measure five theoretical approaches to embarrassment: dramaturgic theory, social anxiety theory, and three decreased self-esteem theories. Patterns of means and of covariation for actual embarrassment best supported the dramaturgic theory. In contrast, subjects' accounts of typical embarrassment contained elements of all five theories. The written accounts were analysed to produce a prototype of embarrassment, which consisted mostly of elements of the dramaturgic and social anxiety theories. We propose that the concept of embarrassment is necessarily linked to dramaturgic difficulties, whereas it is contingently linked to social anxiety and decreased self-esteem.     

Infants' Expectations in Play: The Joy of Peek-a-boo

Abstract

The role of expectations in infants' enjoyment of play was studied by observing their smiling, laughter, and eyebrow raises during a peek-a-boo game that contained occasional trick trials. In Experiments 1 and 2, 6, 7-, and 8-month-olds (n = 29) participated in a peek-a-boo game in which, on occasional “person-switch” trials, one adult hid and a second adult “reappeared” in his or her place. Infants in all age groups smiled less following person-switch reappearances than following normal ones, with the difference increasing with age. In Experiment 3, 7-month-old infants (n = 10) played a peek-a-boo game in which the adult occasionally reappeared in a different location. Smiling decreased for “location switches” just as it had for person switches. Infants in all age groups were more likely to exhibit eyebrow raises following trick reappearances than following normal ones. These findings suggest that infants as young as 6 months have expectations about the identity and location of a returning person, that conformity to these expectations contributes to infants' enjoyment of games such as peek-a-boo, and that infants of this age may not yet enjoy deviations from their expectations. Implications are discussed for theories of playful enjoyment, for the cognitive antecedents of positive affect, and for cognitive development.