The Brief Accessibility,Responsiveness, and Engagement (BARE) Scale: A Tool for Measuring Attachment Behavior in Couple Relationships

This article describes the purpose, reliability, validity, and potential clinical applications of the Brief Accessibility, Responsiveness, and Engagement (BARE) scale. In addition to focusing on the central attachment behaviors of accessibility and responsiveness, this instrument highlights the key role of engagement in couple bonding. The BARE is a short, systemic, self‐report measure of attachment behaviors in couple relationships. Both classical testing theory and Item Response Theory were used to test the psychometric properties of the instrument. The BARE demonstrated appropriate reliability and validity while maintaining its brevity and potential usefulness for clinicians and researchers. The BARE also accurately predicted the key relationship outcomes of stability and satisfaction. The data for this study were collected from the RELATE assessment (see www.relate-institute.org ).     

Not all automatic associations are created equal: How implicit normative evaluations are distinct from implicit attitudes and uniquely predict meaningful behavior

We propose a new construct (implicit normative evaluations) that purports to measure automatic associations about societal evaluations. We develop a new measure of this construct based on a modification of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and describe how it is related to but not redundant with implicit attitudes and explicit normative evaluations. Study 1 provided evidence that implicit normative evaluations and implicit attitudes uniquely predicted evaluations measured by the traditional IAT. Study 2 demonstrated that Asian-Canadian immigrants' implicit normative evaluations toward older people became more negative the longer they were in Canada. Study 3 found that engineering students' (both men and women) implicit normative evaluations toward female engineers became more negative as they were exposed to engineering and that for women these negative normative evaluations predicted their intention to drop out of engineering. Study 4 demonstrated that implicit normative evaluations predicted the speed at which participants decide to “shoot” an African Canadian target on a shooter bias task (Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2002). Finally, in Study 5, an experimental manipulation of an audience's reaction to racist jokes targeting people from the Middle East affected implicit normative evaluations about this group and that these implicit normative evaluations in turn affected discrimination. The implications of these results for the importance of social influence and culture in shaping thoughts and behavior are discussed.     

Reading through a noisy channel: why there's nothing special about the perception of orthography

The goal of research on how letter identity and order are perceived during reading is often characterized as one of "cracking the orthographic code." Here, we suggest that there is no orthographic code to crack: Words are perceived and represented as sequences of letters, just as in a dictionary. Indeed, words are perceived and represented in exactly the same way as other visual objects. The phenomena that have been taken as evidence for specialized orthographic representations can be explained by assuming that perception involves recovering information that has passed through a noisy channel: the early stages of visual perception. The noisy channel introduces uncertainty into letter identity, letter order, and even whether letters are present or absent. We develop a computational model based on this simple principle and show that it can accurately simulate lexical decision data from the lexicon projects in English, French, and Dutch, along with masked priming data that have been taken as evidence for specialized orthographic representations.     

Postural Sway and the Amplitude of Horizontal Eye Movements

In 2 experiments, we evaluated relations between postural activity and the amplitude of visually guided eye movements. Participants shifted their gaze to follow horizontal oscillation of a visible target. The target moved with amplitude 9° or 24°. In different experiments, the frequency of target oscillation was 0.5 Hz or 1.1 Hz. In both experiments, the variability of head and torso motion was reduced (in the anterior-posterior axis) when participants viewed moving targets, relative to sway during viewing of stationary targets. Sway variability was not influenced by the amplitude of target motion. The results are compatible with the hypothesis that postural activity was modulated relative to the demands of suprapostural visual tasks.     

Dislocation core structures in GaN grown on Si(111) substrate

The Ga-N bond extension and compression at the cores of different types of dislocation in hexagonal GaN films grown on Si(111) substrates have been studied by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. The relative bond extension and compression are about 6 4 and 7 4% respectively around the cores of mixed dislocations and about 9 6 and 12 7% respectively around the cores of pure edge dislocations. The core structure of a pure edge dislocation is an eightfold atom-column ring.     

Negative support of significant others affects psychological adjustment in breast cancer patients

Significant others play an important role in providing support in patients’ lives, but some types of support negatively affect the patients. This study was conducted in early-stage breast cancer patients to examine the structure of support, which was provided by their significant others and assessed negatively by the patients, and to identify negative support relating to the psychological adjustment of these patients. Thus, we first conducted interviews among 28 breast cancer patients to identify these support items assessed as negative; next, we conducted a questionnaire survey using the resulting items in 109 postoperative patients who had early-stage breast cancer. We performed exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and obtained a valid second-order factor structure, including superordinate factors (excessive engagement, avoidance of problems and underestimation) and subordinate factors (overprotection, encouragement and management). Among these factors, the avoidance of problems was the only factor to be negatively associated with psychological adjustment of the patients, suggesting that these patients receive problem-avoiding support. The results of our study suggest that such problem-avoiding support from significant others can be counter-productive and potentially worsen the psychological adjustment of breast cancer patients.     

Male adolescents' reasons for participating in physical activity, barriers to participation, and suggestions for increasing participation

This study explored male adolescents' reasons for participating in moderate and vigorous physical activity, perceived barriers to moderate and vigorous physical activity, and suggestions as to what can be done to increase participation in physical activity. A total of 26 male 15- and 16-year-old adolescents participated in focus group sessions, which were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim; qualitative software facilitated data analysis. A constant comparison approach was used to inductively develop themes. It was found that participants engaged in physical activity for both intrinsic and extrinsic reasons. Their perceived barriers to physical activity included both internal factors (individual characteristics, lower priority for physical activity, and involvement in technology-related activities) and external factors (the influence of peers and family, lack of time, and inaccessibility and cost of facilities). Participants suggested that physical activity be promoted more in the community and that an environment more supportive of physical activity be developed. Results suggest that a variety of strategies should be used to help male adolescents maintain or increase participation in moderate and vigorous physical activity.     

Adolescent girls' perceived barriers to participation in physical activity

Research shows a decline in physical activity levels during adolescence, particularly among girls. This study explored perceived barriers to participation in moderate and vigorous physical activity among adolescent girls who live in a large ethnoracially and socioeconomically diverse city. A total of 73 adolescent girls in Toronto participated in 1 of 7 focus group sessions which were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim, and qualitative software was used to facilitate data analysis. A constant comparison approach was used to inductively develop themes. Participants' perceived barriers to participating in physical activity included: lack of time; involvement in technology-related activities; influence peers, parents and teachers; concern about safety; inaccessibility of facilities and cost of using them; competition; and body-centered issues. The results suggest that strategies to address specific intrapersonal, social-environmental, and physical-environmental barriers to physical activity participation should be used in physical activity promotion programs for adolescent girls.