Emotional effect of physical aggression among adults in the general population in a Canadian province

The emotional effect of personal involvement in physical aggression was examined in a random sample of 1,753 adults from Ontario, Canada, using Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (response rate of 67%). Respondents reported a range of emotional responses from feeling good or justified to feeling angry, upset, terrified, disgusted, hurt, and embarrassed. Open-ended responses regarding emotional response were rated by the authors for 149 incidents of aggression, which yielded five categories: (1) positive impact 4%, (2) no feeling or no effect 31%, (3) mildly negative 20%, (4) moderately negative 28%, and (5) severely negative 17% (Kappa statistic of interrater agreement=.77). The substantial proportion of incidents involving positive or no emotional response suggests that a greater understanding of aggression among individuals can be gained by the development and application of a quantitative measure of emotional response that reflects the full range of emotions (positive and negative), using dimensions identified in this study such as feeling upset, fear, and anger.     

Face-saving and entrapment

Entrapping conflicts are those in which individuals: (1) have made substantial, unrealized investments in pursuit of some goal, and (2) feel compelled to justify these expenditures with continued investments, even if the likelihood of goal attainment is low. It was hypothesized that entrapment (i.e., amount invested) would be influenced by the relative importance individuals attach to the costs and rewards associated with continued investments. Two experiments tested the notion that entrapment would be more pronounced when costs were rendered less important (and/or rewards were made more important). In Experiment 1, half of the subjects were instructed beforehand of the virtues of investing conservatively (Cautious condition), whereas half were informed of the advantages of investing a considerable amount (Risky condition). Investments were more than twice as great in the Risky condition. Moreover, consistent with a face-saving analysis, (1) the instructions had a greater effect on subjects with high rather than low social anxiety, and (2) individuals with high social anxiety who participated in front of a large audience were more influenced by the instructions than were individuals with low social anxiety who participated in front of a small audience. In the second experiment, the importance of costs and rewards were varied in a 2 × 2 design. As predicted, subjects invested significantly more when cost importance was low rather than high. Contrary to expectation, reward importance had no effect. Questionnaire data from this study also suggested that entrapment was at least partially mediated by the participants' concern over the way they thought they would be evaluated. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

Sex differences in sexual fantasy patterns

A detailed sexual fantasy questionnaire was completed anonymously and returned by post by a sample of 90 Londoners stratified by sex and social class and representing a 30% return rate. Men and women were equally likely to accept and return the questionnaires. Information was also collected concerning sexual behaviour, libido and satisfaction. Factor analysis revealed four main types of fantasy: (1) Exploratory (e.g., group sex, promiscuity, homosexuality); (2) Intimate (e.g., kissing, oral sex, outdoor love); (3) Impersonal (e.g., watching others, fetishism, using objects for stimulation); and (4) Sadomasochistic (e.g., whipping or spanking, being forced). These four types of fantasy were positively correlated and were all more commonly reported by men, although women were almost as high on the Intimate factor. Women were also more likely to be passive or receptive in their fantasies, and men active. All fantasies were associated with high libido as indicated by self-rated sex drive and orgasm frequency, especially for women. In general, reports of many fantasies went with satisfaction in women but with dissatisfaction (frustration?) in men. This finding is explained in terms of the higher average level of libido in men than women, with the consequent difficulty experienced by men in acting out their desires.     

Measurement of muscle reflex time in radicular disorders of the lumbosacral region]

The results of studies performed by the authors show that time measurements of proprioceptive muscular reflexes (triceps surae and tibialis posterior reflexes) may be considered a valuable addition to methods of topical diagnosis of radicular disturbances in the lumbosacral region. The reflexes were tested in twenty normal subjects. There were found an intraindividual constancy of the respective reflex time with a maximum deviation of 2 ms as well as a lateral variability up to 1.3 ms. Radicular compressions resulted in an increase in reflex time by 2 to 66 ms or failure of the reflex potential to be recorded. The pathological cases were compared with clinical and neurological studies, positive myelographies using radiopaque substances, and results of surgical operations. Compared with the results of surgical operations, changes in reflex time indicated damage to the reflex arc in ninety percent of the cases.     

Parent-child relations in offenders who commit violent sexual crimes against children

One hundred eighty-one men were compared on parent–child relations, using the Clarke Parent–Child Relations Questionnaire. The sample included 66 heterosexual pedophiles, 29 homosexual pedophiles, 36 incest offenders and 50 controls. The offender groups were further divided into those who used force (20%) versus those who did not; into those sexually victimized as children themselves (53.2%) versus those not victimized; and into those physically abused as children (47.5%) versus those not abused. Results showed that the offender groups had more disturbances than controls in father–son relations, contrary to earlier findings showing disturbances in mother–son relations among individuals who interact sexually with minors. The offenders who used force in their offenses differed only in being more aggressive to their fathers as children, but otherwise did not differ from offenders who did not use force in their offenses. Offenders both sexually and physically abused as children showed more disturbances in father relationships than offenders who were not abused during their childhoods. Disturbed parent-child relations undoubtedly leave residual difficulties in sex offenders in later life, but in the present sample, they did not play the expected critical role in explaining the use of force by perpetrators who coerce children into sex.     

The fear potentiated startle effect. Blink reflex modulation as a result of classical aversive conditioning

A differential conditioning study examined whether an acoustic startle probe, presented during extinction of an aversively conditioned visual stimulus, potentiated the reflex eyeblink response in humans and whether this potentiation varied with the change in affective valence of the conditioned stimulus. Sixty college students were randomly assigned to view a series of two slides, depicting either unpleasant/highly arousing, unpleasant/moderate arousing, neutral/calm, pleasant/moderate arousing or pleasant/highly arousing scenes and objects (duration: 8 sec). During preconditioning (8 trials) and extinction (24 trials) acoustic startle probes (white noise bursts [50 ms; 95 dBA] were administered during and between slide presentation). During acquisition (16 trials) CS+ was reinforced by an electric shock. Startle response magnitudes significantly increased from preconditioning to extinction and were substantially larger to CS+. Conditioned startle reflex augmentation linearly increased with the pleasantness of the slides. Furthermore, subjects showed a greater post-conditioning increase of judged aversiveness to slides that they had previously reported to be more pleasant, exactly paralleling the startle reflex results.     

Breaking-up is hard to study: A review of two decades of dissolution research

The dissolution of romantic relationships can be conceptualized in many ways, from a distressing event or a consequential life decision to a metric of a relationship's success. In the current review, we assess how relationship science has approached dissolution research over roughly the past 20 years. We identified 207 studies (from 195 papers) published between 2002–2020 that captured relationship dissolution events and coded the papers for relevant features. The most common methodological approach to studying breakups was a self-report study (92%) in which relationships were tracked over time (72%) and breakups were treated as an outcome variable (79%). These results suggest that most research on dissolution has focused on predictors of it, rather than processes required to uncouple and circumstances surrounding the breakup itself. Coding revealed heterogeneous theoretical approaches, with the most common perspective across papers—social exchange/interdependence theory—informing only 15% of the papers coded. A majority (61%) of samples were representative of the nations, regions, or localities in which the studies were conducted. Yet, samples still tended to be disproportionately comprised of young, white individuals from Western countries. We conclude by discussing potential avenues for moving our understanding of relationship dissolution forward.     

Thinking about multiple identities boosts children’s flexible thinking

Studies of children's developing social identification often focus on individual forms of identity. Yet, everyone has multiple potential identities. Here we investigated whether making children aware of their multifaceted identities—effectively seeing themselves from multiple angles—would promote their flexible thinking. In Experiment 1, 6‐ to 7‐year‐old children (N = 48) were assigned to either a Multiple‐Identities condition where they were led to consider their multiple identities (e.g. friend, neighbor) or to a Physical‐Traits condition where they considered their multiple physical attributes (e.g. legs, arms). Children in the Multiple‐Identity condition subsequently expressed greater flexibility at problem‐solving and categorization than children in the Physical‐Traits condition. Experiment 2 (N = 72) replicated these findings with a new sample of 6‐ to 7‐year‐old children and demonstrated that a Multiple‐Identity mindset must be self‐relevant. Children who were led to think about another child's multiple identities did not express as much subsequent creative thinking as did children who thought about their own multiple identities. Experiment 3 (N = 76) showed that a Mmultiple‐Identity framework may be particularly effective when the identities are presented via generic language suggesting that they are enduring traits (in this case, identities depicted as noun phrases rather than verbal phrases). These findings illustrate that something as simple as thinking about one's identity from multiple angles could serve as a tool to help reduce rigid thinking, which might increase open‐mindedness in a society that is becoming increasingly diverse.