The effects of exergaming on physical activity among inactive children in a physical education classroom

Childhood obesity, which is due in part to lack of physical activity, is a serious concern that requires the attention of the behavioral community. Although excessive video game play has been noted in the literature as a contributor to childhood obesity, newer video gaming technology, called exergaming, has been designed to capitalize on the reinforcing effects of video games to increase physical activity in children. This study evaluated the effects of exergaming on physical activity among 4 inactive children in a physical education (PE) classroom. Results showed that exergaming produced substantially more minutes of physical activity and more minutes of opportunity to engage in physical activity than did the standard PE program. In addition, exergaming was socially acceptable to both the students and the PE teacher. Exergaming appears to hold promise as a method for increasing physical activity among inactive children and might be a possible intervention for childhood obesity.     

Learning of monotonic and nonmonotonic sequences in domesticated horses (Equus callabus) and chickens (Gallus domesticus)

[Hulse and Dorsky, 1977] and [Hulse and Dorsky, 1979] found that rats, like humans, learn sequences following a simple rule-based structure more quickly than those lacking a rule-based structure. Through two experiments, we explored whether two additional species—domesticated horses (Equus callabus) and chickens (Gallus domesticus)—would show this same propensity. In both experiments, subjects encountered either a structured or unstructured sequence of food quantities in a runway paradigm. In both experiments, subjects exposed to structured patterns of food quantities learned to track sequences of food quantities more efficiently than those exposed to patterns lacking such structure by running fast for large food quantities and slowly for small food quantities. These results provide evidence that horses and chickens track simple sequences similarly to humans and rats.     

The Role of Perspective Taking and Empathy in Children's Machiavellianism,Prosocial Behavior,and Motive for Helping

Fourth- and fifth-grade children (N = 117) were categorized into high- and low-empathy and affective-perspective-taking (APT) groups based on their scores on the Bryant (1982) empathy scale and a modified version of the Rothenberg (1970) and Silvern, Waterman, Sobesky, and Ryan (1979) APT measures. Children in the low-empathy/high-APT group had significantly higher Machiavellianism scores on Braginsky's (1970) measure than did children in the other empathy/APT groups. Highly empathic children were rated by their teachers as more helpful under certain circumstances and cited other-oriented reasons for their own helping behavior more frequently than did less empathic children.     

Maintaining Order and Following the Rules: Gender Differences in Punishing Inmate Misconduct

For this article, we examine gender differences in how staff members address inmate misconduct. Using in-depth interviews with forty-three correctional employees, we focus on how their various disciplinary styles create interpersonal conflict between staff members. We find that over half of interviewees are identified as “formal responders” who consistently punish inmate misconduct with formal sanctions, even if doing so creates conflict within the organization. However, female formal responders also claim that they work closely with male inmates to explain the importance of following the rules. They state that this puts them at odds with their male co-workers who misinterpret this behavior as instigating sexual relationships.     

The motivational effects of thinking and worrying about the effects of smoking cigarettes

We tested a strategy to encourage cigarette smokers to think more frequently about the negative consequences of smoking, reasoning that increased thought might lead to greater worry and motivation to quit. College students who smoked daily were randomly assigned to one of three conditions in which they wore watches for one week that sounded an alarm randomly four times each day. When alerted, the students read one of eight cards that either had a written statement about studying (control condition), a statement about the negative effects of smoking behaviour (text condition), or a negative smoking statement accompanied by a picture (e.g., a blackened lung; image condition). Measures collected at week's end revealed that the smoking cards had no effects on perceived risk, but they increased worry and reports of intrusive thoughts, and had a small but reliable effect on plans to quit. Correlational data also supported the relationship between worry and motivation to quit, and we discuss the possible benefits of “normal” worrying and strategies for capitalising on the worry–motivation relationship to encourage smokers to abandon cigarettes.     

The Counselor Feedback Training Model: Teaching Counseling Students Feedback Skills

Giving and receiving feedback is an important counseling skill; therefore, it is crucial to focus on this skill within counselor training. This article presents the Counselor Feedback Training Model, a developmental approach designed to assist counselor educators in teaching counseling students how to give and receive feedback.     

Elimination of sex difference in direction giving

Past studies have shown that men provide more cardinal information and mileage estimates than women when describing routes learned from maps. In the current study, we examined whether this sex difference would persist if more legends were added to the maps. The participants looked at maps for 3 min and then wrote down directions from memory. Their usage of cardinal directions, mileage estimates, landmarks, and left–right directions was coded and analyzed. The results showed that men and women used cardinal directions equally for the 4-legend maps, whereas men used more cardinal directions than women for 1-legend maps as shown previously. Our results suggested that subtly drawing attention to cardinal directions successfully eliminated the sex difference in usage, although a different pattern was seen for mileage estimates. The underlying mechanisms are discussed.     

Explaining sex differences in mental rotation: role of spatial activity experience

Males consistently outperform females on mental rotation tasks, such as the Vandenberg and Kuse (1978) Perceptual and Motor Skills, 47(2), 599–604, mental rotation test (MRT; e.g. Voyer et al. 1995) in Psychological Bulletin, 117, 250–265. The present study investigates whether these sex differences in MRT scores can be explained in part by early spatial activity experience, particularly those spatial activities that have been sex-typed as masculine/male-oriented. Utilizing an online survey, 571 ethnically diverse adult university students completed a brief demographic survey, an 81-item spatial activity survey, and the MRT. Results suggest that the significant relation between sex of the participant and MRT score is partially mediated by the number of masculine spatial activities participants had engaged in as youth. Closing the gap between males and females in spatial ability, a skill linked to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics success, may be accomplished in part by encouraging female youth to engage in more particular kinds of spatial activities.     

Do older individuals have difficulty processing motion or excluding noise? Implications for safe driving

This study aimed to determine if difficulties extracting signal from noise explained poorer coherent motion thresholds in older individuals, particularly women. In four experimental conditions the contrast of the signal and noise dots used in a random dot kinematogram was manipulated. Coherence thresholds were highest when the signal dots were of a lower contrast than the noise dots and lowest when the signal dots were of a higher contrast than the noise dots. In all conditions the older group had higher coherence thresholds than the younger group, and women had higher thresholds than men. Significant correlations were found between coherence thresholds and self-reported driving difficulties in conditions in which the signal dots had to be extracted from noise only. The results indicate that older individuals have difficulties extracting signal from noise in cluttered visual environments. The implications for safe driving are discussed.     

The Relation of Social Capital to Child Psychosocial Adjustment Difficulties: The Role of Positive Parenting and Neighborhood Dangerousness

Substantial research attention has focused on the psychosocial adjustment problems of children and adolescents residing in disadvantaged neighborhoods. However, less attention has been directed to neighborhood factors within disadvantaged neighborhoods that may facilitate child psychosocial adjustment. An expanded model, assessing how social capital, neighborhood dangerousness, and positive parenting relate to child psychosocial adjustment difficulties, was estimated using structural equation modeling (Lisrel 8.3). Participants included 130 African American mothers and their children (mean age = 12.9 years) residing in inner city New Orleans, LA. The model examined 3 avenues through which social capital (e.g., support, neighborhood cohesion) may relate to fewer child psychosocial adjustment difficulties: a direct relation; through its relation to positive parenting; and through its relation to neighborhood dangerousness. Results indicate that social capital related to child psychosocial adjustment difficulties through positive parenting and neighborhood dangerousness, but not directly. Overall, the proposed model fit the observed data reasonably well. The results suggest that social capital in disadvantaged neighborhoods is important in indirectly facilitating child psychosocial adjustment and should be incorporated into assessment and intervention practices.