Nestling recognition via direct cues by parental male bluegill sunfish (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Lepomis macrochirus</Emphasis>)

Parental care can be costly to a parent in terms of both time and energy invested in the young. In species with cuckoldry or brood parasitism not all of the young under a parent's care are necessarily offspring. In such cases, distinguishing between kin and non-kin, and investing only in the former (nepotism), can be advantageous. Bluegill sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus) are characterized by paternal care and cuckoldry, and care-providing males appear to show nepotistic behaviours. Here, we investigated nestling recognition in bluegill, determining whether parental males can differentiate between young from their own nest (familiar and related) and young from non-neighbouring nests (unfamiliar and unrelated) using (1) visual and chemical cues, and (2) chemical cues only. In the first experiment, wild-caught parental males were presented with samples of eggs or fry (newly hatched eggs) collected from their own nest or a foreign nest and placed on opposite sides of an aquarium. The time these parental males spent associating with each sample, and their "pecking" behaviours (indicating cannibalism), were recorded. Parental males showed no preference between eggs from their own nest and eggs from a non-neighbouring nest, but they preferred to associate with fry from their own nest over foreign fry. There also was a positive relationship between male body size and the time spent associated with fry from their own nest. Parental males pecked at foreign fry more than 5 times as often as fry from their own nest, though this difference was not statistically significant. In the second experiment, fry that were collected from the nest of a wild-caught parental male or a non-neighbouring nest were placed in different containers and the water from each was dripped into opposite ends of an aquarium. The time the male spent on each side was recorded. In this case, parental males spent more time near the source of water conditioned by unrelated fry, but there was a positive relationship between male condition (fat reserves) and the time he spent near the source of water conditioned by fry from his own nest. Results confirm that chemicals cue nestling recognition by parental male bluegill. Electronic Publication     

Further Validation for the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire

This study further investigates the validity of the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith (SCSORF) questionnaire. Building and expanding upon prior research, the SCSORF, existing religiosity measures, mood, and personality adjustment scales were administered to three samples. Subjects included 290 university students and 232 recovering substance abusers. The results further validate the SCSORF as being a valid measure of strength of religious faith.     

The decrement in conditioned fear with increased trials of simultaneous conditioning is not specific to the simultaneous procedure

Three experiments using a conditioned punishment paradigm with rat subjects examined the possibility that the nonmonotonic acquisition function previously found to characterize simultaneous conditioning was due to the noninformative nature of the conditioned stimulus (CS). In Experiment 1 the suppressive effects of a CS previously presented with an unconditioned stimulus (US) in a simultaneous and forward (informative) manner were compared following 20 and an additional 60 conditioning trials. Excitatory conditioning similarly diminished with increased trials for both the simultaneous and forward procedures. Experiment 2 employed a between-groups design. Simultaneous, forward, and trace conditioning procedures were compared following 20 or 100 trials. Each of the three 100-trial groups showed less resistance to extinction than their 20-trial counterparts. Experiment 3 determined that the decrement in excitatory conditioning for the 100-trial groups was not due to the greater number of US presentations, per se, but rather to the number of CS-US pairings. The nonmonotonic acquisition function observed with all three conditioning procedures indicated that informational factors were not responsible for the decrement observed in simultaneous conditioning. The pattern of results suggested that subjects receiving extended conditioning trials were better able to discriminate between training and testing.     

Expletives and woman's place

This study empirically examined the relationship between the expletives, bitch and bastard, and sex-role stereotyping. The expletives were rated by 68 men and 68 women on 80 trait adjectives as to how typical or characteristic each trait was of the stereotypic bitch or bastard in our society. The sex-role implications of the 10 trait terms judged most characteristic of each expletive were then examined. For male subjects, the most distinguishing feature between the two expletives was the inclusion of the stereotypically masculine trait dominant, in their characterization of bitch. Female subjects, on the other hand, did not ascribe such opposite sex-role stereotype traits to bitch, but rather emphasized stereotypically masculine traits in their characterization of bastard. These results are discussed in terms of the regulatory and expressive nature of language, as well as the differential sanction value of the terms bitch and bastard for out-of-role behavior.     

Global and Regional Perspectives on Testing Children and Youth: An Empirical Study

The results of an international survey of test use in 44 countries are reported. Data are presented and discussed for six groupings: highly industrialised, less industrialised Western, developing Third World, socialist, Middle East, and least developed nations. A total of 740 tests were identified. A number of similarities exist among the six groupings in their test use. Intelligence tests are most commonly used followed by personality and achievement tests. Important differences also exist. For example, the developing Third World and Middle East nations use more group than individually administered tests and fewer achievement tests. Many tests lack reliability and validity studies and norms. Additional tests are needed to assess achievement, intelligence, social development, personality, and vocational interests and aptitudes. Tests are especially needed for children and youth who are learning disabled, mentally retarded, and slow learners. Problems created by these conditions and implications of the frequent use of foreign developed tests are discussed.     

Determinants of spatial priming in environmental memory

Spatial priming in recognizing objects in experimentally learned environments has been proposed as strong evidence for spatial organization of environmental memory. However, in all studies showing recognition priming effects, encoding and rehearsal contiguity may have coincided with spatial proximity, and thus priming may have been due to temporal associations formed during rehearsal, not encoded spatial relations per se. We investigated this question in four experiments, using a trip trial learning method in which temporal contiguity and spatial relations were independent. In Experiment 1, no spatial priming in recognition was found, even though indirect evidence suggested that subjects had encoded spatial relations. In Experiment 2, the trip trial method was compared with the free study procedure commonly used in previous priming studies. Spatial priming occurred only for free study subjects, even though the two groups were equivalent on direct measures of encoding accuracy. In Experiment 3, spatial priming in recognition was obtained with a modification of the trip trial method in which temporal and spatial contiguity were deliberately confounded. In Experiment 4, the unmodified trip trial method produced spatial priming in a location-decision task. Taken together, our results suggest that environmental memory may be spatially organized, but retrieval of object identities does not necessarily activate encoded spatial relations.     

Brief Report: Power and Attitudes in Relationships (PAIR) Among a Sample of Low-Income,African-American Women: Implications for HIV/AIDS Prevention

This study describes a scale that was designed to measure low-income urban, heterosexual women's perception of Power and Attitudes in Relationships (PAIR). Although frequently mentioned in the literature as an important aspect of women's risk for HIV, there are few described scales which measure such attitudes among this population. PAIR was based in part on Connell's (1987) Theory of gender and power. PAIR was found to be reliable (alpha = 0.79) among a Baltimore cross-sectional sample of inner-city women (n = 417), half of whom were HIV-negative and half were HIV-positive. Our findings suggest that PAIR is reliable among both HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected inner-city women. The scale can be a useful tool in understanding the interpersonal context of women's risk of HIV.     

Automatic and controlled components of judgment and decision making

The categorization of inductive reasoning into largely automatic processes (heuristic reasoning) and controlled analytical processes (rule-based reasoning) put forward by dual-process approaches of judgment under uncertainty (e.g., K. E. Stanovich & R. F. West, 2000) has been primarily a matter of assumption with a scarcity of direct empirical findings supporting it. The present authors use the process dissociation procedure (L. L. Jacoby, 1991) to provide convergent evidence validating a dual-process perspective to judgment under uncertainty based on the independent contributions of heuristic and rule-based reasoning. Process dissociations based on experimental manipulation of variables were derived from the most relevant theoretical properties typically used to contrast the two forms of reasoning. These include processing goals (Experiment 1), cognitive resources (Experiment 2), priming (Experiment 3), and formal training (Experiment 4); the results consistently support the author's perspective. They conclude that judgment under uncertainty is neither an automatic nor a controlled process but that it reflects both processes, with each making independent contributions.     

Tradeoffs and theory: the double-mediation model

Most theories of decision making suggest that, when options imply tradeoffs between their attributes, conflict increases as tradeoff size increases, because greater sacrifices are to be incurred in choosing one option instead of another. An alternative view is that conflict decreases as tradeoff size increases, because stronger arguments can be made for any decision. The authors propose a unified model, the double-mediation model, which combines the mediating effects of sacrifice and argumentation. Our model generally predicts an inverse U-shaped relation between tradeoff size and conflict. Results support this prediction. Also, when the decision situation increases the mediating effect of sacrifice relative to that of argumentation, the relation between tradeoff size and conflict changes in an upward direction; conversely, when the decision situation increases the mediating effect of argumentation relative to that of sacrifice, the relation changes in a downward direction. Results support these predictions as well. Commonalities and differences between our model and other formulations are discussed.