HOSTILE AND BENEVOLENT SEXISM

A theory of sexism as ambivalence , not just hostility, toward women is presented. Ambivalent Sexism Theory distinguishes between hostile and "benevolent" sexism (each addresses issues of power, gender differentiation, and sexuality). Benevolent sexism encompasses subjectively positive (for the sexist) attitudes toward women in traditional roles: protective paternalism, idealization of women, and desire for intimate relations. Hostile sexism encompasses the negative equivalents on each dimension: dominative paternalism, derogatory beliefs, and heterosexual hostility. Both forms of sexism serve to justify and maintain patriarchy and traditional gender roles. The validity of a measure of these constructs, the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI), is reviewed. Comparisons are offered between the ASI and other measures of sexist attitudes (e.g., the AWS), with suggestions for the proper domains of different scales.     

COLLEGE WOMEN'S FEARS AND PRECAUTIONARY BEHAVIORS RELATING TO ACQUAINTANCE RAPE AND STRANGER RAPE

Past research on women's fear of rape has focused on women's fears relating to stranger rape, even though most rapes are acquaintance rapes. In this study, 139 undergraduate women completed a questionnaire concerning their fears, precautionary behaviors, and beliefs relating to acquaintance and stranger rape. Women reported being more fearful of rape by strangers than by acquaintances, and they reported engaging in more precautionary behaviors because of fear of stranger rape than of acquaintance rape. When asked to self-generate situations in which they feared rape, they generated more situations in which they feared stranger rape than acquaintance rape. Paradoxically, they estimated that acquaintance rape was more common. Precautionary behaviors were best predicted by level of fear. A history of acquaintance rape had no effect on women's responses. Theoretical and educational implications are discussed.     

Gender and Video Game Performance

We investigated potential gender differences in video game (pong) performance in university students. In Experiment 1 men (N = 16) performed significantly better than women (N = 16). Experiment 2 was similar to the first, but used 14 men and 14 women who were matched carefully on previous video game experience. In spite of the matching, results replicated those of the first experiment. In Experiment 3 we evaluated the effect of an audience (male, female, none) on pong performance in 42 men and 42 women. We also assessed trait competition anxiety (Sport Competition Anxiety Test scores), sex role identification (Bem Sex Role Inventory scores), and video game experience. Both genders showed significantly poorer performance when they played pong in the presence of a female audience. Overall, males outperformed females as in the first two experiments. Examination of individuals with low, medium, and high levels of sport competition anxiety and videogame experience reveals persistent gender differences in performance, seemingly independent of levels of anxiety and experience. In all three experiments, both men and women showed significant improvement in performance over trials.     

LISTENING TO NICOTINE:

Abstract— In recent years, theoretical models of drug motivation and drug dependence have downplayed the role of withdrawal symptoms in the maintenance of addiction. During this same period, strong links between drug use and measures of negative affect have been uncovered in empirical research. In this article we examine these trends in the context of research on smoking. Evidence is presented from two recent studies on smoking relapse that highlight the intimate connection between withdrawal symptomatology and negative affect Specifically, these studies reveal that (a) single-occasion measures of withdrawal symptoms or other markers of physical dependence do not contribute incremental validity in preceding relapse relative to measures of negative affect (b) the trajectory of withdrawal symptoms is highly idiosyncratic, (c) exacerbations cannot be tightly coupled with pharmacological events. (d) the temporal dynamics of withdrawal reflect fluctuations in negative affect, and (e) differences in the trajectory of withdrawal symptoms index relapse vulnerability. We conclude that a broadened view of withdrawal recognizing its probable affective bases will enhance its explanatory power and suggest new treatment strategies.     

Second-Person Scepticism

In the last decade, some feminist epistemologists have suggested that the global scepticism which results from the Cartesian dream argument is the product of a self-consciously masculine modern era, whose philosophy gave pride of place to the individual cognizer, disconnected from the object of knowledge, from other knowers, indeed from his own body. Lorraine Code claims that under a conception of a cognizer as an essentially social being, Cartesian scepticism would not arise. I argue that this is false: an argument parallel in structure, and as well supported as the first-person Cartesian dream argument, could arise in an epistemology which recognizes the social nature of human life and knowledge. Against Code, it is not the first-personhood of Cartesianism which generates scepticism. A second-person scepticism could emerge in a socially conscious epistemology.     

Modeling the conscious correlates of recognition memory: Reflections on the remember-know paradigm

Understanding how memory processes contribute to the conscious experience of memory is central to contemporary cognitive psychology. Recently, many investigators (e.g., Gardiner, 1988) have examined theremember-know paradigm to understand the conscious correlates of recognition memory. A variety of studies have demonstrated that variables have different effects on remember and know responses, and these findings have been interpreted in the context of dual-process models of recognition memory. This paper presents a single-process model of the remember-know paradigm, emphasizing the dependence of remember and know judgments on a set of common underlying processes (e.g., criterion setting). We use this model to demonstrate how a single-process model can give rise to the functional dissociations presented in the remember-know literature. We close by detailing procedures for testing our model and describing how those tests may facilitate the development of dual-process models.     

Acquisition of the Mental State Verb Know by 2- to 5-Year-Old Children

The production of the cognitive internal state word know by four 2- to 5-year-old children and their parents was examined. The levels of meaning of cognitive words can be categorized hierarchically along the dimensions of conceptual difficulty and abstractness (see Booth & Hall, 1995). The present study found that children and their parents expressed low levels of meaning less frequently, whereas they expressed high levels of meaning more frequently as a function of age. The children's use of know was also correlated positively with (1) their number of different words produced suggesting that cognitive words are related to more general semantic processes, and (2) with parental use of those same cognitive words suggesting that parental linguistic input may be an important mechanism in cognitive word acquisition. Finally, young children tended to use know more to refer to themselves than to refer to others, whereas their parents tended to use know equally to refer to self and others. The importance of cognitive words in a theory of language acquisition is discussed.