Experimental tests of an attitudinal theory of the gender gap in voting

This research examined the hypothesis that gender gaps in voting stem from differences in the extent to which men and women agree with candidates' issue stances. Two initial experiments portraying candidates by their sex and attitudes and a third experiment that also included information about political party produced the predicted attitudinal gender-congeniality effect: Participants of each sex reported greater likelihood, compared with participants of the other sex, of voting for the candidate who endorsed positions typically favored more by their own sex than the other sex. In addition, this gender-congeniality effect was present among Republican and independent participants but absent among Democratic participants because Democratic men as well as women favored candidates who advocated the positions typically favored by women. Interpretation invoked the importance of group interest based on gender as an influence on women's voting.     

Beyond the Obvious: Chronic Vividness of Imagery and the Use of Information in Decision Making

The authors investigate two competing hypotheses about how chronic vividness of imagery interacts with the vividness and salience of information in decision making. Results from four studies, covering a variety of decision domains, indicate that chronic imagery vividness rarely amplifies the effects of vivid and salient information. Imagery vividness may, in fact, attenuate the effects of vivid and salient information. This is because, relative to nonvivid imagers, vivid imagers rely less on information that appears obvious and rely more on information that seems less obvious. This tendency is so robust that vividness of imagery may amplify the effects of vivid information only when this information is the only information available in the decision field. The findings seem to reflect vivid imagers' tendency to totally immerse themselves in a decision problem and scrutinize the available information creatively.     

Generalization,similarity, and Bayesian inference

Shepard has argued that a universal law should govern generalization across different domains of perception and cognition, as well as across organisms from different species or even different planets. Starting with some basic assumptions about natural kinds, he derived an exponential decay function as the form of the universal generalization gradient, which accords strikingly well with a wide range of empirical data. However, his original formulation applied only to the ideal case of generalization from a single encountered stimulus to a single novel stimulus, and for stimuli that can be represented as points in a continuous metric psychological space. Here we recast Shepard's theory in a more general Bayesian framework and show how this naturally extends his approach to the more realistic situation of generalizing from multiple consequential stimuli with arbitrary representational structure. Our framework also subsumes a version of Tversky's set-theoretic model of similarity, which is conventionally thought of as the primary alternative to Shepard's continuous metric space model of similarity and generalization. This unification allows us not only to draw deep parallels between the set-theoretic and spatial approaches, but also to significantly advance the explanatory power of set-theoretic models.     

Perfectionism and depression symptom severity in major depressive disorder.

In recent years it has been recognized that perfectionism is a multidimensional construct and two Multidimensional Perfectionism Scales have been developed and investigated in relative isolation [Frost, R.O., Marten, P., Lahart, C., & Rosenblate, R. (1990). The dimensions of perfectionism. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 14, 449-468; Hewitt, P.L., & Flett, G.L. (1991). Perfectionism in the self and social contexts: Conceptualization, assessment and association with psychopathology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 456-470]. The present study sought to evaluate the association between various dimensions of perfectionism, higher-order personality dimensions, and self and observer rated depressive symptoms in a group of 145 patients with major depressive disorder. Only three of ten perfectionism dimensions (socially prescribed perfectionism, concern over mistakes and self-criticism) displayed medium to large correlations with depressive symptoms, especially self-report symptoms reflecting depressive cognitive distortions. The results are discussed in relation to the specificity of perfectionism dimensions to depression, adaptive versus maladaptive aspects of perfectionism, and in the context of previous research, much of which has relied on college student samples.     

The Shattered Horizon How Ideology Mattered to Soviet Politics

This article argues that ideology was of key-importance to the Soviet system. The rules which governed Soviet ideological discourse did not only hold for the producers of ideology but also aimed at filtering public communication. The respect people showed for an ideologically filtered discourse counted as a sign of loyalty. In this way ideology constituted a central pillar of power. The article presents the results of an analysis of political texts dating from the Gorbachev era. It concludes that the Gorbachev reforms eroded the communication filter because they changed the rules on which ideological discourse and thus power rested.     

Research on the Internet: Validation of a World-Wide Web mediated personality scale

Two studies were performed to assess the validity of a World-Wide Web (WWW) measure of self-monitoring. In Study 1, Usenet Newsgroups likely to be read by high and low self-monitors were identified and a comparison was made of the extent to which contributors engaged in a form of self-presentation (use ofhandles orscreen names) likely to be influenced by self-monitoring tendencies. Handles were used significantly more frequently in thehigh self-monitoring Newsgroups, supporting the distinction made. In Study 2, participants recruited through these sets of Newsgroups completed the WWW-mediated test. Those from the high self-monitoring groups scored significantly higher. Self-reports of self-monitoring behavior also reflected scores on the scale. The results are interpreted as demonstrating the construct validity of the instrument used and the viability of criterion-group-oriented methods in Internet-mediated research.     

Potential Bone-Marrow Donors and Their Spouses: The Effects of Volunteerism on Distress Levels1

The current study sought to provide a better understanding of the reactions of bone-marrow volunteers to the possibility of donating by examining these volunteers in the context of their closest relationships. Using Tesser's (1988) self-evaluation maintenance (SEM) model as a guide, we examined the influence of spouses who are also volunteers on each member of the couple's distress levels and on the marrow volunteer's ambivalence about donating. We also examined the independent effects of known risk factors for donation-related distress and the combined effects of spouse volunteer status and these risk factors on distress levels. Questionnaire data were collected from 278 couples selected from 39 bone-marrow donor centers. Results demonstrated that when spouses of potential donors were engaged in any type of volunteer activity, members of the couple felt greater anxiety than when spouses were not volunteers. Additionally, other variables were found to have a conjoint effect with spouse volunteer status on volunteer and spouse anxiety levels.     

Potential Mediators in Parenting and Family Intervention: Quality of Mediation Analyses

Parenting and family interventions have repeatedly shown effectiveness in preventing and treating a range of youth outcomes. Accordingly, investigators in this area have conducted a number of studies using statistical mediation to examine some of the potential mechanisms of action by which these interventions work. This review examined from a methodological perspective in what ways and how well the family-based intervention studies tested statistical mediation. A systematic search identified 73 published outcome studies that tested mediation for family-based interventions across a wide range of child and adolescent outcomes (i.e., externalizing, internalizing, and substance-abuse problems; high-risk sexual activity; and academic achievement), for putative mediators pertaining to positive and negative parenting, family functioning, youth beliefs and coping skills, and peer relationships. Taken as a whole, the studies used designs that adequately addressed temporal precedence. The majority of studies used the product of coefficients approach to mediation, which is preferred, and less limiting than the causal steps approach. Statistical significance testing did not always make use of the most recently developed approaches, which would better accommodate small sample sizes and more complex functions. Specific recommendations are offered for future mediation studies in this area with respect to full longitudinal design, mediation approach, significance testing method, documentation and reporting of statistics, testing of multiple mediators, and control for Type I error.     

How sweet it is to be loved by you: the role of perceived regard in the terror management of close relationships

Drawing from terror management theory, the present research examined whether people turn to close relationships to manage the awareness of mortality because they serve as a source of perceived regard. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that mortality salience (MS) leads people to exaggerate how positively their romantic partners see them and demonstrated that people are more committed to their partners to the extent that their romantic partners serve as a source of perceived regard after MS (Study 3). Study 4 revealed that activating thoughts of perceived regard from a partner in response to MS reduced death-thought accessibility. Studies 5 and 6 demonstrated that MS led high relationship contingent self-esteem individuals to exaggerate perceived regard from a partner, and this heightened regard led to greater commitment to one's partner. Study 7 examined attachment style differences and found that after MS, anxious individuals exaggerated how positively their parents see them, whereas secure individuals exaggerated how positively their romantic partners see them. Together, the present results suggest that perceptions of regard play an important role in why people pursue close relationships in the face of existential concerns.