The acceptance model of intuitive eating: a comparison of women in emerging adulthood, early adulthood, and middle adulthood

The acceptance model of intuitive eating (Avalos & Tylka, 2006) posits that body acceptance by others helps women appreciate their body and resist adopting an observer's perspective of their body, which contribute to their eating intuitively/adaptively. We extended this model by integrating body mass index (BMI) into its structure and investigating it with emerging (ages 18-25 years old, n = 318), early (ages 26-39 years old, n = 238), and middle (ages 40-65 years old, n = 245) adult women. Multiple-group analysis revealed that this model fit the data for all age groups. Body appreciation and resistance to adopt an observer's perspective mediated the body acceptance by others-intuitive eating link. Body acceptance by others mediated the social support-body appreciation and BMI-body appreciation links. Early and middle adult women had stronger negative BMI-body acceptance by others and BMI-intuitive eating relationships and a stronger positive body acceptance by others-body appreciation relationship than emerging adult women. Early adult women had a stronger positive resistance to adopt observer's perspective-body appreciation relationship than emerging and middle adult women.     

Integrating Social Comparison Theory and Self-Esteem within Objectification Theory to Predict Women’s Disordered Eating

This study integrated social comparison theory and self-esteem into the objectification theory framework to broaden our understanding of sexual objectification as it relates to body shame and disordered eating. Women (N?=?274) from a Midwestern U.S. college completed measures of sexual objectification via appearance feedback, body surveillance, body shame, body comparison, self-esteem, and disordered eating. Structural equation modeling indicated that this expanded model fit the data. Appearance feedback predicted body surveillance, body comparison, self-esteem and—unexpectedly—disordered eating. Body surveillance, body comparison, and self-esteem predicted body shame. Furthermore, hierarchical moderated regression revealed that body comparison moderated the body surveillance—disordered eating link; women who frequently monitored their body and compared it to others’ bodies reported the highest disordered eating.     

VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS COGNITION: A COMPUTATIONAL APPROACH TO SELF-UNDERSTANDING IN THREE MONOTHEIST CONTEXTS

This study considered representations of divine and human others in the self-understanding of monotheists from three religions. Self-understanding was conceptualized on the basis of semantic and episodic knowledge in narrative response data. Given the importance of social context in the formation of cognitive schemas, the project emphasized self-understanding in a comparative religious design. The sample included sixty nominated religious exemplars who responded to a structured interview. Schemas were subsequently mapped for Jews, Muslims, and Christians by comparison of self and other representations in a computational model known as latent semantic analysis (LSA). Findings indicated that representation of the divine is far removed from parents in cognitive schemas for all participants. Unlike Jews and Christians, Muslims appear to represent human others on the basis of self-understanding which principally references the divine. When considered in a computational semantic space, exemplars generally represent the self in a manner corresponding with divine and peer figures.     

The Caregiver Eating Messages Scale: Development and psychometric investigation

Certain caregiver eating messages – restriction of food intake and pressures to eat – are associated with body dissatisfaction and eating disturbances among young girls. This study explored whether these messages are also associated with body attitudes and eating behaviors of young adult women and men. The Caregiver Eating Messages Scale was developed to measure this construct. Two studies (Ns = 238, 288) indicated that it contained two factors (restrictive/critical messages and pressure to eat messages) and yielded internally consistent, stable, and valid scores. Both factors were positively related to women's BMI, and restrictive/critical messages were positively related to men's BMI. Restrictive/critical messages predicted lower perceived familial body acceptance and intuitive eating and higher perceived familial pressure to be lean and disordered eating. Restrictive/critical messages predicted participants’ body attitudes indirectly via their perceptions of their family's attitude toward their body, with one exception: restrictive/critical messages uniquely predicted men's body appreciation.     

11~14岁超常儿童与普通儿童问题解决能力的发展比较

以北京市某中学和某小学11~14岁之间294名学生为被试, 其中超常儿童131人, 普通儿童163人。采用推箱子任务, 结合横向比较和纵向追踪数据, 从认知能力、元认知能力和认知效率三个维度来考察超常儿童与普通儿童问题解决能力的发展差异。结果发现超常儿童在问题解决能力的三个维度上均优于普通儿童, 两类儿童问题解决能力的发展模式不一致：超常儿童的问题解决能力发展先快后慢, 快速发展期在11~12岁半之间; 普通儿童的问题解决能力发展先慢后快, 快速发展期在12岁半~14岁之间。超常儿童与普通儿童的问题解决能力差异随年龄增大逐渐减小。     

Paradoxical cross-over due to attention to high or low spatial frequencies

The mechanisms underlying the right hemisphere's dominance for spatial and attentional functions lacks a comprehensively explanation. For example, perceptual biases, as observed in line bisection and related tasks, might be caused by an attentional asymmetry or by perceptual processes such as a specialization of the left and right hemisphere for high and low spatial frequencies (SFs), respectively. Here we used the gratingscales task to measure perceptual bias in SF judgements, and we cued participants' attention either to high or low SFs. Participants showed a leftward bias when comparing the high SF components of the stimulus, and a rightward bias when comparing the low SF components-opposite to what would be expected from a hemispheric lateralization for SFs. Two control experiments used different strategies to manipulate the width of the attentional window. However, we observed no influence on perceptual bias, thus ruling out the possibility that the results in Experiment 1 were due to differences in attentional window size. These data support the idea of an attentional asymmetry underlying perceptual bias. Our results provide novel support for the role of attentional asymmetry in perceptual biases.     

Forgetting is effortful: Evidence from reaction time probes in an item-method directed forgetting task

Reaction time (RT) was measured in response to visual detection probes embedded within an item-method directed forgetting paradigm. In Experiment 1, study words were presented individually followed by an instruction to remember (R) or forget (F). Probes were presented at stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of 1,400, 1,800, or 2,600 msec in relation to the study word or memory instruction. After the study trials, a yes-no recognition task measured retention of R and F words. Experiment 2 added a no-word control condition and no-probe catch trials. In both experiments, post-F probe RTs were longer than post-R probe RTs at early SOAs. Confirming that participants attended to the memory instructions, there was a significant directed forgetting effect, with greater recognition of R than of F words. These findings contradict the view that directed forgetting in the item-method paradigm is due to the passive decay of nonrehearsed F items; instead, they are consistent with the view that intentional forgetting in an item-method paradigm occurs via the operation of an active, potentially inhibitory, cognitive process.     

Explaining intra-individual variability in social behavior through idiographic assessment: The case of humor

Much variability in social behavior is intra-individual; people vary their actions strategically across contexts. Yet most personality assessment methods are inter-individual; they chart between-person differences in average behavioral tendencies. The present research advanced novel idiographic assessment methods to predict intra-individual variability in a behavioral domain of long-standing interest to personality psychologists: humor. Individuals participated in three assessment sessions. Personal beliefs about reasons for using humor were assessed either idiographically or with respect to a nomothetic system of humor-related reasons for action. The subjective relevance of nomothetically- and idiographically-identified reasons to everyday social situations was assessed. Subsequently, participants reported their perceived likelihood of using humor in specific social contexts. As predicted, likelihood of humor use varied substantially as a function of the relevance of situations to idiographically-identified reasons, but did not vary as a function of the relevance of situations to reasons identified nomothetically. Implications for personality and assessment are discussed.     

How do people apprehend large numerosities?

People discriminate remarkably well among large numerosities. These discriminations, however, need not entail numerical representation of the quantities being compared. This research evaluated the role of both non-numerical and numerical information in adult judgments of relative numerosity for large-numerosity spatial arrays. Results of Experiment 1 indicated that judgments of relative numerosity were affected by the amount of open space in the arrays being compared. Further, the accuracy of verbal estimates of the numerosities of the arrays made upon completion of the comparison task bore little relation to performance on that task. Experiment 2, however, showed that numerical estimates for individually presented arrays were affected in much the same way by open space within or around the edges of the array as were the comparative judgments examined in Experiment 1. The findings suggest that adults heuristically utilize non-numerical cues as well as numerical information in apprehending large numerosities.     

The nonverbal expression of pride: evidence for cross-cultural recognition

The present research tests whether recognition for the nonverbal expression of pride generalizes across cultures. Study 1 provided the first evidence for cross-cultural recognition of pride, demonstrating that the expression generalizes across Italy and the United States. Study 2 found that the pride expression generalizes beyond Western cultures; individuals from a preliterate, highly isolated tribe in Burkina Faso, West Africa, reliably recognized pride, regardless of whether it was displayed by African or American targets. These Burkinabe participants were unlikely to have learned the pride expression through cross-cultural transmission, so their recognition suggests that pride may be a human universal. Studies 3 and 4 used drawn figures to systematically manipulate the ethnicity and gender of targets showing the expression, and demonstrated that pride recognition generalizes across male and female targets of African, Asian, and Caucasian descent. Discussion focuses on the implications of the findings for the universality of the pride expression.