Examining “fat talk” experimentally in a female dyad: How are women influenced by another woman's body presentation style?

Fat talk, the verbal dissatisfaction that women express about their bodies, was studied in a female dyad whereby participants interacted with a female confederate who either self-derogated, self-accepted, or self-aggrandized. A 2 (participant body esteem: high vs. low) ×3 (confederate style of body image presentation) design was used. Results revealed that participants’ public disclosure of their body image varied according to confederate's style. Consistent with a reciprocity effect, participants disclosed the lowest public body image ratings in the self-derogate condition, with moderate ratings in the self-accept condition, and highest ratings in the self-aggrandize condition. Moreover, participants with low compared to high body esteem stated lower public body image. Participants’ judgments of the confederates’ likeability did not vary as a function of the confederate's body presentational style. Findings support the recursive nature of the social psychology of body image such that personal body image dissatisfaction is partially influenced by fat talk social norms.     

Does selecting one visual object from several require inhibition of the actions associated with nonselected objects?

Four experiments are described in which 1 visual object (the target) was selected from another (the distractor) according to its color (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) or its relative location (Experiment 3) and then was classified according to a simple geometric property. Object classification was signaled as fast as possible by a precision or power grip response, and this grip was either compatible or incompatible with either object. When targets were selected by color, target-compatible grip responses were facilitated, but distractor-compatible grip responses were impaired. When targets were selected by location, similar results were obtained for target-compatible grip responses, but not distractor-compatible grip responses. These data are explained in terms of the involvement of action codes in object-level selection.     

The relationship of television viewing to physical fitness and obesity

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which light, moderate, and heavy television viewing relates to multiple measures of obesity and physical fitness among 379 high school males. The Body Mass Index and Tucker's Perceived Somatotype Scale were employed to assess obesity; physical fitness was measured by six tests: pushups, pullups, sidestep, long jump, situps, and jog-walk. Results showed that light television viewers scored significantly better than heavy viewers on a composite fitness index and on pushups, pullups, sidestep, situps, and jog-walk considered individually. Similarly, light viewers performed better than moderate viewers on the composite fitness measure and on pushups, pullups, and jog-walk. Light viewers displayed a strong tendency toward better fitness than moderate viewers on the long jump, situps, and sidestep tests, although statistical significance was not attained. Light viewers were not significantly less obese than moderate or heavy viewers. Statistical control of the demographic variables, applied simultaneously, had little influence on the associations found in this study. The findings indicate that for purposes of good physical fitness, television viewing should be limited to one hour or less per day.     

Selective information processing and schematic content related to eating behavior

An adaptation of the Stroop color-naming task was used to investigate selective information processing related to eating behavior in 90 undergraduate women. This study differed from previous studies by (a) treating eating behavior as a continuous variable and (b) looking at five separate categories of words including color, neutral, food, body shape, and other emotionally salient words. We did not find a strong pattern of relation between the Stroop task and eating and body image measures. Results suggest that in a nonclinical population, direct methods of accessing cognitions related to eating may be more fruitful than indirect measures.     

Recovery of structure and function following transection of the primary olfactory nerves in pigeons.

Preliminary experimentation on ring doves to ascertain whether they might regulate any aspects of their reproductive behavior in terms of olfactory cues was vitiated by the discovery that their sectioned olfactory nerves had apparently regenerated. Concurrent work on frogs has shown that the olfactory receptors degenerate after axotomy and are replaced by new ones. This phenomenon was studied in pigeons. All transected nerves were found to be healed. Electrical recording from the regenerated nerves revealed apparently normal receptor function and, indirectly, autonomic reflex responsiveness. Previously untrained pigeons learned an olfactory discrimination after reconstitution of the peripheral olfactory system using a conditioned suppression procedure. The olfactory nerves of trained pigeons were sectioned and the behavioral response recovered within 16-82 days. The gross sizes of primary olfactory nerves and olfactory bulbs were frequently much less than those of controls, but on the ultrastructural level there was no recognizable morphological deficiency in the receptor cellular organelles or terminal synaptic contacts in bulbar glomeruli. Recent results by other workers indicate that pigeons utilize olfactory cues in homing performance.     

Increasing mentally retarded adolescents' verbalizations about current events

The effects of antecedent and consequent events on the verbal behavior of three institutionalized mentally retarded adolescents were examined. Verbal statements, related to current national and international events, were recorded after exposures to television news programs. The study examined the accuracy of verbalizations as a function of: (1) exposures to television news presentations in massed (i.e., viewing the entire news program before an opportunity to describe it) versus distributed from (i.e., viewing each news item separately with each followed by an opportunity to describe it), and (2) contingent tokens and social praise for correct verbal responses (i.e., statements corresponding to news items presented). Both the temporal distribution of news presentations and the reinforcement procedures improved the accuracy of verbal statements emitted by the subjects.