Peer Processes and Gender Role Development: Changes in Gender Atypicality Related to Negative Peer Treatment and Children??s Friendships

Peer socialization has been proposed to elicit gender norm adherence through: a) rebuke for exhibiting gender nonnormative characteristics and b) engagement in same-sex interactions. However, there is little evidence supporting these assumptions. Accordingly, the current study examined the unique and interactive contributions of negative peer treatment and same-sex and cross-sex friendships to gender conformity over one school year. Children from the upper-Midwest of the USA (196 girls; 170 boys; M _age ?=?9.34?years) participated. Data included peer-ratings of harassment, friendship nominations, and teacher-ratings of gender atypicality. Peer harassment predicted decreased gender atypicality for children with many male friends and increased gender atypicality for boys with many female friends and few male friends. Implications for theories of gender development are discussed.     

Asymmetry in resting intracortical activity as a buffer to social threat

Social rejection can create powerful changes in people's brains and bodies. In the study reported here, we examined brain-based individual differences associated with buffering against cardiovascular threat responses to social rejection. Using EEG source-localization techniques, we examined differences in intracortical asymmetry. We predicted that individuals with greater left relative to right dorsolateral prefrontal activity would show a more approach-motivated response to social rejection. Eighty-four female participants were randomly assigned to one of three stressful situations: social rejection, social evaluation without rejection, or self-evaluation. Among participants assigned to the social-rejection condition, greater left relative to right prefrontal intracortical activity at baseline was associated with more adaptive cardiovascular profiles and more self-reported approach-oriented emotions. Participants in the other conditions did not show these relationships. Our data are the first to show that social context matters when attempting to link individual differences in cortical asymmetry with approach-related cardiovascular and emotional outcomes.     

Ouch! – a logotherapeutic discourse of butch and tattooed in China

• This is a study of a small group of self‐identified butch lesbians in their consumption of tattoos. The emotion‐laden experience of negotiating social symbolism and self‐identity (Elliott, 1997 ) in the context of hyperrealism (Baudrillard, 1983 ) has given rise to what Frankl ( 1984 ) has described as “existential vacuums.” Frankl suggested that these “existential vacuums” can be filled with a higher level of meaning. An artifact of consumption, the tattoo, is used by the informants in this study as a component of bricolage in the DIY process of constructing a new self (Elliott, 1997 ), with the entire process of being tattooed – particularly the hyper‐stimulation and pain of the procedure – further “existentializing” a new existence of “imagined masculinity.” This new existence that transcends suffering and assigns new meaning to life is the principle idea of Frankl's logotherapy (Frankl, 1984 ; Barnes, 2000 ; Blair, 2004 ).

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can the absence of prejudice be more threatening than its presence? It depends on one's worldview

The present research used validated cardiovascular measures to examine threat reactions among members of stigmatized groups when interacting with members of nonstigmatized groups who were, or were not, prejudiced against their group. The authors hypothesized that people's beliefs about the fairness of the status system would moderate their experience of threat during intergroup interactions. The authors predicted that for members of stigmatized groups who believe the status system is fair, interacting with a prejudiced partner, compared with interacting with an unprejudiced partner, would disconfirm their worldview and result in greater threat. In contrast, the authors predicted that for members of stigmatized groups who believe the system is unfair, interacting with a prejudiced partner, compared with interacting with an unprejudiced partner, would confirm their worldview and result in less threat. The authors examined these predictions among Latinas interacting with a White female confederate (Study 1) and White females interacting with a White male confederate (Study 2). As predicted, people's beliefs about the fairness of the status system moderated their experiences of threat during intergroup interactions, indicated both by cardiovascular responses and nonverbal behavior. The specific pattern of the moderation differed across the 2 studies.     

Religion,Health, and Psychological Well-Being

This study compares the effects of religiosity on health and well-being, controlling for work and family. With 2006 GSS data, we assess the effects of religiosity on health and well-being, net of job satisfaction, marital happiness, and financial status. The results indicate that people who identify as religious tend to report better health and happiness, regardless of religious affiliation, religious activities, work and family, social support, or financial status. People with liberal religious beliefs tend to be healthier but less happy than people with fundamentalist beliefs. Future research should probe how religious identity and beliefs impact health and well-being.     

Peer Victimization and Aggression: Moderation by Individual Differences in Salivary Cortiol and Alpha-Amylase

This research examined whether variations in salivary measures of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (cortisol) and autonomic nervous system (alpha amylase [sAA]) contribute to individual differences in the association between peer victimization and aggression. Children (N = 132; M age = 9.46 years, SD = 0.33) completed a measure of peer victimization, teachers rated children’s aggression, and children’s saliva was collected prior to, and following, participation in a laboratory-based peer-oriented social challenge task. Children rated their level of frustration at the end of the task. Results revealed that victimization interacted with cortisol and sAA measured in anticipation of the task to predict aggression; the victimization × cortisol contribution to aggression was partly mediated by children’s self-reported frustration level. Victimization also was associated with heightened frustration in girls with high task-related sAA reactivity. Task-related sAA reactivity was associated with heightened aggression, but only for girls. These findings suggest that associations between peer victimization and aggression are moderated by variation in the activity of the major components of the psychobiology of stress; results are discussed in relation to theoretical models of individual differences in biological sensitivity to context.