Effects of Self-Compassion and Social Support on Lesbian,Gay, and Bisexual College Students' Positive Identity and Career Decision-Making

The purpose of this study was to explore the serial mediating effects of self-compassion and social support on the relationship between positive identity and career decision-making self-efficacy (CDMSE) among lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) college students. A total of 222 LGB (109 bisexual, 113 lesbian/gay) students participated in the study. Results supported the mediating roles of self-compassion and social support. Specifically, self-compassion and social support sequentially mediated the relationship between positive identity and CDMSE, and the patterns of the sequence of the mediators were different between the bisexual and lesbian/gay groups. Implications for career counselors and future research are discussed.     

Aging and semantic cueing during learning and retention of verbal episodic information

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of semantic cues provided at encoding and during retention for older adults' memory. For the California Verbal Learning Test-II, participants received semantic or nonsemantic cues that were varied across groups at encoding and during the retention interval. Provision of a semantic cue at encoding led to greater semantic clustering at learning, but not increased recall performance. Providing a semantic cue during the retention interval led to better delayed free recall and greater semantic clustering. No group differences in recall or semantic clustering were found at delayed cued recall. The current findings suggest that semantic cues can be beneficial for recalling unstructured information when administered during the retention interval.     

The Cutest Little Baby Face: A Hormonal Link to Sensitivity to Cuteness in Infant Faces

ABSTRACT— We used computer image manipulation to develop a test of perception of subtle gradations in cuteness between infant faces. We found that young women (19–26 years old) were more sensitive to differences in infant cuteness than were men (19–26 and 53–60 years old). Women aged 45 to 51 years performed at the level of the young women, whereas cuteness sensitivity in women aged 53 to 60 years was not different from that of men (19–26 and 53–60 years old). Because average age at menopause is 51 years in Britain, these findings suggest the possible involvement of reproductive hormones in cuteness sensitivity. Therefore, we compared cuteness discrimination in pre- and postmenopausal women matched for age and in women taking and not taking oral contraceptives (progestogen and estrogen). Premenopausal women and young women taking oral contraceptives (which raise hormone levels artificially) were more sensitive to variations of cuteness than their respective comparison groups. We suggest that cuteness sensitivity is modulated by female reproductive hormones.     

Aspectual asymmetries in the mental representation of events: Role of lexical and grammatical aspect

Temporal information is important in the construction of situation models, and many languages make use of perfective and imperfective aspect markers to distinguish between completed situations (e.g., He made a cake) and ongoing situations (e.g., He is making a cake). Previous studies in which the effect of grammatical aspect has been examined have shown that perfective sentences are often processed more quickly than imperfective ones (e.g., Chan, Yap, Shirai, & Matthews, 2004; Madden & Zwaan, 2003; Yap et al., 2004; Yap et al., 2006). However, these studies used only accomplishment verbs (i.e., verbs with an inherent endpoint, such as bake a cake). The present study on the processing of Cantonese includes activity verbs (i.e., durative verbs with no inherent endpoint, such as play the piano), and the results indicate a strong interaction between lexical aspect (i.e., verb type) and grammatical aspect. That is, perfective sentences were processed more quickly with accomplishment verbs, consistent with previous findings, but imperfective sentences were processed more quickly with activity verbs. We suggest that these different aspectual asymmetries emerge as a result of the inherent associations between accomplishment verbs and the bounded features of perfective aspect and between activity verbs and the unbounded features of imperfective aspect. The sentence stimuli from this study may be downloaded from mc.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.     

Do groups lie more than individuals? Honesty and deception as a function of strategic self-interest

An experiment tested whether groups lie more than individuals. Groups lied more than individuals when deception was guaranteed to maximize economic outcomes, but lied relatively less than individuals when honesty could be used strategically. These results suggest that groups are more strategic than individuals in that they will adopt whatever course of action best serves their economic interest.     

Gray matter correlates of fluid,crystallized, and spatial intelligence: Testing the P-FIT model

The parieto-frontal integration theory (P-FIT) nominates several areas distributed throughout the brain as relevant for intelligence. This theory was derived from previously published studies using a variety of both imaging methods and tests of cognitive ability. Here we test this theory in a new sample of young healthy adults (N = 100) using a psychometric battery tapping fluid, crystallized, and spatial intelligence factors. High resolution structural MRI scans (3T) were obtained and analyzed with Voxel-based Morphometry (VBM). The main findings are consistent with the P-FIT, supporting the view that general intelligence (g) involves multiple cortical areas throughout the brain. Key regions include the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, Broca's and Wernicke's areas, the somato-sensory association cortex, and the visual association cortex. Further, estimates of crystallized and spatial intelligence with g statistically removed, still share several brain areas with general intelligence, but also show some degree of uniqueness.     

Dissociative effects of viewpoint and semantic priming on action and semantic decisions: evidence for dual routes to action from vision

This article reports evidence that two variables—object viewpoint and semantic priming—differentially affect action and semantic decisions to objects. Changing the viewing angle of an object, so that its graspable parts are oriented away from observers, disrupted action decisions but had little effect on semantic categorization. In contrast, semantic priming influenced semantic categorization and object naming, but not action decisions. Action priming, however, did not affect performance. These selective effects are consistent with the existence of separate semantic and direct (nonsemantic) routes to action from vision.     

Psychopathology of Adolescent Social Phobia

Sixty-three adolescents with social phobia and 43 with no psychiatric disorders were compared across a number of clinical variables. In addition to clinically impairing social fear, adolescents with social phobia had significantly higher levels of loneliness, dysphoria, general emotional over-responsiveness and more internalizing behaviors than normal controls and 57.1% of socially phobic adolescents had a second, concurrent diagnosis, 75% of which were other anxiety disorders. In addition, adolescents with social phobia were significantly less socially skilled. Though similar in some respects to childhood social phobia, adolescent social phobia has a unique clinical presentation. The importance of developmental differences on the development of age-appropriate interventions is discussed.