African American Children’s Depressive Symptoms: The Prospective Effects of Neighborhood Disorder, Stressful Life Events, and Parenting

The prospective effects of observed neighborhood disorder, stressful life events, and parents’ engagement in inductive reasoning on adolescents’ depressive symptoms were examined using data collected from 777 African American families. Multilevel analyses revealed that stressful life events experienced at age 11 predicted depressive symptoms at age 13. Furthermore, a significant interaction between neighborhood disorder and parents’ engagement in inductive reasoning was found, indicating that parental use of inductive reasoning was a protective factor for depressive symptoms particularly for youths living in highly disordered neighborhoods. The importance of examining correlates of depressive symptoms from a contextual framework, focusing on individuals, families, and neighborhood contexts, is emphasized.     

Effects of shape parameters on the attractiveness of a female body

Various researchers have suggested that certain anthropometric ratios can be used to measure female body attractiveness, including the waist to hip ratio, Body Mass Index (BMI), and the body volume divided by the square of the height (Volume-Height Index). Based on a wide range of female subjects and virtual images of bodies with different ratios, Volume-Height Index was found to provide the best fit with female body attractiveness, and the effect of Volume-Height Index can be fitted with two half bell-shaped exponential curves with an optimal Volume-Height Index at 14.2 liter/m2. It is suggested that the general trend of the effect of Volume-Height Index may be culturally invariant, but the optimal value of Volume-Height Index may vary from culture to culture. In addition to Volume-Height Index, other body parameters or ratios which reflect body proportions and the traits of feminine characteristics had smaller but significant effects on female body attractiveness, and such effects were stronger at optimum Volume-Height Index.     

Meta-analysis of the relationship between risk perception and health behavior: the example of vaccination.

BACKGROUND: Risk perceptions are central to many health behavior theories. However, the relationship between risk perceptions and behavior, muddied by instances of inappropriate assessment and analysis, often looks weak. METHOD: A meta-analysis of eligible studies assessing the bivariate association between adult vaccination and perceived likelihood, susceptibility, or severity was conducted. RESULTS: Thirty-four studies met inclusion criteria (N = 15,988). Risk likelihood (pooled r = .26), susceptibility (pooled r = .24), and severity (pooled r = .16) significantly predicted vaccination behavior. The risk perception-behavior relationship was larger for studies that were prospective, had higher quality risk measures, or had unskewed risk or behavior measures. CONCLUSIONS: The consistent relationships between risk perceptions and behavior, larger than suggested by prior meta-analyses, suggest that risk perceptions are rightly placed as core concepts in theories of health behavior.     

Long-term effects of appearance-based interventions on sun protection behaviors.

OBJECTIVES: To examine the longer term efficacies of exposure to UV photographs and photoaging information (e.g., wrinkles and age spots) for increasing sun protection intentions and behaviors of young adults. DESIGN: Randomized controlled trial with 4- to 5-month and 12-month follow-ups. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Participants' self-reported sun protection intentions assessed immediately after the interventions, and both self-reported sun protection behaviors and an objective assessment (via spectrophotometry) of skin color change measured at the end of summer (4-5 months following interventions) and 1 year following interventions. RESULTS: Both interventions resulted in immediate positive effects on future sun protection intentions. Both interventions showed objective evidence of less skin darkening at the postsummer follow-up, with those in the photoaging information condition also reporting more sun protective behavior and continuing to show less skin darkening 1 year after intervention. There was also evidence that effects of photoaging information on subsequent skin color change were mediated by the earlier positive effect photoaging information had on participants' intentions to sun protect and their subsequent sun protection behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: UV photo and photoaging-information interventions each show promise as a brief and relatively inexpensive approach for motivating sun protection practices that may reduce skin cancer risk.     

再探汉字加工中语音、语义激活的相对时间进程

在Zhou和Marslen-Wilson（2000）基础之上,进一步探讨汉字加工中语音和语义信息激活的相对时间进程及其对汉字加工理论的含义。采用启动范式,用同一目标字与语义相关启动字、同音启动字以及无关控制启动字配对,变化同音启动字读音与其声旁的规则性,变化启动字与目标字呈现之间的时间间隔（SOA,57ms或200ms）,使用两种实验任务（真假字判断和命名）,考察语义、语音效应发生的时间先后与效应量的大小。真假字判断实验发现,不管SOA如何,语义启动效应都非常显著,而同音启动效应则随SOA的增长而逐渐加大,从不显著到显著;同音启动字读音规则性对启动效应没有明显影响。命名实验发现,语义启动、同音启动效应同时存在于长、短SOA条件中。长SOA时,两者在数值上没有显著差异;短SOA时,同音不规则字产生的启动效应等同于语义启动效应,而同音规则字产生的启动效应则大于语义启动效应。结合其它实验发现,这些结果说明,在熟练的汉字加工中,语音信息的激活并不比语义信息早,语音激活也不是语义激活的先决条件;但汉字各种信息激活的相对激活量和时间进程会随任务性质和材料性质而在一定范围内有所改变。     

情绪与决策的关系

该文对情绪与决策关系的研究进行了较为全面的阐述：早期的决策理论完全排斥情绪的影响作用,研究者们热衷于建立理性决策的数学模型;自Kahneman和Tversky提出前景理论后,产生了以预期情绪为主的后悔和失望理论,以及主观预期愉悦理论;20世纪90年代后,随着神经科学和社会心理学家们对情绪与认知关系研究的深入,一些学者意识到决策过程中不仅存在作为效用的预期情绪,还存在“即时”情绪,它们可以在没有认知评估参与的情况下产生,可以反过来影响认知评估,可以直接影响决策行为。     

A memory-based, Simon-like, spatial congruence effect: Evidence for persisting spatial codes

The Simon effect refers to the finding that in a task where stimulus location is irrelevant, reaction time is faster when stimulus and response locations are congruent than when they are not. Dominant theories of the Simon effect have generally attributed this spatial congruence effect to a spatial code automatically generated upon stimulus presentation. A common assumption of these theories is that this spatial code decays in less than a few hundred milliseconds following stimulus onset. We report two working-memory experiments suggesting a reexamination of this assumption—a Simon-like spatial congruence effect persisted over a delay of as long as 2400 ms. We propose that, in addition to generating short-lived perceptual codes, spatial information may be coded in working memory as part of the context associated with stimulus events. When reactivated by cues from the original event, such information may influence response selection and produce spatial congruence effects (in this case, positive when participants made a “yes” response and negative when they made a “no” response).     

Useful predictors of counseling effectiveness

A summary is given of research on characteristics of effective counselors in terms of indicators that show promise as predictors of counselor effectiveness as well as indicators that appear to possess little or no such promise. Recommendations are made for the use of these findings in research and practice.