Cognitive biases and alcohol use in adolescence and young adulthood: The moderating role of gender,attentional control and inhibitory control

The present study investigated the cross-sectional associations between cognitive biases (i.e., attentional bias and approach bias) and alcohol use and investigated the moderating role of gender, attentional control and inhibitory control. The sample consisted of 94 adolescents and young adults (52.1% boys) between 15.3 and 20.8 years old (M_age = 18.0, SD = 1.1) who reported drinking alcohol in the past three months. A stronger approach bias was related to higher alcohol use, albeit only among boys. Furthermore, the association between attentional bias and alcohol use was moderated by attentional control; the lowest alcohol use was found in adolescents with low attentional bias and high attentional control, suggesting protective effects of both variables. The present study replicates and extends the results of studies on cognitive biases and addiction in adolescence and young adulthood.     

The Question of Higher Education for the Blind

Building on the theory of reasoned action (I. Ajzen & M. Fishbein, 1973, 1980; M. Fishbein & I. Ajzen, 1975) and expectancy theory, the authors examined the mediating role of alcohol expectancies in adolescent drinking behaviors by testing whether alcohol expectancy outcomes and valuations (the extent to which these outcomes are perceived as good or bad) mediate the association between peer influences and lifetime alcohol use. Early adolescents (N = 904) from 2 public middle schools in western Michigan completed a battery of questionnaires. Overall, results showed that alcohol expectancies and valuations partially mediated the relations between peer influences (peer use and peer approval) and lifetime alcohol use. The findings suggest that associating with peers who are perceived as using alcohol and approving of drinking may influence adolescents’ alcohol expectancies. The authors briefly discuss future research directions and implications for prevention.     

孔子与泰德·本顿的生态观之比较

20世纪后半期,人类面临的最突出的问题就是全球性的生态危机和环境问题。摆脱人类生存的困境,走向具有生态持续性的文明社会是中国现代化实践面临的严峻挑战。本文试将孔子和泰德·本顿的生态观加以比较,求同存异,发掘其中蕴含的积极因素。两者在对自然的解读上,强调自然的客观实在性,重视自然的内在价值和对自然规律的遵循;在人与自然的关系上,阐发人与自然的息息相关性和密不可分性,强调二者相互作用。相互影响;在对自然资源的利用上,强调合理地支配和有限地利用自然,承认自然的极限。这些思想为我国生态文明建设提供了有益的借鉴。     

青少年的同伴依恋与其互联网使用的关系

青少年期同伴群体的支持逐渐超过了父母的影响.青少年期同伴依恋在青少年认知、情感、人格以及行为的健康发展和社会适应中起着重要作用,拥有亲密的同伴关系的青少年出现情感问题和行为问题的可能性更小,并拥有更健康的青少年期适应能力.该研究采用同伴依恋量表、互联网服务使用状况量表以及青少年病理性互联网使用量表对405名中学生进行了问卷调查.旨在探讨青少年同伴依恋与其互联网使用之间的关系.结果表明: (1)同伴信任与社交和娱乐服务的使用偏好呈负相关,尽管都没有达到统计显著性; (2)同伴沟通可以正向预测青少年对信息、娱乐和社交服务的使用偏好,且都达到显著性水平;还可以通过互联网娱乐服务使用偏好间接预测PIU; (3)青少年与同伴的疏离程度可以正向预测青少年对社交服务的使用偏好,也可以直接正向预测PIU.     

Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) intentional communication is not contingent upon food

Studies of great apes have revealed that they use manual gestures and other signals to communicate about distal objects. There is also evidence that chimpanzees modify the types of communicative signals they use depending on the attentional state of a human communicative partner. The majority of previous studies have involved chimpanzees requesting food items from a human experimenter. Here, these same communicative behaviors are reported in chimpanzees requesting a tool from a human observer. In this study, captive chimpanzees were found to gesture, vocalize, and display more often when the experimenter had a tool than when she did not. It was also found that chimpanzees responded differentially based on the attentional state of a human experimenter, and when given the wrong tool persisted in their communicative efforts. Implications for the referential and intentional nature of chimpanzee communicative signaling are discussed.     

Flexible cue use in food-caching birds

An animal’s memory may be limited in capacity, which may result in competition among available memory cues. If such competition exists, natural selection may favor prioritization of different memory cues based on cue reliability and on associated differences in the environment and life history. Food-caching birds store numerous food items and appear to rely on memory to retrieve caches. Previous studies suggested that caching species should always prioritize spatial cues over non-spatial cues when both are available, because non-spatial cues may be unreliable in a changing environment; however, it remains unclear whether non-spatial cues should always be ignored when spatial cues are available. We tested whether mountain chickadees (Poecile gambeli), a food-caching species, prioritize memory for spatial cues over color cues when relocating previously found food in an associative learning task. In training trials, birds were exposed to food in a feeder where both spatial location and color were associated. During subsequent unrewarded test trials, color was dissociated from spatial location. Chickadees showed a significant pattern of inspecting feeders associated with correct color first, prior to visiting correct spatial locations. Our findings argue against the hypothesis that the memory of spatial cues should always take priority over any non-spatial cues, including color cues, in food-caching species, because in our experiment mountain chickadees chose color over spatial cues. Our results thus suggest that caching species may be more flexible in cue use than previously thought, possibly dependent upon the environment and complexity of available cues.     

Prospective Relations Between Organized Activity Participation and Psychopathology During Adolescence

This longitudinal study examined psychopathology as a predictor and outcome of organized activity involvement during high school among 198 adolescents who varied in risk for psychopathology as a function of their mother's depression history. Higher levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms in eighth grade significantly predicted lower levels of involvement in academic clubs during high school, over and above risk and SES. Tobacco use prior to high school predicted lower levels of involvement overall and in academic clubs and performance arts. Controlling for psychopathology prior to high school, higher levels of activity involvement were associated with lower levels of externalizing symptoms, less tobacco use, and fewer diagnoses of behavior disorders and substance abuse in 12th grade. The positive association between risk and adolescent psychopathology was not buffered by adolescent activity involvement. Overall, these findings suggest that involvement in organized activities may contribute to lower levels of externalizing psychopathology during high school even when controlling for prior psychopathology.     

Getting the big picture: Development of spatial scaling abilities

Spatial scaling is an integral aspect of many spatial tasks that involve symbol-to-referent correspondences (e.g., map reading, drawing). In this study, we asked 3–6-year-olds and adults to locate objects in a two-dimensional spatial layout using information from a second spatial representation (map). We examined how scaling factor and reference features, such as the shape of the layout or the presence of landmarks, affect performance. Results showed that spatial scaling on this simple task undergoes considerable development, especially between 3 and 5 years of age. Furthermore, the youngest children showed large individual variability and profited from landmark information. Accuracy differed between scaled and un-scaled items, but not between items using different scaling factors (1:2 vs. 1:4), suggesting that participants encoded relative rather than absolute distances.     

What's in a cue? The role of cue orientation in object displacement tasks

The current study looked at two theoretical proposals explaining toddlers’ abilities to use cue information for recovering a hidden object that had rolled down a ramp behind an occluded screen. These two approaches, the theory of object directed attention and a landmark-based account, make different predictions regarding the efficacy of an obliquely aligned cue to object position. Accordingly, the search by forty 24-month olds, forty-two 30-month olds, and forty-one 36-month olds for a hidden toy that was cued using either a short versus a long cue, or a vertically aligned versus an obliquely aligned cue, were compared. Analyses of search accuracy revealed that children were more successful when faced with short as opposed to long cues, and when using vertical as opposed to oblique cues. These findings support a landmark-based approach, as opposed to an object-directed attention account, and are discussed with reference to their implications for spatial orientation more generally.     

Concurrent tobacco use and risky drinking in South Africa: Results from the South African National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

The aim of this study was to examine socio-demographic and psychosocial correlates of concurrent tobacco use and risky drinking. We analysed data from the cross-sectional South African National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (SANHANES-1) 2011–2012. The sample included 14 764 adolescents and adults aged 15 years and older. They responded to questions on tobacco and alcohol use, psychosocial, and socio-demographic indicators. Results indicate that 9.6% (16.8% among men and 3.5% among women) of South Africans were involved in concurrent tobacco use and risky drinking, 18.2% in current tobacco use only, and 20.3% in risky drinking only. In covariate adjusted analysis, being 25 to 64 years, being male, belonging to the coloured population group, residing in urban areas, having experienced three or more traumatic events, and poor self-rated health were associated with concurrent tobacco use and risky drinking. Findings suggest socio-demographic and health factors are important for public health interventions in addressing concurrent tobacco and alcohol use in South Africa.