Art, self-censorship, and public discourse: contemporary Moroccan artists at the crossroads

Since the reign of King Mohammed VI in 1999, there has been a recent democratic trend in Morocco that has led to political liberalization and symbolic concessions. This essay explores how a new generation of artists is beginning to test the notions of the Islam, the monarch, and the rights of ethnic groups and women within Morocco. I argue that while they are beginning to test the limits of recent religious, social, and political reforms, these artists show self-restrain and selfcensorship, creating art that falls within the public discourse allowed by the new Moroccan king.

Coping with bereavement in relation to different feminine gender roles

The effect of gender role on coping with conjugal bereavement was studied in 44 Norwegian widows. A "traditional" and a "modern" feminine gender role were juxtaposed. Information was collected by two semi-structured interviews concerning coping with bereavement, and by a health inventory (UHI). The information was analysed qualitatively in relation to central elements in the coping process (appraisals, problems, coping strategies, self-evaluations of coping, future expectancies of coping, and relevance of external resources). The findings revealed considerable differences in coping between the two gender roles, favouring the modern feminine gender role.     

Evolution and Developmental Sex Differences

From an evolutionary perspective, childhood is the portion of the life span during which individuals practice and refine those competencies that facilitate survival and reproduction in adulthood. Although the skeletal structure of these competencies appears to be inherent, social interaction and play flesh them out during childhood so that they are adapted to local conditions. Darwin's principles of sexual selection, including male-male competition over mates and female choice of mating partners, successfully explain the acquisition and expression of reproductive competencies in hundreds of species. When this perspective is applied to humans, it predicts sex differences that are, in fact, found in the childhood activities of boys and girls and that reflect sex differences in reproductive strategies in adulthood. A few of these differences are described, along with cultural factors that modify their expression. The article closes with a brief discussion of the social and scientific implications.     

我国艾滋病流行的特点

我国艾滋病的流行有其自身的特点：１．人口多,多发病低,即使以目前的估计ＨＩＶ感染数３０万计,在世界上仍属极低水平;２．传播途径以吸毒为主,性传播为次,二者约为１０与１之比,这和世界各国正好相反;３．高危人群ＨＩＶ阳性率,指性病门诊者,妓女（暗娼）的阳性率都极低,约占０．０６％～０．０７％。目前我国还是以男性吸毒者为主要防治对象。     

Visual arguments

Three experiments investigated the use of verb argument structure by tracking participants' eye movements across a set of related pictures as they listened to sentences. The assumption was that listeners would naturally look at relevant pictures as they were mentioned or implied. The primary hypothesis was that a verb would implicitly introduce relevant entities (linguistic arguments) that had not yet been mentioned, and thus a picture corresponding to such an entity would draw anticipatory looks. For example, upon hearing ...mother suggested..., participants would look at a potential recipient of the suggestion. The only explicit task was responding to comprehension questions. Experiments 1 and 2 manipulated both the argument structure of the verb and the typicality/co-occurrence frequency of the target argument/adjunct, in order to distinguish between anticipatory looks to arguments specifically and anticipatory looks to pictures that were strongly associated with the verb, but did not have the linguistic status of argument. Experiment 3 manipulated argument status alone. In Experiments 1 and 3, there were more anticipatory looks to potential arguments than to potential adjuncts, beginning about 500 ms after the acoustic onset of the verb. Experiment 2 revealed a main effect of typicality. These findings indicate that both real world knowledge and argument structure guide visual attention within this paradigm, but that argument structure has a privileged status in focusing listener attention on relevant aspects of a visual scene.     

Sex differences in brain activity related to general and emotional intelligence

The study investigated gender differences in resting EEG (in three individually determined narrow alpha frequency bands) related to the level of general and emotional intelligence. Brain activity of males decreased with the level of general intelligence, whereas an opposite pattern of brain activity was observed in females. This difference was most pronounced in the upper-alpha band which is related to semantic memory processes. It was further found that highly intelligent males displayed greater decoupling of frontal brain areas, whereas highly intelligent females showed more coupling between frontal and parietal/occipital brain areas. Similar, but less significant differences were observed for the two area scores of strategic and experiential emotional intelligence. It appears that males and females have different resting EEG correlates of IQ.     

Gender Roles: An Examination of the Hopes and Expectations of the Next Generation of Managers in Canada and China

Through a survey of 214 Canadian and 160 Chinese business students, we investigated students hopes and expectations regarding their future spouses employment and family roles relative to their own. The results of this exploratory study show that a large proportion of the students from both countries hope for equality between spouses, especially in the distribution of domestic tasks. However, significant discrepancies exist between their ideal hopes and their expectations of what will actually happen in reality. Many men and women of both countries expect that the wives will do more of the domestic work and have less prestigious jobs and lower earnings than their husbands. The between-sex and cross-national differences in gender role hopes and expectations were also explored.     

Development of the Conformity to Feminine Norms Inventory

This article describes the construction of the Conformity to Feminine Norms Inventory (CFNI), which was designed to assess womens conformity to an array of feminine norms found in the dominant culture in the United States. In addition, we present four studies in which the psychometric properties of the CFNI were examined. In Study 1, factor analysis indicated that the CFNI is comprised of eight distinct factors labeled as Nice in Relationships, Thinness, Modesty, Domestic, Care for Children, Romantic Relationship, Sexual Fidelity, and Invest in Appearance. Results from Study 2 indicated that the CFNI has strong internal consistency estimates and differentiates college women from college men. In addition, Study 2 demonstrated that the CFNI Total score and subscale scores relate to Bem Sex Role Inventory and Feminist Identity Development Scale scores in theoretically consistent patterns. Study 3 indicated that the CFNI Total score and several of the subscales significantly and positively relate to scores on the Eating Disorder Inventory. Finally, Study 4 demonstrated that the CFNI Total score and subscale scores have high test-retest estimates for a 2–3 week period. The discussion focuses on potential uses of the CFNI, limitations to the study, and suggestions for future research.     

Stress, Rewards, and Change in the Centrality of Women’s Family and Work Roles: Mastery as a Mediator

Although research suggests that stress and rewards experienced in a social role are associated with changes in the centrality (or personal importance) of that role over time, little attention has been given to the mechanisms that account for this relationship. This study was conducted to examine change in role mastery as a mediator in the relationship between changes in role experiences (stress and rewards) and changes in centrality among 195 women who simultaneously occupied the roles of parent care provider, mother, wife, and employee. Regression analyses indicated that increases in parent care, mother, and employee stress eroded mastery in those roles. In addition, increases in rewards were associated with a bolstered sense of mastery in each of the four roles. Mastery was found to be a mediating mechanism in the relationship between stress/rewards and centrality in one of the four roles examined, the employee role. However, changes in womens perceptions of mastery were unrelated to the extent to which women changed the importance of their three family roles. These findings extend prior research by demonstrating that mastery is a mechanism through which stress and rewards are associated with centrality in the employee role.     

Self and proxy (parents and teachers’) reports of child motor competence: A three-year longitudinal study

ObjectiveThe aims of this study were to: 1) analyse the longitudinal trends in the evolution of the association between children’s actual and perceived motor competence (AMC and PMC, respectively) according to the source of information: children, parents, and Physical Education (PE) teachers; 2) assess whether children, parents, and PE teachers can report on children’s AMC longitudinally (considering the children’s age, sex, and the type of motor competence).Design and methodA sample of 108 typically developing Spanish children (47.12% girls) from five schools participated in this study. AMC and PMC (locomotion, object control and overall MC) data was collected at three time points one year apart. Longitudinal mixed effects models with repeated measures were conducted.ResultsRegardless of the domain of MC, no longitudinal association between children’s AMC and PMC was found. Parents also exhibited limited capability to proxy report their children’s AMC longitudinally. PE teachers’ proxy reports of children’ AMC were associated over time with object control and overall level.ConclusionThis study confirms the necessity of specific training in AMC to effectively report on children’s motor competence. PE teachers can be seen as a potential source to empower children’s AMC and PMC development over time.