Effects of fluprazine (DU 27716) upon aggressive and sexual behavior of testosterone-treated female rats

Female rats, chronically treated with Testosterone Propionate (TP), were injected with Fluprazine (DU 27716) or saline and tested for social aggression, masculine and feminine sexual behavior. Fluprazine-treated females were less aggressive than saline-treated females, as indicated by a shift from offensive to less offensive parameters of aggression. At the same time, mounting in Fluprazine-treated females was almost totally abolished, both in aggression tests and in tests for sexual behavior. Feminine sexual responses increased during aggressive encounters but were slightly inhibited when females were confronted with sexually active males. Females treated with Fluprazine and tested for mounting with a receptive female showed a substantial increase of offensive aggression directed at the receptive stimulus female. It is concluded that Fluprazine does not selectively inhibit offensive aggression in TP-treated female rats.     

主观社会阶层对亲环境行为的影响: 物质主义价值观的中介作用

研究旨在通过两个实验分别探讨主观社会阶层对亲环境行为的影响及作用路径.结果发现:(1)主观社会阶层对亲环境行为具有显著正向影响,即主观社会阶层感知高的个体更愿意保护环境并为环境活动贡献金钱.(2)物质主义价值观在社会阶层影响亲环境行为中起完全中介作用,即高社会阶层的个体物质主义程度较低并更加亲环境,而低社会阶层的个体则...     

Why and how to use virtual reality to study human social interaction: The challenges of exploring a new research landscape

As virtual reality (VR) technology and systems become more commercially available and accessible, more and more psychologists are starting to integrate VR as part of their methods. This approach offers major advantages in experimental control, reproducibility, and ecological validity, but also has limitations and hidden pitfalls which may distract the novice user. This study aimed to guide the psychologist into the novel world of VR, reviewing available instrumentation and mapping the landscape of possible systems. We use examples of state-of-the-art research to describe challenges which research is now solving, including embodiment, uncanny valley, simulation sickness, presence, ethics, and experimental design. Finally, we propose that the biggest challenge for the field would be to build a fully interactive virtual human who can pass a VR Turing test – and that this could only be achieved if psychologists, VR technologists, and AI researchers work together.     

Virtual reality: A new track in psychological research

One major challenge of social interaction research is to achieve high experimental control over social interactions to allow for rigorous scientific reasoning. Virtual reality (VR) promises this level of control. Pan and Hamilton guide us with a detailed review on existing and future possibilities and challenges of using VR for social interaction research. Here, we extend the discussion to methodological and practical implications when using VR.     

Jealousy at work: The role of rivals’ characteristics

The present study examined rival characteristics that may evoke jealousy in the workplace, differences between men and women in this regard, and the relationship between jealousy responses and intrasexual competitiveness and social comparison orientation. Participants were 426 male and female employees. By means of a questionnaire, participants were presented with a jealousy‐evoking scenario after which jealousy responses to 24 rival characteristics were assessed. Findings showed that a rival's social communal attributes evoked highest levels of jealousy, and that, compared to men, women reported more jealousy in response to a rival's physical attractiveness. Overall, as individuals had higher scores on intrasexual competitiveness and social comparison orientation, they also experienced more jealousy in response to their rival, regardless of his or her characteristics. These findings suggest that those characteristics that are highly valued in employees may backfire when employees perceive co‐workers as rivals.     

Children's predictions of consistency in people's actions

Past research suggests that young children are often reluctant to generalize about people's behavior. Three experiments involving 102 4-5-year-olds, 84 7-8-year-olds, and 107 adults explored the conditions under which inductive inferences about people are made. There was an age-based increase in propensity to predict consistency in psychological/intentional causal relations. Children often predicted change; people would behave differently in the future than they did in the past. Younger children limited predictions of consistency to non-psychological contexts. Older children showed some appreciation of stable motivations (e.g. traits, preferences). The results are consistent with the hypothesis that children's theories of mind emphasize situational influences, with personal influences appearing in middle-childhood.     

The Cross-Modal Coordination of Interpersonal Timing: Six-Week-Olds Infants' Gaze with Adults' Vocal Behavior

The purpose of this study was to examine the hypothesis that 6-week-old infants are capable of coordinated interpersonal timing within social interactions. Coordinated interpersonal timing refers to changes in the timing of one individual's behavior as a function of the timing of another individual's behavior. Each of 45, first-born 6-week-old infants interacted with his or her mother and a stranger for a total of 14 minutes. The interactions were videotaped and coded for the gaze behavior of the infants and the vocal behavior of the mothers and strangers. Time-series regression analyses were used to assess the extent to which the timing of each of the infants' gazes was coordinated with the timing of the adults' vocal behavior. The results revealed that (a) coordinated timing occurs between infants and their mothers and between infants and strangers as early as when infants are 6 weeks old, and (b) strangers coordinated the timing of their pauses with the infants to a greater extent than did mothers. The findings are discussed in terms of the role of temporal sensitivity in social interaction.     

Sea lions and equivalence: expanding classes by exclusion

Experiments have shown that human and nonhuman subjects are capable of performing new arbitrary stimulus-stimulus relations without error. When subjects that are experienced with matching-to-sample procedures are presented with a novel sample, a novel comparison, and a familiar comparison, most respond by correctly selecting the novel comparison in the presence of the new sample. This exclusion paradigm was expanded with two California sea lions that had previously formed two 10-member equivalence classes in a matching-to-sample procedure. Rather than being presented with a novel sample on a given trial, the sea lions were presented with a randomly selected familiar member of one class as the sample. One of the comparisons was a randomly selected familiar member of the alternative class, and the other was a novel stimulus. When required to choose which comparison matched the sample, the subjects reliably rejected the familiar comparison, and instead selected the unfamiliar one. Next, the sea lions were presented with transfer problems that could not be solved by exclusion; they immediately grouped the new stimuli into the appropriate classes. These findings show that exclusion procedures can rapidly generate new stimulus relations that can be used to expand stimulus classes.