Sex, Aggression, and Pain: Sociobiological Implicatios for Theological Anthropology

Theological anthropology can be enriched by paying attention to insights into human behavior taken from sociobiology. The capacity for reflective self-consciousness enables the human animal to respond to basic instincts and drives in unprecedented ways. Humans follow gender-specific sexual strategies, display aggressive behavior, and respond to physical pain as do other animals. Yet human beings have the intellectual ability to express these tendencies uniquely in either destructive or constructive ways. The human being, unlike any other animal, must reckon with sexual ethics, the problem of violence, and the meaning of suffering. In developing the basic concepts of theological anthropology—good creation, natural evil, fall, sin, and image of God—sociobiological research can lead to more adequate understanding of the human.     

Norms for 439 action events: Familiarity,emotionality, motor activity,and memorability

A total of 128 male and female university students having Swedish as their mother tongue rated 439 actions on a 7-point scale in the dimensions of Familiarity, Emotionality, Motor Activity, and Memorability under instructions to imagine themselves performing each action (e.g., “to roll a ball”, “to break a match”). Overall mean ratings were higher for women than for men in all four dimensions. High reliabilities were obtained in each scale. Intercorrelations between the dimensions were low to moderate, indicating that different characteristics of the actions were assessed. It is demonstrated that the ratings of the four dimensions are in agreement with previous categorisations of actions along the same or similar dimensions and with findings related to memory performance. Furthermore, control studies performed on the Familiarity dimension show that norm values are highly correlated with ratings given by participants in standard enacting and nonenacting conditions and with ratings in a condition where objects were present. These norms offer possibilities to control for and vary item characteristics of importance in the study of actions and the memory of actions.     

Heritabilities of Common and Measure-Specific Components of the Big Five Personality Factors

Three different measures of the Big Five personality dimensions were developed from the battery of questionnaires used in the National Merit Twin Study: one from trait self-rating scales, one from personality inventory items, and one from an adjective check list. Behavior-genetic models were fit to what the three measures had in common, and to the variance distinctive to each. The results of the model fitting agreed with other recent studies in showing the Big Five dimensions to be substantially and about equally heritable, with little or no contribution of shared family environment. Heritabilities for males and females did not differ significantly. For Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, some effect of shared environment was found for measure-specific variance on the personality inventory, and for Extraversion and Neuroticism, models involving nonadditive genetic variance or twin contrast effects provided slightly better fits.     

Survival skills and ethics training for graduate students: A graduate student perspective

Graduate students in the sciences must develop practical skills geared toward scientific survival and success. This is particularly true now, given the paucity of research funds and jobs. Along with more elementary skills, research ethics should be an integral part of students’ scientific training. Survival skills include research skills, communication skills, general efficiency, and preparation for post-graduate work. Ethics training covers guidelines for use of animal and human subjects, data treatment, disclosure, credit issues, conflicts of interest, and response to misconduct. The objective of this paper is to describe, from a graduate student’s perspective, the need for survival and ethics training in graduate programs and to raise both faculty and student awareness of the possibilities for explicit instruction of these skills. Many survival skills and ethical practices will be learned without explicit direction and some are already part of standard training; but, this is not the case for all students or for all skills, so specific instruction is a necessity. Research faculty can use their own experience to help students to develop the proficiencies they will need to succeed.     

TRAINING AND GENERALIZATION OF LAUNDRY SKILLS: A MULTIPLE PROBE EVALUATION WITH HANDICAPPED PERSONS

An instructional procedure composed of a graded sequence of prompts and token reinforcement was used to train a complex chain of behaviors which included sorting, washing, and drying clothes. A multiple probe design with sequential instruction across seven major components of the laundering routine was used to demonstrate experimental control. Students were taught to launder clothing using machines located in their school and generalization was assessed later on machines located in the public laundromat. A comparison of students' laundry skills with those of normal peers indicated similar levels of proficiency. Follow-up probes demonstrated maintenance of laundry skills over a 10-month period.     

The nature of sexual reinforcement.

Sexual reinforcers are not part of a regulatory system involved in the maintenance of critical metabolic processes, they differ for males and females, they differ as a function of species and mating system, and they show ontogenetic and seasonal changes related to endocrine conditions. Exposure to a member of the opposite sex without copulation can be sufficient for sexual reinforcement. However, copulatory access is a stronger reinforcer, and copulatory opportunity can serve to enhance the reinforcing efficacy of stimulus features of a sexual partner. Conversely, under certain conditions, noncopulatory exposure serves to decrease reinforcer efficacy. Many common learning phenomena such as acquisition, extinction, discrimination learning, second-order conditioning, and latent inhibition have been demonstrated in sexual conditioning. These observations extend the generality of findings obtained with more conventional reinforcers, but the mechanisms of these effects and their gender and species specificity remain to be explored.     

大学生空间思惟的性别差异研究

本实验运用填图和拼图两项测验,通过对137名大学生被试进行研究,结果表明,就大学生这一层次而言,男女两性的空间思惟在整体上表现出的差异不具显著性,整个分布情况是:在连续分布的两端男生均高于女生。研究结果也表明,在空间思惟上,大学生也存在着明显的个性差异。     

A PERSONALIZED SYSTEM OF INSTRUCTION FOR TEACHING CHECKING ACCOUNT SKILLS TO ADULTS WITH MILD DISABILITIES

This study evaluated the efficacy of a personalized system of instruction to teach checking account skills to persons with mild disabilities. Using a self-paced manual, 8 participants in two groups were taught to write checks, complete deposit slips, and reconcile monthly bank statements. Four participants were assessed for generalization from the classroom to community sites and demonstrated nearly perfect performance. A multiple probe design showed that acquisition occurred sequentially for each skill only after training using the self-paced manual. Follow-up sessions demonstrated that participants maintained the checking account skills. The results provide evidence of the effectiveness and adaptability of a personalized system of instruction for teaching complex monetary skills to persons with mild disabilities.     

The two minds of Roger Scruton

In two recent pieces Roger Scruton recommends that we should instil in children feelings of revulsion towards homosexuality; whereas the corollaries of his earlier book Sexual Desire contradict this. These inconsistencies are exposed and discussed and the preferability of his earlier stance defended.     

Are girls with problems of attention underrecognized?

There is a generally held belief that disorders of attention (e.g., ADHD) are to be found primarily among boys, not girls. We question the evidence relating to sex differences in the prevalence of attentional disorders and suggest possible reasons why reported sex differences appear limited to teacher ratings. An examination of the admittedly scarce literature on correlates of ADHD behaviors suggests no strong evidence for sex differences in the pattern of developmental, attentional and background correlates. We recommend the use of sex-specific norms and diagnostic criteria to identify girls with problems of attention and our plea is for more research to examine the nature of attention deficits in girls.