Digit ratios and preferences for aggressive content in entertainment

Digit ratios (2D:4D) contain information concerning an individual’s propensity towards aggression. Our study adds the first clue to better understanding the relationship between 2D:4D and exposure to aggressive contents in entertainment products. Our findings suggest that individuals with low 2D:4D prefer aggressive contents such as action films, sports telecast, killing and achieving games, hip-hop music, and erotic video clips rather than do individuals with high 2D:4D. Also individuals with low 2D:4D tend to demonstrate less preference for romance films than individuals with high 2D:4D. In addition, we found that low 2D:4D was associated with a preference for sports instead of other genres of entertainment products. Therefore, 2D:4D (a putative correlate of prenatal sex steroids) helps us to better understand the rationale of individuals’ preferences for media violence.     

Playing Prosocial Video Games Increases the Accessibility of Prosocial Thoughts

ABSTRACT

Past research has provided abundant evidence that playing violent video games increases aggressive tendencies. In contrast, evidence on possible positive effects of video game exposure on prosocial tendencies has been relatively sparse. The present research tested and found support for the hypothesis that exposure to prosocial video games increases the accessibility of prosocial thoughts. These results provide support to the predictive validity of the General Learning Model (Buckley & Anderson, 2006 Buckley, K. E. and Anderson, C. A. 2006. “A theoretical model of the effects and consequences of playing video games”. In Playing video games: Motives, responses, and consequences, Edited by: Vorderer, P. and Bryant, J. 363–378. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.  [Google Scholar]) for the effects of exposure to prosocial media on social tendencies. Thus, depending on the content of the video game, playing video games can harm but may also benefit social relations.     

Effects of Prosocial,Neutral, and Violent Video Games on College Students' Affect

Recent research reveals that playing prosocial video games increases prosocial cognitions and helpful behaviors [Gentile el al., 2009; Greitemeyer and Osswald, 2009; 2010; 2011]. These results are consistent with social‐cognitive models of social behavior [e.g., the “General Learning Model,” Buckley and Anderson, 2006]. The social‐cognitive learning models suggest that in addition to influencing cognitions, media content may also influence affect. However, past studies on prosocial video games have failed to find a significant effect on affective measures [Greitemeyer and Osswald, 2010]. The present research examined the effects of prosocial, neutral, and violent video games on state hostility and positive affect. Also examined were moderating effects of trait aggressiveness, trait altruistic helping, and trait egoistic helping. Prosocial games reduced state hostility and increased positive state affect. Violent video games had the opposite effects. These effects were moderated by trait physical aggression. Altruistic participants reported relatively more positive affect and less state hostility. Egoistic participants reported relatively more aggravated and mean feelings. Aggr. Behav. 38:263–271, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Beneath the surface of classroom interaction: Reflections on the microworld of education

This article deals with the microworld of the classroom, i.e., the imbedded, largely unconscious, close to invisible, and to an extent suppressed social processes in teaching. It includes some afterthoughts about a research project with the aim of understanding how the teacher–pupil relation is constructed in classroom interaction. Thomas Scheff’s social psychological framework constituted the theoretical basis for the project. The main data were collected by means of video documentation and consist of a number of closely analysed episodes. The result indicates that nonverbal behaviour in classrooms, to a great extent, is constituted by an informal system of rules in which emotions play a crucial part. But it also reveals the existence of two dimensions in classroom interaction – one surface dimension and one micro dimension – that in significant measure stand in opposition to each other.     

Computer-assisted observer training

Computerized interactive videotapes were used to train college students to use a 10-second partial-interval observational recording system. Students viewed videotapes and scored response occurrences on a computer keyboard. Incorrect scoring resulted in immediate computerized feedback and rescoring.     

Motion as a natural category for pigeons: Generalization and a feature-positive effect

Three groups of pigeons were trained with a modified discriminative autoshaping procedure to discriminate video images of other pigeons on the basis of movement. Birds of all groups were shown the same video images of other pigeons, which were either moving or still. The group to whom food was presented only after moving images learned the discrimination very quickly. A second group, to whom food was given only after still images, and a pseudocategory group, to whom food was presented after arbitrarily chosen stimuli, showed no evidence of discrimination during acquisition training. Extinction conditions led to clear differences in peck rates to moving and still images in the second group but not in the pseudocategory group. The result is related to the feature-positive effect. Generalization tests showed that the discrimination performance was based on visual features of the stimuli but was invariant against changes of size, perspective, brightness, and color. Furthermore, discrimination was maintained when novel images of pigeons under different viewing angles and seven other types of motion categories were presented. It is argued that the discrimination is based not on a common motion feature but on motion concepts or high-order generalization across motion categories.     

Effects of Media and Collaborative Distributed Information on Concept-Learning

1IntroductionSuchman,an anthropologist,argued that actionswere always situated in particular social and physi-cal circumstances[1].In this view actions emergefrom moment-by-moment interactions between ac-tors,and between actors and their environments.The social and environmental aspects of cognitionhave been stressed in Hutchins′work[2].He hadstudied relatively structured decision environments,for example ship navigation and aeroplane piloting.His conclusions are that cognition in such situa…     

拟社会互动在年幼儿童视频学习中的作用

本研究采用表征理解任务和规则学习任务,通过比较真人互动、视频拟互动和视频非互动三种条件下年幼儿童的学习效果,考察拟互动在2-5岁儿童视频学习中的作用。结果表明,2岁儿童的视频学习存在视频缺陷现象,2.5岁到5岁儿童的拟社会互动视频学习效果明显,优于非互动视频学习,与真人互动学习相当。2.5岁至4.5岁是拟互动视频学习的最佳年龄。     

青少年恋爱关系：研究取向、方法与影响因素

青少年恋爱关系是在性吸引基础上建立起来的一种相互认可的、至少持续一段时间的强烈的情感联系和互动关系, 其研究取向主要有生物社会取向、认知表征取向和发展背景取向, 研究方法主要包括自我报告法、观察法和录像回顾法。影响青少年恋爱关系的有个体因素、人际关系因素和社会因素, 未来可在理论的整合、关系品质的稳定性及微观背景作用的机制、样本的代表性等方面进一步研究。     

USING VIDEO TECHNOLOGY TO DISSEMINATE BEHAVIORAL PROCEDURES: A REVIEW OF FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS: A GUIDE FOR UNDERSTANDING CHALLENGING BEHAVIOR (DVD)

Although applied behavior analysis has generated many highly effective behavior‐change procedures, the procedures have not always been effectively disseminated. One solution to this problem is the use of video technology, which has been facilitated by the ready availability of video production equipment and software and multiple distribution methods (e.g., DVD, online streaming). We review a recent DVD that was produced to disseminate the successful experimental functional analysis procedure. The review is followed by general recommendations for disseminating behavior‐analytic procedures via video technology.