Premenstrual symptoms: the role of irrational thinking.

104 women, between the ages of 18 and 45 years, were surveyed to investigate the relationship between premenstrual symptomatology, as measured by the Modified Menstrual Distress Questionnaire, and irrational thinking, as measured by the General Attitude and Belief Scale. The women who reported greater premenstrual symptomatology also reported significantly higher scores in the "need for comfort" irrationality subscale. This indicated that these women had particular difficulty dealing with hassles and the resulting feelings of tension and irritability in the premenstruum. It was suggested that the absence of significant effects for other rationality-irrationality subscales could be associated with testing at different times during the menstrual cycle. Irrationality, like other conditions (such as anxiety and depression) prevalent in the premenstruum, could change in intensity across phases of the menstrual cycle.     

Beyond principal component analysis: A trilinear decomposition model and least squares estimation

The paper derives sufficient conditions for the consistency and asymptotic normality of the least squares estimator of a trilinear decomposition model for multiway data analysis.     

Can a shuttlebox computer analog be used to condition human avoidance behavior?

Freedman (1990) introduced a computer analog of the shuttlebox paradigm and presented results to show that this analog could be used for studying human avoidance conditioning. In the present study, a first experimental phase was conducted to test how the fact that the tone was considered aversive in the instructions and the intensity of this tone affect avoidance behavior. In a transfer-of-control test phase, it was tested as to whether the warning stimulus presented as a cue to the aversive stimulus had acquired either aversive or informative quality. An effect of instructions was observed for both levels of the auditive stimulus, and a stimulus effect was found for those groups that were given the instructions that described the tone as aversive. In the case of subjects who in the first phase achieved a certain learning criterion, it was recorded how often they in the second phase selected a condition in which the warning signal of the first phase was not presented. No transfer of control was observed. Thus, no positive evidence was found indicating that Freedman’s computer analog could be used for studying human avoidance conditioning.     

Traditional vs. nontraditional women and men's perceptions of the personalities and physiques of ideal women and men

Traditional and nontraditional women and men's perceptions of ideal people, in terms of both traits and physiques, were assessed using 80 male and 80 female Caucasian undergraduates as study participants. The data indicated that traditional women and men perceived the ideal male as mesomorphic and as having more instrumental than expressive traits. Nontraditional women and men also favored a mesomorphic physique for the ideal male, but they differed from traditionals in that they saw this mesomorphic male as being androgynous in regard to traits. Concerning the ideal female, traditional and nontraditional women and men preferred an androgynous physique, but they differed in their perceptions of the ideal personality for a woman. Traditional women and men perceived their ideal women as having more expressive than instrumental traits, whereas nontraditional women and men saw their ideal women as being androgynous in regard to traits. The results are discussed within the framework of Bem's gender schema and enculturated lens theories.     

Language and the formation of society in Germany

This article provides an account of the language standardization process in Germany during the 18th century. Linguistic activity as a means of social definition and differentiation is discussed with respect to class relations within the absolutist states in Germany. The linguistic awareness of different social classes expressed in the debates on linguistic standards of language unification supports the assumption of an asymmetric modernization process which is based not only on conditions such as literacy, education and economical subsistence but at the same time on the bourgeois' claim for (cultural) hegemony.     

A Tale of Four Grammars

In this paper we consider the relations existing between four deductive systems that have been called categorial grammars and have relevant connections with linguistic investigations: the syntactic calculus, bilinear logic, compact bilinear logic and Curry's semantic calculus.     

Return of the ego--self-referent information as a filter for social prediction: comment on Karniol (2003)

The protocentrism paradigm of social prediction (R. Karniol, 2003) challenges the egocentrism paradigm tacitly accepted by many researchers. The author reviews the 2 paradigms comparatively by focusing on 3 conceptual and 3 empirical issues. On conceptual grounds, the author suggests that the egocentrism paradigm has been proven useful because of (a) its greater breadth and parsimony, (b) the difficulties in documenting the origin of protocenters, and (c) the indeterminate nature of self-as-distinct tags (which are crucial to protocentrism). On empirical grounds, the author argues that in research on perceptions of self-other similarities, the egocentric process of social projection is well-established. Self-referent knowledge (a) is most readily accessible, (b) receives greater weight in prediction tasks than does other-referent knowledge, and (c) tends to be suppressed only temporarily, with effort, and incompletely.