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Allatum est 3 Aprilis 1965     

Moderation and Mediation of HIV-Prevention Interventions: Relationship Status,Intentions, and Condom Use Among College Students1

This study examined the effects of 2 HIV prevention interventions on condom use and mediators of condom use. College students were randomly assigned to a control condition or an intervention (communication skills or technical skills). Those who received either intervention had greater condom use self-efficacy, more positive condom use attitudes, and stronger intentions to use condoms than did controls. Furthermore, 3-month follow-up data revealed that students in either intervention who were not in a steady dating relationship reported more consistent condom use than did those in the control condition, whereas students who were in either intervention and in a relationship reported somewhat less consistent condom use than did those in the control condition. Analyses suggested that effects of the interventions on condom use were mediated by increased intentions to use condoms.     

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Prepared movements are elicited early by startle

A startle stimulus has been shown to elicit a ballistic response in a reaction time (RT) task at very short latencies without involvement of the cerebral cortex (J. Valls-Sole, J. C. Rothwell, F. Gooulard, G. Cossu, & E. Munoz, 1999). The present authors examined the nature of the startle response. A simple RT task was used in which 8 participants performed arm extension movements to 3 target distances (20 degrees, 40 degrees, and 60 degrees ) in a blocked design. An unpredictable startling acoustic stimulus (124 dB) replaced the imperative stimulus in certain trials. The authors verified the presence of a startle response independent from the prepared response by observing electromyographic (EMG) activity in sternocleidomastoid and orbicularis oculi muscles. Findings indicated that when the participant was startled, the intended voluntary response was produced at significantly shorter response latencies. Furthermore, the kinematic variables of the observed response during startle trials for all 3 target distances were mostly unchanged. The EMG characteristics of the responses were not modified, indicating that the response produced was indeed the prepared and intended response.     

Partner Preferences as a Function of Gender,Age, Political Orientation and Level of Education

An important current debate concerns the originof gender differences in partner preferences. Thesedifferences have been explained both in terms ofevolutionary theory and in terms of social role theory. The present study determines the relativestrengths of both perspectives by investigating, apartfrom gender, the influence of three other importantfactors on partner preferences and for which the two approaches offer divergent hypotheses: age,political orientation and level of education of therespondent. About 95% of the participants were WhiteDutch citizens, the rest were Dutch with one or twoparents from a different ethnic background.Participants were requested to write down the mostimportant characteristics of a potential partner(open-ended format), followed by an instruction toindicate the importance of 39 pre-selected characteristics. Resultsshow that men and women have highly similar preferencesfor characteristics in a potential partner. In addition,it is demonstrated that on crucial characteristics from an evolutionary perspective (i.e.,physical attractiveness and status) significantinteractions between age, political orientation, levelof education and/or gender of the respondents emerge.Most results offer support for a social role theoryof human mate selection. It is concluded that becausegender on its own merely explains a small proportion ofthe total variance in human mate selection, it is important to include other factors, not onlyin order to facilitate our understanding of the fullcomplexity of partner preferences, but also in order tomake theoretical progress in this area.     

Personal Strategies for HIV Prevention: The Development and Validation of a Strategy-Coding Instrument1

This paper describes the development of a coding instrument to classify college students' strategies for preventing HIV infection, and examines the association of distinct strategies with social cognitive and behavioral measures related to safer sexual behavior. This instrument classifies each strategy into both a content domain (e.g., using condoms, remaining abstinent, limiting sexual partners), and 3 distinct dimensions: commitment, specificity, and effectiveness. We examine the reliability and validity of this instrument by showing the discriminative associations of each dimension with social cognitive and behavioral measures, and demonstrate the differential importance of distinct dimensions in predicting behavior in different content domains. Discussion focuses on the importance of tailoring HIV prevention messages to change strategy dimensions in order to maximize behavior change.     

Who Reads Outcome Research?

To explore patterns of outcome research consumption, we conducted a national survey of 313 family therapists currently practicing in the United States. Participants were asked about their reading practices, as well as about attitudes toward and barriers to reading marriage/couple and family therapy (M/CFT) outcome research. Results suggest that most therapists perceive outcome research as at least somewhat important. However, they spend relatively little time reading it: The average is 1.7?h per month. Therapist-identified barriers to reading outcome research articles include access, applicability, quality of writing, and quality of research. Recommendations for addressing some of these barriers are offered.     

Color charts, esthetics, and subjective randomness

Color charts, or grids of evenly spaced multicolored dots or squares, appear in the work of modern artists and designers. Often the artist/designer distributes the many colors in a way that could be described as "random," that is, without an obvious pattern. We conduct a statistical analysis of 125 "random-looking" art and design color charts and show that they differ significantly from truly random color charts in the average distance between adjacent colors. We argue that this attribute generalizes results in subjective randomness in a black/white setting and gives further evidence supporting a connection between subjective randomness and what is esthetically pleasing.