Context-dependent use of olfactory cues by foragers of Vespula germanica social wasps

Animal Cognition - Food search is guided by cues from different sensory modalities, such as olfactory and visual. In social wasps, olfaction plays a key role in locating new resources. However,...     

Personality correlates of equity sensitivity for samples of Canadian, Bulgarian, and Mexican business people

Equity sensitivity concerns perceptions of what is or is not equitable. Previous studies have shown that equity sensitivity is associated with one's relationship orientation. Relationships are also influenced by personality variables. As both personality and equity sensitivity influence relationships, equity sensitivity and personality may be correlated also; so, this study examined that possibility. The relations of equity sensitivity with 3 personality variables were explored across three culturally different samples. This allowed validation across cultures of the proposed equity-personality relationship which has traditionally been assessed in a U.S. setting. In general, personality-equity sensitivity relationship was not supported across the samples.     

Parents’ Beliefs about Children’s Emotions and Parents’ Emotion-Related Conversations with Their Children

The goals of the current study were to describe parents’ emotion socialization patterns and to assess relations between parents’ emotion-related beliefs and socialization behaviors during conversations with their children. Participants were 125 parents and their 9- and 10-year-old children from three ethnic groups in the southeastern United States. Parents reported beliefs about children’s emotions. Parents and children were videotaped playing a board game to evoke emotion-related conversations, which were then coded for parents’ labeling, teaching, and encouragement of emotion. Parents used less labeling and teaching for positive than negative emotions, and greater encouragement for positive than negative emotions. Parents with stronger beliefs about the value of positive emotions engaged in less labeling of positive emotions, less teaching of all emotions, and less encouragement of negative emotions. Parents with stronger beliefs about the value of negative emotions engaged in more encouragement of negative emotions. Parents with stronger beliefs that all emotions are dangerous engaged in less labeling of negative emotions. The results of this study have potential clinical implications in helping clients to understand the foundational structures of their behaviors and how both beliefs and behaviors are distinct, yet interrelated constructs.     

Effect of naloxone pretreatment on habituation in the crab Chasmagnathus granulatus

On sudden presentation of a passing shadow, the crab Chasmagnathus granulatus reacts with an escape response that habituates after repeating the same stimulus. In a first series of experiments, a range of naloxone (NX) doses (0.8, 2.4, 3.2, and 6.2 micrograms/g) was injected into crabs 15 min before one 15-trial habituation session. An enhancing effect of 3.2 micrograms NX/g on responsiveness appeared over trials, that cannot be explained either by a ceiling effect or by a delay in peak drug action. Two doses below 3.2 microgram/g and one dose above had no significant effect. Results from a second series of experiments showed that the 3.2 microgram NX/g effect vanishes after 15 trials (1 h after injection). The hypothesis that crab's habituation involves the action of an endogenous opioid mechanism is put forward to account for the naloxone pretreatment effect.     

Parents' Emotion‐Related Beliefs,Behaviours, and Skills Predict Children's Recognition of Emotion

Children who are able to recognize others' emotions are successful in a variety of socioemotional domains, yet we know little about how school‐aged children's abilities develop, particularly in the family context. We hypothesized that children develop emotion recognition skill as a function of parents' own emotion‐related beliefs, behaviours, and skills. We examined parents' beliefs about the value of emotion and guidance of children's emotion, parents' emotion labelling and teaching behaviours, and parents' skill in recognizing children's emotions in relation to their school‐aged children's emotion recognition skills. Sixty‐nine parent–child dyads completed questionnaires, participated in dyadic laboratory tasks, and identified their own emotions and emotions felt by the other participant from videotaped segments. Regression analyses indicate that parents' beliefs, behaviours, and skills together account for 37% of the variance in child emotion recognition ability, even after controlling for parent and child expressive clarity. The findings suggest the importance of the family milieu in the development of children's emotion recognition skill in middle childhood and add to accumulating evidence suggesting important age‐related shifts in the relation between parental emotion socialization and child emotional development. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.