Information presentation format preferences of art museum visitors

Behavioral differences between infrequent and frequent art museum visitors, in the absence of demographic differences, suggest the need to investigate information presentation format styles. Four formats were tested in the present study. Results indicate that infrequent and frequent visitors do prefer different formats. Implications of the obtained results for exhibit labels and broader consumer research are discussed.This study was part of a larger study conducted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Master of Science in Psychology from the University of Wyoming.The author wishes to thank Roseanne Foti and Phil Bobko for their help in reading earlier versions of this paper.     

Considerations for a Psychology of Experience: Heinz Werner's Contribution

It is proposed that three themes in Heinz Werner's psychology provide directions for a contemporary psychology of experience. The first theme is the nature of developing mind. Werner's view of the mind as incorporating nonlogical modes of thought is contrasted with the hyper-rational views that dominate contemporary psychology. The second theme is Werner's model of the gradual differentiation and integration of spheres of experience. The model can be elaborated with minimal universalist assumptions, thus providing ways of conceptualizing cultural and individual differences as well as changes within a person's life. The third theme is the theory of symbolization that Werner developed in collaboration with Bernard Kaplan. Integrating the theory of symbolization with the spheres of experience model, it is seen how internal and external acts of symbolization enter into the formation and internal differentiation of spheres.     

A Brief Educational Attainment Scale for Clinical Use

Abstract

La Grande Guerre. Catalogue raisonné des estampes, originaux, affiches illustrées, imageries, vignettes, cartes postales, médailles, bons de monnaies, timbres, etc., du 1er Aout 1914 au 31 Décembre, 1915. Préface de Georges Cain. Tome premier. Collection Henri Leblanc. Destiné à l'Etat. Paris, Emile-Paul Frères, 1916. 434 p. Reviewed By Louis N. Wilson     

Women and body dissatisfaction: Does sexual orientation make a difference?

In this study, heterosexual (n = 95) and nonheterosexual (n = 84) women were asked to rate figure drawings and computer-generated images of women that varied in body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, and breast size in terms of self, ideal, and cultural ideal; discrepancy indices, indicating body dissatisfaction, were created for each body aspect. Nonheterosexual women had significantly higher body mass indices (BMIs) than heterosexual women, but when the effects of BMI were controlled, participants evidenced similar perceptions of their bodies, their ideal bodies, and the female cultural ideal, as well as similar levels of body dissatisfaction for body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, and breast size. The results of this study suggest that being a member of a society that highly values a thin, curvaceous, relatively large-breasted body puts women, regardless of sexual orientation, at risk for body dissatisfaction.     

A feeling for finance: Motivations for trading on the stock exchange

Emotions have long been associated with financial markets. For traders trying to make money by profiting from market fluctuations, the uncertainties and risks of involvement loom large, and the outcomes of participation are instantly measurable. Much research has therefore focused on the role that emotions – such as fear, greed, trust, confidence and hope – play in motivating traders to try and anticipate what the market is doing. But there is a different kind of emotional experience that is equally important in motivating financial trading and which research has hitherto neglected. The development of communications technology has generated new kinds of objects (represented in visual formats displayed on computer screens) with which people interact, forming emotionally-laden relationships comparable, in some ways, to more traditional social relationships. This paper focuses on individual online share traders who use a style known as Technical Analysis. It examines how they become emotionally engaged in and attached to their trading practices, in ways that motivate them, independently of any concern with financial outcomes. The paper then provides a broader conceptualisation of the roles of reason and emotion in financial markets.     

Coping behavior: Implications for disabled infants and toddlers

This article discusses the coping process and examines issues concerning the influence of a handicapping condition on the development of coping competence in young children. A preliminary study is reported that investigated the differences between the coping behavior of 25 developmentally disabled and 25 nondisabled children who were 4 to 34 months of age. The Early Coping Inventory was used to assess three categories of behavior related to adaptive coping efforts (sensorimotor organization, reactive behavior, and self-initiated behavior). Results indicated that the nondisabled children, as a group, demonstrated more effective coping-related behavior than did their disabled peers. The disabled children were situationally effective, in that behavior used effectively in one type of situation was not generalized to other types of situations. Their coping behavior tended to be erratic, inflexible, or limited in the range of available management strategies. The greatest discrepancy between the two groups was in their self-initiated behavior. The findings suggest the need for intervention services to address the enhancement of coping behavior of infants and toddlers with disabilities.     

Sexual orientation and shifts in preferences for a partner's body attributes in short-term versus long-term mating contexts

This study assessed the effects of short- and long-term mating contexts on preferences for body characteristics of potential relationship partners in lesbians and heterosexual women. Lesbians (n = 41) rated figure drawings and computer-generated images of women that varied in body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, and breast size; heterosexual women (n = 95) rated computer-generated images of men that varied in muscularity and body fat. Both lesbians and heterosexual women showed a shift in preferences toward more physically attractive partners for shortterm relationships. All body aspects were affected, except that heterosexual women did not show a preference shift for male body fat. The results were interpreted in terms of a mating trade-off strategy in which mate preferences are the consequence of cost/benefit analyses and suggest that preferences for physical attributes of sexual partners may be shared by members of the same sex regardless of sexual orientation.     

Levels of representation in the interpretation of anaphoric reference and instrument inference

The level of representation accessed when inferences are made during sentence comprehension was examined. The inferences investigated included antecedent assignment for both definite noun phrase anaphors and pronouns and also instrument inferences. In making these inferences, a listener must access the inferred element, whether an antecedent or an instrument, in either a linguistic form representation or a discourse model. The level of representation involved in these inferences was determined by exploiting differences in the lexical-decision and naming tasks, which were argued to exhibit differential sensitivity to representational levels. In three experiments, the priming of antecedent and instrument targets in the lexical decision task was compared with priming of the same targets in the naming task. Differences in the patterns of activation across the two tasks indicated that all three types of inferences required-accessing-elements in a discourse model. Three control experiments ruled out simple context or congruity checking as an explanation for our results. The following conclusions were also supported by these studies: (1) Antecedent assignment occurs immediately after processing an anaphor; (2) antecedent assignment involves inhibition for the inappropriate antecedent rather than facilitation for the appropriate antecedent; (3) although subjects do not make instrument inferences-when they hear isolated sentences containing verbs that strongly imply certain instruments, the inferences are made when sentences are preceded by a context that mentions the instrument.     

Philanthropy: A Method for Teaching Counselors to Be Social Advocates in the Age of Modern Behavioral Health Care

Graduate counseling programs are proficient in training direct service providers but less able to teach the business of sustaining a community agency's services. Modern philanthropy emphasizes social advocacy by investing in change that benefits the local community and respects the diverse cultural experiences of potential clients and stakeholders. Teaching philanthropy in an introductory graduate counseling course provides one avenue to prepare future counselors to both understand the importance of and be actively involved in sustaining a community counseling agency's mission.