Hungry people prefer larger bodies and objects: The importance of testing boundary effects

Several lab-based studies have indicated that when people are hungry, they judge larger women's bodies as more attractive, compared to when they are satiated. These satiety-dependent judgements are assumed to provide explanatory power when it comes to the noted cross-cultural differences in attitudes towards women's adiposity, whereby people who live in regions that are under greater nutritional stress tend to have more favourable attitudes towards bigger bodies. However, it is premature to assume that women's bodies are the proper or actual domain of the satiety-dependent judgement shifts found within research study testing contexts until stimuli other than female bodies have also been tested: The research programme falls into the trap of confirmation bias unless we also seek out disconfirmatory evidence and test the boundaries of the effects of hunger. Accordingly, we collected attractiveness judgements of female and male bodies manipulated to vary in size by varying level of adiposity, and objects manipulated to vary in size, from 186 participants who also reported their current hunger level. We found that larger sizes of stimuli in general, and women's bodies in particular, especially when judged by women, were judged as more attractive by the hungrier participants. We discuss these patterns in the context of the Insurance Hypothesis, the Environmental Security Hypothesis, and the impact of hunger on acquisition.     

Body size and body esteem in women: The mediating role of possible self expectancy

We predicted that an expectancy of acquiring a feared fat self and an expectancy of acquiring a hoped-for thin self both mediate the impact of body size on women's body esteem. We also predicted that the mediating pathway through the feared fat self would be stronger than that through the hoped-for thin self. A community sample of 251 women reported their age, height, weight, and completed measures of body esteem and expectancy perceptions of acquiring the feared fat and hoped-for thin selves. Bayesian Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) demonstrated that expectancies about the feared fat self and about the hoped-for thin self mediated the relationship between body size and body esteem. Bayesian SEM also revealed that the pathway through the feared fat self was stronger than that through the hoped-for thin self. Implications for future research and the development of eating pathology are discussed.     

Use of social network sites and instant messaging does not lead to increased offline social network size, or to emotionally closer relationships with offline network members

The effect of Internet use on social relationships is still a matter of intense debate. This study examined the relationships between use of social media (instant messaging and social network sites), network size, and emotional closeness in a sample of 117 individuals aged 18 to 63 years old. Time spent using social media was associated with a larger number of online social network "friends." However, time spent using social media was not associated with larger offline networks, or feeling emotionally closer to offline network members. Further, those that used social media, as compared to non-users of social media, did not have larger offline networks, and were not emotionally closer to offline network members. These results highlight the importance of considering potential time and cognitive constraints on offline social networks when examining the impact of social media use on social relationships.     

周围神经嵌压症诊治过程中的临床思维

运用自然辩证法培养良好的临床思维,指导周围神经嵌压症的诊治过程,有助于获得最佳诊治效果。诊断过程中需全面了解理论知识,学会科学观察,兼顾整体与局部的关系,通过合理分析与综合,可以做出确切诊断。治疗过程中需对有关医师的技术进行评价,采用控制论及系统论方法指导治疗,才能恢复周围神经的结构与功能。     

Brilliant: But What For? Meaning and Subjective Well-Being in the Lives of Intellectually Gifted and Academically High-Achieving Adults

Not much is known today about relationships between giftedness and well-being, particular among adults. The present article examined if highly gifted people manage to live meaningful and happy lives in their adult years. Two aspects of giftedness were taken into account: intellectual giftedness, and academically high achievement. Representatives of both groups were compared with each other and a control group with regard to meaningfulness and subjective well-being, respectively. Furthermore, predictors for both facets of well-being were examined. The sample consisted of 198 Intellectually Gifted, 141 academically High Achievers, and 136 control subjects. Results: High Achievers showed degrees of meaningfulness and subjective well-being that were comparable to those of the control group. The Intellectually Gifted, however, reported significantly lower values in both facets of well-being. Results of hierarchical multiple regressions indicated that Intellectually Gifted and High Achievers follow a different path towards meaningfulness and subjective well-being. Among the Intellectually Gifted, generativity is the strongest predictor for meaningfulness, whereas for the High Achievers, meaningful work is most central to their meaningfulness. As regards subjective well-being, self-compassion was established as the strongest predictor for the Intellectually Gifted, whereas development was the most important predictor for the High Achievers.     

Reproductive behavior and personality traits of the Five Factor Model

We examined associations between Five Factor Model personality traits and various outcomes of reproductive behavior in a sample of 15 729 women and men from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) and Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) survey. Personality and reproductive history was self‐reported in adulthood (mean age: 53 years). High extraversion, high openness to experience, and low neuroticism were associated with larger number of children in both sexes, while high agreeableness and low conscientiousness correlated with larger offspring number in women only. These associations were independent of marital status. There were also more specific associations between personality and timing of childbearing. The findings demonstrate that personality traits of the Five Factor Model are systematically associated with multiple reproductive outcomes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Emotions in context: Anger causes ethnic bias but not gender bias in men but not women

Emotions influence information processing because they are assumed to carry valuable information. We predict that induced anger will increase ethnic but not gender intergroup bias because anger is related to conflicts for resources, and ethnic groups typically compete for resources, whereas gender groups typically engage in relations of positive interdependence. Furthermore, we also predict that this increased ethnic intergroup bias should only be observed among men because men show more group‐based reactions to intergroup conflict than women do. Two studies, with 65 and 120 participants, respectively, indeed show that anger induction increases ethnic but not gender intergroup bias and only for men. Intergroup bias was measured with an implicit measure. In Study 2, we additionally predict (and find) that fear induction does not change ethnic or gender intergroup bias because intergroup bias is a psychological preparation for collective action and fear is not associated with taking action against out‐groups. We conclude that the effect of anger depends on its specific informational potential in a particular intergroup context. These results highlight that gender groups differ on a crucial point from ethnic groups and call for more attention to the effect of people's gender in intergroup relations research. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Women want taller men more than men want shorter women

Physical characteristics, such as height, play an important role in human mate preferences. Satisfaction with one’s own height and one’s partner height seem likely to be related to these preferences. Using a student sample (N = 650), we show that women are not only more selective, but also more consistent, than men, in their partner height preferences. Women prefer, on average, a larger height difference between themselves and their partner (i.e. males being much taller than themselves) than men do. This effect is even more pronounced when examining satisfaction with actual partner height: women are most satisfied when their partner was 21 cm taller, whereas men are most satisfied when they were 8 cm taller than their partner. Next, using data from our sample and that of a previously published study (N = 52,677), we show that for men, height is more important to the expression of satisfaction with one’s own height than it is for women. Furthermore, slightly above average height women and tall men are most satisfied with their heights. We conclude that satisfaction with one’s own height is at least partly a consequence of the height preference of the opposite sex and satisfaction with one’s partner height.