Pair-bonded humans conform to sexual stereotypes in web-based advertisements for extra-marital partners

Partners advertisements provide advertisers with access to a large pool of prospective mates, and have proven useful in documenting sex differences in human mating preferences. We coded data from an Internet site (AshleyMadison.com) catering to advertisers engaged in existing pair-bonded relationships. While we predicted that pair-bonding may liberate advertisers from conforming to sexual stereotypes of male promiscuity and female choosiness, our results are uniformly consistent with those stereotypes. Our findings thus provide further evidence that human mating behavior is highly constrained by fundamental biological differences between males and females.     

Undergraduate students' knowledge of infant and child development in a sample from a religiously-oriented university

Knowledge of child rearing is based on many factors. In the present study, 85 undergraduates (56 women, 46 Catholic) enrolled in psychology classes at a private university completed the Student Knowledge of Child Development Scale. Analysis showed a moderate relationship between scale scores with whether participants had taken a child development class and whether participants stated highest priority was a career or marriage and children.     

Can spirituality be taught to health care professionals?

Although people with life-limiting conditions report a desire to have spiritual concerns addressed, there is evidence that these issues are often avoided by health care professionals in palliative care. This study reports on the longitudinal outcomes of four workshops purpose-designed to improve the spiritual knowledge and confidence of 120 palliative care staff in Australia. Findings revealed significant increases in Spirituality, Spiritual Care, Personalised Care, and Confidence in this field immediately following the workshops. Improvements in Spiritual Care and Confidence were maintained 3 month later, with Confidence continuing to grow. These findings suggest that attendance at a custom-designed workshop can significantly improve knowledge and confidence to provide spiritual care.     

Billing for Medical Genetics and Genetic Counseling Services: A National Survey

In January 2007 the American Medical Association added a new Current Procedural Terminology® (CPT) code, 96040, for “Medical Genetics and Genetic Counseling Services.” In order to identify the impact of having this new code and to identify issues with implementation of the code, the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) CPT® Working Group surveyed NSGC members using an internet-based survey tool. The majority of respondents (94%) reported being aware of the new code and over half of the respondents (69%) said they were billing for genetic counseling. Approximately 24% of those billing reported using 96040. Many facilities are not using this code and the reported success of billing using 96040 is highly varied. Continued education may be beneficial to encourage reimbursement for 96040 and follow up is needed to assess the ongoing implementation and impact of the new CPT® code.     

Heidegger and scientific realism

This paper describes Heidegger as a robust scientific realist, explains why his view has received such conflicting treatment, and concludes that the special significance of his position lies in his insistence upon linking the discussion of science to the question of its relation with technology. It shows that Heidegger, rather than accepting the usual forced option between realism and antirealism, advocates a realism in which he embeds the antirealist thesis that the idea of reality independent of human understanding is unintelligible. This reading is defended against Rorty's antirealist interpretation, as well as Dreyfus' depiction of him as a deflationary realist, and his assessment of background realism is contrasted with Fine's. Further, the robustness of Heidegger's realism is laid out across several texts from 1912 to 1976, in order to show that he is neither an instrumental realist nor an internal realist. Finally, the point is made that the development of his view concerning realism gives rise to a critique of objectivity that is now being similarly advocated by numerous thinkers from a variety of disciplines, and that this critique is inevitably ethical and political.     

Group interventions for patients with cancer and HIV disease: part IV. Clinical and policy recommendations

Group interventions have assumed a growing role in primary prevention and supportive care for cancer and HIV disease. Earlier sections of this Special Report examined empirical findings for these interventions and provided recommendations for future research. The current section offers brief recommendations for service providers, policymakers, and stakeholders. Group services now occupy an increasingly prominent place in primary prevention programs and medical settings. In previous sections of this Special Report (Sherman, Leszcz et al., 2004; Sherman, Mosier et al., 2004a, 2004b) we examined the efficacy of different group interventions at different phases of cancer or HIV disease, considered characteristics of the intervention and the participants that might influence outcomes, and discussed mechanisms of action. Methodological challenges and priorities for future research were highlighted. In this, the final section, we offer brief recommendations for service providers, policymakers, and other stakeholders. We consider some of the barriers that constrain use of empirically-based group interventions and note how these programs might be implemented more widely and effectively.     

The use of hypertext and sensory-level supports for visual learning of aircraft names and shapes

Hypertexts have many novel and unexplored features for representing, linking, and exploring knowledge to make it more useful for learning. We contrasted traditional textbook presentation of information against a hypertext that implemented database retrieval of text and manipulation of colored, bitmapped displays. Hypertext enabled us to explore the role of sensory-level supports, such as apparent motion and colored overlays, as aids for visual cognition and concept formation. One visible difference between traditional text and hypertext was in the use of a rapid browsing strategy by the hypertext learners, compared with a methodical, extended side-by-side comparison by the book learners. The research also discovered that students better learned local neighborhoods of concepts, as opposed to widely dispersed concepts, in the hypertext environment. We selected visual aircraft recognition (VACR) as a topical area for the research because it is a very important problem in the Army, because traditional VACR training emphasizes both text and images, and because we had available to us a fine manual (Army Field Manual FM 44–30) full of black-and-white pictures and text that was artfully arranged on the page, as well as access to hundreds of color slides of airplanes. Our research found superior learning with the hypertext field manual, and we examined higher order learning strategies, such as depth-first versus breadth-first paths through the hierarchy of knowledge, and sensory-level supports for learning within these environments.