A Qualitative Study on Children’s Digital Media Use and Parents’ Self-interest

Journal of Child and Family Studies - This qualitative study provides insight into the role of parents’ self-interest in digital media use of children in different age groups. We conducted 31...     

Contextual dependencies in predictive learning

Two experiments assessed contextual dependencies in a predictive-learning task. Subjects learned to associate each of four pictorial stimuli with the occurrence or non-occurrence of a specific outcome. Each of these stimuli, the intentional stimuli, was presented against one of two different visual (Experiment 1) or auditory (Experiment 2) context stimuli. These context stimuli were incidental: subjects were not explicitly instructed to pay any attention to them and each of them in isolation was not predictive of the outcome. During acquisition and testing, subjects expressed the expected relationship between intentional stimulus and outcome by an appropriate key press. At test, intentional stimuli were presented either with the same contextual stimulus as also present during acquisition (same trials), or with the other one (switched trials). The response latency was slower on switched trials than on same trials in each experiment, a result extending previous findings on the effect of environmental contextual stimuli on task performance. Results are discussed in the framework of contextual occasion setting and habituation to contextual stimuli.     

Contextual dependencies in a stimulus equivalence paradigm

Two experiments with human subjects assessed contextual dependencies in a stimulus equivalence paradigm. Subjects learned to form two sets of stimuli in a matching-to-sample training procedure. Each set was presented against one of two different background colours, the contextual cues. At test, the influence of a context change--that is, presenting each set against the other context--was measured on baseline, symmetry, and equivalence trials. These three trial types reflect a difference in task complexity. It was predicted that the magnitude of context-dependent effects would be a positive function of task complexity. In Experiment 1, the context change was realized by switching the stimulus set at test while keeping the background colour constant. In Experiment 2, the stimulus set remained constant, and the background colour was switched. In both experiments, a change in context only resulted in an increase in response latency on equivalence trials; no effect was seen on symmetry and baseline trials. Results were discussed in the framework of switch costs, habituation to contextual stimuli, and a model based on Shea and Wright (1995) that explains the differential influence of a context switch on easy versus difficult tasks.     

The Longitudinal Relationship Between Media Violence and Empathy: Was It Sympathy All Along?

Previous research with adolescents has reported a negative relationship between media violence and empathy. There are, however, two important conceptual issues in this earlier literature that deserve further research attention. First, studies often treat empathy as a one-dimensional construct while it consists of both an affective and cognitive component. Second, while aiming to measure empathy, several studies have measured sympathy instead. Driven by these concerns, this study was designed to investigate the longitudinal relationship between media violence, affective empathy, cognitive empathy, and sympathy. Using data from a two-wave panel study with 943 adolescents (10–14 years old), a cross-lagged model tested whether media violence exposure negatively influences empathy and sympathy (desensitization) or whether empathy and sympathy negatively influence media violence exposure (selection). Results were in line with desensitization. However, rather than showing that media violence leads to a decrease in empathy (which previous studies have shown), results indicate a decrease in sympathy instead. These findings provide clarification to existing work as well as offer methodological and practical implications.     

On the Ethics of Facial Transplantation Research

Transplantation continues to push the frontiers of medicine into domains that summon forth troublesome ethical questions. Looming on the frontier today is human facial transplantation. We develop criteria that, we maintain, must be satisfied in order to ethically undertake this as-yet-untried transplant procedure. We draw on the criteria advanced by Dr. Francis Moore in the late 1980s for introducing innovative procedures in transplant surgery. In addition to these we also insist that human face transplantation must meet all the ethical requirements usually applied to health care research. We summarize the achievements of transplant surgery to date, focusing in particular on the safety and efficacy of immunosuppressive medications. We also emphasize the importance of risk/benefit assessments that take into account the physical, aesthetic, psychological, and social dimensions of facial disfiguration, reconstruction, and transplantation. Finally, we maintain that the time has come to move facial transplantation research into the clinical phase.     

Responses to novelty in phobic and non-phobic cynomolgus monkeys: The role of subject characteristics and object features

In two previous studies it has been shown that most surrogate-reared cynomolgus monkeys became phobic of a harmless object (a big paper bag) while most mother-reared monkeys approached that object. Results of the first study seemed to indicate that the phobic reaction was restricted to the bag. Barnett and Cowan (Interdisciplinary Science Review, 1, 43–62, 1976) and Suomi (Anxiety disorder in childhood, pp. 1–23, 1986), however, reported that subjects (respectively rats and monkeys) that avoided a first novel object also avoided subsequent novel objects. In the present study we exposed phobic (bag-avoiding) and non-phobic (bag-approaching) monkeys from the study by Röder, Timmermans and Vossen (Behaviour Research and Therapy, 27, 221–231, 1989) to several big and small novel objects. Our results show that, irrespective of their rearing conditions, subjects that were phobic also avoided big novel objects while subjects that were non-phobic approached big novel objects. The reaction to small novel objects was independent of the previous reaction to the bag.     

The role of modeling in prevention and extinction of phobic behaviour in cynomolgus monkeys (Macaca fascicularis)

In previous studies surrogate reared cynomolgus monkeys have been shown to become phobic of an unprepared harmless object. In the present study an attempt was made to prevent the development of phobic behaviour in young monkeys and to extinguish avoidance behaviour in phobic monkeys. In the first experiment subjects were exposed to the object in company of their (surrogate) mothers which approached the object. In the second experiment phobic subjects were exposed to the object in company of non-phobic conspecifics which approached the object. The results of the first experiment show that modeling was unsuccessful in preventing the acquisition of phobia in the surrogate-reared monkeys but seemed successful in accelerating approach in the mother-reared subjects. The results of the second experiment show that during the modeling treatment the phobic subjects followed the model and approached the object. However, in post treatment tests all subjects but one relapsed into avoidance. The effect of modeling during treatment is interpreted in terms of coaclive facilitation.     

Using the common-sense model to predict risk perception and disease-related worry in individuals at increased risk for venous thrombosis.

OBJECTIVE: This study applied the Common-Sense Model (CSM) to predict risk perception and disease-related worry in 174 individuals with a genetic predisposition to venous thrombosis (thrombophilia). DESIGN: Participants completed an adapted version of the Illness Perception Questionnaire-Revised (IPQ-R) and measures assessing risk perception and worry. RESULTS: Regression analyses revealed that illness perceptions were predictors of risk perception and thrombosis worry. The hypothesis that illness perceptions mediate the relationship between a person's experience of venous thrombosis and perceived risk and thrombosis worry could not be confirmed. CONCLUSIONS: Further research should refine the IPQ-R for populations at risk of a disease and examine the value of the CSM in explaining the relationship between risk perception, worry, and health behavior.     

Feeling body dissatisfied after viewing thin-ideal pictures is mediated by self-activation

The present study sought to investigate the influence of self-activation on body and weight satisfaction in restrained and unrestrained eaters, after exposure to thin-ideal images. Restrained eaters (n = 39) and unrestrained eaters (n = 40) were randomly assigned to a self-activation manipulation versus a control manipulation. After the manipulation, all participants were exposed to eight thin-ideal images. Measures of state body and weight satisfaction and of social comparison tendencies were assessed throughout the experiment. Self-activated restrained eaters showed a significant decrease in body and weight satisfaction after exposure to thin-ideal images, compared to restrained eaters who were not self-activated. In unrestrained eaters, the self-activation manipulation did not have any effect on body or weight dissatisfaction. In conclusion, exposure to fashion models only had a negative influence on women's self-evaluations when two conditions were met: (1) the participant was ‘self-activated’ and (2) the participant classified as a restrained eater.