Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due: A Case of No Sex Bias in Attribution1

This study examines the effects of informational cues on the attribution of success in a masculine task. Israeli managers (subjects) first evaluated the performance of a fictitious male/female manager and then attributed a cause to his/her success in attaining the managerial position. As predicted, performance evaluation affected the attribution and manager sex did not. An unexpected association between leadership style and attribution was found. Implications of these findings for female managers and for further research are considered.     

Relation between level of food deprivation and rate of schedule-induced attack

The relation between food deprivation and schedule-induced attack was investigated in four White Carneaux pigeons. Attack toward a mirror target was induced by a schedule of reinforcement in which 3-sec food presentations occurred at alternate intervals of 15 and 120 sec (multiple fixed-time 15-sec fixed-time 120-sec schedule). A continuous tone was presented during the 15-sec periods; it was absent during the 120-sec periods. Each pigeon was tested at 65, 80, and 95% of its free-feeding weight in ascending, descending, and ascending orders, respectively. Two relations were apparent; an inverse relation between body weight and rate of attack, and a tendency for rate of attack to increase during the experiment. Reduction or elimination of attack when the mirror was covered with brown paper for some sessions indicated that the results were due neither to changes in activity that might covary with weight nor to habituation to the experimental situation.     

PRESENTISM,PERSISTENCE AND COMPOSITION

Pace Benovsky's ‘Presentism and Persistence,’ presentism is compatible with perdurantism, tropes and bundle‐of‐universals theories of persisting objects. I demonstrate how the resemblance, causation and precedence relations that tie stages together can be accommodated within an ersatzer presentist framework. The presentist account of these relations is then used to delineate a presentist‐friendly account of the inter‐temporal composition required for making worms out of stages. The defense of presentist trope theory shows how properties with indexes other than t may be said to exist at t. This involves an account of how times other than t exist at t, and how times may be multiply located at any given time. Benovsky's objection to bundles of universals is shown to assume that a bundle of properties must have the properties of its element properties.     

Clamped Corticosterone (B) Reveals the Effect of Endogenous B on Both Facilitated Responsivity to Acute Restraint and Metabolic Responses to Chronic Stress

To determine the effects of both corticosterone (B) and chronic stressors on acute ACTH responses to restraint, young male rats were exposed to streptozotocin-induced diabetes, cold (5-7 degreesC) or intracerebroventricular (icv) neuropeptide Y (NPY) for 5 d and then exposed to restraint within 2 h after lights on. Two groups of rats were studied: intact and adrenalectomized replaced with B pellets that maintained plasma B in the normal mean 24-h range of intact rats. In addition to ACTH and B responses to restraint on d 5, body weight, food intake, fat depots, glucose and other hormones were measured to determine the role of stress-induced elevations in B on energy balance. ACTH responses to restraint were normal in intact rats subjected to diabetes or cold. By contrast, there was no ACTH or B response to restraint in NPY-infused intact rats. All 3 groups of chronically stimulated adrenalectomized rats with clamped B had facilitated ACTH responses to restraint compared to their treatment controls. Overall food intake increased in all groups of stressed rats; however, augmented intake occurred only during the light in intact rats and equally in the light and dark in B-clamped rats. White adipose depot weights were decreased by both diabetes and cold and increased by NPY in intact rats; the decreases with cold and increases with NPY were both blunted and changes in fat stores were not significant in adrenalectomized, B-clamped rats. We conclude that: 1. diabetes- and cold-induced facilitation of restraint-induced afferent input to hypothalamic control of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is opposed in intact rats by the elevated feedback signal of B secretion; 2. NPY does not induce facilitation of afferent stress pathways; 3. chronic stimulation of the HPA axis induces acute hyperresponsiveness of hypothalamic neurons to restraint provided that the afferent input of this acute stimulus is not prevented by B feedback; 4. stimulus-induced elevations in B secretion result in day-time feeding; 5. insensitivity of both caloric efficiency and white fat stores to chronic stress in adrenalectomized, B-clamped rats results from loss of normally variable B levels.     

Differences in self-talk frequency as a function of age, only-child, and imaginary childhood companion status

In three studies, we examined differences in the frequency with which people report talking to themselves. Using a standardized measure of self-talk frequency, the Self-Talk Scale (Brinthaupt, Hein, & Kramer, 2009), we collected information about college student participants’ age, sex, and family configuration (i.e., only or sibling child), and whether they had an imaginary companion in childhood. In Study 1, significant differences in self-talk were found between different age groupings. In Study 2, children without siblings reported more self-talk than children with siblings. Finally, in Study 3, respondents who reported having an imaginary companion in childhood also reported significantly more self-talk than those who did not have an imaginary childhood companion. We discuss the self-regulatory and developmental implications of these results.     

Parametric exploration of the Simon effect across visual space.

The Simon effect refers to the performance advantage for responding to the nonspatial identity of the target when the target's irrelevant location corresponds with the relative location of the response. The present study is a parametric examination of the magnitude of the Simon effect across visual space. Response keys were arranged along vertical, horizontal, and two diagonal axes, and stimuli were arranged in two concentric circles (near and far from fixation) along the same axes. The results show that the Simon effect is of similar magnitude regardless of stimulus-response axis. In contrast to findings from stimulus-response compatibility paradigms, there was no evidence in this study for the presence of an orthogonal compatibility effect or left-right prevalence effect, suggesting that these effects only arise when response location is relevant. The results demonstrate the robust generalizability of the Simon effect under different spatial conditions and thus broaden the relevance of the Simon effect to a variety of applications.     

Effect of dichotomous thinking on the association of depression with BMI and weight change among obese females

This study tested whether a dichotomous thinking style moderates the association of depression with body mass, and investigated the effect of dichotomous thinking and depression on weight loss during a cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) intervention.Overweight and obese females (n = 76) participated in CBT for weight management for 12 weeks. Before treatment, dichotomous thinking moderated the association of depression with BMI, such that depression was positively associated with BMI among those with low dichotomous thinking, but was not associated among those with high dichotomous thinking. Weight loss was negatively associated with pre-treatment depression and frequency of treatment attendance, but not with dichotomous thinking. Females who regard their weight as unacceptably high and who think dichotomously may experience high levels of depression irrespective of their actual weight, while depression may be proportionate to the degree of obesity among those who do not think dichotomously. Depression, but not dichotomous thinking, is likely to interfere with the ability to adhere to short-term weight loss strategies.