Situational influences on gender differences in agency and communion.

Gender differences were examined in the context of situational effects. Participants monitored interpersonal behavior for 20 days, using an event-sampling strategy. The monitored behaviors reflected dominance and submissiveness (components of agency) and agreeableness and quarrelsomeness (components of communion). The situations reflected differences in the status of work roles: interactions with boss, co-worker, and supervisee. Status influenced agency. Individuals were most agentic when with a supervisee and least agentic when with a boss. Gender did not influence agency but did influence communal behaviors. Women were more communal regardless of social role status; women were especially communal with other women, compared with men with men. Findings about agency supported a social role theory interpretation of gender differences. Results for communion were consistent with accounts of the influence of sex segregation on interpersonal relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Steps towards a consumer-driven ‘concept innovation machine’ for food and drink

Innovation is often left to insight and serendipity. A lot of what researchers call innovation is actually a process by which one can make the individual consumer or practitioner more ‘creative’. Although it is important to work with the creative individual in hopes of coming up with the better ‘idea’ and new product/service opportunity, an equally valid albeit novel and counterintuitive approach systematizes creativity in a ‘research-driven machine’. This paper presents an approach to the systematization, based upon the point of view that creativity and innovation comprise the recombination of components into new blends. Given this point of view, to then spur innovation requires a systematic database that the user can access, with tools to help manipulate that database. The paper shows how such a database can be constructed and then used to create a novel product. The approach provides a general framework for the sensory professional to become more involved in the early stages of product development, where the focus is on the conceptual aspects of food features rather than on their physical manifestations in actual products.     

Resilience to Loss in Bereaved Spouses, Bereaved Parents, and Bereaved Gay Men.

Recent research has indicated that many people faced with highly aversive events suffer only minor, transient disruptions in functioning and retain a capacity for positive affect and experiences. This article reports 2 studies that replicate and extend these findings among bereaved parents, spouses, and caregivers of a chronically ill life partner using a range of self-report and objective measures of adjustment. Resilience was evidenced in half of each bereaved sample when compared with matched, nonbereaved counterparts and 36% of the caregiver sample in a more conservative, repeated-measures ipsative comparison. Resilient individuals were not distinguished by the quality of their relationship with spouse/partner or caregiver burden but were rated more positively and as better adjusted by close friends. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A dual mesh scheme for finite element based reconstruction algorithms

The finite element (FE) method has found several applications in emerging imaging modalities, especially microwave imaging which has been shown to be potentially useful in a number of areas including thermal estimation. In monitoring temperature distributions, the biological phenomena of temperature variations of tissue dielectric properties is exploited. By imaging these properties and their changes during such therapies as hyperthermia, temperature distributions can be deduced using difference imaging techniques. The authors focus on a microwave imaging problem where the hybrid element (HE) method is used in conjunction with a dual mesh scheme in an effort to image complex wavenumbers, k(2). The dual mesh scheme is introduced to improve the reconstructed images of tissue properties and is ideally suited for systems using FE methods as their computational base. Since the electric fields typically vary rapidly over a given body when irradiated by high-frequency electromagnetic sources, a dense mesh is needed for these fields to be accurately represented. Conversely, k(2) may be fairly constant over subregions of the body which would allow for a less dense sampling of this parameter in those regions. In the dual mesh system employed, the first mesh, which is uniformly dense, is used for calculating the electric fields over the body whereas the second mesh, which is nonuniform and less dense, is used for representing the k(2) distribution within the region of interest. The authors examine the 2-D TM polarization case for a pair of dielectric distributions on both a large and small problem to demonstrate the flexibility of the dual mesh method along with some of the difficulties associated with larger imaging problems. Results demonstrate the capabilities of the dual mesh concept in comparison to a single mesh approach for a variety of test cases, suggesting that the dual mesh method is critical for FE based image reconstruction where rapidly varying physical quantities are used to recover smoother property profiles, as can occur in microwave imaging of biological bodies.     

Flux, Pulse, and Spin: Dynamic Additions to the Personality Lexicon.

Personality constructs were proposed to describe intraindividual variability in interpersonal behavior. Flux refers to variability about an individual's mean score on an interpersonal dimension and was examined for the 4 poles of the interpersonal circumplex. Pulse and spin refer to variability about an individual's mean extremity and mean angular coordinate on the interpersonal circumplex. These constructs were measured using event-contingent recording. Latent state-trait analyses indicated high stability of flux in submissive, agreeable, and quarrelsome behaviors and some stability in the flux of dominance. Further analyses indicated moderate to high stability in pulse and spin. Neuroticism predicted greater pulse, spin, and submissive behavior flux. Extraversion predicted greater flux in agreeable behavior. In contrast, Agreeableness predicted reduced spin and quarrelsome behavior flux. Social environmental variables predicted greater flux in dominant behavior. Flux, pulse, and spin provide reliable and distinctive additions to the vocabulary for describing individual differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measuring people intensively.

An overview is provided of measures that are administered repeatedly in daily life. Variations of this methodology have been referred to as ecological momentary assessment, diary methods, daily process measures, and most broadly as intensive repeated measures in naturalistic settings (IRM-NS). Contrasts are drawn between IRM-NS methods on the basis of different sampling strategies, such as time-contingent recording, signal-contingent recording, and event-contingent recording. Common threats to the internal validity, construct validity, and external validity of IRM-NS measures are reviewed, along with ways to reduce these threats. The statistical analysis of IRM-NS data is considered, with a particular focus on the investigation of intraindividual variability. An extended example is provided of an IRM-NS measure, an event-contingent recording method for the assessment of interpersonal behaviour. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spontaneous trait inferences as self-generated primes: Implications for conscious social judgment.

The priming literature has documented the influence of trait terms held outside of conscious awareness on later judgment relevant to the primed trait dimension. The present research demonstrated that spontaneous trait inferences can serve as self-generated primes. In Exp 1, Ss instructed to memorize trait-implying sentences (thus spontaneously inferring traits outside of consciousness) showed assimilation effects in judgment. Ss instructed to form inferences from these sentences (thus consciously inferring traits) showed contrast effects. Exp 2 demonstrated that these findings were due to semantic activation rather than to a general evaluative response. When evaluatively inconsistent trait constructs were primed, similar patterns of assimilation and contrast were found. Implications for the ubiquitous occurrence of priming through the process of social categorization are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Metallographic characterization of rubber-modified poly(methyl methacrylates)

The microstructure of rubber-modified samples of poly(methyl methacrylates) was characterized by depositing a thin layer of gold on a polished surface and then applying the conventional techniques of metalography. Samples were prepared with a known volume fraction of rubber comprising particles of known size. It was shown that the methods of quantitative microscopy were successful in estimating these parameters. The method was also shown to provide information about crazing or cracking, which was viewed near the tip of an arrested crack. It is recommended that adoption of the metallographic method be extended to characterize other polymeric systems.     

Stability and variability of affective experience and interpersonal behavior in borderline personality disorder.

This study examined both mean levels and intraindividual variability in the mood and interpersonal behavior of individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and nonclinical control participants over a 20-day event-contingent recording period. Individuals in the BPD group experienced more unpleasantly valenced affect and were less dominant, more submissive, more quarrelsome, and more extreme in overall levels of behavior than control participants. In addition to these mean-level differences, individuals with BPD also reported more intraindividual variability in overall affect valence and in pleasantly valenced affect; displayed greater variability in dominant, quarrelsome, and agreeable behaviors; and exhibited an increased tendency to "spin" among interpersonal behaviors relative to nonclinical control participants. The findings document behavioral and affective manifestations of BPD in the context of naturally occurring interpersonal situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)