Responsivity of professional clinicians to requests for research participation.

Mailed 8 different types of requests for research participation to psychologists and psychiatrists (N = 412) employed in Canadian mental health facilities. There was a better response to requests for participation as research Ss than to more informal appeals. Responsivity was inversely related to expected visibility, including lack of anonymity of response. Results suggest that fear of evaluation largely determined response rates in studies soliciting clinicians to participate in research. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Respiratory kinesitherapy. For whom? Why do it?

Intussusception of the appendix vermiformis in adults is an uncommon event. The combination of a mucinous cystadenoma with an intussuscepted appendix is extremely rare. Clinical symptoms are nonspecific; in most cases the correct diagnosis is not made before surgical exploration. With the radiologic and endoscopic presentation of a polypoid lesion of the caecum, a neoplasm is often considered. Endoscopic appendectomy or disinvagination by enema have been described. Thus the definitive therapy is surgery and depends on the histological diagnosis.     

Why do men rape? An evolutionary psychological perspective.

Rape of women by men has occurred throughout recorded history and across cultures. In this article, we discuss rape from an evolutionary psychological perspective. Evolutionary psychology is a powerful heuristic tool that allows researchers to develop and test novel hypotheses about complex behaviors such as rape. Some researchers have argued that men have evolved psychological mechanisms that motivate them to rape in specific contexts. We discuss evidence consistent with this claim, and argue that a more nuanced view of men's rape behavior is necessary. We propose that it may be useful to characterize rapists as belonging to one of several types, distinguished by individual differences as well as by the circumstances in which they are predicted to commit rape. We discuss research evidence in support of each rapist type, as well as the need for future research. Finally, we discuss research concerning women's rape-avoidance psychology and behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why do overqualified incumbents deviate? Examining multiple mediators.

In the modern marketplace, especially when unemployment is high, more and more Americans find themselves overqualified (i.e., possessing more competencies than the job requires). Using and extending person-environment fit theory and the stressor-emotion model of counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs), we examine whether overqualified employees are more likely to display CWBs than employees who feel their positions match their qualification levels. Further, we examine why overqualified employees may behave in counterproductive ways and compare the empirical viability of several theoretically derived competing mediators. Based on data from a sample of full-time employees (n = 215), we found that consistent with the theoretical frameworks, overqualified incumbents display nondesirable counterproductive work behaviors because they become cynical about the meaningfulness of their activities. We further show that although poor person-job fit or inadequate psychological contracts can motivate such misbehavior, cynicism dominates as a reason for why overqualified employees engage in counterproductive work behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why good people do bad things

The very context of organizational decision making tests autonomous moral agency for managers, and the moral price they pay may be great. Misunderstandings, miscommunication, fear and isolation all play a role in why good people do bad things. Self-knowledge, good communication, alternative support systems and management by walking around (MBWA) all help good people (who happen to be managers) avoid doing bad things.     

Why do categories affect stimulus judgment?

The authors tested a model of category effects on stimulus judgment. The model holds that the goal of stimulus judgment is to achieve high accuracy. For this reason, people place inexactly represented stimuli in the context of prior information, captured in categories, combining inexact fine-grain stimulus values with prior (category) information. This process can be likened to a Bayesian statistical procedure designed to maximize the average accuracy of estimation. If people follow the proposed procedure to maximize accuracy, their estimates should be affected by the distribution of instances in a category. In the present experiments, participants reproduced one-dimensional stimuli. Different prior distributions were presented. The experiments verified that people's stimulus estimates are affected by variations in a prior distribution in such a manner as to increase the accuracy of their stimulus reproductions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why do we need peer review?

Some nurses see peer review as a threatening experience and put up defense mechanisms to resist change. Others are recognizing it as a popular performance-appraisal strategy that will enhance their autonomy and accountability within their professional practice. But why do we need it? And what are the benefits?     

Why do we have a brain?

Why do we have a brain? After all, it's a good deal of trouble. A brain is very expensive; a hefty percentage of our cardiac output goes towards its nourishment. A brain is fragile. If you cut off its groceries for even a few minutes, it's gone, taking the rest of us with it. Worst of all, it is highly likely that pain, fear, sadness and other undesirable states require a brain. None of these things are issues for our brainless relatives, such as lichens or pond scum. On the other hand, a brain comes in handy sometimes. Its very useful at tax time. I find it particularly helpful when watching "Jeopardy" or when taking board examinations. But those are just special cases; in general, why bother with a brain? (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why some people smoke and others do not: New perspectives.

Because initial reinforcement consequences set the stage for subsequent nicotine use, elucidation of the contribution of environmental and inherited factors is crucial to an understanding of nicotine dependence as well as of individual differences in susceptibility to cigarette smoking. A review of some recent animal research and laboratory studies of smokers and never-smokers suggests that vulnerability to nicotine dependence is related to high initial sensitivity to nicotine and that the development of acute pharmacodynamic tolerance in these individuals, particularly to effects of nicotine that are toxic or aversive, may be an adaptation for protecting homeostasis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Controlled outcome research with paradoxical interventions: A review for clinicians.

Reviews paradoxical intervention (PI) research emphasizing the clinical, methodological, and qualitative aspects of the same studies in a review by K. A. Hill (see record 1988-01996-001). More than two-thirds of the outcome studies inspected were of questionable relevance to the clinician (e.g., undergraduates as Ss, atypical durations, overly restrictive field of disorders, and improper or inadequate follow-up). PI has thus not demonstrated its superiority over placebo or alternative treatments. Hill's strategy of using the average effect size per study as the unit of analysis may help to misrepresent the clinical facts in each study. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why do patterned afterimages fluctuate in visibility?

Considers that prolonged patterned afterimages go through sequences of complete and partial visibility and disappearances before they finally cease to be visible. A survey was made of studies examining these fluctuations and the factors involved in them. Theories attributing the fluctuations to retinal processes, eye movements, adaptation of feature detectors, binocular rivalry, binocular interaction, and attention are assessed. It is tentatively concluded that the fluctuations of patterned afterimages are due to two cortical processes: One concerns the interaction between contour detectors, and the other involves inhibition between columns for ocular dominance or disparity detection. (97 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Working 61 plus hours a week: Why do managers do it?

The authors investigated why some managers work extreme hours, defined as 61 or more hours per week. The authors, tested explanations drawn from theories including the work-leisure tradeoff, work as an emotional respite, social contagion, and work as its own reward. In a demographically homogeneous sample of male managers, the best explanations for why some worked 61 or more hours per week were the financial and psychological rewards they, received from doing so. The hypothesis derived from A. Hochschild's (1997) research that managers who work long hours seek relief at work from pressures at home was not supported. Findings in a small sample of managerial women were consistent with the work-leisure trade-off hypothesis, the social contagion hypothesis, and the work as its own reward hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why do semantic priming effects increase in old age? A meta-analysis.

Reports a meta-analysis comparing the size of semantic priming effects on young and older adults' lexical decision and pronunciation latency. The analysis included 15 studies with 49 conditions varying the semantic relatedness of a prime stimulus (single word or whole sentence) and a target word. An effect-size analysis on the difference between young and older adults' semantic priming effect (unrelated minus related latency) indicated that semantic priming effects are reliably larger for older than for young adults. There was no evidence for nonhomogeneity in this age difference across the different conditions. The relationship between young and older adults' semantic priming effects was described by a function with a positive intercept and a slope of 1.0. This pattern of findings favors aging models postulating process-specific slowing rather than general cognitive slowing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)