The self-fulfilling prophecy in close relationships: rejection sensitivity and rejection by romantic partners

The authors hypothesized a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein rejection expectancies lead people to behave in ways that elicit rejection from their dating partners. The hypothesis was tested in 2 studies of conflict in couples: (a) a longitudinal field study where couples provided daily-diary reports and (b) a lab study involving behavioral observations. Results from the field study showed that high rejection-sensitive (HRS) people's relationships were more likely to break up than those of low rejection-sensitive (LRS) people. Conflict processes that contribute to relationship erosion were revealed for HRS women but not for HRS men. Following naturally occurring relationship conflicts, HRS women's partners were more rejecting than were LRS women's partners. The lab study showed that HRS women's negative behavior during conflictual discussions helped explain their partners' more rejecting postconflict responses.     

The vulnerability of the Nevada visitor economy to a repository at Yucca Mountain

This article reviews the studies commissioned by the Nevada Nuclear Waste Project Office to estimate the economic impact of a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. Case studies found that visitor impacts occur for some analogous facilities, but not for others. Assessments of behavioral intent indicate that at least some economic agents would avoid visiting Nevada under repository scenarios. A third set of studies tested the risk-aversion and negative-imagery models of visitor decision making; people avoid visiting places associated with either a significant health risk or negative imagery, but it has yet to be shown that a repository would induce these perceptions in nearby places. In sum, the NWPO-sponsored studies suggest the potential for visitor impacts, but do confirm that these effects will occur.     

The immunology of corneal graft rejection

Corneal transplantation is the most successful of organ transplants due to the fact that the eye is an immunologically privileged site, and the cornea is an immunologically privileged tissue. The factors responsible for this include presence of the blood-aqueous barrier, the avascularity of the cornea, the absence of classic antigen-presenting cells (APCs) in the central cornea, inhibitory factors in the aqueous humor, the phenomenon known as anterior chamber-associated immune deviation (ACAID), and the intraocular expression of Fas ligand. Loss of ocular immune privilege can occur with breaching of the blood-ocular barrier, corneal neovascularization, migration of classic APCs to the center of the cornea, loss of inhibitory factors in aqueous humor, abrogation of ACAID, and loss of Fas ligand expression within the anterior chamber. The purpose of this review is to analyze these events and how they relate to corneal graft rejection. A discussion on future research and therapeutic modalities is provided.     

The self-importance of moral identity.

Recent theorizing in moral psychology extends rationalist models by calling attention to social and cultural influences (J. Haidt, 2001). Six studies using adolescents, university students, and adults measured the associations among the self-importance of moral identity, moral cognitions, and behavior. The psychometric properties of the measure were assessed through an examination of the underlying factor structure (Study 1) and convergent, nomological, and discriminant validity analyses (Studies 2 and 3). The predictive validity of the instrument was assessed by examinations of the relationships among the self-importance of moral identity, various psychological outcomes, and behavior (Studies 4, 5, and 6). The results are discussed in terms of models of moral behavior, social identity measurement, and the need to consider moral self-conceptions in explaining moral conduct. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

共同体建设与科学发展观的价值指认

人类社会的科学发展与共同体有着密切的关系.共同体有血缘共同体、地缘共同体、精神共同体、经济共同体、利益共同体、价值共同体、政治共同体、发展共同体、全球共同体等多种类型和层次.共同体是个人生存和发展的前提条件,任何个人都不可能离开共同体而独立存在.只有在真正的共同体条件下,个人才能获得全面发展,才可能有个人的自由.努力创造条件,构建共同体,切实促进个人自由的发展,既是马克思、恩格斯的最高价值追求,也是中国特色社会主义的实践要求,更是当代科学发展观的价值指认.     

The politics of identity in epidemiology

The predilection to doubt the objectivity of scientists based on their affiliation--particularly, but not exclusively, focused on scientists affiliated with industry-is a malignant influence in modern epidemiology. Manifestations of this "politics of identity" are widespread and include ad hominem attacks, publication restrictions, and exclusions of scientists from expert panels and advisory boards. These actions are likely to be detrimental to progress in epidemiology and are questionable from an ethical standpoint. The purpose of this commentary is to draw critical attention to the politics of identity in epidemiology and the effects it can have on individual scientists and scientific debate.     

Sexual identity development: The influence of valuative frameworks on identity synthesis.

Examines the influence of valuative frameworks on sexual identity development and synthesis. This involves incorporating an understanding of attribution and volition that is often omitted in alternative models of sexual identity development. The models can be organized into categories that address (1) general sexual identity development (defined to include gay and lesbian experiences), (2) gay identity development, and (3) lesbian identity development. Following a review of these various models, the role of valuative frameworks on identity development and synthesis is addressed, and an alternative model is proposed to address the experiences of those who experience same-sex attraction but do not experience a gay, lesbian, or bisexual identity synthesis. The proposed model has 5 stages: (1) identity confusion or crisis, (2) identity attribution, (3) identity foreclosure versus expansion, (4) identity reappraisal, and (5) identity synthesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender matters, too: The influences of school racial discrimination and racial identity on academic engagement outcomes among African American adolescents.

The authors examined relationships among racial identity, school-based racial discrimination experiences, and academic engagement outcomes for adolescent boys and girls in Grades 8 and 11 (n = 204 boys and n = 206 girls). The authors found gender differences in peer and classroom discrimination and in the impact of earlier and later discrimination experiences on academic outcomes. Racial centrality related positively to school performance and school importance attitudes for boys. Also, centrality moderated the relationship between discrimination and academic outcomes in ways that differed across gender. For boys, higher racial centrality related to diminished risk for lower school importance attitudes and grades from experiencing classroom discrimination relative to boys lower in centrality, and girls with higher centrality were protected against the negative impact of peer discrimination on school importance and academic self-concept. However, among lower race-central girls, peer discrimination related positively to academic self-concept. Finally, socioeconomic background moderated the relationship of discrimination with academic outcomes differently for girls and boys. The authors discuss the need to consider interactions of individual- and contextual-level factors in better understanding African American youths' academic and social development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recognizing: The judgment of previous occurrence.

Several suggestions for a class of theories of recognition memory have been proposed during the past decade. These models address predictions about judgments of prior occurrence of an event, not the identification of what it is. The history and current status of one of these models is discussed. The model postulates the detection of familiarity and the utilization of retrieval mechanisms as additive and separate processes. The phenomenal experience of familiarity is assigned to intraevent organizational integrative processes; retrieval depends on interevent elaborative processes. Other current theoretical options are described, and relevant supportive data from the literature are reviewed. New tests of the model involving both free recall and word pair paradigms are presented. The dual process model is extended to the word frequency effect and to the recognition difficulties of amnesic patients. (68 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The identity of psychoanalysis: the question of lay analysis

This article, besides being a general historical account of the nature and meaning of the almost century-long controversy over "the question of lay analysis," also had a specific context and purpose. The author was invited to give the plenary keynote address to the winter meeting of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis in Santa Barbara, California, on December 9, 1994. After the passage of the Gaskill Committee proposals by the American Psychoanalytic Association in 1986, the alteration of the Regional Association agreement between the American and the International Psychoanalytical Association in 1987, and the settlement of the class-action lawsuit by clinical psychologists against the American and the International in 1988, this controversy over lay analysis had finally been resolved within the International and all its component organizations, including the American. The American Academy of Psychoanalysis, however, is one organization (with some overlap of membership with the American Psychoanalytic Association) that continues to maintain a bar against any members except medically qualified psychoanalysts. The author agreed to give the plenary address with the stipulation, which was accepted, that he could use the occasion to review this long history of the struggle over lay analysis, and to ask the Academy to reconsider its long-standing policies that now make it a lonely holdout against the evolution and resolution that has taken place in the overwhelming balance of organized institutional psychoanalysis worldwide.     

The recognition of visual configuration and identity information by children and adults.

The tendency to rely on and the ability to remember configuration and identity information were examined in Exp I with 24 kindergartners, 3rd, and 6th graders, and paid graduate students and university employees. Ss saw, tachistoscopically, arrays of 4 Hebrew letters and, in one condition, made recognition choices between 2 incorrect arrays, one of which differed from the stimulus by items and the other by configuration. In 2 other conditions in which accurate response was permitted, ability to use configuration and item information independently was tested. All Ss tended to rely more on configuration than on identity information and were better able to use configuration than identity information. In a 2nd experiment with 19 Ss from the same age-groups as Exp I, it was established that the items could be remembered under explicit instructions to remember items and ignore configuration. By altering the configuration of items it was possible to produce item recognition decrements in younger, but not older, Ss. It is concluded that development aids visual processing, particularly through a functional integration of systems for handling identity and spatial information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The actualization balance of ethnic identity.

The authors propose that individuals set limits to the actualization of their social and personal identities. Two studies investigated the notion of actualization balance, according to which identity related decision making is affected by the actualization status of that identity. The first study found that people are more willing to allow nonactualization of Jewish ethnic identity to a person who recently actualized that identity than to an individual who has not done so. In the second study, American Jewish students were requested to volunteer for a Jewish cause. When participants had previously been given the opportunity to actualize their Jewish ethnic identity, fewer of them agreed to volunteer, as compared with participants who had been denied the opportunity to actualize that identity and also as compared with control participants. Previous nonactualizers also showed a stronger motivation to actualize their Jewish identity in a new situation than did participants in the control group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The identity of psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts.

Psychoanalysis has been in a constant uninterrupted debate about its identity as a discipline and as a social institution. This article considers the place of science in psychoanalysis, on the one hand, and the hermeneutic nature of our discipline, on the other. The aim is to articulate a typology of psychoanalytic knowledge that characterizes psychoanalysis as a form of therapy, an intellectual movement, and a theoretical system. This typology considers psychoanalysis as a thought collective that influences its members by exchanging and maintaining ideas. To be a well-rounded psychoanalytic thinker or practitioner one must be able to move easily among three realms of knowledge--the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. Each realm has its own criteria of truth and the challenge is to know when to employ which criteria. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Determination of Arabidopsis floral meristem identity by AGAMOUS

Determinate growth of floral meristems in Arabidopsis requires the function of the floral regulatory gene AGAMOUS (AG). Expression of AG mRNA in the central region of floral meristems relies on the partially overlapping functions of the LEAFY (LFY) and APETALA1 (AP1) genes, which promote initial floral meristem identity. Here, we provide evidence that AG function is required for the final definition of floral meristem identity and that constitutive AG function can promote, independent of LFY and AP1 functions, the determinate floral state in the center of reproductive meristems. Loss-of-function analysis showed that the indeterminate central region of the ag mutant floral meristem undergoes conversion to an inflorescence meristem when long-day-dependent flowering stimulus is removed. Furthermore, gain-of-function analysis demonstrated that ectopic AG function results in precocious flowering and the formation of terminal flowers at apices of both the primary inflorescence and axillary branches of transgenic Arabidopsis plants in which AG expression is under the control of the 35S promoter from cauliflower mosaic virus. Similar phenotypes were also observed in lfy ap1 double mutants carrying a 35S-AG transgene. Together, these results indicate that AG is a principal developmental switch that controls the transition of meristem activity from indeterminate to determinate.     

Prevention of allogeneic fetal rejection by tryptophan catabolism

In 1953 Medawar pointed out that survival of the genetically disparate (allogeneic) mammalian conceptus contradicts the laws of tissue transplantation. Rapid T cell-induced rejection of all allogeneic concepti occurred when pregnant mice were treated with a pharmacologic inhibitor of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), a tryptophan-catabolizing enzyme expressed by trophoblasts and macrophages. Thus, by catabolizing tryptophan, the mammalian conceptus suppresses T cell activity and defends itself against rejection.     

Risk of disseminating apiary diseases by international movements of bees and their products

The evaluation of the risks of spreading bee diseases is based on information obtained from a wide variety of sources: reports of the world distribution of pathogenic agents; trade flow in bees and bee products; and observations and experimental data on the diseases. At present, this information is severely lacking and only enables a brief outline of trends to be made. Current data are inadequate to prevent the spread of diseases from one country to another. To improve this situation, it is important that exporting countries establish epidemiological and health surveillance practices based on harmonised procedures and diagnostic tests. In addition, the products of apiculture should be given a permanent, specific nomenclature, drawn up by the World Trade Organisation.     

Personality and interior office design: Exploring the accuracy of visitor attributions.

Examined the relationship between office design (desk and seating arrangements) and occupant personality in a field study of 40 university faculty occupying single offices. Measures included Rotter's Internal–External Locus of Control Scale, Least Preferred Co-Worker (LPC) Scale, and the Extraversion scale from the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Ss using open-desk and seating arrangements exhibited greater locus of control and extraversion, whereas interpersonal LPC orientation was associated with only open-desk placement. Implications of a linkage between office design and personality, including the veridicality of visitor attributions, are discussed. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)