Effects of dietary restraint, obesity, and gender on holiday eating behavior and weight gain.

This investigation evaluated the impact of dietary restraint, relative weight, and gender on holiday eating behavior and weight gain. 65 Ss (31 men and 34 women) completed detailed food records for the 2 days before, the 4 days during, and the 2 days after the Thanksgiving weekend. Results indicated increased eating during the Thanksgiving holiday, with men eating more than women and the obese eating less than the nonobese. There was also a significant Total Restraint?×?Weight?×?Time interaction, with unrestrained normal-weight subjects behaving similarly to high-restrained overweight subjects over time. There was also a highly reliable Total Restraint?×?Sex?×?Time interaction. The most striking finding from this interaction was that high-restrained women displayed decreases in their dietary intake over time. Correlational analyses revealed that restraint scores were negatively associated with dietary intake over the 8-day period but were positively associated with weight gain. The implications for dieting, eating behavior, and energy balance are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Causal models of publishing productivity in psychology.

Six theoretical models of academic publishing productivity (PUP) were distilled from the literature in sociology, economics, and psychology. Although all theory-based models identify ability as a causal antecedent of PUP, it is rarely introduced in empirical studies. A measure of ability is operationalized and 6 causal models of PUP are estimated by path analysis, using data on 162 academic psychologists. Results support key theoretical propositions of most models. Several models fit the data according to the chi-square criterion, but none include all the important determinants of PUP. A theory-based best-fit model shows that ability affects PUP directly and indirectly, by providing access to training in prestigious graduate programs. Attending a prestigious graduate program increases PUP by providing access to academic appointments in other prestigious programs. Sex of the researcher has a large direct effect on publishing quantity but not quality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eliciting reliable uncertainty estimates

Abstract: Knowledge engineers often find that experts' estimates of uncertainty change from one day to the next and therefore often seem unreliable. This article explores the unreliability of probability estimates. Forty undergraduates answered 31 questions concerning the probability of daily events at two separate times. Three answer modalities were available: probability, chances and percent of the time. This paper finds that reliability decreases when answer modalities change from one time to the next. It is hypothesized that problem-solving approaches changed along with the modalities. The subjects represented a wide range in reliability, with the most reliable subjects changing answer modalities less than the unreliable subjects. These results suggest that knowledge engineers should endeavor to have experts express their uncertainty estimates using consistent modalities.     

Nitric oxide formation does not underlie the memory deficits produced by ibotenate injections into the nucleus basalis of rats.

Basal forebrain (BF) injections of ibotenic (IBO) acid impair memory, whereas quisqualic (QUIS) acid injections do not. The authors investigated whether the cytotoxicity and differential behavioral effects of IBO and QUIS in rats depend on the generation of nitric oxide (NO). 128 rats served as Ss. Injections of IBO or sodium nitroprusside (NP), but not QUIS, significantly increased BF NO formation, as determined by guanosine 3,5-cyclic monophosphate levels. IBO, alone or coinjected with methylene blue (MB), and QUIS, alone or coinjected with NP, decreased cortical choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) activity and the number of ChAT-positive BF neurons. The BF levels of galanin or neuropeptide Y were unchanged in all lesion groups. QUIS, but not IBO, dose-dependently destroyed NO-producing BF cells. Injections of IBO, with or without MB, impaired choice accuracy in a T-maze alternation task. The results suggest that the generation of NO in the BF does not underlie the spatial working memory deficit produced by IBO. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Women's Health Initiative: Why now? What is it? What's new?

Studies collectively named the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) are currently enrolling 164,500 postmenopausal women in several overlapping clinical trials and an observational study. The overall goals of WHI are to understand the determinants of postmenopausal women's health and to evaluate the efficacy of practical interventions in preventing the major causes of morbidity and mortality in older women. This article reviews the research leading to the WHI studies; describes the study designs and protocols, with an emphasis on what's new about WHI from a psychological perspective; and outlines the major psychosocial hypotheses under investigation and the major challenges WHI presents to psychological science. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Powder Preparation and Sintering Characteristics of Rare-Earth Sesquisulfide Ceramics

Dense ceramics were prepared from rare-earth sesquisulfides. Extremely fine-grained precursor oxides were synthesized by evaporative decomposition of solutions. The sesquisulfides were synthesized by direct reaction of the oxides with flowing H₂S in the presence of graphite. These reactive, fine-grained, EDS-derived sulfides could be sintered into ceramic compacts that achieved 92–98% of theoretical density. In comparison, the same processing conditions with 25–50 m stock powder produced ceramics with only 70–80% of theoretical density.     

Chronic stress impairs rat spatial memory on the Y maze, and this effect is blocked by tianeptine treatment.

Chronic restraint stress causes significant dendritic atrophy of CA3 pyramidal neurons that reverts to baseline within a week. Therefore, the authors assessed the functional consequences of this atrophy quickly (within hours) using the Y maze. Experiments 1–3 demonstrated that rats relied on extrinsic, spatial cues located outside of the Y maze to determine arm location and that rats with hippocampal damage (through kainic acid, colchicine, or trimethyltin) had spatial memory impairments. After the Y maze was validated as a hippocampally relevant spatial task, Experiment 4 showed that chronic restraint stress impaired spatial memory performance on the Y maze when rats were tested the day after the last stress session and that tianeptine prevented the stress-induced spatial memory impairment. These data are consistent with the previously demonstrated ability of tianeptine to prevent chronic stress-induced atrophy of the CA3 dendrites. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A social relations analysis of agreement in liking judgments.

Using a round-robin design in which every subject served both as judge and target, subjects made liking judgments, trait ratings, and physical attractiveness ratings of each other on each of 4 days. Although there was some agreement in the liking judgments, most of the variance was due to idiosyncratic preferences for different targets. Differences in evaluations were due to at least 2 factors: disagreements in how targets were perceived (is this person honest?) and disagreements in how to weight the trait attributes that predicted liking (is honesty more important than friendliness?) When evaluating the targets in specific roles (as a study partner), judgments showed much greater agreement, as did the weights of the trait attributes. A 2nd study confirmed the differential weighting of trait attributes when rating liking in general and the increased agreement when rating specific roles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Countertransference in the treatment of pathological narcissism.

Explores literature on countertransference reactions experienced in psychodynamic work with narcissistic clients, examines the various therapist–client variables involved in these reactions, and briefly suggests approaches to understanding and resolving them. Common types of narcissistic transference and countertransference include responses to the mirroring transference, idealizing transference, twinship transference, and negative transference. Underlying principles in understanding and effectively utilizing one's countertransference feelings in psychotherapy include differentiating subjective vs objective countertransference and determining whether to interpret these feelings with regard to both the client's developmental needs and phase of treatment. This is especially important in treating narcissistic clients whose self-esteem is fragile and who are, thus, prone to experience shame and rage reactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Co-occurrent use of cigarettes, alcohol, and coffee in healthy, community-living men and women.

Compared the proportion of 226 male (aged 16–70 yrs) and 245 female (aged 16–69 yrs) healthy, community-living middle-class Americans identified as smokers (SMs), ex-smokers (XSMs), and nonsmokers (NSMs) that were categorized as users of more or less amounts of coffee and alcohol. Results indicate that for both sexes, SMs and XSMs were more likely than NSMs to drink greater amounts of alcohol and coffee. For all 3 groups, a majority of Ss who reported drinking more alcohol also reported drinking more coffee. The coffee and alcohol consumption levels of XSMs resembled those of SMs more than those of NSMs. XSMs also reported drinking more wine and decaffeinated coffee than either SMs or NSMs. The number of cigarettes smoked per day was positively related to total alcohol and coffee consumption in men but not in women. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)