The Effects of Target Attractiveness on Men's Sexual Arousal in Response to Erotic Auditory Stimuli

Previous research on sexual arousal resulting from auditory stimuli indicates that visual imagery acts as a mediator between stimulus input and resulting arousal. This leads to the question of whether imagery, and subsequent arousal, can be manipulated by providing differing information to hold in semantic memory. This research hypothesizes that attractive images, held within semantic memory and pattern matched with an erotic auditory stimulus, facilitate higher and more rapid self-reported arousal than do unattractive images. Participants in an unattractive condition experienced slower rates and lower mean levels of arousal in response to an auditory stimulus compared with participants in an attractive or no picture condition. No differences existed between groups in maximum arousal scores or the tendency to visualize the target during the listening task. Implications for the role of imagery in sexual response, possible measurement issues, and suggestions for future research are addressed in the discussion.     

Facilitated Disclosure versus Clinical Accommodation of Infidelity Secrets: An Early Pivot Point in Couple Therapy. Part 1: Couple Relationship Ethics, Pragmatics, and Attachment

A critical and potentially polarizing decision in treating infidelity is whether facilitating partner disclosure or accommodating nondisclosure is most beneficial following private disclosure of infidelity to the therapist. Given couple distress and volatility following disclosure, understandably some therapists judge accommodating an infidelity secret both efficient and compassionate. Employing Western ethics and an attachment/intimacy lens, we consider ethical, pragmatic, and attachment intimacy implications of accommodating infidelity secrets. Issues bearing on the decision to facilitate disclosure or accommodate nondisclosure include (a) relationship ethics and pragmatics; (b) attachment and intimacy consequences; and (c) prospects for healing. We conclude that facilitating voluntary disclosure of infidelity, although difficult and demanding, represents the most ethical action with the best prospects for renewed and vital attachment intimacy.     

Kinesic Patterning in Deceptive and Truthful Interactions

A persistent question in the deception literature has been the extent to which nonverbal behaviors can reliably distinguish between truth and deception. It has been argued that deception instigates cognitive load and arousal that are betrayed through visible nonverbal indicators. Yet, empirical evidence has often failed to find statistically significant or strong relationships. Given that interpersonal message production is characterized by a high degree of simultaneous and serial patterning among multiple behaviors, it may be that patterns of behaviors are more diagnostic of veracity. Or it may be that the theorized linkage between internal states of arousal, cognitive taxation, and efforts to control behavior and nonverbal behaviors are wrong. The current investigation addressed these possibilities by applying a software program called THEME to analyze the patterns of kinesic movements (adaptor gestures, illustrator gestures, and speaker and listener head movements) rated by trained coders for participants in a mock crime experiment. Our multifaceted analysis revealed that the quantity and quality of patterns distinguish truths from untruths. Quantitative and qualitative analyses conducted by case and condition revealed high variability in the types and complexities of patterns that were produced and differences between truthful and deceptive respondents questioned about a theft. Patterns incorporating adaptors and illustrator gestures were correlated in counterintuitive ways with arousal, cognitive load, and behavioral control, and qualitative analyses produced unique insights into truthful and untruthful communication.     

‘I don't have anything to hide,but … ': the challenges and negotiations of social and mobile media privacy for non-dominant youth

Drawing from interviews and focus groups with teens in a low-income and ethnically diverse high school in central Texas, this paper explores the unique social privacy challenges and strategies of low-income and non-dominant youth. Situating the research in a broader context in which non-dominant teens are increasingly surveilled, I demonstrate how teens manage social privacy in at least three ways. First, they negotiate liminal boundaries of what constitutes a communal or shareable mobile device, which are structured around financial constraints. Second, through nonuse, they actively resist the ways mobile and social media reconfigure social and physical spaces. Third, they deliberately use multiple platforms as a way to cope with evolving privacy settings, social norms, and technological affordances; this is a deliberate strategy intended to resist social convergence. Because low-income and non-dominant youth are increasingly surveilled by adults, peers, and institutions, it is imperative that they find spaces that afford greater freedom of expression, interest-based communities, and privacy.     

Positivism: paradigm or culture?

Much post-positivist policy theory implies that positivism exists as a self-protecting paradigm. Inspired by a one-sided reading of Kuhn, this understanding suggests that policy positivism must be overcome as a whole. This approach is problematic. In particular, there are important contradictions between various elements commonly said to be part of the positivist paradigm, contradictions that make it difficult to believe that the paradigm can be embraced as a whole. An alternative approach views positivism as a culture. Since components of any culture can evolve independently of each other, a cultural approach would focus its critique on specific dimensions of positivism. This approach would provide more rigor to policy critique, and push post-positivists to overcome weaknesses in their own theories, in particular those concerning the question of truth.     

Are Self‐Service Customers Satisfied or Stuck?

This paper investigates the impact of self‐service technology (SST) usage on customer satisfaction and retention. Specifically, we disentangle the distinct effects of satisfaction and switching costs as drivers of retention among self‐service customers. Our empirical analysis examines 26,924 multi‐channel customers of a nationwide retail bank. We track each customer's channel usage, overall satisfaction, and retention over a 1‐year period. We find that, relative to face‐to‐face service, customers who use self‐service channels for a greater proportion of their transactions are either no more satisfied, or less satisfied with the service they receive, depending on the channel. However, we also find that these same customers are predictably less likely to defect to a competitor if they are heavily reliant on self‐service channels characterized by high switching costs. Through a mediation model, we demonstrate that, when self‐service usage promotes retention, it does so in a way that is consistent with switching costs. As a robustness check, we examine the behavior of channel enthusiasts, who concentrate transactions among specific channels. Relative to more diversified customers, we find that self‐service enthusiasts in low switching cost channels defect with greater frequency, while self‐service enthusiasts in high switching cost channels are retained with greater frequency.     

Valuing Informal Care Experience: Does Choice of Measure Matter?

Well-being equations are often estimated to generate monetary values for non-marketed activities. In such studies, utility is often approximated by either life satisfaction or General Health Questionnaire scores. We estimate and compare monetary valuations of informal care for the first time in the UK employing both measures, using longitudinal data on well-being and informal care provision. The choice of well-being measure has some effect on the estimated parameters and resulting monetary valuations, but any differences are not statistically significant. Further research is needed to confirm the comparability of these measures if researchers are to continue to use them interchangeably.     

The relevance of situation awareness in older adults’ cognitive functioning: a review

Age-related declines in cognition may have detrimental effects on older adults’ ability to complete everyday activities that young- and middle-aged individuals perform automatically. Theories of cognitive aging have found deficits in older adults’ fluid intelligence, capacity for inhibition, number of processing resources, and speed of processing, and in recent years, studies have proposed cognitive strategies to ameliorate these declines. However, few strategies directly train the cognitive strategies necessary to improve performance in dynamic environments and physical activities. One such strategy may be the enhancement of situation awareness, the capability to perceive and understand one’s environment. Although the term has typically been applied to pilots and other expert performers, situation awareness may also be relevant to cognitive aging, where older adults’ perception and comprehension of their environment become critical to everyday functioning and physical activities. If older adults’ situation awareness can be facilitated, then it may be possible to reduce the impact of age-related cognitive declines, allowing older adults to successfully participate in dynamic situations and sports where the environment is constantly changing (e.g., driving and tennis). The following review outlines cognitive deficits in aging, details their relation to situation awareness, and discusses how training in situation awareness may reduce cognitive declines. Portions of this paper were reported at the annual meeting of the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity in June, 2005.