Both animal and human studies suggest that cognitive bias toward negative information, such as that observed in major depression, may arise through the interaction of cortisol (CORT) and norepinephrine (NE) within the amygdala. To date, there is no published account of the relationship between endogenous NE and CORT levels and cognitive bias. The present study examined salivary CORT and salivary alpha-amylase (sAA), an indirect measure of NE, in relation to masked affective priming of words in young female participants. Women with higher salivary CORT showed increased priming to negative word pairs only when sAA was also high; when sAA was low, no effect of CORT on priming was observed. These results are in line with previous research indicating that increased CORT is linked to enhanced processing of negative information. However, our findings extend this literature in providing evidence that CORT predicts enhanced processing of negatively valenced information only in the presence of higher sAA.

Children’s literature is a critical aspect during a child’s development; the messages portrayed in children’s books can affect the development of gender identity in young children and can affect how a child with act and perceive the world around them in the future (Tsao, 2008). Expanding on this research this study aimed to determine if award winning children’s literature contained implicit and explicit gender stereotypes and biases in the illustrations and text. The sample examined was Caldecott Award and Honor books from 2001 through 2014; the sample size was did not include biographies, autobiographies, informational books, concept books, poetry, and science fiction. This study only examined works of fiction and each book was examined, read, and analyzed. Following the methodology of various studies, a three part Data Collection Instrument was used: book identification, frequency analysis of illustrations, and a character analysis. This research attempted to answer the following questions: (1) Is there evidence of gender stereotypes in the written depiction of characters in Caldecott Award and Honor books award between 2001 and 2014?, (2) Is there evidence of gender stereotypes in the illustrated depictions of characters in Caldecott Award and Honor books award between 2001 and 2014?, and (3) Are males’ and females’ roles and attributes represented equally through the text and illustrations? This research aimed at examining whether gender biases and stereotypes still existed in the text and illustrations and if so, to what extent.

The role of factors previously implicated as leading to confirmation bias during hypothesis testing was explored. Confirmation bias is a phenomenon in which people select cases for testing when the expected results of the case are more likely to support their current belief than falsify it. Klayman (1995) proposed three primary determinants for confirmation bias. Klayman and his colleagues proposed that a general positive testing strategy leads to the phenomenon of confirmation bias. According to Klayman’s account, participants in previous research were not actively working to support their hypothesis. Rather, they were applying a valid hypothesis testing strategy that works well outside of laboratory tasks. In laboratory tasks, such as Wason’s 2-4-6 task (Wason, 1960), the strategy failed because the nature of the task takes advantage of particular flaws in the positive testing behavior participants learned through their experience with the real-world. Given Klayman’s proposed set of determinants for the positive testing strategy phenomenon, treatments were developed that would directly violate the assumptions supporting application of the positive testing strategy. If participants were able to identify and act on these violations of the assumptions, the number of positive tests was expected to be reduced. The test selection portion of the Mynatt, Doherty, and Tweney (1977) microworld experiment was modified with additional instruction conditions and a new scenario description to investigate the impact of the treatments to reduce confirmation bias in test selection. Despite expectations, the thematic content modifications and determinant-targeting instruction conditions had no effect on participant positive test selection.

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