Ongoing investigations of drunken aggression tend to focus on 1) situational cues, and 2) individual variables such as personality traits. This study investigated the hypothesis that an undergraduates attention would be pulled toward a nonconscious presentation of aggression stimuli, especially in the presence of alcohol cues, and especially if he or she was high on trait anger [as measured using the State Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI); Spielberger, 1988] and had high expectancies for behaving aggressively while drinking alcohol [as measured using the Expectancy Questionnaire for Alcohol and Aggression Lo Dose (EQAAL); Epps, Hunter, LeVasseur, Steinberg, and Hancock, unpublished manuscript]. Seventy-nine of the participants who completed questionnaires also completed one of the two computer tasks (adapted from John Bargh and associates) weeks later in either the Barroom or the Cleanroom. Attention to HiAggression words (as measured by reaction time or error rate difference scores) was significantly higher than attention to NonAggression words using the parafoveal visual task, with observed power at 1. No significant differences were found using the dichotic listening task. Additionally, there was a significant three-way interaction (Word Type X Setting X Angry Temperament) when participants where blocked according to high vs. low angry temperament scores. Follow-up analyses as well as regression analyses for the specific hypothesis provided mixed results. Individuals lower on angry temperament tended to demonstrate higher levels of attentional interference for aggression words, but only in the presence of alcohol cues. Conversely, individuals higher on angry temperament evidenced higher levels of attentional interference, but only in the absence of alcohol cues. It appears that the relationships among these variables are by no means straightforward. Studies that include an opportunity to aggress behaviorally may shed more light on whether ones level of attentional interference and self-reported personality traits can be combined to predict aggression in the presence of alcohol cues. The parafoveal visual task is recommended as the methodology of choice for these future studies.

Obesity is a growing problem in the United States. Research into the causes, treatment, and prevention of obesity is vital. One past study examined four eating behaviors in relation to obesity: eating beyond satiety, snacking, night eating, and feeling hungry within three hours of eating. Only eating beyond satiety was associated with obesity. The present study examined these same eating behaviors while correcting some of the flaws of the previous study. Using a cross-sectional design, university undergraduates reported on the frequency of the above-named eating behaviors. Current weight and height were collected. Multiple regression analyses determined that eating beyond satiety and hunger predicted body mass index (BMI). Race/ethnicity moderated the relationship between hunger and BMI. These findings have important implications for obesity treatment as well as suggesting important avenues for future research.

Research on self-control suggests that people do not do as well at self-control after they have already exerted self-control on something else. Despite the obvious importance of self-control in drinking behavior, few studies have examined alcohol consumption as an outcome measure in the context of self-control depletion and the potential role of cognitive processes in the self-control to drinking relationship remains largely unexplored. Although it is widely agreed that alcohol expectancies play an important role in one's decision to drink, no study has examined the role of expectancies in self-control's influence on drinking. This study addresses this important gap in the research by testing whether positive expectancies for alcohol influence the relationship between self-control depletion and placebo alcohol consumption in the laboratory. Results offer support for the resource model of self-control depletion in the context of drinking decisions; participants in the depleted self-control condition drank more placebo alcohol despite being reminded to be ready for an upcoming memory task. Hypotheses of conditional and indirect effects consistent with a process model of self-control were not supported. Using nonparametric analytic techniques, patterns in the data emerged suggestive of conditional indirect effects, though they appear to be very small in scale. Findings support the further exploration of the primary hypotheses, given the consideration of current limitations.

A study was conducted among a sample of Korean American students to investigate the potential moderation of the risks related to English proficiency by the protection of school belonging. Perceived scholastic competence, self-reported school grades, and academic expectancies were used for dependent variables. It was hypothesized that students with higher sense of belonging would be less affected by English proficiency than their peers with lower sense of belonging. The risk of English proficiency was confirmed. However, school belonging did not have as much of an effect as expected and students with higher English proficiency seemed to gain more benefit from increased school belonging. This finding reminds educators of the pressing importance of English proficiency, and future research is suggested to investigate the unique effects of belonging among students of Korean, and perhaps other Asian, backgrounds.

This study examined the independent and interactive effects of acute alcohol consumption, perceived alcohol consumption of a female confederate, and distal alcohol expectancies of intoxicated women, on sexual aggression. Participants were a diverse community sample (54% African-American) of heterosexual males (N = 156) between 21 and 35 years of age who were recruited to complete the study with a male friend and an ostensibly single, heterosexual female who reported a strong dislike of sexual content in the media. Sexual aggression was measured utilizing a well-validated laboratory paradigm in which participants viewed a sexually explicit or non-sexually explicit video clip as part of a contrived media rating task and made individual choices of which video clip to show the female confederate. Sexual aggression was operationalized as selection of the sexually explicit video, as opposed to the non-sexually explicit video. Results demonstrated that acute alcohol consumption, perceived female alcohol consumption, and distal alcohol expectancies of women’s vulnerability to sexual coercion and sexual drive while intoxicated, were not significantly related to sexual aggression utilizing the current paradigm. Post-hoc analyses revealed that the primary predictor variables were significantly related to participants’ perceived distress of a female confederate following an act of sexual aggression. Discussion focused on understanding what factors may have been relevant in understanding why the primary predictor variables were not significantly related to sexual aggression utilizing the current paradigm. Finally, clinical implications were explored in addressing a lack of perceived distress in potential female victims by individuals who endorsed higher levels of distal alcohol expectancies of intoxicated women’s vulnerability to sexual coercion and what potential interventions be utilized clinically.

Today’s youth have been exposed to more gambling-related media than previous generations, and they have grown up in an era in which states not only sanction but also run and promote gambling enterprises. Social Learning Theory proposes that one can develop new attitudes or expectancies about a specific behavior by watching others engage in that behavior, and that the media is one avenue through which one can develop new expectancies (Bandura, 2001). In addition, the Theory of Reasoned Action proposes that one’s behaviors are influenced directly by both subjective norms and attitudes (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). A mixed methods explanatory design was used to test a modified version of the Theory of Reasoned Action in which subjective norms and gambling-related media were hypothesized to have an effect on gambling behaviors directly and indirectly through both positive and negative expectancies. Structural Equation Modeling was used to test the hypotheses, and semi-standardized interviews were used to help explain the results of the quantitative analyses and provide a richer and more accurate interpretation of the data. The hypothesized model was partially supported: the model was a good fit with the female college student data, accounting for 27.8% of variance in female student gambling behaviors, and it fit the male college student data reasonably well, accounting for 35.2% of variance in male student gambling behaviors. Results indicated that perceived subjective norms were more important for female college students. Results also indicated that exposure to gambling-related media has a direct positive association with both male and female college student gambling behaviors, and that exposure to gambling-related media has an indirect, positive association with male college student behaviors through positive expectancies. However, exposure to gambling-related media is not associated with positive expectancies about gambling for female college students. Data from the qualitative interviews supported the findings from the qualitative analyses and provided some clues about the progression from non-problematic to problematic behaviors, which may inform future research in this area.

Investigations of the anticipated effects of alcohol indicate that cognitive frameworks are highly correlated with drinking and other variables associated with alcohol use, explaining up to 50% of the variance in drinking outcomes (Goldman, Darkes, & Del Boca, 1999; Goldman, 2002; Goldman et al., 2006; Goldman, Reich, & Darkes, 2006). Furthermore, alcohol expectancies appear to mediate the relationship between a variety of risk factors, such as sensation seeking, and alcohol outcomes (Darkes, Greenbaum, & Goldman, 2004). The current study examined the relationship of these cognitive networks with a physiological index of expectancy violation Participants were presented with statements reflecting a wide range of alcohol outcome effects, which either violated or confirmed the participant’s own set of alcohol expectancies, while the ERPs evoked by these stimuli were recorded. As predicted, the P300 amplitude elicited by negative alcohol expectancy stimuli was positively correlated with the degree of endorsement of positive/arousing expectancies on the self-report measure. That is, the higher the individual’s positive/arousing expectancies, the larger the P300 elicited by stimuli asserting the negative effects of alcohol. There was no significant correlation, however, between P300 amplitude elicited by positive alcohol expectancy stimuli and the degree of endorsement of negative/sedating expectancies on the selfreport measure. In addition, individual differences relating to alcohol expectancies were examined as well. These results were able to identify specific stimuli that violated expectancies for each individual, as well as those that tended to violate expectancies in systematic ways across subjects. These findings provide a way forward for more precise assessment and prediction based on the well developed cognitive model of Alcohol Expectancies. In sum, variations in the amplitude of the P300 were consistent with the model of Alcohol Expectancies. Words imputing negative/sedating effects of alcohol elicited a large P300 in individuals with higher positive alcohol expectancies. By indexing the brain’s electrophysiological response sensitive to expectancy violations, these findings demonstrate concordance between verbal measures of alcohol expectancies, which by their very nature are introspective, and a psychophysiological index of expectancy thought to operate automatically and to be independent of overt responding.

Η παρούσα εργασία αναφέρεται στη μελέτη των σχολικών σχέσεων και των εξωσχολικών δραστηριοτήτων των Ελλήνων και αλλοδαπών μαθητών. Αναλυτικότερα, μελετούνται οι σχέσεις που αναπτύσσουν οι μαθητές μεταξύ τους, πόσο επηρεάζονται αυτές από την καταγωγή των μαθητών καθώς και οι σχέσεις των μαθητών με το δάσκαλό τους. Τέλος, ερευνάται η επιλογή των εξωσχολικών δραστηριοτήτων από την πλευρά των μαθητών σε σχέση με την επίδραση της οικογένειας και του σχολείου. / The present study refers to school relations and extracurricular activities of Greek and foreign students. Particularly, subjects, such as relationships among students as well as the impact students’ origin has on it or relationships between students and their teacher have been studied. Finally, there has been investigated the influence which family and school have on students’ choice of extracurricular activities.

Narrowing the gap in health inequality is vital not only from an equity point of view but also from an economic cost point of view. Small-area level investigations of health inequalities can play an important role in this effort. This research is an attempt to produce evidence of within-province social and health inequality. This cross-sectional, ecological study examines the geographical distribution of life expectancy at birth (LE) and its relationships with two domains of deprivation—material and social—at two time periods (1995-1999 and 2003-2007) across 182 ‘communities.’ The deprivation measures were derived from a set of indices now widely used in Quebec. Five community types assigned to the communities represented relative levels of rurality. A general pattern was observed that material deprivation became more prominent as ‘rurality’ increased. The pattern of social deprivation by rurality was more ‘flat’ where other levels of rurality than the most urban type had similar deprivation scores and rankings. LE was patterned by a relative degree of deprivation but not by rurality per se, though high socioeconomic deprivation tends to be observed in ‘rural areas.’ The gaps in LEs between the most and least deprived were wider for males than for females. Inequalities in LE by material deprivation of the communities appear to have widened over time. The regression models indicated the presence of an interaction effect—material and social deprivation together exacerbate the risk of low LE. The study also observed some regional clustering of unaccounted factors, which requires further investigation to determine what potential regional phenomena account for this effect. Lastly, the deprivation scores left more variations in LE in rural communities unexplained than variations in urban communities, leading us to suspect that the indices employed might be less sensitive for health inequalities in rural communities than in urban communities. Further research efforts are necessary to tackle many questions this research could not address, which would more fully inform policy related to the reduction of health and social inequality in Nova Scotia and elsewhere.

A study was conducted among a sample of Korean American students to investigate the potential moderation of the risks related to English proficiency by the protection of school belonging. Perceived scholastic competence, self-reported school grades, and academic expectancies were used for dependent variables. It was hypothesized that students with higher sense of belonging would be less affected by English proficiency than their peers with lower sense of belonging. The risk of English proficiency was confirmed. However, school belonging did not have as much of an effect as expected and students with higher English proficiency seemed to gain more benefit from increased school belonging. This finding reminds educators of the pressing importance of English proficiency, and future research is suggested to investigate the unique effects of belonging among students of Korean, and perhaps other Asian, backgrounds.