This study investigated whether research by researchers affiliated with a religious academic institution would be seen as of less scientific merit than research done by researchers affiliated with a nonreligious academic institution. Such a bias may exist given the different value systems underlying religion and science, the widespread perception of a conflict between religion and science, and research on differences in cognitive styles and stereotypes about religious versus nonreligious people. In this study, U.S. participants recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk completed an online survey, which included an abstract of an article describing scientific research with authors’ names and academic institutions, and questions on perceived scientific merit, religiosity, spirituality, religion as Quest, and perceived conflict between religion and science. There was a significant difference in the perceived merit of the researchers, with the group believing the researchers were affiliated with a religious academic institution rating the research as lower in scientific merit than the group believing the researchers were affiliated with a nonreligious academic institution. The perceived level of conflict between religion and science was found to moderate the relationship, such that higher levels of perceived conflict between religion and science showed a greater difference in scientific merit between groups.

Literature was reviewed about how synchrony occurs in infant-parent dyads, in emotion, and physiologically in couple dyads. Social baseline theory suggests that both conversation and interpersonal touch confer benefits by reducing burden on the participants through coregulatory processes. The current study examined how affectionate touch and positive conversation influenced physiological synchrony, a potential mechanism of physiological coregulation, in couples. Because synchrony is believed to occur within the autonomic nervous system, in the present study, physiological synchrony was measured using cardiac interbeat interval (IBI) as an indicator of autonomic nervous system activation. Couples were assigned to one of four conditions: interpersonal touch with positive conversation, interpersonal touch without conversation, positive conversation with no interpersonal touch, and neither interpersonal touch nor conversation. We hypothesized that 1) IBI synchrony between spouses within the real data would be significantly higher than within a phase-shuffled version of the data; and 2) synchrony would be strongest in the touch-talk condition, followed by the touch-no talk condition, followed by the talk-no touch- condition, and finally by the no touch-no talk condition. We also investigated whether there was a tendency for husbands or wives to serve as leader or follower in the four conditions. Using windowed lagged cross-correlations, we found that synchrony within the real data was stronger than synchrony within the shuffled data, suggesting that it reflects an ongoing interpersonal process. Next, we found that there was significantly greater synchrony in the touch-talk than in the touch-no talk condition, marginally greater synchrony in the touch-no talk condition than in the no touch-talk condition, and significantly greater synchrony in the no touch-talk than in the no touch-no talk conditions, suggesting that talk, rather than touch, was driving these synchrony levels. We also found that the only condition with a significant level of leading-following pattern was the no touch-talk condition. More husbands than wives led the covariation in IBI when couples were conversing but not touching. When touch was included this effect did not occur. Future research should include potential moderators such as marital satisfaction and investigate whether seeing one’s partner influences synchrony.

Abstract Individuals with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) experience seizure-like behaviors, but without the physiological aspect of a typical epileptic seizure. PNES patients are hypothesized to have seizures to cope with past trauma or current adverse life events. Also, avoidance of emotion may be implicated in the development and maintenance of this disorder, specifically with regard to emotional suppression. The current study examined different facets of PNES patients' emotional responses (self-report, physiological reactivity, and facial expressivity) using a relived emotion task. During this task, participants recalled specific memories related to four target emotions: neutral, angry, shame, and happy in a counterbalanced order for each participant. There was a total of 61 participants involved in the study: 11 PNES patients and two trauma-exposed comparison groups with either high (25) or low (25) levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Patients were hypothesized to have greater physiological reactivity and self-reported intensity, but less overall emotional expressivity, than comparison groups. We explored these hypotheses based on descriptive analyses, or an examination of group means. Contrary to our first hypothesis, PNES patients showed smaller decreases in physiological reactivity, compared to controls during all conditions. Furthermore, PNES patients showed less expressiveness than comparison groups during the happiness condition, but greater expressiveness during the neutral and negative emotion conditions. Lastly, our third hypothesis was supported, as PNES patients reported greater emotional intensity than comparison groups to the neutral, shame, and happiness conditions. However, because of the small sample size of PNES patients, the results should be interpreted with caution. This research may have implications for therapeutic settings because clinicians will better understand the emotional experiences and behaviors of PNES patients during treatment.

Stress, empathy, and emotion regulation are factors that can greatly shape an individual's behavior, thoughts, and physiology. The degree to which an individual experiences stress, demonstrates empathy, or is able to regulate emotions can influence his or her ability to establish strong social bonds. The current study investigated the relationships among stress, empathy, and emotion regulation and considered gender differences in these relationships. I hypothesized that higher levels of current stress would be associated with lower levels of empathy and greater difficulties with emotion regulation, and that empathy and emotion regulation would be positively related. Supporting these hypotheses, the following relationships were found: (a) negative correlation between stress and empathy, (b) positive correlation between stress and emotion regulation difficulties, and (c) negative correlation between empathy and emotion regulation difficulties. Results also revealed that greater perceived stress was associated with less empathy in women, but it was unrelated to empathy in men. On the other hand, stress was associated with greater emotion regulation difficulties in both men and women, indicating that either gender may experience a greater disturbance in their emotional response within a social situation when under the influence of stress. Empathy and emotion regulation are positively correlated in both genders, which might suggest that high emotion regulation may allow for appropriate empathy responses within a given social context.

With social technology on the rise, it is no surprise that young students are at the forefront of its use and impact, particularly in the realm of education. Due to greater accessibility to technology, media multitasking and task-switching are becoming increasingly prominent in learning environments. While technology can have numerous benefits, current literature, though somewhat limited in this scope, overwhelmingly shows it can also be detrimental for academic performance and learning when used improperly. While much of the existing literature regarding the impact of technology on multitasking and task-switching in learning environments is limited to self-report data, it presents important findings and potential applications for modernizing educational institutions in the wake of technological dependence. This literature review summarizes and analyzes the studies in this area to date in an effort to provide a better understanding of the impact of social technology on student learning. Future areas of research and potential strategies to adapt to rising technological dependency are also discussed, such as using a brief "technology break" between periods of study. As of yet, the majority of findings in this research area suggest the following: multitasking while studying lengthens the time required for completion; multitasking during lectures can affect memory encoding and comprehension; excessive multitasking and academic performance are negatively correlated; metacognitive strategies for studying have potential for reducing the harmful effects of multitasking; and the most likely reason students engage in media-multitasking at the cost of learning is the immediate emotional gratification. Further research is still needed to fill in gaps in literature, as well as develop other potential perspectives relevant to multitasking in academic environments.

Menstruation has been characterized as powerful, magical, and mysterious. Historically, it was believed menstrual blood could cure leprosy, warts, birthmarks, gout, goiter, hemorrhoids, epilepsy, worms, and headaches. Menstrual blood was used as a love charm and as a means to ward off river demons or evil spirits, and could be used to honor a god (DeLaney, Lupton, & Toth, 1988, pp.8-9). Contemporary studies reveal that women around the world continue to celebrate their power to create. The World Health Organization studied attitudes of women of all socioeconomic classes in 10 countries (Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Pakistan, Philippines, United Kingdom, United States, Yugoslavia, Mexico, Korea) and found that most women saw menstruation as a positive event (DeLaney et al., 1988, p. 14). In a similar study, Mexican-American women perceived menstruation positively, as a process that "cleans" the body (DeLaney et al., 1988, p. 14).

Females' attractiveness ratings of male faces have often been attributed to the male faces' physical characteristics. Multiple studies have determined that male faces are perceived as more attractive when they show the following characteristics: masculine and feminine features, facial age, neotenous signs, symmetry, and averageness. However, certain traits of the rater, such as mood and romantic relationship status, also influence the perceived attractiveness of those faces. This study was designed to address whether female raters' mood and romantic relationship status were associated with their ratings of men in photographs. We recorded the romantic relationship status and current mood of 115 heterosexual females, who then rated ten male photographs on their: likeability, datability, physical attractiveness, sexual desirability, and perceived age of the face. Four separate one-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were carried out to test the differences in ratings (i.e., physical attractiveness, datability, likability, and sexual desirability) between single and partnered women. Also, among partnered participants, correlations were calculated between relationship happiness and photo ratings. Finally, correlations between attractiveness ratings and mood-related variables were calculated. Results suggested that the participants' mood was associated with the photo ratings. These findings are consistent with previous literature suggesting that mood can influence people's perception of others. We can then infer that physical traits are not the only defining factor of attractiveness.

This study investigated the potential influence of scent on women's mood and perceptions of men's attractiveness. Participants were 58 heterosexual female college students between the ages of 18-35 who were in decent health, did not smoke, and were not pregnant or nursing. They were asked to rate the physical attractiveness, datability, likability, sexual desirability, and perceived age of men in photographs. Photographs were taken from two online databases. During the ratings, the participants were exposed to either a pleasant scent with the putative human pheromone androstadienone or to the same pleasant scent without the pheromone (between subjects design). Analysis of covariance was used to compare effects of pheromone on ratings and pheromone on mood. Although there was a pheromone effect, it was not in the predicted direction. Participants gave higher ratings on datability when smelling the fragrance without the pheromone, suggesting the pheromone actually seemed to cause lower ratings of this quality. On the other hand, the scent with the pheromone may have reduced an increase in negative moods from pre- to post-task. Scent pleasantness was discovered to be an important predictor of both photo ratings and changes in mood during the photo rating session. Although the current study did not provide further evidence that androstadienone is associated with higher attractiveness ratings, it did support the idea that the pheromone may influence mood.

Affection represents a positive and often intimate psychological state (Floyd & Morman, 1998) that is communicated through verbal, nonverbal, and social supportive behaviors. A formidable research literature indicates that receiving and expressing affection significantly benefits health. One form of affection that may produce these benefits is cuddling. Cuddling includes intimate, physical, and loving whole-body contact that does not necessarily include sexual activity and tends to be reserved for very intimate relationships. Working from affectionate exchange theory (Floyd, 2001), this study’s purpose is to examine the effects of cuddling on relational health for individuals living with their spouse. To test a causal relationship between cuddling and relational health, a four-week experiment was conducted. Eighty adults were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) a treatment condition in which individuals were instructed to increase cuddling behaviors with their spouse, (2) a comparison condition in which individuals were instructed to increase shared mealtime with their spouse, or (3) a control condition in which individuals were instructed to not change their behavior. Individuals in the treatment condition were predicted to experience significant improvements in relational health as outlined in the investment model (i.e., relational satisfaction, investment, quality of alternatives, and commitment) to a greater extent than individuals in the comparison or control conditions. A research question explored whether individuals in the comparison condition differed from those in the control condition. Planned contrasts were conducted to test the hypotheses. Results revealed that individuals in the treatment condition reported more relationship satisfaction and commitment and less quality of alternatives than individuals in the comparison and control conditions. Experimental conditions did not differ on reports of investment. Finally, individuals in the comparison and control conditions did not differ on any of the relational health markers. These findings support affection exchange theory and contribute to a growing literature identifying the benefits of affectionate communication. Moreover, the methodology and results of this study provide compelling evidence for a causal relationship between cuddling and satisfaction and commitment for relatively satisfied couples.