Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemNo Preview AvailableChanging the affective valence of the stimulus items influences the IAT by re-defining the category labels(ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE, 2004-05)
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ItemNo Preview AvailableEssentialist beliefs about personality and their implications(SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC, 2004-12)Two studies examine implicit theories about the nature of personality characteristics, asking whether they are understood as underlying essences. Consistent with the hypothesis, essentialist beliefs about personality formed a coherent and replicable set. Personality characteristics differed systematically in the extent to which they were judged to be discrete, biologically based, immutable, informative, consistent across situations, and deeply inherent within the person. In Study 1, the extent to which characteristics were essentialized was positively associated with their perceived desirability, prevalence, and emotionality. In Study 2, essentialized characteristics were judged to be particularly important for defining people's identity, for forming impressions of people, and for communicating about a third person. The findings indicate that people understand some personality attributes in an essentialist fashion, that these attributes are taken to be valued elements of a shared human nature, and that they are particularly central to social identity and judgment.
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ItemGenetics and public health - evolution, or revolution?(BMJ PUBLISHING GROUP, 2004-11)During the 19th and early 20th century, public health and genetics shared common ground through similar approaches to health promotion in the population. By the mid-20th century there was a division between public health and genetics, with eugenicists estranged and clinical genetics focused on single gene disorders, usually only relevant to small numbers of people. Now through a common interest in the aetiology of complex diseases such as heart disease and cancer, there is a need for people working in public health and genetics to collaborate. This is not a comfortable convergence for many, particularly those in public health. Nine main concerns are reviewed: fear of eugenics; genetic reductionism; predictive power of genes; non-modifiable risk factors; rights of individuals compared with populations; resource allocation; commercial imperative; discrimination; and understanding and education. This paper aims to contribute to the thinking and discussion about an evolutionary, multidisciplinary approach to understanding, preventing, and treating complex diseases.
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ItemNicotine dependence in a prospective population-based study of adolescents: the protective role of a functional tyrosine hydroxylase polymorphism(LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS, 2004-02)Dopamine is a key neurotransmitter of the mesolimbic reward pathway in the human brain, and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) is the rate-limiting enzyme in dopamine biosynthesis. Consequently, the gene encoding TH is a strong candidate for involvement in the genetic component of addiction. The importance of this gene in nicotine dependence is supported by many studies showing a link between nicotine administration and TH expression. A functional tetranucleotide repeat polymorphism within intron 1 of the TH gene (HUMTH01-VNTR) has been shown to modify tobacco use in two independent Caucasian samples from the USA and Australia. Using information drawn from an eight-wave Australian population-based longitudinal study of adolescent health, we tested the effect of the HUMTH01-VNTR on nicotine dependence. Comparisons were made between dependent smokers and non-dependent smokers. These data provide further support for a protective association between the K4 allele and dependent smoking (odds ratio 0.54, 95% confidence interval 0.28-1.0). No associations were observed at any of three other common TH polymorphisms (rs6356, rs6357 and HUMTH01-PstI). Including these data, three independent studies, two of which use identical phenotypes, have now identified a protective relationship between the K4 allele of the functional HUMTH01-VNTR polymorphism and high-level smoking.
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Item"Machiavellian" intelligence as a basis for the evolution of cooperative dispositions(CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS, 2004-02)How to promote cooperative behavior is classically solved by incentives that lead self-interested individuals in socially desirable directions, but by now well-established laboratory results show that people often do act cooperatively, even at significant cost to themselves. These results suggest that cooperative dispositions might be an evolved part of human nature. Yet such dispositions appear inconsistent with the “Machiavellian intelligence” paradigm, which develops the idea that our brains have evolved, in substantial part, for capturing adaptive advantage from within-group competition. We use simulation to address the evolutionary relationship between basic Machiavellian capacities and cooperative dispositions. Results show that selection on such capacities can (1) permit the spread of cooperative dispositions even in cooperation-unfriendly worlds and (2) support transitions to populations with high mean cooperative dispositions. We distinguish between “rationality in action” and “rationality in design”—the adaptive fit between a design attribute of an animal and its environment. The combination of well-developed Machiavellian intelligence, modest mistrust, and high cooperative dispositions appears to be a rational design for the brains of highly political animals such as ourselves.
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ItemPatterns of analogical reasoning among beginning readers(WILEY, 2004-08)Despite compelling evidence that analogy skills are available to beginning readers, few studies have actually explored the possibility of identifying individual differences in young children's analogy skills in early reading. The present study examined individual differences in children's use of orthographic and phonological relations between words as they learn to read. Specifically, the study addressed whether general analogical reasoning, short‐term memory and domain‐specific reading skills explain 5‐ to 6‐year‐olds' reading analogies (n=51). The findings revealed an orthographic analogy effect accompanied by high levels of phonological priming. Single‐word reading and use of visual analogies predicted young children's orthographic and phonological analogies in the regression analyses. However, different findings emerged from exploring profiles based on individual differences in reasoning skill. Indeed, when individual differences in composite scores of orthographic and phonological analogy were examined, group membership was predicted by word reading and early phonological knowledge, rather than general analogical reasoning skills. The findings highlight the usefulness of exploring individual differences in children's analogy development in the early stages of learning to read.
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