Boys Round Here: The Relationship Between Masculine Honor Ideology, Aggressive Behavior, Race, and Regional Affiliation.

Masculine honor ideology (MHI) refers to a set of beliefs that dictate men must respond aggressively to threat or insult to maintain their ideal masculine reputation. The current study demonstrates the robust relationship between MHI and lifetime aggression outcomes in a national sample of men from the United States. It also details the regional prevalence of MHI and compares these rates across races and regions of the country. Participants included 896 adult United States men (Mage = 35.86, SD = 1.22) recruited on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. It was expected that the odds of endorsing past aggressive behavior and lifetime maladjustment would be increased by stronger adherence to MHI. This hypothesis was supported, and individuals who reported greater MHI adherence also had higher rates of lifetime aggression and maladjustment. Contrary to expectations, White, non-Hispanic men endorsed lower rates of MHI than did other men. Black men adhered more strongly to MHI than White and Hispanic men. It was also expected that men in the Southern and Western United States would endorse greater MHI in comparison to men in the Northeast United States. The hypothesis was only partially supported for White, non-Hispanic men, and it was associated with participant birthplace and their father's birthplace. There were no regional differences in MHI adherence related to the participants' mother's birthplace or where participants lived at survey completion. These findings suggest that MHI may spread more uniformly than prior research suggests and that MHI may have more nuanced cultural considerations that deserve continued empirical investigation.

Childhood Sexual Abuse and Lifetime Aggression.

This study of college undergraduates (N = 873) examined three hypotheses regarding associations between childhood sexual abuse and lifetime aggression: 1) childhood sexual abuse was expected to account for unshared variance in the lifetime aggression indicators after controlling for the potential effects of parental physical abuse, sibling physical abuse, exposure to intimate partner violence, peer bullying, and respondent age; 2) childhood sexual abuse associations were expected to be relatively stronger among the women than the men; 3) childhood sexual abuse links to lifetime aggression were expected to vary as a function of age of victimization (adolescent < childhood < dual-age victims). Aggression histories varied widely with over 20% reporting prior injuries inflicted on others (3.2% > five injuries). Sexual abuse links to aggression tended to be stronger (p < .001) for the women than the men, and rates of aggression were higher when sexual abuse recurred across both childhood and adolescence. Partial support was found for all three hypotheses.

Interactive effects of baseline executive functioning and working memory depletion on alcohol use among heavy drinking young adults.

Binge drinking is frequently reported by young adults, despite being associated with a number of negative consequences. This type of heavy drinking is associated with deficits in many executive functions, including working memory. Poor working memory may contribute to increased alcohol use by limiting one's ability to modulate their behavior, including drinking. Furthermore, the limited resource model of executive functioning predicts that individuals with poorer premorbid executive functioning abilities, whose working memory is taxed or depleted, should experience the highest levels of dysregulated behavior. This research aimed to experimentally test this hypothesis among young adult heavy drinkers. Twenty-four binge and/or heavy drinkers (66.7% men; Mage = 22.95) completed a baseline measure of executive functioning and were then randomized to complete a working memory depletion task or a control task. Participants subsequently completed a taste-rating task in which quantity of alcohol consumed was unobtrusively measured. Participants who experienced working memory depletion were more likely to consume higher quantities of alcohol only when their baseline executive functioning was poorer. Results from this preliminary study suggest that among individuals with lower executive functioning, dysregulated behavior including increased alcohol use may result from environmental demands that tax working memory resources. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Role of Anonymity in Determining the Self-Reported Use of Cocaine and Nonmedical Prescription Stimulant Use Among College Students.

BACKGROUND: Nonmedical prescription stimulant use (NPSU) is commonly reported by college students and is on the rise. It is possible that increases in NPSU rates may stem from a lack of stigmatization regarding use, given recent evidence that students do not hold strong negative perceptions related to NPSU. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to assess NPSU and cocaine use using a conventional method and a method that assures anonymity. As anonymous data collection has typically found higher prevalence rates for stigmatized behaviors compared to conventional techniques, it was expected that cocaine rates would differ between techniques, while NPSU rates would not. METHODS: At a Midwestern university during the Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 terms, groups of college student participants were randomly assigned either to a condition in which the data collection method guaranteed their anonymity (n = 204) or to a condition using a more conventional data collection technique that did not guarantee anonymity (n = 236). Participants responded to self-report measures assessing stimulant use, perception of anonymity of the methods, and demographics. RESULTS: When anonymity was guaranteed, male participants were significantly more likely to report cocaine use. However, no differences in NPSU rates were noted for either sex, regardless of anonymity. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that NPSU may not have the same perceived negative social consequences as other more stigmatized stimulant drugs, with young men in particular giving little weight to the potential consequences of NPSU.