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The article discusses a study that tested the hypothesis that men's greater endorsement of sexist attitudes and objectification of women would be associated with their own drive for muscularity. Associations between oppressive beliefs, operationalized as sexist attitudes and objectification of others, and a range of beauty ideals and practices among women was reported. A desire for more muscular physique associated with oppressive beliefs held by men was concluded.

Previous research suggested that sex differences in personality traits are larger in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities equal with those of men. In this article, the authors report cross-cultural findings in which this unintuitive result was replicated across samples from 55 nations (N = 17,637). On responses to the Big Five Inventory, women reported higher levels of neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness than did men across most nations. These findings converge with previous studies in which different Big Five measures and more limited samples of nations were used. Overall, higher levels of human development--including long and healthy life, equal access to knowledge and education, and economic wealth--were the main nation-level predictors of larger sex differences in personality. Changes in men's personality traits appeared to be the primary cause of sex difference variation across cultures. It is proposed that heightened levels of sexual dimorphism result from personality traits of men and women being less constrained and more able to naturally diverge in developed nations. In less fortunate social and economic conditions, innate personality differences between men and women may be attenuated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of mental health literacy is well-developed, but the basic methodology used in this research (i.e., the use of text-based vignettes) has not changed substantively in over two decades of work. Here, we developed novel filmed disclosures to re-assess mental health literacy of depression in a preregistered study utilizing a randomized, fully within-subjects design. A total of 405 adults from Austria (57% women, age M = 32.5 years) viewed short (~3 min) filmed disclosures by a female or male target and were asked to report if they thought anything was wrong with the targets and, if so, to describe what they thought was wrong. Participants also rated the targets on a range of attitudinal dimensions and completed measures of conformity to masculine norms and expressivity. The majority of participants (93.8%) correctly identified that something was wrong with the targets and, of those that did, the majority (69.2%) correctly described cases of depression. Neither target nor participant gender significantly influenced symptom recognition. Gendered effects were also largely null in terms of perceived distress, treatment difficulty, sympathy, and likelihood of recommending help for the targets, and both conformity to masculine norms and expressivity had minimal impact on attitudinal dimensions. These results highlight the potential utility of filmed disclosures in the study of mental health literacy and suggest that gendered effects reported in previous studies may be an artifact of the use of text-based vignettes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meta-analyses suggest that mindfulness interventions have positive effects on mental health. Yet, how mindfulness interventions exert their effects is still largely unknown. Self-reported mindfulness may partially mediate the association between mindfulness interventions and change in self-reported mental health. We present the results of a novel application of three-level meta-analysis on the pre–post intervention data of 146 RCTs of mindfulness interventions (total N = 10,979), probing the efficacy of a broad range of mindfulness interventions and meditation training against active, treatment-as-usual (TAU), and wait-list control groups. We found that self-reported mindfulness not only increased in mindfulness interventions (d = 0.54, 95% CI [0.47, 0.61]), but also in active (nonmindfulness) controls (d = 0.27 [0.18, 0.36]) and wait-list controls (d = 0.10 [0.04, 0.17]; but not TAU controls: d = 0.04 [−0.03, 0.12]). In addition, change in mindfulness accounted for change in self-reported mental health (mindfulness interventions: d = 0.65 [0.57, 0.73]; active controls: d = 0.49 [0.36, 0.62]; TAU controls: d = 0.20 [0.12, 0.29]; wait-list controls: d = 0.22 [0.14, 0.30]) in all treatment and control groups alike. Thus, self-reported mindfulness apparently is no unique mediator of mindfulness interventions. It may either be more universal, merely a correlate of self-reported mental health, or both. Research should focus on the common denominator of mindfulness interventions and clinically relevant constructs with which self-reported mindfulness shares some of its characteristics. Limitations pertain to the indirect evidence of the three-level meta-analytic approach, the self-report nature of the data, and small-study effects, which suggest the presence of publication bias. The risk of bias may have led to the overestimation of effects and results could further be subjected to effects of shared method variance. Public Significance Statement: This meta-analysis suggests that increases in self-reported mindfulness may explain the treatment efficacy of various mindfulness-based interventions, but also of nonmindfulness-based controls. Self-reported mindfulness thus may be no unique mediator of the effects of mindfulness interventions. The current evidence leaves open whether self-reported mindfulness might be a universal mediator of treatment effects, merely reflects changes of self-reported mental health in general, or both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies suggest that personality and individual difference traits are associated with aesthetic preferences but have infrequently examined associations within specific genres or across media domains. We examined associations between the Big Five personality traits with preferences (i.e., liking) for two nonconventional genres of film and literature, namely nouveau roman and existentialism, in samples of 548 nonexperts and 95 genre experts from Austria. Path analyses indicated that openness to experience (positively) and conscientiousness (negatively) were significantly associated with greater liking of stimuli across genres and media domains, after considering the effects of additional, relevant variables (aesthetic expertise and behaviors, social status, and the motive for sensory pleasure). Path models were stable across nonexperts and experts, although the strength of the relationships between openness and liking was stronger for nouveau roman stimuli. Additional analyses indicated that experts had significantly greater liking for stimuli across both genres than nonexperts. These results may have implications for the promotion of nonconventional artworks to wider audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have suggested that individual psychological differences may shape preferences for broad narrative genres, but these studies have not examined preferences for specific genres. The present study sought to overcome this limitation by examining the individual difference antecedents of preferences for relatively complex surrealist texts. A total of 400 participants rated 10 excerpts of exemplar surrealist texts for liking and familiarity, and they completed measures of the Big Five personality factors, sensation seeking, ambiguity tolerance, and demographics. Results showed that there were small differences in preference for surrealist texts by educational qualifications and annual income, with higher status participants generally showing a stronger preference. Results also showed that, controlling for familiarity, preference for surrealist texts was associated with higher sensation seeking and Openness to Experience. These results are discussed in relation to the extant literature on individual differences and reading patterns and preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]