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Sources of difficulty in insight problem-solving have been identified, but current theories are less successful at explaining discovery of solution ideas. Here, we explore the role of expertise in promoting insight. In Experiment 1, experienced designers and financiers solved visual and verbal problems. Expertise did not influence solution rates for verbal problems, but designers solved more visual problems than financiers, despite similar incorrect initial attempts. In Experiment 2, experienced and novice designers attempted problems either unconstrained, prevented from drawing, or sitting on their hands to prevent drawing and gesture. Hand and drawing constraints removed the positive benefits of expertise. Experienced designers appear to solve visual problems by using strategies to explore the visuo-spatial environment in search of new representations. The results indicate that expert strategic knowledge can be a source of insight. They also show that strategic transfer of expertise to far domains can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is argued that the auditing demands of quality assurance have encouraged a greater proceduralisation of university coursework assessment. Interviews with academics from a cross-section of Psychology departments illustrated how assessment had acquired the tightly scripted character of an organisational process. Yet undergraduate focus group conversations suggested that this proceduralisation obstructed the experience students sought from assessment as a form of educational practice. It is argued that educational contexts can create a distinctive form of process/practice tension. In particular, formalising assessment into a process may conceal students' unease, inhibit the expression of that unease, and create a distracting focus on study products rather than study practices. A striking interpersonal dissociation of author and reader (student and tutor) was apparent in the organisational processes documented here. This was identified as the source of significant student discontent, and the likely starting point for its repair.

Excess winter morbidity and mortality among older people remain significant public health issues in those European countries which experience relatively mild winter temperatures, particularly the United Kingdom (UK), Ireland, Portugal and Spain. In the UK, episodes of severe winter weather, when ambient temperatures fall below 5[degrees]C, are associated with peaks in general practitioner consultations, hospital admissions, and cardiovascular deaths among those aged over 65. While research indicates that such health risks could be substantially reduced by the adoption of appropriate behavioural strategies, accessible and credible advice on how older people can reduce risk during 'cold snaps' is lacking. This paper describes a programme of research that aimed: (a) to translate the relevant scientific literature into practical advice for older people in order to reduce health risk during episodes of severe winter weather; and (b) to integrate this advice with a severe winter weather 'Early Warning System' developed by the UK Met Office. An advice booklet was generated through a sequential process of systematic review, consensus development, and focus group discussions with older people. In a subsequent field trial, a combination of the Met Office 'Early Warning System' and the advice booklet produced behavioural change among older people consistent with risk reduction. The results also show that long-held convictions about 'healthy environments' and anxieties about fuel costs are barriers to risk reduction. KEY WORDS--excess winter mortality, fuel poverty, health policy, public health, older people. doi:10.1017/S0144686X09990298

This analysis begins with the argument that conceptual ambiguity and related measurement inconsistencies have surfaced in the growing number of studies about open adoption-because the term subsumes a range of possibilities of contact between birth and adoptive families, as well as other sources of variation which affect the developing post-placement relationship between members of these two families. It then turns to the first report from a longitudinal study of adoptive (n = 41) and associated birth parents (n = 26) based on initial face-to-face (within six months of the placement); subsequent follow-up (telephone) interviews (18 months to two years post-placement) with these families and observations from over three years of fieldwork in the private agency which arranged these adoptions. Three post-placement patterns are identified and distinguished: Rejecters, Acceptors and Embracers. The paper concludes with a discussion about enabling conditions for successful post-placement openness.

Though by now there exists an extensive literature about open adoption, discussion of its effects based on research with families involved is in its early stages. This analysis reviews six empirical studies of open adoption. It also presents data from two new databases, one involving in-depth interviews with 32 adoptive and 16 associated biological parents and the other resulting from a questionnaire sent to adoptive parents (N = 75). Both the review and the new data support cautious optimism about adoptive and biological parents' response to the openness in their relationship.

Reports that male editors of women's/lifestyle pages cover more male-oriented subjects than female editors; that men favor coverage of entertainment while women favor coverage of club and social news and the women's movement; and that nontraditional men editors choose a leisure focus while nontraditional women editors choose a social change emphasis. (GW)

Alice Rossi's 1977 article, "A Biosocial Perspective on Parenting," considered relationships among biology, the family, other social structures, and feminism. In this article, Rossi, together with a panel of sociologists and psychologists researching dimensions of physiological/psychological links to behavior, comment on the original article. (Author/MC)

Findings suggest that older couples, those married longer, those among whom at least one spouse has an established career, and those who are freed from childrearing responsibilities find the lifestyle less stressful. Also, women may be more comfortable with the arrangement because of the recognition of their rights. (Author)

Concludes that newspaper lifestyle pages--the new version of the "women's pages"--still devote most of their coverage to food, fashion, and romance. Notes that rural newspapers are the most likely to follow this pattern and metropolitan newspapers the least likely. (FL)