No abstract

40 undergraduate student volunteers were tested on a new Response-choice Aggression Paradigm. Men and women were provoked in a reaction time competition by receiving electric shocks and were allowed to respond to a confederate with similar shocks or to refrain from any retaliation. Analysis indicated positive association between a self-report measure of physical aggression and laboratory responses on the paradigm, and positive associations among aggression indices of the task. The results confirm earlier findings of sex differences in aggression and offer new measures of aggression "flashpoint" as a step closer to aggressive behavior in naturalistic settings.

Eighty-four undergraduate student volunteers were tested on the Response Choice Aggression Paradigm [Zeichner et al., 1999]. Men (n ¼ 43) and women (n ¼ 41) participants were provoked in a reaction time competition by receiving electric shocks and were allowed to respond to a confederate with similar shocks or to refrain from any retaliation. Results indicated that men administered more shocks, chose more intense shocks, and administered the highest available shock at a greater proportion relative to all their shock selections than did women. In contrast, women evinced a longer latency before becoming aggressive and initiated aggression at lower intensities than did men. Moreover, across shock trials, gender-specific aggression patterns indicated that while men alternated response frequency, women gradually increased their response frequency to a peak close to the end of the task. The results confirm earlier findings of gender differences in aggression and offer new indices of aggression ''flashpoint'' as a step closer to understanding aggressive behavior in naturalistic circumstances. Aggr. Behav. 29:95-106, We are reminded by violent acts perpetrated by youngsters in schools and on the street, that despite the apparent decrease in violent crime documented by surveys and reported in the media, aggressive behavior is a malady affecting increasingly younger segments of society. Domestic violence [Wilson et al., 1995], assault [Muehlenhard andLinton, 1987], aggressive vehicular driving [Novaco, 1991], murder [Malmquist andNedelson, 1996], suicide [Diekstra, 1996], aggression directed toward minorities in crimes of hate [Garofalo and Lurigio, 1997], and violence perpetrated when aggressor or victim is inebriated [Lindqvist, 1986], strongly suggest that continued research on aggression in varied contexts is sorely needed. Available literature on aggression perpetrated by humans is limited. The bulk of pertinent research has focused on men and has shown, in general, that men are more aggressive than women. However, despite the statistics indicating that fewer women are arrested for aggravated assault relative to men [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2000], one cannot escape the fact that aggressive behavior and violent crime are perpetrated by both genders. Clearly, it is n Correspondence to:

The spectrum of risk and concomitant factors in stuttering is generally thought to be wide and heterogeneous. However, only a few studies have examined these factors using information from large databases. We examined the data on 11,905 Swiss conscripts from 2003. All cases with high psychiatric screening scores indicating "caseness" for a psychiatric disorder were excluded, among them potential malingerers, so that 9,814 records remained. The analyses rely on self-reported information about stuttering in childhood, problems at birth, problems in school, mental disorders of parents and relatives, childhood adversity and socio-demographic information. Statistical modelling was done using logistic regression and path analysis models. Risk factors determined in the logistic regression include premature birth, probable attention deficit hyperactive disorder, alcohol abuse of the parents, obsessive-compulsive disorder in parents and relatives, having a disabled mother and having a parent from a foreign country. There is no overwhelmingly strong risk factor; all odds ratios are about 2 or below. In conclusion, large databases are helpful in revealing less obvious and less frequent risk factors for heterogeneous disorders such as stuttering. Obviously, not only secondary analyses, but also systematical large scale studies would be required to complete the complex epidemiological puzzle in stuttering. An extensive examination of young adults who were initially assessed in childhood might provide the most promising design.

BPT with mannitol has a sensitivity and specificity similar to methacholine for the diagnosis of physician-diagnosed asthma in military conscripts but is less costly to perform without the need to use and maintain a nebulizer.