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Issue 108

December 2009

If you report a story, we ask that you credit Elsevier’s journal as the source.

Welcome to the 108th edition of Flash, our bi-weekly alert for science, health and medical journalists. Flash is a courtesy service with access to ScienceDirect, Elsevier’s online platform, providing full text access to some 2,000 scientific, technical and medical journals.

Please use your Flash login and password to access each article’s full text on ScienceDirect. For a new password, forgotten passwords or if you have any feedback, please contact Anna Hogrebe at newsroom@elsevier.com or at +31 20 485 3269.

ARTICLES

1. FOR SMOKERS, DEATH THREATS DON’T ALWAYS WORK

Smoking is responsible for millions of deaths all of over the world, and while many know the risks, the figure is only expected to rise. Multiple anti-smoking strategies have been employed – from taxation on tobacco products to anti-smoking ads to making certain public places smoke-free – but what works?

The labelling of tobacco products is yet another anti-smoking strategy, and in Elsevier’s latest Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, researchers test the impact of various warnings on the packaging. Specifically, the study compares mortality-salient warnings like “Smoking kills” to self-esteem-oriented messages like “Smoking makes your skin age quicker.” Thirty-nine psychology students who indicated they were smokers took part in the study. Questionnaires asked them about their self-esteem in relation to smoking, and then the group was randomly assigned to one of two condition groups. Each contained an anti-smoking message, but one used a mortality message and the other used a self-esteem message.

Results suggest that to the degree that smoking is a source of self-esteem, later attitudes toward smoking are more positive if the warning message is mortality-salient. In other words, telling someone that cigarettes will kill may work less for these individuals who are attracted to smoking for self-esteem reasons. In fact, compared to mortality-neutral warnings, the mortality-salient messages may even increase the tendency to favour smoking in certain instances. These insights provide more evidence that anti-smoking campaigns must have a message that resonates with smokers and dissuades them from lighting up.

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2. LONG LEGS? SHORT LEGS? WHAT IS PREFERRED WHEN IT COMES TO FEMALE ATTRACTIVENESS?

Breast size, height, body symmetry, muscularity, hair colour, skin tone – all of these elements have garnered attention when it comes to judging attractiveness. Often overlooked, however, is the potentially important role that the leg-to-body ratio (LBR) plays in judgements of attractiveness.

Since LBR is thought to be a potential cue to health status - with mid-ranging LBRs often signalling better health and fertility - Elsevier’s Body Image takes a closer look at this feature using female computer-generated images portraying eight levels of LBR that fall within the typical range of human variation. A community sample of 207 Britons, as well as two samples drawn from a U.S. university, rated the physical attractiveness of the images.

Participants tended to rate the mid-ranging female LBRs as the most attractive. Low LBRs were not preferred. Beyond this finding, this study revealed that the use of systematically manipulated computer-generated images could help explicate some of the contradictory findings in the available literature on interpersonal attraction.

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3. SNACKING – A PRECURSOR TO OBESITY OR HEALTHY HABIT?

Are you a compulsive snacker? What do you grab between meals? Withobesity on the rise – by 2025 the World Health Organisation expects 2.3 billion adults to be overweight and 700 million to be obese around the world – researchers are continually seeking to learn more about our growing waistlines.

To learn more about the impact of snacking behaviours, Elsevier’s Clinical Nutrition recently conducted a longitudinal study to assess the relationship between snacking and weight gain and obesity in the middle-aged free-living population. Participants included 10,162 university graduates with a mean age of 39 years. They were followed up with for approximately 4.6 years and their dietary habits were gathered via a 136-item food-frequency questionnaire. Usual snackers were defined as those participants who affirmed that they usually eat between meals. Weight and body mass index were also collected at the beginning and follow-up periods.

Self-reported between-meal snackers were significantly associated with a higher risk of substantial weight gain. In fact, usual snackers presented an adjusted 69 percent higher risk of becoming obese during the follow-up. Part of the reason was that these individuals tended to turn to high-energy snacks like processed meat products, chocolate, bakery foods and carbonated beverages. These snack foods may contribute to a daily energy intake as much as 140 to 300 calories per item, clearly showing that the consumption of just a few of these snacks would result in extra pounds. To help, usual snackers should consider alternative nutritious snacks like nuts, fresh fruit and vegetables.

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4. LOOKING LIKE MOTHER GIVES BABY MALLARD DUCKLINGS AN EDGE

It’s no secret that animals vary in colour, and that these colours can indicate bodycondition, phenotypic and genetic qualities and even who is dominant in the pack. Existing evidence suggests that some birds may be naturally sensitive to leg colour, so a new paper in Elsevier’s Behavioural Processes examines if leg-ring colour affects the behaviour of young mallard ducklings.

During the study, mallard ducklings as well as their mother were marked with coloured plastic rings for individual recognition. They spent most of the time on land where the leg-rings were visible. Each chick was observed for a total of 12 hours during which all of its aggressive encounters were noted. The ducklings were ultimately ranked from most dominant to subordinate.

Based on the observations, ducklings wearing the ring of the same colour as one of the two rings of their mother were dominant over their siblings. This research suggests that ducklings use similarity in colours as a signal of individual quality, maturity and/or dominance.

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5. THE LINK BETWEEN YOUNG MEN’S RECKLESS DRIVING AND HOW THEY SPEND THEIR LEISURE TIME

Young drivers continue to be overrepresented in traffic accidents, and the number of young male drivers involved is on the rise. Do these men simply get reckless behind the wheel? Do they race? Do they drink and drive? Given troubling trends, Elsevier’s new issue of Transportation Research looks to gain additional insights into young male drivers, specifically focusing on the association between their driving style and leisure time.

Using a sample of nearly 4,000 male drivers, the study looked at approximately 2,000 18-year-olds and 2,000 28-year-olds. Both groups filled out identical questions to assess their driving styles with factors named like Thrill, Anxiety and Anger. Leisure time was measured using frequency and purpose of driving, as well as location and nature of specific activities.

Overall results revealed 18-year-olds were more likely to “race with other drivers,” “try to be the first on a green light,” “drive fast for fun,” and “engage in risk-taking while driving for fun.” The older group scored higher on “driving close to the car in front,” “speeding on a yellow,” and on “letting your mood influence your driving.” In both groups, driving-related interaction with friends as well as a high-paced leisure time was found to be associated with a high score on the factors of Thrill and Anger. In the older group of drivers, cruising with friends was associated with problem behaviours such as smoking pot and doing drugs.

The authors conclude these results indicate a need for early intervention that enhances safe behavioral choices. In other words, it’s not just about preaching safe driving behaviours, but safe behaviours in general.

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6. EMOTIONAL SENSITIVITY ENHANCED DURING LATE PREGNANCY

Women’s oestrogen, progesterone and cortisol levels rise dramatically during pregnancy, but the extent to which these large increases in sex hormones impact their emotions remains unclear. To investigate further, a new study featured in Elsevier’s Hormones and Behavior investigates whether changes in emotion processing are seen across pregnancy.

The ability to encode facial expressions of emotion was assessed in 101 women during early pregnancy and again in late pregnancy. Participants completed an emotion recognition task in which they were presented with a set of computerised faces displaying varying emotions and asked to choose which emotion they believed the face displayed from six options (happy, sad, fear, anger, disgust and surprise). They additionally filled out a questionnaire regarding their demographic and pregnancy information.

Women in late pregnancy showed an enhanced ability to encode the emotions of the varying faces, especially around the faces showing fear, sadness, anger and disgust. The researchers conclude this ability may be an evolutionary adaptation to prepare women for the protective and nurturing demands of motherhood by increasing their general emotional sensitivity and vigilance toward emotional signals of threat, aggression and contagion. Additionally, the results suggest that during late pregnancy a woman’s emotional processing style is similar to that seen in anxiety. Both findings have implications for understanding how normal pregnant women process emotional cues and their vulnerability to symptoms of anxiety.

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The Scirus tool bar makes it easier than ever to find scientific, technical and medical information on the Web and is quick and easy to install. After installing, the Scirus toolbar conveniently appears below your Internet Explorer address bar, meaning you have scientific searches at your fingertips, wherever you are on the Web. Link to Scirus: http://www.scirus.com/srsapp/toolbar/ If your browser does not support HTML, you may need to copy the links below and paste them into your browser to access the articles:
1. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2009.09.007
2. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2009.09.001
3. doi:10.1016/j.clnu.2009.08.017
4. doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2009.08.010
5. doi:10.1016/j.trf.2009.08.005
6. doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2009.09.013