University of Massachusetts Boston

About: University of Massachusetts Boston is a education organization based out in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Health care. The organization has 6541 authors who have published 12918 publications receiving 411731 citations. The organization is also known as: UMass Boston.

Evolving ideals of male body image as seen through action toys

Abstract: Objective We hypothesized that the physiques of male action toys — small plastic figures used by children in play — would provide some index of evolving American cultural ideals of male body image. Method We obtained examples of the most popular American action toys manufactured over the last 30 years. We then measured the waist, chest, and bicep circumference of each figure and scaled these measurements using classical allometry to the height of an actual man (1.78 m). Results We found that the figures have grown much more muscular over time, with many contemporary figures far exceeding the muscularity of even the largest human bodybuilders. Discussion Our observations appear to represent a “male analog” of earlier studies examining female dolls, such as Barbie. Together, these studies of children's toys suggest that cultural expectations may contribute to body image disorders in both sexes. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Eat Disord 26: 65–72, 1999.

The Antisocial Process Screening Device An Examination of its Construct and Criterion-Related Validity

Abstract: The clinical assessment of psychopathy in adulthood is well established via programmatic research. More recently, psychopathy has been extended to children and adolescents with correlates to maladaptive personality traits, violent behavior, and noncompliance with institutional rules. To screen for adolescent psychopathy, the Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD) was developed as a 20-item self-report measure of psychopathy. The original validation of the APSD was limited to samples of clinic-referred and community-based children. In extending this research to delinquent populations, the current article uses two separate samples of adolescent offenders incarcerated in a maximum security facility (n = 78) and a local juvenile detention facility (n = 77). As evidence of criterion-related validity, the APSD was compared with two versions of the Psychopathy Checklist that yielded mixed results. Construct validity was examined via a confirmatory factor analysis that provided support for a three-factor model of the APSD.