For decades, developmental research has involved the study of sex differences in language acquisition. Many studies of these differences have found a slight advantage in competence for females early in life that seems to wane with age. However, because most of these studies have focused on sex differences in mean values, they have mostly neglected sex differences in variance with males being more variable. In the current study, we examined sex differences in language competence in terms of mean values and variance in large samples (N > 10,000) of German children aged 3-6 years. We administered several tests to assess the children's vocabulary, grammar, speech comprehension, pronunciation, and the processing of sentences and nonce words. Girls performed better than boys in all domains, most often to a statistically significant degree, although the effect sizes were small. Differences decreased with age. Boys varied significantly more than girls in their language competence. In response, we discuss explanations for these findings, as well as recommend directions for future research.

Previous research found that men conspicuously consume luxury products to attract a mate and to signal their mate value. However, these studies have yet neglected to investigate the function of male conspicuous consumption in same-sex competition. Given that intersexual selection and intrasexual selection are closely related processes, it stands to reason that a further function of male conspicuous consumption could be to impress and deter same-sex rivals. An 2 (intrasexual competition context vs. control) Â 2 (conspicuous luxury vs. inconspicuous nonluxury) between-subjects experimental study conducted with an Amazon Mechanical Turk sample (N ¼ 160) revealed that men reported both higher liking of and an intent to purchase a conspicuous luxury car compared to an inconspicuous nonluxury car due to increased feelings of social status. This effect was stronger in the intrasexual competition than in the control context. An additional perception study using a single-factor between-subjects design (conspicuous luxury vs. inconspicuous nonluxury car) among German men (N ¼ 405) indicated that male participants rated a man who displayed a conspicuous luxury car more as a rival and mate poacher and less as a friend. They further perceived him to be superior on various mate value characteristics (i.e., attractiveness, intelligence, ambition, and status) and rated him as more oriented toward short-term mating. In sum, our findings add to previous research in the field of evolutionary consumer psychology by suggesting that male conspicuous consumption of luxuries may also serve a function in male-male competition. Relative to women, men are more likely to purchase and register conspicuous sports cars in the United States and cars of well-known luxury brands (Bowling, 2013;Macesich, 2014). Previous research has demonstrated that men may use these luxury cars to impress women, given that they may function as a signal of mate value (Griskevicius et al., 2007). And indeed, a man who was seated in a luxury car was perceived as more attractive by women compared to the same man seated in a nonluxury car (Dunn & Searle, 2010). Hence, men appear to use showy spending to attract women in intersexual competition contexts. Sundie et al. (2011) further revealed that men's flaunting of luxury goods signals their desirability as a shortterm (rather than long-term) mate. In addition, the study of Saad and Vongas (2009) indicated that men who drove a luxury sports car yielded higher testosterone levels compared to when they drove a nonluxury car. Moreover, Saad and Vongas found that male testosterone levels also rose when confronted with other men who displayed luxury (vs. nonluxury goods) in the presence of a female confederate. These latter results suggest that intrasexual competition processes may also incite men's

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Objective:The ACCESS treatment model offers assertive community treatment embedded in an integrated care program to patients with psychoses. Compared to standard care and within a controlled study, it proved to be more effective in terms of service disengagement and illness outcomes in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders over 12 months. ACCESS was implemented into clinical routine and its effectiveness assessed over 24 months in severe schizophrenia spectrum disorders and bipolar I disorder with psychotic features (DSM-IV) in a cohort study. Method: All 115 patients treated in ACCESS (from May 2007 toOctober 2009) were included in the ACCESS II study. The primary outcome was rate of service disengagement. Secondary outcomes were change of psychopathology, severity of illness, psychosocial functioning, quality of life, satisfaction with care, medication nonadherence, length of hospital stay, and rates of involuntary hospitalization.Results: Only 4 patients (3.4%) disengaged with the service. Another 11 (9.6%) left because they moved outside the catchment area. Patients received a mean of 1.6 outpatient contacts per week. Involuntary admissions decreased from 34.8% in the 2 previous years to 7.8% during ACCESS (P < .001). Mixed models repeatedmeasures analyses revealed significant improvements among all patients in psychopathology (effect size d = 0.64, P < .001), illness severity (d = 0.84, P = .03), functioning level (d = 0.65, P < .001), quality of life (d = 0.50, P < .001), and client satisfaction (d = 0.11, P < .001). At 24 months, 78.3% were fully adherent to medication, compared to 25.2% at baseline (P = .002).Conclusions: ACCESS was successfully implemented in clinical routine and maintained excellent rates of service engagement and other outcomes in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders or bipolar I disorder with psychotic features over 24 months.Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01888627

This study investigated the accuracy of gender-specific stereotypes about movie-genre preferences for 17 genres. In Study 1, female and male participants rated the extent to which 17 movie genres are preferred by women or men. In Study 2, another sample of female and male participants rated their own preference for each genre. There were three notable results. First, Study 1 revealed the existence of gender stereotypes for the majority of genres (i.e., for 15 of 17 genres). Second, Study 2 revealed the existence of actual gender differences in preferences for the majority of genres (i.e., for 11 of 17 genres). Third, in order to assess the accuracy of gender stereotypes on movie preferences, we compared the results of both studies and found that the majority of gender stereotypes were accurate in direction, but inaccurate in size. In particular, the stereotypes overestimated actual gender differences for the majority of movie genres (i.e., 10 of 17). Practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.