Acute ethanol administration is associated with sedation and analgesia as well as behavioral disinhibition and memory loss but the mechanisms underlying these effects remain to be elucidated. During the past decade, insects have emerged as important model systems to understand the neural and genetic bases of alcohol effects. However, novel assays to assess ethanol's effects on complex behaviors in social or isolated contexts are necessary. Here we used the honey bee as an especially relevant model system since bees are typically exposed to ethanol in nature when collecting standing nectar crop of flowers, and there is recent evidence for independent biological significance of this exposure for social behavior. Bee's inhibitory control of the sting extension response (SER) and a conditioned-place aversion assay were used to study ethanol effects on analgesia, behavioral disinhibition, and associative learning. Our findings indicate that although ethanol, in a dose-dependent manner, increases SER thresholds (analgesic effects), it disrupts the ability of honey bees to inhibit SER and to associate aversive stimuli with their environment. These results suggest that ethanol's effects on analgesia, behavioral disinhibition and associative learning are common across vertebrates and invertebrates. These results add to the use of honey bees as an ethanol model to understand ethanol's effects on complex, socially relevant behaviors.

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The Dynamic Analog Scale (DAS)-a generic and flexible technique for creating single-item measures of psychological constructs-comprises detailed definitions and a continuous analog scale on which self and others are rated simultaneously. Using five experimental conditions, the authors investigated the psychometric properties of the DAS as well as the impact of different social contexts and modified Big Five trait definitions on participant ratings and their relationships to measures of volunteerism, religiosity, affect, and alcohol consumption. Results revealed few differences across conditions, and reliability coefficients and predictive validity estimates were similar to those typically obtained using standard, multiple-item questionnaires. The DAS is therefore supported as a consistent and efficacious method for measuring personality traits with single items. KeywordsDynamic Analog Scale, Big Five Model, personality measurement, traits 2 SAGE Open can move people around during the rating process, creating a "social network" for the respondent to rate himself or herself within (Denissen, Geenen, Selfhout, & Van Aken, 2008). In addition, the researcher clearly defines each pole of the construct and provides these definitions to the respondent as the basis for which the bipolar construct should be understood (Woods & Hampson, 2005). Moreover, each pole of the construct is anchored by extreme terms, so as to reduce the likelihood of individual differences in how the scale endpoints are interpreted (Bartoshuk et al., 2002).In an initial study of the validity of the DAS, Grice et al. (2011) found that the DAS was just as efficacious as a standard multiple-item questionnaire measuring the same personality traits in predicting behavioral acts, self-esteem, general affect, and religiosity. Moreover, they reported favorable immediate and approximate 2-week test-retest reliability coefficients for the DAS.In the current study, we more thoroughly evaluated the properties of the DAS as a single-item technique for measuring individual differences using the Big Five personality traits. In addition to examining the immediate test-retest reliability of the DAS, we also examined its predictive validity regarding a number of well-known consequential outcomes related to human personality. The particular criteria (volunteerism, religiosity, affect, and drinking behaviors) were chosen from a recent review article (see Ozer & Benet-Martínez, 2006) that showed how well the Big Five personality traits predicted a variety of consequential outcomes. Moreover, using a complex study design, we examined the potential influence of (a) modifying the social context component in the rating process and (b) modifying the descriptive trait definitions used by Grice et al. (2011) to reduce the social desirability of the trait poles. Method ParticipantsA total of 250 undergraduate students volunteered to participate in exchange for course credit. Complete data were obtained for 238 participants, 1 among whom 149 were female (62.6%) and 89 ...

Classical conditioning is one of the most fundamental types of learning, yet demonstrating its principles in a classroom setting can be challenging. This study introduces using PowerPoint as a new, practical technique that can be used in a classroom setting to demonstrate classical conditioning. The PowerPoint file is flexible and easy to adapt for demonstrating various aspects of classical conditioning (including higher order conditioning) in a concrete manner. Moreover, this study was designed to measure salivation in a more objective and valid way which could be used by student researchers interested in measuring salivation as a conditioned response.

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