Joint attention, the ability to selectively attend to an object of mutual interest, is a critical skill that develops early in life and consequentially affects future social-cognitive skills, social-emotional skills, and language development. Music therapy is one effective method for increasing interpersonal understanding, joint motivation, and cooperative skills. Music therapy interventions have been used with children diagnosed with autistic disorder for the past fifty years. The present study examines the effectiveness of music therapy intervention on development of joint attention behaviors in children diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder both within treatment and as reported by parents outside of treatment. Improvement in joint attention behaviors was noted in 70% of participants after only 8 individual music therapy session. Results indicated that the addition of music therapy intervention to a child's treatment program can have positive outcomes and may be an effective method for increasing joint attention skills in some children with autism.

The term Hispanic is broad and encompasses a diverse population that shares a language albeit the differences amongst this group are immense. Moreover, although these individuals share a language, Hispanics have been found to identify more with specific subgroups rather than with this general term. Notably, this study demonstrated evidence of ethnic bias among specific Hispanic subgroups by using a mock trial format in which Cuban and Puerto Rican participants were provided with a case where the ethnicity of the defendant was manipulated between Cuban and Puerto Rican. Specifically, Puerto Rican participants demonstrated a strong in-group/out-group bias and rated the Cuban defendant more harshly. The results suggest Puerto Rican jurors may treat Puerto Rican defendants more leniently and conversely, be more punitive towards a non-Puerto Rican despite the fact the defendant may be a Hispanic. This study demonstrates that even amongst Hispanic subgroups there is evidence that in-group/out-group bias effects occur.

Research has viewed social status as synonymous with popularity. People with higher social status are generally perceived as possessing more positive characteristics. In regards to social networking sites, specifically Facebook, research suggests that the network size coefficient (the number of friends one has) contributes greatly to the perception of an individual. The current study revealed that participants rated a mock Facebook user with a high number of friends as friendlier, more likeable, approachable, and were more willing to donate money to a cause championed by her. Analyses from the NEO-PI R instrument revealed that the mock Facebook user with more friends was rated as less self conscious, higher on degree of warmth, more gregarious, more assertive, more active socially, more likely to engage in excitement seeking behaviors, and more trustworthy. The results of this study illustrated the impact that social status has on the perception of an individual. Past results indicated that social status affected the perception of individual in face to face interactions but this study showed that these findings are generalizable to social networking sites.