Learning (not) to talk about race: when older children underperform in social categorization

The present research identifies an anomaly in sociocognitive development, whereby younger children (8 and 9 years) outperform their older counterparts (10 and 11 years) in a basic categorization task in which the acknowledgment of racial difference facilitates performance. Though older children exhibit superior performance on a race-neutral version of the task, their tendency to avoid acknowledging race hinders objective success when race is a relevant category. That these findings emerge in late childhood, in a pattern counter to the normal developmental trajectory of increased cognitive expertise in categorization, suggests that this anomaly indicates the onset of a critical transition in human social development.     

Somatic and social: Chinese Americans talk about emotion

Empirical findings suggest that Chinese and Americans differ in the ways that they describe emotional experience, with Chinese using more somatic and social words than Americans. No one, however, has investigated whether this variation is related to differences between Chinese and American conceptions of emotion or to linguistic differences between the English and Chinese languages. Therefore, in two studies, the authors compared the word use of individuals who varied in their orientation to Chinese and American cultures (European Americans [EA], more acculturated Chinese Americans [CA], and less acculturated CA) when they were speaking English during emotional events. Across both studies, less acculturated CA used more somatic (e.g., dizzy) and more social (e.g., friend) words than EA. These findings suggest that even when controlling for language spoken, cultural conceptions of emotion may shape how people talk about emotion.     

Legal recognition of same-sex relationships in the United States: a social science perspective

Whether and how civil society should recognize committed relationships between same-sex partners has become a prominent, often divisive, policy issue. The present article reviews relevant behavioral and social science research to assess the validity of key factual claims in this debate. The data indicate that same-sex and heterosexual relationships do not differ in their essential psychosocial dimensions; that a parent's sexual orientation is unrelated to her or his ability to provide a healthy and nurturing family environment; and that marriage bestows substantial psychological, social, and health benefits. It is concluded that same-sex couples and their children are likely to benefit in numerous ways from legal recognition of their families, and providing such recognition through marriage will bestow greater benefit than civil unions or domestic partnerships. Trends in public opinion toward greater support for legal recognition of same-sex couples are discussed.     

Clients talk about their experience of seeking counselling

The purpose of this study was to explore the help-seeking behaviour of a sample of counselling clients using a questionnaire and follow-up, semi-structured interviews with 20 counselling clients who were seen at a walk-in, affordable counselling agency located in a mid-sized city in New Zealand. Specifically, clients were asked if they had received counselling previously, what efforts they had made to solve their problems before seeking counselling and with what success, why they chose this particular agency, their initial impression of their relationship with their counsellor, and their reactions to participating in the research. The data were analysed to ascertain themes associated with their decision-making and choices. Findings were discussed in relation to the literature on seeking counselling, how clients determine their need for counselling and the process they go through in deciding when and where to get it. Implications for counsellors are discussed.     

Clients talk about their experience of the process of counselling

The purpose of this study was to ascertain clients’ experiences of their counselling. This was done through use of a questionnaire and follow-up, semi-structured interviews with 20 counselling clients who were seen at a walk-in agency located in a mid-sized city in New Zealand. Several themes were identified and discussed in relation to the literature on clients’ perceptions of their own counselling. Specifically, clients were asked to comment on whether their counselling was effective, how much of their improvement was due to counselling versus other factors, the quality of the relationship with their counsellor, specific in-counselling events that were helpful or unhelpful, and how their counselling was terminated. Implications for practice were suggested.     

Predicting occupational interests and choice aspirations in Portuguese high school students: A test of social cognitive career theory

The predictive utility of social cognitive career theory’s (SCCT) interest and choice models was examined in a sample of 600 Portuguese high school students. Participants completed measures of occupational self-efficacy, outcome expectations, interests, social supports and barriers, and choice consideration across the six Holland (1997) RIASEC types. The integrated interest-choice model fit the data well across Holland types and generally supported the hypotheses that self-efficacy and outcome expectations jointly predict interests, and that interests mediate the relations of self-efficacy and outcome expectations to choice consideration. Contrary to SCCT, however, social supports and barriers related to choice consideration indirectly, through self-efficacy, rather than directly. The implications of these findings for further research on the cross-cultural validity of SCCT are considered.     

From social talk to social action: shaping the social triad with emotion sharing

Seemingly trivial social talk provides fertile ground for emotion sharing (a narrator and audience's realization that they experience the same emotional response toward a target), which in turn creates a coalition between the narrator and the audience, configures the narrator and audience's relationship with the target, and coordinates their target-directed action. In this article, the authors use 4 studies to investigate this thesis. In Studies 1 and 2--where participants rated scenarios in which narrators told them anecdotes--the authors found that when there was emotion sharing (a) participants were more bonded with narrators, (b) the narrator and audience's relationship with the target (as reflected in action tendencies) was determined by the emotionality of the anecdotes, and (c) they coordinated their target-directed actions. Study 3 demonstrated that this effect was indeed due to emotion sharing. Study 4 provided behavioral evidence for the effects of emotion sharing using a 2-person trust game. Together, these studies reveal that the everyday act of social talk is a powerful act that is able to shape the social triad of the narrator, the audience, and the social target, with powerful consequences for social structure and group action.     

Utilizing occupational complexity levels in vocational interest assessments: Assessing interests for STEM areas

With an aim to improve vocational interest assessments geared toward the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) areas, we developed a new assessment by incorporating occupational complexity levels. Occupations which correspond to Holland's realistic and investigative themes were identified together with their complexity levels using the information in the Dictionary of Holland Occupational Codes. How the required skills, abilities, and work activities differ in occupations with different complexity levels was identified using the Occupational Information Network. Two studies (N = 691 total) were conducted to assess reliability and validity of a measure of STEM Interest Complexity assessing the level of interests for STEM, which was developed based on the information obtained from these occupation databases. Construct validity was demonstrated with factor analyses and based on associations with traditional interest assessments, cognitive abilities, and theoretically-related constructs. Concurrent criterion-related validity was demonstrated based on associations with attachment to STEM, intentions to persist in and further pursue a STEM field, intentions to choose a complex occupation, college major satisfaction, and STEM-related GPA. Dominance analyses indicated that the relative contribution of the STEM Interest Complexity measure exceeded that of traditional interest assessments in the prediction of criteria. The usefulness of integrating a dimension of level and consulting occupation information databases in developing vocational interest assessments are discussed.     

Table talk: inviting students to share the feast

This account describes part of the first morning of the AFT accredited South Yorkshire Foundation Course in Family Therapy and Systemic Practice. The course committee members join together in a reflective conversation about the course. We share with the students our ‘kitchen table’ discussions, the history of our involvement, and how it has affected our lives. We aim to introduce social constructionist practice in which we present the context of the course and address the power relationships in the room by being transparent about our own experiences. We hope to create an atmosphere in which learning can flourish.     

Talking about interest: exploring the role of social interaction for regulating motivation and the interest experience

The Self-Regulation of Motivation Model suggests that the experience of interest is an important source of human motivation and that people often strategically regulate the experience of interest. Previous work based on this model suggests that the social context may influence this process at multiple points. The present research focuses on whether talking to others about an activity experience is one means by which individuals evaluate how interesting that activity is. In Study 1 college students completed questionnaires that asked about real life experiences where working on an activity was more interesting because they worked with others. They described experiences that occurred first in any domain, and then that occurred specifically in the school domain. Results suggested that the more students talked with others about the activity after it happened the more they reported greater interest in the activity after the conversations. In the school domain, this was especially true for Latinos and for individuals who scored higher on the Relational Self-Construal scale. Study 2 employed a lab paradigm to control for the task that individuals talked to others about and to examine whether the nature of listeners’ reactions influenced the speaker’s interest even after the study was ostensibly over. First, replicating Pasupathi and Rich (2005, ‘Inattentive listening undermines self-verification in personal storytelling’, Journal of Personality 73, pp. 1051–1086) college students who talked to a distracted friend about a computer game during the lab session reported a significant drop in interest relative to those who talked to attentive friends, regardless of whether the attentive listeners agreed or disagreed with participants. Importantly, interest ratings at a 4–6 week follow-up were affected by the perceived responsiveness of listeners during spontaneous conversational retellings outside the lab, controlling for interest levels at the end of the lab session. Taken together, results suggest that social interaction plays an important role in regulating activity interest even beyond the immediate activity experience.     

Applying social cognitive career theory to predict interests and choice goals in statistics among Spanish psychology students

This study investigated the usefulness of social cognitive career theory—SCCT (Lent, Brown, and Hackett, 1994) in predicting interests and goals relating to statistics among psychology students. The participants were 1036 Spanish students who completed measurements of statistics-related mastery experiences, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, interests and goals/intentions. Structural equation modeling (including multi-group analysis) was used to test the fit of the hypothesized models to the data. Results indicated support for SCCT as a way to predict students' interests in statistics and their intentions of engaging in academic or professional activities where statistics is used. Collectively, the predictors accounted for 50% of the variance in interests and for 77% of the variance in goals. Implications both for future research on SCCT and for intervention in statistics education are discussed.     

Remembering without a past: individuals with anterograde memory impairment talk about their lives

This paper describes the linguistic resources people with anterograde amnesia draw on in conversational narratives. Because of their problems in recollecting post-morbid memories, it is particularly challenging for such individuals to refer to personal experiences. Seven patients with anterograde memory impairments due to neurotrauma were interviewed one year post-event. Among other topics, they were asked to talk about their new lives and selves, which was expected to be a precarious affair given that they did not have many or any autobiographical memories. Microanalyses of their narratives identified three readily available linguistic resources that participants used to facilitate their storytelling. These were categorized as "memory importation" (transplanting a past memory into the present), "memory appropriation" (taking another's memory as one's own), and "memory compensation" (searching for memories). It is argued that although these resources were not always efficiently used by participants and their use often violated conversational expectations, these linguistic techniques provided a helpful means to sustain the production of personal narratives, even in the absence of autobiographical memory.     

Watching people talk about their emotions: Inferences in response to full-face vs. profile expressions

Young adults talked to an experimenter about their emotional reactions to video episodes intended to evoke either negative or positive affect. Facial behavior was simultaneously videotaped from three perspectives (full-face, a 90° right profile, and a 90° left profile) without their awareness. Judges viewed a subset of dynamic expressions in one of the three facial perspectives in either normal or mirror-reversed orientation. While subjects talked about a negative affect elicitor, the left hemiface and the full-face were perceived as more expressive than the right hemiface. The left hemiface, in reversed orientation, was perceived to display more emotion than the same expression in original orientation for positive or negative affect. These results are discussed in the context of the literature exploring hemifacial differences in emotional expression and mouth asymmetry during propositional speech.     

Walking the talk: Value importance,value enactment,and well-being

Prior research on intrinsic versus extrinsic values has focused on the comparative importance subjects assign to the two types of values, showing that relative intrinsic versus extrinsic value orientation (RIEVO) predicts higher or increased well-being. In two studies, we show that rated action taken regarding the two types of values is just as essential to study. Support was found for four hypotheses: (1) there was a significant behavior/importance gap, such that participants “walked” (acted on values) less than they “talked” (endorsed those values); (2) this was especially true for intrinsic values, an interaction suggesting that the intrinsic ideals of personal growth, community, and connection often receive only lip service; (3) the “walk” (behavior ratings) measure of RIEVO subsumed the “talk” (importance ratings) RIEVO measure’s effects on well-being outcomes, suggesting that researchers interested in predicting well-being from values should perhaps focus on rated value enactment, not value importance; and (4) participants with higher meaning in life, lower search for meaning, more self-concordance at work, and greater chronological age evidenced more consistency between their talking and their walking.     

STEM enrichment programs and graduate school matriculation: the role of science identity salience

Improving the state of science education in the United States has become a national priority. One response to this problem has been the implementation of STEM enrichment programs designed to increase the number of students that enter graduate programs in science. Current research indicates enrichment programs have positive effects for student performance, degree completion, interest in science and graduate enrollment. Moreover, research suggests that beyond improving performance in STEM, and providing access to research experience and faculty mentoring, enrichment programs may also increase the degree to which students identify as scientists. However, researchers investigating the role of science identity on student outcomes have focused primarily on subjective outcomes, leaving a critical question of whether science identity also influences objective outcomes such as whether students attend graduate school. Using identity theory, this study addresses this issue by investigating science identity as a mechanism linking enrichment program participation to matriculation into graduate science programs. Quantitative results from a panel study of 694 students indicate that science identity salience, along with research experience and college GPA, mediate the effect of enrichment program participation on graduate school matriculation. Further, results indicate that although the social psychological process by which science identity salience develops operates independently from student GPA, science identity amplifies the effect of achievement on graduate school matriculation. These results indicate that policies seeking to increase the efficacy of enrichment programs and increase representation in STEM graduate programs should be sensitive to the social and academic aspects of STEM education.     

Real-world face recognition: the importance of surface reflectance properties

The face recognition task we perform [corrected] most often in everyday experience is the identification of people with whom we are familiar. However, because of logistical challenges, most studies focus on unfamiliar-face recognition, wherein subjects are asked to match or remember images of unfamiliar people's faces. Here we explore the importance of two facial attributes -shape and surface reflectance-in the context of a familiar-face recognition task. In our experiment, subjects were asked to recognise color images of the faces of their friends. The images were manipulated such that only reflectance or only shape information was useful for recognizing any particular face. Subjects were actually better at recognizing their friends' faces from reflectance information than from shape information. This provides evidence that reflectance information is important for face recognition in ecologically relevant contexts.