The Effect of Communication Change on Long‐term Reductions in Child Exposure to Conflict: Impact of the Promoting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) Program

African American couples (n = 331) with children, 89% of whom were married, were assigned to either (a) a culturally sensitive couple‐ and parenting‐enhancement program (ProSAAF) or (b) an information‐only control condition in which couples received self‐help materials. Husbands averaged 41 years of age and wives averaged 39 years. We found significant effects of program participation in the short term on couple communication, which was targeted by the intervention, as well as over the long term, on self‐reported arguing in front of children. Long‐term parenting outcomes were fully mediated by changes in communication for wives, but not for husbands. For husbands, positive change depended on amount of wife reported change. We conclude that wives' changes in communication from baseline to posttest may be more pivotal for the couples' long‐term experience of decreased arguing in front of children than are husbands' changes, with wives' changes leading to changes in both partners' reports of arguments in front of children.     

Distancing or drawing together: Sexism and organisational tolerance of sexism impact women's social relationships at work

This article examines the role of organisational climate in women's social responses to sexism at work. We argue that after experiences of sexism, women “draw together” with other women when they perceive that the organisational climate is intolerant of sexism. We assess the role of organisational climate at three levels: peer-, manager-, and policy-level. We conducted a correlational study (N_study1 = 405) and two experimental studies (N_study2 = 377, N_study3 = 391), in which we examined women's experiences of sexism at work (measured in Study 1; manipulated in Studies 2 and 3). We also measured perceived tolerance of sexism at the peer-, manager- and policy-level in all studies. The main DVs were women's workplace friendships with other women in Studies 1 and 2, and closeness to female co-workers in Study 3. Results showed that perceived tolerance of sexism from peers was especially important in shaping women's social relationships following experiences of sexism; tolerance from managers or at the policy level had less consistent effects. Specifically, experiences with sexism were positively associated with female participants' reported friendship (Studies 1 and 2) and closeness (Study 3) with their female colleagues, but only when peers were perceived not to tolerate sexism. When peers were perceived to tolerate sexism, female participants did not respond to sexism by drawing together.     

A Closer Look at Life Goals Across Adulthood: Applying a Developmental Perspective to Content,Dynamics, and Outcomes of Goal Importance and Goal Attainability

It is well established that goals energize and direct behaviour across the lifespan. To better understand how goals are embedded in people's lives across adulthood, the present research examined life goals' content (health, personal growth, prosocial engagement, social relations, status, work), dynamics (interplay between goal importance and goal attainability), and outcomes (subjective well‐being) from a developmental perspective. We argue that people rate those goals as important and attainable that enable them to master developmental tasks, that they adapt their goals to personal capacities, and that goals predict subjective well‐being after 2 and 4 years. The sample included 973 individuals (18–92 years old, M = 43.00 years) of whom 637 participated 2 years later and 573 participated 4 years later. Goal importance and well‐being were assessed at all occasions and goal attainability at the first two occasions. Results indicated that age was negatively associated with importance and attainability of personal‐growth, status, and work goals but positively associated with importance and attainability of prosocial‐engagement goals. The association between goal importance and attainability was largely bidirectional over time; and goal attainability, rather than goal importance, was positively linked to later well‐being. Implications of these findings are discussed in light of adult lifespan development. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Employee psychological well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany: A longitudinal study of demands,resources, and exhaustion

Many governments react to the current coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic by restricting daily (work) life. On the basis of theories from occupational health, we propose that the duration of the pandemic, its demands (e.g., having to work from home, closing of childcare facilities, job insecurity, work-privacy conflicts, privacy-work conflicts) and personal- and job-related resources (co-worker social support, job autonomy, partner support and corona self-efficacy) interact in their effect on employee exhaustion. We test the hypotheses with a three-wave sample of German employees during the pandemic from April to June 2020 (N_w1 = 2900, N_w12 = 1237, N_w123 = 789). Our findings show a curvilinear effect of pandemic duration on working women's exhaustion. The data also show that the introduction and the easing of lockdown measures affect exhaustion, and that women with children who work from home while childcare is unavailable are especially exhausted. Job autonomy and partner support mitigated some of these effects. In sum, women's psychological health was more strongly affected by the pandemic than men's. We discuss implications for occupational health theories and that interventions targeted at mitigating the psychological consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic should target women specifically.     

The Rights of Man: Libertarian Concern for Men's,But Not Women's,Reproductive Autonomy

Libertarianism enshrines individual autonomy as its central political principle, but it has been criticized for applying this principle selectively. Reproductive decisions can stress the concept of individual autonomy by placing into conflict the claimed rights of each biological parent to choose. Two studies (N₁ = 296; N₂ = 580) show that among U.S. participants, libertarianism is associated with opposition to women's reproductive autonomy and support for men's. Libertarianism was associated with opposition to abortion rights and support for men's right both to prevent women from having abortions (male veto) and to withdraw financial support for a child when women refuse to terminate the pregnancy (financial abortion). Adjusting for the association between libertarianism and conservatism, only the relationship with opposition to abortion rights was rendered nonsignificant. Mediation analyses suggest that hostile sexism may account for libertarians' selective support for men's and not women's reproductive autonomy.     

Psychological Empowerment Among Urban Youth: Measurement Model and Associations with Youth Outcomes

Empowerment‐based strategies have become widely used method to address health inequities and promote social change. Few researchers, however, have tested theoretical models of empowerment, including multidimensional, higher‐order models. We test empirically a multidimensional, higher‐order model of psychological empowerment (PE), guided by Zimmerman's conceptual framework including three components of PE: intrapersonal, interactional, and behavioral. We also investigate if PE is associated with positive and negative outcomes among youth. The sample included 367 middle school youth aged 11–16 (M = 12.71; SD = 0.91); 60% female, 32% (n = 117) white youth, 46% (n = 170) African‐American youth, and 22% (n = 80) identifying as mixed race, Asian‐American, Latino, Native American, or other ethnic/racial group; schools reported 61–75% free/reduced lunch students. Our results indicated that each of the latent factors for the three PE components demonstrate a good fit with the data. Our results also indicated that these components loaded on to a higher‐order PE factor (X² = 32.68; df: 22; p = .07; RMSEA: 0.04; 95% CI: .00, .06; CFI: 0.99). We found that the second‐order PE factor was negatively associated with aggressive behavior and positively associated with prosocial engagement. Our results suggest that empowerment‐focused programs would benefit from incorporating components addressing how youth think about themselves in relation to their social contexts (intrapersonal), understanding social and material resources needed to achieve specific goals (interactional), and actions taken to influence outcomes (behavioral). Our results also suggest that integrating the three components and promoting PE may help increase likelihood of positive behaviors (e.g., prosocial involvement); we did not find an association between PE and aggressive behavior. Implications and future directions for empowerment research are discussed.     

Political Ideology Outdoes Personal Experience in Predicting Support for Gender Equality

Indices of gender equality provide an inconsistent picture of current gender inequality in countries with relatively high equality. We examined women's and men's subjectively perceived gender inequality and their support for gender equality in the general population and in politicians, respectively, in three countries with relatively high gender equality: the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany (total N = 1,612). In both women's and men's perceptions, women were treated more unequally than men. However, the inequality that women perceived was larger than the inequality men perceived. Additionally, women reported they personally experience less inequality than women as a group (person-group discrepancy). Finally, women's and men's left/liberal (vs. right/conservative) political ideology turned out to be a relatively more powerful predictor of support for gender equality than perceived personal and societal inequality. We discuss reasons for why political ideology emerged as the strongest predictor of equality support and sketch out implications for policy efforts toward promoting gender equality.     

Subjective Social Standing and Conflict Tactics Among Young Kenyan Men

Efforts to reduce intimate partner violence in sub‐Saharan Africa generally approach the issue through the lens of women's empowerment. These efforts include foci on women's relative power in the relationship, educational background, and earning potential. The social status of men has largely been ignored, reducing the potential to involve them in efforts to demote intimate partner violence. In this study we consider whether a man's perceived social status predicts conflict tactics, and whether these tactics are mediated by loneliness and collective self‐esteem from a community‐based sample in semi‐rural Kenya (n = 263). We find that men who reported lower perceived social status also reported significantly more frequent violent conflicts with their intimate partners. This association was significantly, and completely, mediated by lower collective self‐esteem and higher loneliness. There was no direct association between subjective social status and negotiation‐based conflict tactics, although there was an indirect association. Men with higher perceived social status reported higher collective self‐esteem, and men with higher collective self‐esteem reported more negotiation‐based conflict tactics. These findings inform efforts to reduce intimate partner violence by involving men, showing potential to reduce violence by building self‐esteem among men—particularly those with lower perceived social status.     

Testing Error Management Theory: Exploring the Commitment Skepticism Bias and the Sexual Overperception Bias

Research on error management theory indicates that men tend to overestimate women's sexual interest and women underestimate men's interest in committed relationships ( Haselton & Buss, 2000 ). We test the assumptions of the theory in face‐to‐face, stranger interactions with 111 man‐woman dyads. Support for the theory emerges, but potential boundary conditions are observed. In addition, we find that women's perceptions of men's desire for commitment is related to the women's own self‐reported sexual interest but that the reverse does not hold for men. Finally, we find evidence consistent with the proposition that people project their own level of interest in sex or in a committed relationship onto their interaction partners.     

Luther's Legacy in American Lutheran Women's Bible Study

Abstract: Every year thousands of Lutheran lay women explore the Bible through the Women's Bible Study featured in the denomination's monthly women's magazine. This tradition began with the women's missionary societies of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries and the recruiting of Lutheran writers for year‐long series. In the ELCA the study is published in the magazine Lutheran Woman Today. The authors have been attentive to biblical critical methods, Lutheran theology, and the lives and faith of people in parishes. Participants report that the women's Bible study contributes to fellowship and to their goals of biblical living and deepened relationships with God, their families, and each other.     

Mapping differential responses to cognitive training using machine learning

We used two simple unsupervised machine learning techniques to identify differential trajectories of change in children who undergo intensive working memory (WM) training. We used self‐organizing maps (SOMs)—a type of simple artificial neural network—to represent multivariate cognitive training data, and then tested whether the way tasks are represented changed as a result of training. The patterns of change we observed in the SOM weight matrices implied that the processes drawn upon to perform WM tasks changed following training. This was then combined with K‐means clustering to identify distinct groups of children who respond to the training in different ways. Firstly, the K‐means clustering was applied to an independent large sample (N = 616, M_age = 9.16 years, range = 5.16–17.91 years) to identify subgroups. We then allocated children who had been through cognitive training (N = 179, M_age = 9.00 years, range = 7.08–11.50 years) to these same four subgroups, both before and after their training. In doing so, we were able to map their improvement trajectories. Scores on a separate measure of fluid intelligence were predictive of a child's improvement trajectory. This paper provides an alternative approach to analysing cognitive training data that go beyond considering changes in individual tasks. This proof‐of‐principle demonstrates a potentially powerful way of distinguishing task‐specific from domain‐general changes following training and of establishing different profiles of response to training.     

Does witnessing gender discrimination predict women's collective action intentions for gender justice? Examining the moderating role of perceived female support

Previous research has indicated that witnessing gender discrimination may instigate women's participation in collective action for gender justice. However, relatively little is known about the role of perceived female support in motivating collective action among women who witness gender discrimination in public life. This study aims to analyse whether and when perceived support from feminist-minded women moderates the association between women's witnessing gender discrimination and their willingness to engage in collective action for gender justice. We argue that the association between witnessing gender discrimination and willingness to engage in collective action depends on the support women perceive from their female friends and family members. In studies of women in the U.S. (Study 1; N = 271) and Ukraine (Study 2; N = 256), witnessing gender discrimination predicted greater willingness to participate in collective action for gender justice, and this association was stronger when female support was perceived to be lower. Study 3 (N = 1,304) replicated the findings of Studies 1 and 2 with self-identified feminist women in Turkey. Our research offers novel insights regarding why perceived lack of female support may encourage women to engage in collective action for gender justice.     

Heightened male aggression toward sexualized women following romantic rejection: The mediating role of sex goal activation

Research from a variety of disciplines suggests a positive relationship between Western cultural sexualization and women's likelihood of suffering harm. In the current experiment, 157 young men were romantically rejected by a sexualized or non‐sexualized woman then given the opportunity to blast the woman with loud bursts of white noise. We tested whether the activation of sexual goals in men would mediate the relationship between sexualization and aggressive behavior after romantic rejection. We also tested whether behaving aggressively toward a woman after romantic rejection would increase men's feelings of sexual dominance. Results showed that interacting with a sexualized woman increased men's sex goals. Heightened sex goal activation, in turn, predicted increased aggression after romantic rejection. This result remained significant despite controlling for the effects of trait aggressiveness and negative affect. The findings suggest that heightened sex goal activation may lead men to perpetrate aggression against sexualized women who reject them.

     

The association between gender role stereotypes,resistance training motivation,and participation

ObjectivesTest the relationships between implicit gender stereotypes and perceptions of resistance training pleasantness, resistance training motivation, and participation among men and women. Test whether gender role moderates the effect of stereotypes on resistance training participation in men and women.DesignImplicit associations between resistance training and masculinity and pleasantness were measured using an Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP). Moderated mediation analyses were conducted to test motivation as a mediator of the relationship between implicit associations and behavior.MethodParticipants (n = 170; 46% male) completed an AMP and measures of motivation for and participation in resistance training.ResultsWomen's implicit associations between exercise and masculinity were not associated with their motivation for or participation in resistance training. The strength of men's implicit masculinity-resistance training association was negatively related to minutes of resistance training per week, mediated by lower autonomous motivation, 95%CI [−419.15 to −11.10]. The association between implicit resistance training pleasantness and behavior was mediated by autonomous motivation in women, 95%CI [2.54 to 313.55], with similar trends in men 95%CI_men [−3.00 to 320.38].ConclusionBased on these findings, implicit associations with masculinity are not associated with women's participation in exercise. However, implicitly endorsing gender-stereotypes for resistance training is associated with lower participation rates in men.     

Recasting Gendered Paradigms: An Indonesian Cleric and Muslim Women in the Malay World

This essay examines the ideas of a prominent Indonesian cleric, Haji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah (Hamka), about the place of women in Islam and in Southeast Asian Muslim societies. I argue that Hamka was engaged in the project of “recasting gendered paradigms,” which involves reinterpreting, reconceptualizing and reconfiguring various dominant understandings about the roles, functions and responsibilities of women in Islam as reflected not only in the Qur'an and the adat (traditional customs), but also in modern discourses about women's empowerment. I show that Hamka's commitment to advocating for women's rights and critiquing prevailing ideas about the place of women in religion and society was a product both of his personal experiences and of the profound social and intellectual shifts that characterized his day and age.     

Daniel has fallen into a muddy puddle – Schadenfreude or sympathy?

The present study investigated the experience of schadenfreude among children. Participants were 4‐ to 8‐year‐old children (n = 100) who were told stories of another child experiencing a misfortune while pursuing a morally positive versus morally negative goal. Schadenfreude, sympathy, and helping behaviour towards the suffering child were assessed. Results showed that beginning at the age of 4, emotional and behavioural reactions towards a misfortune of another child were predicted by the moral valence of the other child's goal. Furthermore, morally negative goals decreased helping behaviour and morally positive goals increased helping behaviour. Multilevel mediation analysis revealed that the relation between goal valence and helping behaviour was mediated by both schadenfreude and sympathy. However, those effects were especially pronounced in older children.     

Congruity of observed social support behaviors and couple relationship quality

This study examined the role of congruity in couples' social support behaviors on relational outcomes. Participants (N = 123 couples, M_age = 26.91, SD = 8.46) completed surveys on relationship satisfaction and discord. Positive and negative behaviors were then observed during supportive interactions. Results revealed that the detrimental effect of negative behaviors on satisfaction was buffered by a partner's engagement in fewer negative behaviors or intensified by more negative behaviors. Further, the beneficial effect of positive behaviors on reducing discord was amplified by a partner's engagement in more positive behaviors or offset by fewer positive behaviors. Last, the detrimental effect of negative behaviors on discord was buffered by a partner's engagement in more positive behaviors. These findings highlight the complex nature of dyadic relationships and provide insights for developing interventions focused on improving romantic relationship quality.     

Religious Belonging,Religious Agency,and Women's Autonomy in Mozambique

Women's autonomy has frequently been linked with women's opportunities and investments, such as education, employment, and reproductive control. The association between women's autonomy and religion in the developing world, however, has received less attention, and the few existing studies make comparisons across major religious traditions. In this study, we focus on variations in levels of female decision‐making autonomy within a single religious tradition—Christianity. Using unique survey data from a predominantly Christian area in Mozambique, we devise an autonomy scale and apply it to compare women affiliated with different Christian denominations as well as unaffiliated women. In addition to affiliation, we examine the relationship between autonomy and women's religious agency both within and outside their churches. Multivariate analyses show that women belonging to more liberal religious traditions (such as Catholicism and mainline Protestantism) tend to have higher autonomy levels, regardless of other factors. These results are situated within the cross‐national scholarship on religion and women's empowerment and are interpreted in the context of gendered religious dynamics in Mozambique and similar developing settings.     

Desirable but not smart: preference for smarter romantic partners impairs women's STEM outcomes

Although women today excel in many areas of society, they are often underrepresented in the traditionally male‐dominated fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). The present research examined whether traditional romantic partner preferences—specifically, a desire to date partners who are smarter than oneself—affects women's tendency to minimize their intelligence in STEM fields when pursuing romantic goals. Women (but not men) who preferred smarter romantic partners showed worse math performance (Studies 1–2), less identification with math (Study 2), and less interest in STEM careers (Study 3) when the goal to be romantically desirable was activated. A meta‐analysis across studies supported results. This research thus demonstrates that partner preferences influence women's STEM outcomes in response to romantic goal pursuit.     

Competence and confusion: How stereotype threat can make you a bad judge of your competence

Women tend to have competence doubts for masculine‐stereotyped domains (e.g., math), whereas men tend to think they can handle both feminine‐stereotyped and masculine‐stereotyped domains equally well. We suggest that perhaps women's more frequent experience with stereotype threat can partly explain why. Our results showed that when stereotype threat was primed in high school students (n = 244), there was no relationship between their performance on an academic test (the SweSAT) and their assessment of their performance (how well they did), whereas in a non‐stereotype threat condition, there was a medium‐sized relationship. The effect was similar for both men and women primed with stereotype threat. The results imply that stereotype threat undermines performance assessments.