A meta-analytic review of gender variations in children's language use: talkativeness, affiliative speech, and assertive speech

Three sets of meta-analyses examined gender effects on children's language use. Each set of analyses considered an aspect of speech that is considered to be gender typed: talkativeness, affiliative speech, and assertive speech. Statistically significant average effect sizes were obtained with all three language constructs. On average, girls were slightly more talkative and used more affiliative speech than did boys, whereas boys used more assertive speech than did girls. However, the average effect sizes were either negligible (talkativeness, d=0.11; assertive speech, d=0.11) or small (affiliative speech, d=0.26). Larger effect sizes were indicated for some language constructs depending on either the operational definition of the language measure, the method of recording, the child's age level, the interaction partner (adult or peer), group size, gender composition, observational setting, or type of activity. The results are interpreted in relation to social-developmental and social-constructionist approaches to gender; these views are presented as complementary--rather than competing--meta-theoretical viewpoints.     

A meta-analytic review of gender differences in ADHD

The present study examined gender differences in ADHD through a meta-analysis. Effect size estimates for the primary symptoms and correlates of ADHD were calculated in an attempt to replicate and extend a previous meta-analysis on gender differences in the disorder. Relatively lenient inclusion criteria were used in order to maximize the number of studies included in the effect sizes. The results indicated that in comparison to ADHD boys, ADHD girls had lower ratings on hyperactivity, inattention, impulsivity, and externalizing problems. In addition, ADHD girls had greater intellectual impairments and more internalizing problems than ADHD boys. Overall, the results of the current meta-analysis indicated general agreement with the previous meta-analysis. The clinical implications of these gender differences and future research considerations are discussed.     

A meta-analytic review of gender differences in perceptions of sexual harassment

Research on gender differences in perceptions of sexual harassment informs an ongoing legal debate regarding the use of a reasonable person standard instead of a reasonable woman standard to evaluate sexual harassment claims. The authors report a meta-analysis of 62 studies of gender differences in harassment perceptions. An earlier quantitative review combined all types of social-sexual behaviors for a single meta-analysis; the purpose of this study was to investigate whether the magnitude of the female-male difference varies by type of behavior. An overall standardized mean difference of 0.30 was found, suggesting that women perceive a broader range of social-sexual behaviors as harassing. However, the meta-analysis also found that the female-male difference was larger for behaviors that involve hostile work environment harassment, derogatory attitudes toward women, dating pressure, or physical sexual contact than sexual propositions or sexual coercion.     

Grammatical gender effects on cognition: implications for language learning and language use

In 4 experiments, the authors addressed the mechanisms by which grammatical gender (in Italian and German) may come to affect meaning. In Experiments 1 (similarity judgments) and 2 (semantic substitution errors), the authors found Italian gender effects for animals but not for artifacts; Experiment 3 revealed no comparable effects in German. These results suggest that gender effects arise as a generalization from an established association between gender of nouns and sex of human referents, extending to nouns referring to sexuated entities. Across languages, such effects are found when the language allows for easy mapping between gender of nouns and sex of human referents (Italian) but not when the mapping is less transparent (German). A final experiment provided further constraints: These effects during processing arise at a lexical-semantic level rather than at a conceptual level.     

Effects of real gender and labeled gender on adults' perceptions of infants.

Three experiments were conducted to discover factors mediating adults' perceptions of male and female infants. In the first experiment, college students were shown 30-s videotapes of four male and four female babies, each of whom was randomly labeled with a male or a female name. Infants labeled as male were perceived as significantly more masculine and stronger than those labeled as female. Discriminant analyses revealed that both rated masculinity and the combination of ratings on male stereotyped traits differentiated infants labeled as male or female. Analyses of real gender revealed that boys were rated as less sensitive and stronger than girls. Discriminant analyses suggested that the combination of less sensitive, more of a problem, more mature, and more playful best differentiated real males from real females. In Experiment 2, the findings of Experiment 1 were confirmed with a sample of mothers of young infants. In Experiment 3 college students' judgments of the sex of the eight babies were correctly predicted from the sensitivity ratings of these babies in Experiment 1. It appears that there is a complex of cues from which adults make judgments of infants' gender and inferences about their characteristics: Boys may appear stronger, more playful, and more of a problem, and girls seem to look more sensitive. Implications for further studies of gender labeling and for sex typing are discussed.     

Peer attachment and self-esteem: A meta-analytic review

Peer attachment might provide individuals with opportunities to build their sense of self-worth. The purpose of this paper was to meta-analytically review literature on peer attachment and self-esteem. A total of 22 articles reporting 24 studies documenting correlations between peer attachment and self-esteem in adolescents and emerging adults were included in this meta-analysis. Of these studies, most examined links between global peer attachment and self-esteem, while few studies reported any associations between specific dimensions of peer attachment (i.e., trust, communication, and alienation) and self-esteem. Results showed significant correlations between peer attachment and self-esteem, consistently found both in studies focused on global attachment as well as in studies including specific attachment dimensions. Furthermore, since a significant heterogeneity was found across the studies, the effects of various categorical and continuous moderators related to characteristics of the study samples and designs were tested. Implications of these findings for future research are discussed.     

Stress, glucocorticoids, and memory: a meta-analytic review

Although a strong psychoneuroendocrine linkage exists between stress, glucocorticoids and memory, the relationship is not always straightforward. Eighty-eight effect sizes and 1642 participants from 28 studies were meta-analyzed for the effects of stress on memory performance and glucocorticoid activation. Analyses showed that stress was associated with glucocorticoid activation and declarative memory decline. In animal studies, predator stress affected memory performance more than physical stress. In human studies, males showed higher cortisol levels than females in response to stress. Further, the correlation between cortisol levels and memory deficits was stronger in studies using laboratory stressors than those examining long term effects of chronic exposure to rising basal levels of glucocorticoids and chronic life stressors. It was concluded that, although the relationship between stress, glucocorticoids, and memory loss was empirically supported, there were other factors, such as stress condition and gender, as well as individual differences within groups, that influenced the association between these variables, and warrant further examination.     

Sex differences in duration judgments: A meta-analytic review

We quantitatively reviewed human sex differences in the magnitude and variability of duration judgments. Data from 4,794 females and 4,688 males yielded 87 effect size estimates of magnitude and 28 of variability. The overall sex difference in duration judgment magnitude was small but statistically significant. It was moderated by whether study participants knew in advance (prospective paradigm) or only later (retrospective paradigm) that they would be required to judge duration. Although prospective judgments showed no overall sex effect, some levels of moderator variables showed a small but statistically significant effect. Retrospective judgments showed a larger subjective-to-objective duration ratio for females than for males, and several variables moderated this effect. Females' judgments also showed more intersubject variability than did males' judgments. Relative to males, females sustain attention to time more in the prospective paradigm and have better episodic memory in the retrospective paradigm.     

Religious involvement and mortality: a meta-analytic review.

A meta-analysis of data from 42 independent samples examining the association of a measure of religious involvement and all-cause mortality is reported. Religious involvement was significantly associated with lower mortality (odds ratio = 1.29; 95% confidence interval: 1.20-1.39), indicating that people high in religious involvement were more likely to be alive at follow-up than people lower in religious involvement. Although the strength of the religious involvement-mortality association varied as a function of several moderator variables, the association of religious involvement and mortality was robust and on the order of magnitude that has come to be expected for psychosocial factors. Conclusions did not appear to be due to publication bias.     

Improving outgroup attitudes in schools: A meta-analytic review

To provide information for educators, educational psychologists, school psychologists, and social psychologists, we conducted a quantitative meta-analytic test of n = 50 studies dating from 1995 to 2015 that evaluated the effects of in-school interventions on attitudes toward outgroup members (defined as members of different ethnic or religious backgrounds or different age groups, persons with either physical or mental disabilities, or persons with other distinctive features). Overall, the analysis revealed a mean effect size of d + = 0.36 with a 95% confidence interval that ranged from 0.17 to 0.55, indicating significant, moderate intervention effects, supporting the proposition that meaningful changes in outgroup attitudes can be obtained by applying anti-bias programs in schools. Results from our analysis did not provide evidence that teacher-led interventions produce positive outcomes, yet we found that interventions delivered by researchers promote positive attitudes toward outgroup members. Further, a closer examination demonstrated that one-on-one interventions are most effective at tackling intergroup attitudes. However, classroom-wide programs are more likely to be introduced into regular school activities because of their efficiency and the limited resources available for interventions.     

Prospective and retrospective duration judgments: A meta-analytic review

A meta-analytic review compared prospective and retrospective judgments of duration, or duration judgment paradigm. Some theorists have concluded that the two paradigms involve similar cognitive processes, whereas others have found that they involve different processes. A review of 20 experiments revealed that prospective judgments are longer and less variable than are retrospective judgments. Several theoretically important variables moderate these effects, especially those concerned with information processing activities. Therefore, somewhat different cognitive processes subserve experienced and remembered duration. Attentional models are needed to explain prospective judgments, and memory-based models are needed to explain retrospective judgments. These findings clarify models of human duration judgment and suggest directions for future research. Evidence on duration judgments may also influence models of attention and memory.     

Leadership,creativity and innovation: a meta-analytic review

ABSTRACT

This paper reports the most comprehensive meta-analytic examination of the relationship between leadership and both followers’ creative and innovative performance. Specifically, we examined 13 leadership variables (transformational, transactional, ethical, humble, leader-member exchange, benevolent, authoritarian, entrepreneurial, authentic, servant, empowering, supportive, and destructive) using data from 266 studies. In addition to providing robustly estimated correlations, we explore two theoretically and pragmatically important issues: the relative importance of the different leadership constructs and moderators of the relationship between leadership and employee creativity and innovation. Regrading creative performance, authentic, empowering, and entrepreneurial leadership demonstrated the strongest relationships. For innovative performance, both transactional (contingent reward) and supportive leadership appear particularly relevant. The current study synthesizes an important, burgeoning, diverse body of research, and in doing so, generates nuanced evidence that can be used to guide theoretical advancements, improved research designs, and up-to-date policy recommendations regarding leading for creativity, and innovation.     

Depression and attributions in children and adolescents: A meta-analytic review

This article presents a meta-analytic review of the association between attributional styles and depressive symptoms in children and adolescents. In 28 studies involving 7500 subjects, the correlations were consistent with those predicted by the reformulated learned helplessness model of depression. For negative outcomes, attributions along the internal, stable, and global dimensions were associated positively with depression. Conversely, higher levels of depressive symptoms were related to more external, unstable, and specific attributions for positive events. Additionally, overall composite maladaptive attributional patterns for positive and negative events were correlated with higher levels of depressive symptoms in youth. Effect sizes for these associations ranged from moderate to large (Cohen, 1977). Findings from the significance tests of the combined results support the theory. A large number of unretrieved studies revealing null effects would be needed to invalidate these findings.     

Delay knowledge and trial set count modulate use of proactive versus reactive control: A meta-analytic review

The AX-continuous performance task (AX-CPT) and dot pattern expectancy (DPX) are the predominant cognitive paradigms used to assess the relative utilization of proactive versus reactive cognitive control. Experimental parameters vary widely between studies and systematically between different modalities (i.e., fMRI vs. EEG) with unknown consequences for the implementation of control. This meta-analytic review systematically surveyed these bodies of literature (k = 43, 73 data points) to resolve how cue–probe delay knowledge, delay length, and trial set count modulate the preferential use of proactive versus reactive control. In healthy young adults, delay knowledge and increasing trial set count each bias participants toward greater proactive control. Further, the interaction of delay knowledge and trial set count accounts for ~40% of variability in proactive/reactive control performance. As trial count varies reliably between experimental modalities, it is critical to understand how these parameters activate distinct cognitive processes and tap into different neural mechanisms for control. Subgroup analyses revealed important distinctions from our results in healthy young adults. Healthy, slightly older adults (ages 30–45 years) performed more reactively compared to healthy young adults. In addition, participants with schizophrenia showed evidence of more proactive control as trial set count increased. In light of this meta-analytic review, we conclude that delay knowledge and trial set length are important parameters to account for in the assessment of proactive versus reactive control. More broadly, this metaregression provides strong evidence that cognitive control becomes more reactive when timing demands are not known, and that both healthy persons and persons with schizophrenia shift toward proactive control with increasing repetitions of a task set.     

Shame, guilt, and depressive symptoms: a meta-analytic review

Recent theoretical and empirical work has facilitated the drawing of sharp conceptual distinctions between shame and guilt. A clear view of these distinctions has permitted development of a research literature aimed at evaluating the differential associations of shame and guilt with depressive symptoms. This study quantitatively summarized the magnitude of associations of shame and guilt with depressive symptoms. Two hundred forty-two effect sizes were obtained from 108 studies employing 22,411 participants. Shame showed significantly stronger associations with depressive symptoms (r = .43) than guilt (r = .28). However, the association of shame and depressive symptoms was statistically indistinguishable from the associations of 2 maladaptive variants of guilt and depressive symptoms (contextual-maladaptive guilt, involving exaggerated responsibility for uncontrollable events, r = .39; generalized guilt, involving "free-floating" guilt divorced from specific contexts, r = .42). Other factors also moderated the effects. External shame, which involves negative views of self as seen through the eyes of others, was associated with larger effect sizes (r = .56) than internal shame (r = .42), which involves negative views of self as seen through one's own eyes. Depressive symptom measures that invoked the term guilt yielded stronger associations between guilt and depressive symptoms (r = .33) than depressive symptom measures that did not (r = .21). Age, sex, and ethnicity (proportion of Whites to Asians) did not moderate the effects. Although these correlational data are ambiguous with respect to their causal interpretation, results suggest that shame should figure more prominently in understandings of the emotional underpinnings of depressive symptoms.     

Communication attitudes in children who stutter: A meta-analytic review

BackgroundThis article presents a meta-analytic review of differences in communication attitudes between children who stutter (CWS) and children who do not stutter (CWNS).MethodTo be included in this review, the studies had to include a group of CWS and CWNS between the ages of 3–18 years and a measurement of communication attitudes. The journal articles were identified by using the key words stutter*, speech disfluenc*, fluency disorder*, and stammer* cross-referenced to awareness*, reaction*, attitude*, KiddyCAT, CAT, A-19 Scale, PASS and OASES.ResultsA total of 18 studies met the inclusion criteria for this meta-analysis. The results showed that CWS exhibit more negative communication attitudes than CWNS from the preschool years. The differences between the groups increased with age, but were not influenced by gender.ConclusionThe results indicate that negative communication attitudes can be an effect of stuttering. Key issues requiring further investigation are whether communication attitudes differ as a function of age at stuttering onset and whether communication attitudes influence the development of stuttering.Educational Objectives: After reading this article, the reader will be able to: (a) summarise empirical findings with regard to the relationship between communication attitudes and childhood stuttering; (b) describe the different instruments used to measure communication attitudes; (c) discuss the relationship between communication attitudes, age and gender.     

Leader autonomy support in the workplace: A meta-analytic review

Leader autonomy support (LAS) refers to a cluster of supervisory behaviors that are theorized to facilitate self-determined motivation in employees, potentially enabling well-being and performance. We report the results of a meta-analysis of perceived LAS in work settings, drawing from a database of 754 correlations across 72 studies (83 unique samples, N?=?32,870). Results showed LAS correlated strongly and positively with autonomous work motivation, and was unrelated to controlled work motivation. Correlations became increasingly positive with the more internalized forms of work motivation described by self-determination theory. LAS was positively associated with basic needs, well-being, and positive work behaviors, and was negatively associated with distress. Correlations were not moderated by the source of LAS, country of the sample, publication status, or the operationalization of autonomy support. In addition, a meta-analytic path analysis supported motivational processes that underlie LAS and its consequences in workplaces. Overall, our findings lend support for autonomy support as a leadership approach that is consistent with self-determination and optimal functioning in work settings.     

Attitudes about gender bias in language: A reevaluation

Past research findings identified the gender-biased nature of language and the need to incorporate linguistic changes to alleviate this problem. One suggested change was the adoption of a generic pronoun. Given that most research in this area was conducted 10–15 years ago, it is important to determine present opinion on language and language change. In the present study, male and female respondents from five samples completed a questionnaire regarding gender bias in language. National Organization of Women (NOW) members and psychology students indicated more interest in and had made more of an effort to change their language, and would be more likely to adopt a new gender-neutral pronoun than faculty, or medical or English students. Student groups were motivated more by authorities requiring nonbiased language and others' use of a new pronoun than faculty or NOW members, and the media was an important influence for all groups.This research was supported in part by a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Medicine.