Effective Ways to Develop and Maintain Robust Sport-Confidence: Strategies Advocated by Sport Psychology Consultants

Based on recent evidence, this study identified 10 strategies advocated by sport psychology consultants as effective at developing and maintaining robust sport-confidence in athletes. Due to the study's exploratory nature, qualitative interviews were conducted and content analyzed. Six themes emerged for developing robust sport-confidence and 4 emerged for maintaining robust sport-confidence. Findings reveal a need to develop an athlete's signature strengths, increase pressure experienced in training, and identify broad stable sources of confidence to develop robust sport-confidence. Consultants reported that maintaining robust sport-confidence occurs through constant development. Theoretical implications and future research directions are discussed.     

A tool for thought! When comparative thinking reduces stereotyping effects

Stereotypes have pervasive, robust, and often unwanted effects on how people see and behave towards others. Undoing these effects has proven to be a daunting task. Two studies demonstrate that procedurally priming participants to engage in comparative thinking with a generalized focus on differences reduces behavioral and judgmental stereotyping effects. In Study 1, participants who were procedurally primed to focus on differences sat closer to a skinhead - a member of a negatively stereotyped group. In Study 2, participants primed on differences ascribed less gender stereotypic characteristics to a male and female target person. This suggests that comparative thinking with a focus on differences may be a simple cognitive tool to reduce the behavioral and judgmental effects of stereotyping.     

College Students' Permissive Sexual Attitudes: Links to Religiousness and Spirituality

Clear associations exist between religiousness and conservative sexual attitudes, but there is a paucity of research on spirituality's interaction. In this study, the authors examined the link between 297 male and 642 female college students' reports on sexual attitudes coupled with multidimensional measures of intrapersonal and interpersonal aspects of spirituality and religiousness. Results indicated significant links between private religious practices, daily spiritual experiences, and conservative sexual attitudes for all respondents. However, for male but not female participants, self-reported spirituality had significant inverse correlation with permissive sexual attitudes. Further, spiritual disclosure and self-reported extent of religiousness were related to female participants' reports of more conservative sexual attitudes. Finally, hierarchical regression analyses found that spirituality provided unique variance toward conservative sexual attitudes for male but not female participants. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Gender Differences in Leadership Aspirations and Job and Life Attribute Preferences among U.S. Undergraduate Students

The purpose of the present study was to examine gender differences in constructs associated with leadership aspirations in a sample of 467 undergraduate students because these might contribute to the gender gap in leadership attainment. The results demonstrated that female participants perceived themselves as having less leadership ability than male participants, and viewed their attainment of leadership roles as less likely than male participants did, which could reflect anticipated discrimination. Female participants reported less interest than male participants in elite leadership positions (e.g., CEO, senator), and associated positive characteristics with such roles less than male participants. They were also less likely than male participants to indicate a willingness to accept a promotion that would require them to sacrifice enjoyable work. Male and female participants ranked the importance of a variety of job and life attribute preferences similarly, though female participants emphasized the importance of life attribute preferences (e.g., family, good health), whereas male participants emphasized the importance of job attribute preferences (e.g., high salary). Finally, male participants were more likely than female participants to expect and prefer that they would out-earn their future spouses. These results highlight the need for greater consideration of how young women’s and men’s leadership aspirations and job/life preferences contribute to the gender gap in leadership attainment.     

Ratings of emotion in laterally presented faces: sex and handedness effects

Sixteen right-handed participants (8 male and 8 female students) and 16 left-handed participants (8 male and 8 female students) were presented with cartoon faces expressing emotions ranging from extremely positive to extremely negative. A forced-choice paradigm was used in which the participants were asked to rate the faces as either positive or negative. Compared to men, women rated faces more positively, especially in response to right visual field presentations. Women rated neutral and mildly positive faces more positively in the right than in the left visual field, whereas men rated these faces consistently across visual fields. Handedness did not affect the ratings of emotion. The data suggest a positive emotional bias of the left hemisphere in women.     

Attitudes Toward Pornography and the Characteristics Attributed to Pornography Actors

Proponents and opponents of pornography often use the assumed characteristics and motivations of female pornography actors to justify their position. The purpose of this study was to examine the relations among attitudes toward pornography, gender, and beliefs about both female and male pornography actors. University students (N = 165) completed measures assessing their attitudes toward pornography and their beliefs about male and female pornography actors. Attitudes toward pornography were significantly related to beliefs about both male and female pornography actors, as was gender. A larger discrepancy between beliefs about female pornography actors and women in general than between male pornography actors and men in general was found. Male participants rated female pornography actors similar to male pornography actors, whereas female participants rated female pornography actors more negatively than male pornography actors. Across participant gender, female pornography actors were believed to come from more dysfunctional families than male pornography actors. In general, male pornography actors were attributed more positive motivations for their work than female pornography actors.     

On Gender Specificity of Person Characteristics in Personnel Advertisements: A Study Among Future Applicants

This research is an examination of how person characteristics mentioned in personnel advertisements influence the judgments of male and female students with regard to their subjective eligibility for, and the attractiveness of, a particular vacancy. The first study showed that many frequently mentioned person characteristics in personnel advertisements applied differently to men and women, but that female characteristics were more in demand than male characteristics. The second study examined to what degree male and female participants felt that they themselves possessed male and female characteristics; results showed that the men were more confident about the degree to which they possessed male and female characteristics than the women were. The third study examined how the type of person characteristics mentioned in personnel advertisements influenced men's and women's judgments regarding their eligibility for and the attractiveness of a particular position. The men found all positions about equally attractive, whereas the women found “male” positions considerably less attractive. Implications of the study are discussed.     

Interactive Effects of Exercise Status and Observer Gender on the Impressions Formed of Men

The present study was designed to examine whether men and women differ in the impressions they form of men based on exercise status. Male and female participants (N?=?183) rated a male exercise or control target on both physical and personality variables. Analysis of the physical characteristics revealed a significant condition by gender interaction where male participants rated the control target as significantly less fit (as compared to the exercise target) than did female participants. Analyses also revealed exercise status main effects for both physical and personality characteristics; exercisers were viewed in a more positive light than control targets. The present findings revealed that exercise status might have differential effects on impression formation depending on the gender of the people who are forming the impression.     

Employment Desirability: The Interactive Effects of Gender-Typed Profile,Stimulus Sex,and Gender-Typed Occupation

Using a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design we investigated the interactive effects of gender-typed profile (masculine, feminine), stimulus sex (male, female), and gender-typed occupation (firefighter, secretary) on employment desirability. Forty-five women and 35 men volunteered to participate (M age = 21.14, SD = 4.05). Most participants were white, however, people of various racial and ethnic backgrounds were represented in the sample. Each participant read one of eight scenarios describing (a) a man or a woman, (b) applying for a job as a firefighter or a secretary, and (c) described by male gender-typed or female gender-typed adjectives. Each scenario was followed by five employment desirability rating items. A significant three-way interaction revealed that participants rated male firefighters described by a masculine-typed profile the highest overall. Gender-typed occupation by stimulus sex was also significant; that is, the male firefighter received higher ratings than the female firefighter and the female secretary received higher ratings than the male secretary. There was a significant main effect for gender-typed profile, in that participants rated the masculine-typed profile more favorably than the feminine-typed profile. Overall, male and female participants did not differ significantly in their ratings of hiring desirability.     

In the Eye of the Beholder: Knowledge that a Man is Gay Promotes American College Students’ Attributions of Cross-Gender Characteristics

In this study, we examine whether an actual (rather than hypothetical) man being labeled “gay” either by himself or by another influences American (US) undergraduates’ attributions of the man’s masculinity, femininity, and likeability, replicating (with refinements) a similar study from the 1970s. One hundred ninety-two male and 591 female undergraduates, almost exclusively white, in Kentucky observed two gender-typical white men (one very masculine and the other of average masculinity, both low in femininity, both gay) play a word game on videotape; prior to playing, each man labeled either himself or the other man as either gay or adopted. Male participants rated the men as less masculine and more feminine than female participants, but the label used did not differentially influence male and female participants. Both male and female participants rated each man less masculine and more feminine when labeled gay than when the other man was labeled gay, and rated the more masculine man less masculine and more feminine when labeled gay than when labeled adopted. Whether either man was labeled by himself or by the other man, or whether either man was a labeler or in the presence of a self-labeler, had no effect on participants’ ratings of the men’s masculinity or femininity. Both men were rated as likeable across all conditions. While the stereotype of gay men as more feminine and less masculine than other men appears robust since the 1970 study, the dislike of gay men appears to have abated.     

Evaluating the Evaluators: Perceptions of Interviewers by Rejected Job Applicants as a Function of Interviewer and Applicant Sex1

Students who had recently had an unsuccessful job interview rated the competence of their interviewer and completed the Women As Managers Scale (WAMS; Terborg, Peters, Ilgen, & Smith, 1977 ). The results showed an impact of the sex of interviewer on judgments of interviewer competence and WAMS scores, but only for male participants. Male participants gave lower ratings of interviewer competence to female than to male interviewers, and ratings for the female interviewers were also lower than those given by female participants. Scores on the WAMS were lower for male participants who were interviewed by a female interviewer than those interviewed by a male interviewer, and were lower for male than for female participants with a female interviewer.     

Mothers' and Fathers' Gender-Role Characteristics: The Assignment of Postdivorce Child Care and Custody

Adults (151 female, 130 male; 17.4% African American/Black, 48% Caucasian, 22.8% Latino/Hispanic, 11.7% “other”) assigned postdivorce parental care and custody for four combinations of traditional/nontraditional mothers and fathers described in vignettes of divorcing parents. Parental gender characteristics influenced the assignment of parental care and child custody to divorcing mothers and fathers described in the scenarios and interacted with child gender. Across scenarios, female participants assigned more parental care and custody to mothers than did male participants. When feminine qualities were paired with masculine qualities, greater custody was assigned to the parent described with feminine characteristics (whether a father or mother) than when that parent was described with masculine characteristics. The role of feminine gender characteristics for child custody and care was discussed with regard to maternal primacy and possible changes for father involvement in the aftermath of divorce.     

Sex differences in left-handedness: a meta-analysis of 144 studies

Human handedness, a marker for language lateralization in the brain, continues to attract great research interest. A widely reported but not universal finding is a greater male tendency toward left-handedness. Here the authors present a meta-analysis of k = 144 studies, totaling N = 1,787,629 participants, the results of which demonstrate that the sex difference is both significant and robust. The overall best estimate for the male to female odds ratio was 1.23 (95% confidence interval = 1.19, 1.27). The widespread observation of this sex difference is consistent with it being related to innate characteristics of sexual differentiation, and its observed magnitude places an important constraint on current theories of handedness. In addition, the size of the sex difference was significantly moderated by the way in which handedness was assessed (by writing hand or by other means), the location of testing, and the year of publication of the study, implicating additional influences on its development.     

Understanding gender bias in face recognition: Effects of divided attention at encoding

Prior research has demonstrated a female own-gender bias in face recognition, with females better at recognizing female faces than male faces. We explored the basis for this effect by examining the effect of divided attention during encoding on females' and males' recognition of female and male faces. For female participants, divided attention impaired recognition performance for female faces to a greater extent than male faces in a face recognition paradigm (Study 1; N = 113) and an eyewitness identification paradigm (Study 2; N = 502). Analysis of remember–know judgments (Study 2) indicated that divided attention at encoding selectively reduced female participants' recollection of female faces at test. For male participants, divided attention selectively reduced recognition performance (and recollection) for male stimuli in Study 2, but had similar effects on recognition of male and female faces in Study 1. Overall, the results suggest that attention at encoding contributes to the female own-gender bias by facilitating the later recollection of female faces.     

The effectiveness of a peer-helping programme that increases subjective well-being

The present study aims to investigate the effectiveness of a peer-helping programme in increasing the subjective well-being of a group of university students compared with a control group with the same characteristics who did not receive the intervention. The intervention recipients consisted of 13 male and 17 female participants. The peer helpers were 22 female and 8 male participants. The peer-helping programme consisted of three stages: training in helping skills, implementation and facilitating supervision sessions. The short-term effects of the programme were investigated using the Positive and Negative Affect Scale. The programme's long-term effects were evaluated using the Life Satisfaction Scale and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. The results indicated that the short-term subjective well-being effects of the intervention activities were statistically significant. Additionally, the results revealed statistically significant increases in positive affect and life satisfaction and significant decreases in negative affect in the intervention group compared with that in the control group. Peer-helping programme may be used to increase individuals’ subjective well-being.     

Cigarette Smoking in Popular Films: Does It Increase Viewers' Likelihood to Smoke?1

The effect of viewing smoking in popular films was investigated. Participants were instructed to rate main characters in scenes from popular films on 12 characteristics (e. g., attractive, sexy, sociable). One group watched 6 scenes from popular films in which the main character they rated was smoking. The other group watched scenes from the same 6 films in which they rated the same main characters who were not smoking. The participants rated the female characters shown smoking less favorably on all rated characteristics, but not the male characters. The male regular and occasional smokers had a higher current desire to smoke if the film characters they had viewed smoked. Both female and male participants who viewed the characters smoking were more likely to indicate a likelihood to smoke than were the participants who viewed the nonsmoking scenes.