Informative sources of math‐related self‐efficacy expectations and their relationship with math‐related self‐efficacy,interest, and preference

In this study, by using the hypotheses of social‐cognitive career theory (SCCT), the relationship between informative sources of math‐related self‐efficacy expectations and self‐efficacy, interest, and math‐weighted major preferences were investigated. The participants in this study were students (N = 590) from high schools in Southern Turkey. Participants completed measures of sources of math‐related self‐efficacy, self‐efficacy, interest, and choice consideration related to math‐weighted majors. While running analyses, sampling was split in half at random and psychometric analyses of the scales were run with the first half (n = 298); the second half (n = 292) was used to test the hypotheses. By doing this, the testing of hypotheses would not be affected by just one specific sampling characteristic. A structural equation model was tested and findings indicated general support for hypotheses that these sources predict self‐efficacy beliefs and these beliefs also predict interest. However, contrary to SCCT's predictions, math‐weighted major preferences are not predicted by math‐related self‐efficacy expectations and interest. In the Discussion, first, the reasons why the measurement of vicarious learning or modelling did not significantly predict self‐efficacy expectations focus on the relationships between personal accomplishments and persuasion and reported physiological arousal and personal accomplishments. Some information is given as to how counsellors and math teachers can work collaboratively to raise perceptions about informative sources. Second, explanations are given about why self‐efficacy and interest did not predict math‐weighted preferences. It is mentioned that this could be the reason for the constrained and complex system of the university entrance exams and placement in Turkey. The importance of investigating environmental variables on SCCT in developing countries was emphasized. Suggestions are also given for further research. It is concluded that this theory should be tested in developing countries like Turkey.     

Predictors and processes related to employees’ change‐related compliance and championing

This field study of a merger examines the antecedent factors and processes that explain two different forms of employee support for change—compliance and championing. Our overarching goal is to understand why some employees comply and others champion change efforts. We examine the combined effects of context and person factors on both positive and negative employee reactions to change, and then investigate the differential effects of these reactions on employee support for change. Results support our hypotheses and show that change management support (context factor) negatively predicts threat appraisals and positively predicts challenge appraisals. Both compliance and championing are positively predicted by challenge appraisals, and threat appraisals are negatively related to championing. Analyses also reveal that the positive relationship between change management support and challenge appraisal is stronger when dispositional resistance to change (person factor) is high. Moderated‐mediation analyses suggest employees’ compliance and championing for change are differentially affected by management actions, their own dispositional resistance, and that these effects are mediated through positive and negative appraisals.     

Using Dynamic Panel Models to Study Age‐related Differences and Time‐related Changes in Personality

Along with an increasing interest in the plasticity and role of personality across the adult lifespan comes the need for a diverse set of innovative statistical approaches to study it. With this paper, we set out to illustrate some of the possibilities and challenges in modelling age‐related differences and time‐related changes in personality psychology by means of dynamic panel models. To this end, we first distinguish between the study of age‐related differences and time‐related changes and demonstrate how the treatment of age and time as either discrete or continuous variables implies important modelling choices. Second, we present a selection of four example cases that address the topic of age moderation in diverse matters and with different objectives. Based on our cross‐tabulation of age and time as discrete and continuous variables, the first two example cases represent fairly well‐established models (cases A and B), whereas the remaining cases are used to illustrate current developments in the field (cases C and D). We close the paper with some final remarks on current limitation and future research directions. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Age‐related changes in the dynamics of fear‐related regulation in early childhood

Self‐regulation is a dynamic process wherein executive processes (EP) delay, minimize or desist prepotent responses (PR) that arise in situations that threaten well‐being. It is generally assumed that, over the course of early childhood, children expand and more effectively deploy their repertoire of EP‐related strategies to regulate PR. However, longitudinal tests of these assumptions are scarce in part because self‐regulation has been mostly studied as a static construct. This study engages dynamic systems modeling to examine developmental changes in self‐regulation between ages 2 and 5 years. Second‐by‐second time‐series data derived from behavioral observations of 112 children (63 boys) faced with novel laboratory‐based situations designed to elicit wariness, hesitation, and fear were modeled using differential equation models designed to capture age‐related changes in the intrinsic dynamics and bidirectional coupling of PR (fear/wariness) and EP (strategy use). Results revealed that dynamic models allow for the conceptualization and measurement of fear regulation as intrinsic processes as well as direct and indirect coupling between PR and EP. Several patterns of age‐related changes were in line with developmental theory suggesting that PR weakened and was regulated more quickly and efficiently by EP at age 5 than at age 2. However, most findings were in the intrinsic dynamics and moderating influences between PR and EP rather than direct influences. The findings illustrate the precision with which specific aspects of self‐regulation can be articulated using dynamic systems models, and how such models can be used to describe the development of self‐regulation in nuanced and theoretically meaningful ways.     

Self‐monitoring,status, and justice‐related information flow

We develop and test a multi‐level interactive model of the relationships among self‐monitoring, co‐workers' formal and informal status, and justice‐related information flow in a scenario‐based field study of 4,011 unique relationships collected from 84 respondents. We predict that individuals high in self‐monitoring, because they attend more carefully to social cues and have higher levels of expressive control, will be more likely than low self‐monitors to intend to seek, accept, and provide justice‐related information as a function of their co‐workers' formal status, the size of their co‐workers' networks, and the advantageousness of their co‐workers' position in the networks (betweenness centrality). This cross‐level interaction hypothesis receives strong support in terms of co‐workers' network size, limited support in terms of co‐workers' betweenness centrality, and no support in terms of co‐workers' formal status. We address the implications of these findings for the literature on self‐monitoring, social construction of organizational justice, and social networks, as well as the strengths and limitations of our approach.     

Food‐related risk‐reduction strategies: purchasing and consumption processes

Confronted with an alarming social discourse favouring the perception of food risk, modern consumers find themselves in a situation of psychological discomfort caused by consumption of foodstuffs coming from the agricultural and foodstuff industry. To eliminate this discomfort the consumer may change their purchasing and consumption habits (constraining hypothesis) or introduce some measures for the reduction of risk. The aim of this paper is to present a new classification of risk reducers taking into account the diversity of buying and consumption practices. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Mindfulness and integrative self‐knowledge: Relationships with health‐related variables

This study examined how mindfulness and integrative self‐knowledge were related to health‐related issues. Men in general population (n = 103) and coronary heart disease samples (n = 101) completed the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, the Integrative Self‐knowledge Scale, the Type 2 subscale of the Interpersonal Reactions Inventory, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Anxiety and Depression Scales. In both samples, there was a moderate positive correlation between mindfulness and integrative self‐knowledge and they were negatively correlated with all health‐related variables. However, only integrative self‐knowledge explained independent variance in health‐related variables. Specifically, in both samples, the relationship between mindfulness and health‐related variables was mediated by integrative self‐knowledge. Mindfulness and integrative self‐knowledge are related domains of self‐awareness that are associated with a range of health‐related variables. These relationships are robust across samples drawn from general population and patients with coronary heart disease. The finding that integrative self‐knowledge explained additional variance in the health‐related variables after the contribution of mindfulness had been accounted for suggests that reflective self‐awareness in integrative self‐knowledge may make a unique contribution to the explanation of individual differences in health variables.     

Attachment‐related expectations and mother‐referent memory bias in middle childhood

Understanding the cognitive processing of attachment‐relevant information has become a major focus of attachment research. Previous research demonstrated links between attachment and memory for attachment‐related information, but results were contradictory and did not control for mood‐effects. The current study aimed to provide a conceptual framework to capture inconsistencies. A straightforward memory bias hypothesis was derived and tested. Fifty children (aged 10–12) completed questionnaires assessing confidence in maternal support and depressive symptoms, and a memory task in which they recalled positive and negative words that referred to previous interactions with mother. Less confidence in maternal support and more depressive symptoms were linked to a more negative mother‐related memory bias. The effect of confidence in maternal support remained marginally significant when controlling for depressive symptoms, explaining the initial effect of depressive symptoms. These findings support attachment theory's hypothesis that attachment‐relevant information is processed in an attachment expectation‐congruent way.     

When being a girl matters less: Accessibility of gender‐related self‐knowledge in single‐sex and coeducational classes and its impact on students' physics‐related self‐concept of ability

Background . Establishing or preserving single‐sex schooling has been widely discussed as a way of bringing more girls into the natural sciences. Aims . We test the assumption that the beneficial effects of single‐sex education on girls' self‐concept of ability in masculine subjects such as physics are due to the lower accessibility of gender‐related self‐knowledge in single‐sex classes. Sample . N = 401 eighth‐graders (mean age 14.0 years) from coeducational comprehensive schools. Methods . Random assignment of students to single‐sex vs. coeducational physics classes throughout the eighth grade. At the end of the year, students' physics‐related self‐concept of ability was measured using a questionnaire. In a subsample of N = 134 students, the accessibility of gender‐related self‐knowledge during physics classes was assessed by measuring latencies and endorsement of sex‐typed trait adjectives. Results . Girls from single‐sex physics classes reported a better physics‐related self‐concept of ability than girls from coeducational classes, while boys' self‐concept of ability did not vary according to class composition. For both boys and girls, gender‐related self‐knowledge was less accessible in single‐sex classes than in mixed‐sex classes. To the extent that girls' feminine self‐knowledge was relatively less accessible than their masculine self‐knowledge, their physics‐related self‐concept of ability improved at the end of the school year. Conclusions . By revealing the importance of the differential accessibility of gender‐related self‐knowledge in single‐ and mixed‐sex settings, our study clarifies why single‐sex schooling helps adolescents to gain a better self‐concept of ability in school subjects that are considered inappropriate for their own sex.     

Event‐related oscillations (EROs) and event‐related potentials (ERPs) comparison in facial expression recognition

The study aims to explore the significance of event‐related potentials (ERPs) and event‐related brain oscillations (EROs) (delta, theta, alpha, beta, gamma power) in response to emotional (fear, happiness, sadness) when compared with neutral faces during 180–250 post‐stimulus time interval. The ERP results demonstrated that the emotional face elicited a negative peak at approximately 230 ms (N2). Moreover, EEG measures showed that motivational significance of face (emotional vs. neutral) could modulate the amplitude of EROs, but only for some frequency bands (i.e. theta and gamma bands). In a second phase, we considered the resemblance of the two EEG measures by a regression analysis. It revealed that theta and gamma oscillations mainly effect as oscillation activity at the N2 latency. Finally, a posterior increased power of theta was found for emotional faces.     

The impact of perspective in visualizing health‐related behaviors: first‐person perspective increases motivation to adopt health‐related behaviors

Two experiments investigated the effects of perspective and visualization on motivation to engage in health‐related behaviors. Participants visualized themselves donating blood (Experiment 1) or quitting smoking (Experiment 2) from either the first‐person (own) or third‐person (observer's) perspective. Subsequently, motivation to engage in the visualized behavior was assessed. Contrary to previous findings showing the benefits of taking a third‐person perspective on behaviors not related to health, visualizing using the first‐person perspective had greater effects on motivation than visualizing using the third‐person perspective. Indeed, visualizing using the third‐person perspective was no more effective than not visualizing anything (Experiment 2). The theoretical implications and potential applications of these findings are discussed.     

Age‐related Changes in Creative Thinking

Age‐related differences in cognitive processes were used to understand age‐related declines in creativity. According to the Geneplore model (Finke, Ward, & Smith, 1992), there are two phases of creativity — generating an idea and exploring the implications of the idea — each with different underlying cognitive processes. These two phases are measured in the Creative Invention Task (CIT; Finke, 1990). Younger adults (n = 41) and older adults (n = 41) completed the CIT, the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), and a measure of working memory capacity (Paper Folding test). In addition, the CIT was scored by both younger and older adults. There were age‐related declines on both phases of the CIT, but not on the TTCT. These declines were noted by both the younger and older raters. After adjusting for working memory capacity, however, age‐related differences on the CIT were nonsignificant.     

Expected consequences of anger‐related behaviours

In a study with 140 participants (66 men, 74 women), we investigated behaviour outcome expectancies (cognitive, affective and relational) regarding a broad group of anger‐related behaviours (e.g. hit someone, run away). Results of a three‐mode component analysis indicated that behaviour outcome expectancies vary considerably, depending on the behaviour (aggressive versus nonaggressive ones), the consequence (consequences related to the self versus consequences for the anger) and the individual. The findings are discussed in the context of catharsis theory, emotion regulation and functionalistic accounts of emotion‐related behaviour. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gender‐related differences in neonatal imitation

Socio‐emotional behaviour is in part sex‐related in humans, although the contribution of the biological and socio‐cultural factors is not yet known. This study explores sex‐related differences during the earliest communicative exchange, the neonatal imitation in 43 newborn infants (3–96 hours old) using an index finger extension imitative gesture. Results showed that although the experimenter presented comparable stimuli to both sexes, and the total number of movements was similar in boys and girls, girls showed more fine motor movements, a higher number of specific imitative gestures, responded faster during the imitation and showed a higher baseline heart rate during the experiment. Newborn girls, with their faster and more accurate imitative abilities, may create a more responsive and interactive social environment, which in turn may lead to differences in socio‐emotional and cognitive development between girls and boys. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hostility‐ and gender‐related differences in oscillatory responses to emotional facial expressions

Hostility is associated with biases in the perception of emotional facial expressions, such that ambiguous or neutral expressions tend to be perceived as threatening or angry. In this study, the effects of hostility and gender on the perception of angry, neutral, and happy faces and on the oscillatory dynamics of cortical responses elicited by these presentations were investigated using time–frequency decomposition by means of wavelet transforms. Feelings of hostility predisposed subjects to perceive happy and neutral faces as less friendly. This effect was more pronounced in women. In hostile subjects, presentation of emotional facial expressions also evoked stronger posterior synchronization in the theta and diminished desynchronization in the alpha band. This may signify a prevalence of emotional responding over cognitive processing. These effects were also more pronounced in females. Hostile females, but not hostile males, additionally showed a widespread synchronization in the alpha band. This synchronization is tentatively explained as a manifestation of inhibitory control which is present in aggressive females, but not in aggressive males. Aggr. Behav. 35:502–513, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Remote treatment of sleep‐related trichotillomania and trichophagia

We used a biobehavioral treatment consisting of melatonin and a standardized bed and wake time to decrease one girl's head and mouth touches associated with sleep‐related trichotillomania and trichophagia. We remotely coached the girl's caregiver to implement all procedures and monitored response to treatment using a DropCam Pro video camera equipped with night‐vision capabilities. Head and mouth touches decreased, and her sleep pattern improved with the combination of treatment strategies. We discuss our use of a novel mode of service delivery to treat sleep‐related problem behavior.     

Age‐related differences in work motivation

This paper examines age‐related differences in work motivation in two samples of 9,388 and 2,512 individuals who completed a comprehensive motivation questionnaire for selection or development purposes. In the first sample, age differences were examined by controlling for gender and investigating whether relationships between age and motivation were non‐linear. Statistically significant relationships between motivation and age were found for most motivation scales, explaining up to 12% of the variance in specific scales. The second sample was used to confirm these results and to determine whether differences on these motivation scales could be explained by additional demographic variables, which were not available in the first sample. When controlling for demographic variables, such as gender, managerial experience, and university education, the pattern of results was similar in the second data set although effects were smaller. Results generally support propositions from the literature, which suggest a shift in people's motives rather than a general decline in motivation with age: older employees were less motivated by extrinsically but more by intrinsically rewarding job features.