In the Eye of the Beholder? Parent-Observer Discrepancies in Parenting and Child Disruptive Behavior Assessments

This study examined parent-observer discrepancies in assessments of negative child behavior and negative parenting behavior to shed more light on correlates with these discrepancies. Specifically, we hypothesized that informant discrepancy between observers and parents on child behavior would be larger when parents reported high levels of negative parenting (and vice versa) because high levels of these behaviors might be indicators of negative perceiver bias or patterns of family dysfunctioning. Using restricted correlated trait–models, we analyzed cross-sectional observation (coded with the Dyadic Parent-Child Interaction Coding System) and survey data (Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory and Parenting Practices Interview) of 386 Dutch parent-child dyads with children aged 4–8 years (M_age = 6.21, SD?=?1.33; 55.30% boys). Small associations between parent-reported and observed child and parenting behavior were found, indicating high discrepancy. In line with our hypothesis, this discrepancy was higher when parents self-reported more negative parenting or more negative child behavior. Parent-observer discrepancy on negative child behavior was also predicted by child gender. For boys parents reported higher levels of negative child behavior than were observed, but for girls parents reported lower levels of negative child behavior than were observed. These findings suggest that informant discrepancies between observers and parents might provide important information on underlying, problematic family functioning and may help to identify those families most in need of help.     

Analyzing Team Performance: In the Eye of the Beholder?

The effect of team-member experience was examined in relation to perceptions of importance of teamwork behaviors during an analysis of team performance. Impor- tance ratings were collected from military aircrews (i.e., two-member teams) from three distinct types of aircraft. Results indicated that when assessing team behavior importance, less experienced team members weighted difficulty of performing team behaviors more heavily, whereas more experienced team members weighted time spent performing team behaviors more heavily. Implications for analyzing team performance, with respect to the process of conducting such analyses and the type of information collected, are discussed.     

In the Eye of the Beholder? Parental Ratings of Externalizing and Internalizing Symptoms

Variations in ratings of externalizing and internalizing symptoms may contain a trait (i.e., shared view) component when behavioral symptoms that generalize across context are perceived and an individual view component when they are misperceived or when each informant has access to different symptoms. Using a LISREL model, we estimated the trait and the informant-specific, individual view components in parental ratings of externalizing and internalizing symptoms of adolescent siblings. The model demonstrated that mothers' and fathers' ratings contained a substantial individual view component (from 21% to 50% of total rating variance, depending on rater and trait). Except for fathers' ratings of internalizing symptoms (13%), parental ratings also contained a substantial trait component (42% to 58%). Mother's, father's, and child's ratings may be averaged to estimate a trait of externalizing. To estimate an internalizing trait, it may be best to combine just the mother's rating with the child's self-rating.     

Bad Woman, Bad Victim? Disentangling the Effects of Victim Stereotypicality, Gender Stereotypicality and Benevolent Sexism on Acquaintance Rape Victim Blame

Based on the assertion that previous research may have inadvertently confounded two stereotypes, we considered the impact of benevolent sexism on rape victim blame in the context of independent manipulations of gender and the perceived genuineness (victim stereotypicality) of an acquaintance rape victim. We predicted that for blame, benevolent sexism may be independently positively associated with gender and victim counter-stereotypicality. Following pilot work, 120 Australian undergraduates read an acquaintance rape scenario. Results indicated that benevolent sexism was only positively associated with blame of the gender counter-stereotypical victim when that victim was also counter-stereotypical in terms of victim stereotypes. This result indicates a more moderate role than previously indicated for benevolent sexism in accounting for rape victim blame.     

Ethics and Science: Is Plausibility in the Eye of the Beholder?

This paper argues that morality is objective in a specific sense that accords with a broadly expressivist stance in metaethics. The paper also explains that although there is a kind of subjectivity in moral inquiry, the same holds for other kinds of normative inquiry, including epistemic and even scientific inquiry, and moreover that this kind of subjectivity is no threat to morality’s objectivity. The argument for the objectivity of morality draws strong parallels between ethics, epistemology, and science, but does not depend on equally strong parallels between ethics and mathematics. I argue that there is more to learn from a comparison between ethics and mathematics than I used to think, but the difference between the issues that come up in thinking about objectivity in ethics and those that come up in thinking about objectivity in mathematics is substantial, and we cannot carry over results from the philosophy of mathematics to the case of morality.     

In the Eye of the Beholder: Alcohol Use and Perceptions Among Student-Patrons of ‘Joints’ in Three Nigerian University Communities

Alcohol use and its associated problems among university students have attracted empirical investigation by researchers and scholars. While many of these studies have reported a very high level of alcohol consumption and highlighted the various problems this portends, alcohol-related perceptions of this vulnerable population, which could be germane to intervention aimed at curtailing the problem, have remained largely under-researched. This cross-sectional survey examined the use and perceptions of alcohol by student-patrons (n = 1,705) of beer parlours or ‘joints’ in three university communities in Southwest Nigeria. Respondents were interviewed using AUDIT, a socio-demographic prototype and an open-ended section on alcohol-related perceptions of the students. Findings indicated that overall, 72% of the respondents perceived that alcohol is good for socializing, 68% perceived that alcohol is good in the aspect of stress reduction, 58% believed that alcohol consumption is indicative of maturity, 36% perceived that alcohol enhances their sexual performance while 39% perceived that alcohol serves to enhance alertness/concentration. Results also showed that gender (β = −. 23; p < .05), paternal alcohol use (β = .36; p < .01), parental socio-economic status (β = .33; p < .01), and residential status of university of respondents (β = .21; p < .05) significantly predicted alcohol use. The study concluded that perceptions about alcohol are very germane to understanding students’ alcohol use and should be reckoned with in designing intervention programmes. The need to adopt a ‘client-centered’ approach to the problem of student drinking behaviour was emphasized.     

Should the Changing Character of War Affect Our Theories of War?

War has changed so much that it barely resembles the paradigmatic cases of armed conflict that just war theories and international humanitarian law seemed to have had in mind even a few decades ago. The changing character of war includes not only the use of new technology such as drones, but probably more problematically the changing temporal and spatial scope of war and the changing character of actors in war. These changes give rise to worries about what counts as war and thus what norms to use in evaluating a particular conflict. In this paper, I develop an argument that the changing character of war gives us reasons to take reductionist revisions of just war theory seriously. By reductionist theories of war I mean those revisions within the just war tradition that suggest that we can use ordinary peacetime interpersonal analyses of moral responsibility and liability to harm to decide what justice requires in times of war.     

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.     

Does the Eye of the Beholder Construct Beauty? Contributions of Self-Efficacy Factors to Divergent Thinking Traits

The study initiated a project exploring a contribution of creative perception to creative behavior. This study investigated the factors in creative self-perception contributing to creative potential. Creative potential was operationalized as divergent thinking and measured by the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults. Creative self-perception was operationalized as creative self-efficacy and assessed by Khatena-Torrance Creative Perception Inventory. Undergraduate college students’ creative self-efficacy was found to make a reliable and measurable contribution to their divergent thinking performance. Specifically, fluency was predicted by initiative and intellectuality, originality—by initiative, and flexibility—by environmental sensitivity and self-strength. These findings suggested that in addition to process, product, person, place, persuasion, and potential perspectives, creativity construct could be evaluated from a standpoint of creative perception.     

Is Originality in the Eye of the Beholder? Comparison of Scoring Techniques in the Assessment of Divergent Thinking

Divergent thinking (DT) tests are among the most popular techniques for measuring creativity. However, the validity evidence for DT tests, as applied in educational settings, is inconsistent partly due to different scoring methods. This study explored the reliability and validity issues of various techniques for administering and scoring two DT tests. Results show distinct differences among several methods for scoring these DT tests and suggest that the percentage scoring method (i.e., dividing originality scores by fluency scores) may be the most appropriate scoring strategy. The potential impact on educational research and practice is discussed in detail.     

The Effects of Victim’s Substance Use and Relationship Closeness on Mock Jurors’ Judgments in an Acquaintance Rape Case

Previous research has demonstrated that jurors perceive a female victim who is drunk at the time when she is sexually assaulted as less credible and more deserving of such punishment than a sober victim. In this experiment, we investigated the effect of an alleged acquaintance rape victim’s type of substance use and closeness of relationship with the defendant on the judgments of 152 student mock jurors. Participants read a case summary and answered a series of questions about their impressions of the actors and actions involved in the case. Participants perceived a victim who was sober at the time of the incident as more credible than a victim who was intoxicated due to illegal substance use (alcohol or LSD), and convictions were also most likely when the victim was sober. Women perceived the victim as more credible than men did. Higher victim credibility judgments were associated with less rape myth acceptance (RMA) on the part of participants.     

“Should Have Known Better than to Fraternize with a Black Man”: Structural Racism Intersects Rape Culture to Intensify Attributions of Acquaintance Rape Victim Culpability

Sex Roles - Rape culture is characterized by prevalent rape of women by male acquaintances, which is exacerbated in the aftermath by negative social responses including attributions of victim...     

Is Minority Stress in the Eye of the Beholder? A Test of Minority Stress Theory with Christians

Studies using minority stress theory have focused on the experiences of numerical and social power minorities, though majority individuals may also perceive themselves to be minorities. We explored minority stress theory among a sample of members of a numerically and socially dominant group: Christians in the USA. Perceiving oneself to be a member of a minority as a Christian was associated with stress indirectly via perceived experiences of faith-based discrimination (i.e., harassment due to being Christian). Being more open about one’s religion moderated the relationship between experiences of faith-based discrimination and stress, such that those who were open about their faith reported a stronger relationship between experiences of faith-based discrimination and stress. These findings indicate that perceptions of minority status are important to understanding stress and have implications for minority/majority dialogues.     

Exploring the Toolkit of Emotion: What Do Sadness and Anger Do for Us?

What do negative emotions do for people? We present a framework that defines the function of emotions as the degree to which discrete emotions result in better outcomes in particular types of situations. Focusing on sadness and anger, we review evidence related to the situations that elicit these emotions; the cognitive, physiological, and behavioral changes associated with the emotions; and the extent to which these changes result in demonstrably better outcomes in the type of situation that elicits the emotion. Sadness is elicited by perceived goal loss without possibility of restoration given current abilities and is associated with deliberative reasoning, reduced physiological activity, and behavioral expression. There is preliminary evidence suggesting that sadness can permit coping with loss, and that expression of sadness can recruit others to assist in goal attainment. Anger is elicited by perceived goal loss that can be prevented if an obstacle is overcome and is associated with heuristic reasoning, increased physiological activity, and behavioral expression. There is evidence that expression of anger prompts others to remove themselves as obstacles, and preliminary evidence that anger can promote overcoming obstacles and goal attainment. Like precision tools, specific emotions are best utilized to resolve particular problems.     

Do Attitudes Affect Memory? Tests of the Congeniality Hypothesis

Social psychologists have usually hypothesized that attitudinal selectivity biases people's memory in favor of information that is congenial to their attitudes, because they are motivated to defend their attitudes against uncongenial information. However, our meta-analysis found that such effects have been only inconsistently obtained. One reason for these inconsistencies is that the defense of attitudes against attacks does not necessarily entail avoiding the uncongenial information. As shown by our experiments, people often expose themselves to attitudinally uncongenial information, attend to it, scrutinize it carefully, encode it accurately, and remember it fairly well, even though they dislike the information and are not persuaded by it. Given sufficient motivation and capacity, people mount an active defense that enhances memory for the information.     

How Do Athletic Status and Disability Status Affect the Five-Factor Model of Personality?

This article addresses the issue of whether athletic status and disability status affect the Big Five personality dimensions (Surgency, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Intellect/Openness to Experience). Scores were compared between groups of athletes and nonathletes who either did or did not have disabilities. Individuals with disabilities had higher scores for Emotional Stability and Conscien- tiousness and lower scores for Extraversion than did fully able respondents. Athletic status did not affect scores, although the time of onset of impairment had significant effects on scale scores. The personality model's internal psychometric properties (reliabilities, means, variances, correlational structure) among people with disabilities did not differ appreciably from fully able respondents. Implications are discussed.     

Social Perception of Rape Victims in Dating and Married Relationships: The Role of Perpetrator’s Benevolent Sexism

Two hypothetical scenario studies examined how situational, perpetrator, and observer factors affect blame towards rape victims. In Study 1, Spanish high school students (N?=?206) read about a rape committed by a boyfriend or husband who was described as benevolently sexist or not. Study 2 (N?=?201 British college students) replicated and extended Study 1 by adding a condition in which the rapist was described as a hostile sexist. In both studies, participants’ benevolent sexism scores predicted more victim blame when the rapist was described as a husband (but not a boyfriend) who held benevolently sexist attitudes. Study 2 showed that participants’ hostile sexism scores predicted more victim blame when the rapist was described as a hostile sexist.     

Moral Responsibility and the Moral Community: Is Moral Responsibility Essentially Interpersonal?

Many philosophers endorse the idea that there can be no moral responsibility without a moral community and thus hold that such responsibility is essentially interpersonal. In this paper, various interpretations of this idea are distinguished, and it is argued that no interpretation of it captures a significant truth. The popular view that moral responsibility consists in answerability is discussed and dismissed. The even more popular view that such responsibility consists in susceptibility to the reactive attitudes is also discussed, and it is argued that this view at best supports only an etiolated interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal.