Memory Development or the Development of Memory?

For 30 years, the question "What is memory development the development of?" has guided research on children's memory. As theories and research paradigms have evolved over this period, so too has knowledge of the surprising mnemonic competence of young children and of age-related differences in memory performance. Never the less, there are serious limits to current understanding of the development of memory. Indeed, there have been few investigations of changes over time in the memory skills of individual children, and researchers have yet to shed much light on the more difficult question of "What are the forces that propel the development of skilled remembering?" From our perspective, the answer to this question will require movement toward longitudinal research designs that illuminate the mechanisms that bring about developmental change.     

Empowering or oppressing? Development and exploration of the Enjoyment of Sexualization Scale

Sexualization of girls and women in America is rampant and has many negative consequences. Women, however, often report enjoying being sexually admired by men. Given this paradox, it is unclear whether such enjoyment represents an authentic empowerment of women's sexuality or is related to traditional feminine norms and sexist beliefs. In Studies 1 and 2, the authors developed and tested the eight-item Enjoyment of Sexualization Scale (ESS). It had good reliability and was differentiated from related constructs including body surveillance, body shame, self-sexualizing behaviors, and appearance-contingent self-esteem. In Study 3, endorsement of traditional gender norms, endorsement of benevolent sexism, and endorsement of hostile sexism were all positively related to the ESS. Moreover, women who both enjoyed sexualization and engaged in self-objectification reported more negative eating attitudes. Overall, there was little support for positive effects of enjoying sexualization. The extent to which enjoying sexualization actually empowers women or contributes to their oppression is discussed.     

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.     

Consciousness or the Physical Universe – Which Came First?

Historically, many have seen the intelligibility of the physical universe as showing that it is somehow ultimately dependent upon conscious intelligent pre‐existing being – ‘God’. Today, however, many believe that modern advances in our scientific understanding of the origins and nature of the universe, and of the conscious intelligent beings it contains, render God, as Laplace said, an ‘unnecessary hypothesis’. This article considers whether the findings of modern science do indeed diminish the plausibility of belief in a creator God. Or, on the contrary, whether there are features of current scientific understanding which may reasonably be thought to support the belief that conscious intelligent being pre‐existed the physical universe and caused it to be. In short: can science reasonably be thought to support the view that consciousness created the physical universe rather than that the physical universe created consciousness?     

Drama Education and Development of Self: Myth or Reality?

This study is an investigation into personal development and drama education where the constructs of self-concept, self-discrepancy and role-taking ability were considered in the light of an in-school role play-based drama program. The 123 subjects from 5 different classes drawn from provincial city and rural village schools with a mean age of 11.5 years were the participants in this investigation. The subjects were pre-tested using the Chandler Story Task on role-taking ability; the Self-Discrepancy Questionnaire for self-discrepancy; the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Revised) for vocabulary, and the Piers-Harris Children’s Self-Concept Scales for self-concept. The subjects were then tested following the completion of a 10-week drama program. Results indicated a significant growth in role-taking ability, vocabulary and an improvement in self-concept. Further analysis revealed significant correlations between self-discrepancy, self-concept and vocabulary. Role-taking did not appear to be correlated with self-concept, self-discrepancy and vocabulary. Attention is drawn to the rural-provincial city differences with an “enriched” environment being suggested as an important determinant. The study supports the use of drama in schools as a means of personal and social development.     

Malleability of attitudes or malleability of the IAT?

In the current set of experiments, we establish, and explore the consequences of, the imprecision that characterizes the attribute response labels typically employed in the Implicit Association Test (IAT). In Experiment 1, we demonstrate the malleability of the IAT, as conventionally implemented. IAT scores are shown to be influenced by perspective mindsets induced by an unrelated preceding task. Then, we explore how the malleability of the IAT can lead to the inference that attitude change has occurred even when there is very good reason to believe it has not (Experiment 2), and conversely, how it can obscure the detection of attitude change when such change is indeed likely to have occurred (Experiment 3). We provide conceptual explanations for these discrepancies and suggest methodological improvements to enhance the specificity of IAT measures.     

Who Speaks First? Analyzing Response Waves in a Large-Scale Campus Climate Survey

ABSTRACT

There has been a recent surge in the number of campus climate surveys conducted across the United States; however, little research has examined response rates. Using data from 5,524 students who participated in a Web-based survey at a large university in a South Atlantic part of the United States, four waves of data corresponding with participation rates after reminder e-mails were analyzed. These waves are first compared across a number of demographic variables. Next, the data on rates of stalking, intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and stranger sexual harassment for each wave are examined. The results show few significant differences in the characteristics of the students participating in each wave, and the victimization rates remained relatively constant across the 4 weeks of data collection.     

To be at the tail of the lions or the head of the foxes?

Agents seeking an opportunity for profit often have to compete with others who pursue the same opportunity. When having to choose between a number of opportunities differing in their value and if individuals differ in their chances of outperforming others, the choice can be cognitively and emotionally demanding. We explore choice between opportunities using stylized Lions–Foxes games. In such a game, each of three players, with different odds of beating others, has to choose one of two contests that offer different rewards. After game theoretically analyzing the games, which we have experimentally employed, we report four experiments that vary in choice elicitation (repeated play or strategy method), in players' matching (random strangers or partners) and in rewards. Regarding contest choices, we found the choice of the higher value (and seemingly more prestigious) contest to be positively related to winning odds, contrary to what four out of the five (mixed, partially mixed, or pure) equilibria predict. Participants started out rather optimistic, with a large majority choosing the higher value option, but with experience, they approached the only viable of two pure strategy equilibria. Still, mixing continued via reacting to past play and outcome, apparently balancing dissatisfaction from choosing either contest.     

Better explaining the benefits why AI? Analyzing the impact of explaining the benefits of AI-supported selection on applicant responses

Despite the increasing popularity of AI-supported selection tools, knowledge about the actions that can be taken by organizations to increase AI acceptance is still in its infancy, even though multiple studies point out that applicants react negatively to the implementation of AI-supported selection tools. Therefore, this study investigates ways to alter applicant reactions to AI-supported selection. Using a scenario-based between-subject design with participants from the working population (N = 200), we varied the information provided by the organization about the reasons for using an AI-supported selection process (no additional information vs. written information vs. video information) in comparison to a human selection process. Results show that the use of AI without information and with written information decreased perceived fairness, personableness perception, and increased emotional creepiness. In turn, perceived fairness, personableness perceptions, and emotional creepiness mediated the association between an AI-supported selection process, organizational attractiveness, and the intention to further proceed with the selection process. Moreover, results did not differ for applicants who were provided video explanations of the benefits of AI-supported selection tools and those who participated in an actual human selection process. Important implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Development ethics – Why? What? How? A formulation of the field

The paper assesses the rationale, contributions, structure, and challenges of the field of development ethics. Processes of social and economic transformation involve great risks and costs and great opportunities for gain, but the benefits, costs, and risks are typically hugely unevenly and inequitably distributed, as is participation in specifying what they are and their relative importance. The ethics of development examines the benefits, costs, risks, formulations, participation, and options. The paper outlines a series of ways of characterizing such work, arguments for and against its importance, and some of its major sources and contributions, especially from the interdisciplinary stream of work represented over several decades by Denis Goulet. Definitions are diverse since the work covers many different intersections of practice and theorizing, at multiple levels. The paper considers and replies to arguments against discussing development ethics: the claim that it involves only endless proliferation of different opinions, is an expensive luxury that undermines long-run development, is superfluous if one already works with the capability approach or the human rights tradition, or never has influence. Finally, it presents suggestions for how development ethics thinking can have increased impact, with reference to incorporation in policy analysis and planning methods, professional codes and training, and to its intellectual location and communication strategies. The field should articulate the methodological pragmatism which much of it has adopted, consistent with its required role as a practice-oriented interdisciplinary meeting ground.     

Which Comes First: Consciousness or Aspartate Receptors?

This paper is a critique of Karl Jansen's hypothesis that near-death and ketamine experiences are caused by blockade of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors. An assumption that consciousness and its alterations are merely the product of neuronal activity is only one of many possible beliefs about reality. An alternative, which can be verified through one's own direct experience, is that consciousness is always a subject and body is only its object. The objects come and go; consciousness remains.     

How Does It Feel? The Development of the Experience of Creativity Questionnaire

Creativity research has tended to neglect the phenomenology of the creative process. This article addresses this by describing the development of the Experience of Creativity Questionnaire (ECQ), designed to measure experiential (Part A) and existential (Part B) dimensions of artistic creativity. The questionnaire items were generated on the basis of an earlier qualitative investigation. Participants were 100 artists, from diverse fields of the creative arts. Two Maximum Likelihood factor analyses with Promax rotation were performed on the items comprising the initial ECQ, resulting in 6 factors in Part A and 3 factors in Part B. Factor analyses were then performed on a reduced number of items, providing the basis for 5 scales in Part A (labeled Distinct Experience, Anxiety, Absorption, Power/Pleasure, Clarity/Preparation) and 3 scales in Part B (Transformation, Centrality, Beyond the Personal). The scales demonstrated acceptable reliability, ranging from .82 to.60 (Guttman coefficient). Use of the ECQ in future research will facilitate further investigation of the phenomenology of the creative process and afford greater integration of research paradigms in creativity research.     

Effects of Prenatal Social Stress on Offspring Development: Pathology or Adaptation?

ABSTRACT— In nonhuman mammals, the social environment in which pregnant females live is critical for their offsprings' brain development, endocrine state, and social and sexual behavior later in life. Social instability during pregnancy generally brings about a behavioral and neuroendocrine masculinization in daughters and a less pronounced expression of male-typical traits in sons. We favor the hypothesis that such behavioral effects of prenatal social stress are not necessarily "pathological" (nonadaptive) consequences of adverse social conditions. Rather, pregnant mothers could be adjusting their offspring to their environment in an adaptive way.