Are There Gender Differences in the Relationship Between Academic Performance and Social Behavior?

A growing body of research suggests that peer-related communication skills and experiences may facilitate academic achievement, especially in the college environment. However, there is substantial evidence that men and women differ in peer-related interaction skills and patterns, suggesting that there may be gender differences in the relationship between academic performance and interaction with peers. Thus far, only one study has systematically examined this gender difference: that of Nezlek, Wheeler, and Rets. In their 1990 work, they reported data that they interpreted as supporting the existence of gender differences in the relationship between the scholastic performance of college students and aspects of their social interactions. The current article presents a reanalysis of their data, snowing that there are no gender differences in the relationship between academic achievement and social participation. This article also reports a study assessing gender differences in relationships between academic performance and loneliness, communication skills, and social acceptance. Participants (208 college students) completed the revised UCLA loneliness scale, tasks assessing five communication skills, and sociometric measures providing multiple indices of social acceptance. Cumulative grade point averages (GPAs) were obtained from the university registrar. Although several significant associations were detected between CPA and the loneliness and communication skill measures, no gender differences in the associations were found. The results are discussed in terms of relationships between the orientations that students exhibit toward peers and their studies.     

How Do People Change their Lives? The Role of the Narrative Interview and the Biographical Trajectory for Social Work and Pastoral Care in the United States

Pastoral Psychology - Qualitative methods, and specifically narrative interviews, have received increasing attention in recent years in the United States and the English-speaking world in general....     

How Do Manipulation Arguments Work?

Alfred Mele has presented the Zygote Argument as a challenge to compatibilism. In previous work I have offered a critique of Mele’s first premise. Patrick Todd, Neal Tognazzini, and Derk Pereboom have offered an alternative interpretation of the argument, substituting (1*) for (1). Here I offer a critical evaluation of this strategy, and in the process I seek to understand the deep structure of the Zygote Argument.     

Do Inferences about Age Differences in Emotional Experience Depend on the Parameters Analyzed?

Age differences in emotional experience are assessed through self-report scales or questionnaires referring to a specific period of varying length, and examining different parameters of emotional response. A recent meta-analysis suggests that the type of instrument and parameter used could account for some of the inconsistencies in the results. The present study shows comparisons between emotional experience in samples of younger (N = 120, aged 20–27) and older (N = 103, aged 55–75) participants. An Emotional Self-Monitoring record was administered every day for a week. The results show that emotional expression was highly stable over time. However, they also show that some theoretical assumptions about individual age differences in emotional experience and age depend on the parameters on which the analysis is based (occurrence, frequency and intensity, and emotional balance).     

How Do Social Structures Become Taken for Granted? Social Reproduction in Calm and Crisis

Human Studies - This paper identifies experiential processes through which social structures become taken for granted, termed processes of “structure marginalization”. Passive processes...     

Assessing the Ethics of Medical Research in Emergency Settings: How Do International Regulations Work in Practice?

Different ethical principles conflict in research conducted in emergency research. Clinical care and its development should be based on research. Patients in critical clinical condition are in the greatest need of better medicines. The critical condition of the patient and the absence of a patient representative at the critical time period make it difficult and sometimes impossible to request an informed consent before the beginning of the trial. In an emergency, care decisions must be made in a short period of time, and the more time is wasted, the more the risk of death or severe tissue damage and incapacity increases. Consent requests take time, and so the time period before treatment might put the patient’s life in jeopardy. Not requesting consent before a trial is also contradictory. A person should not be forced to participate in a trial against his or her will. Due to the dark history of medical research previously, international declarations and conventions have set up ethical principles for medical research. They emphasize the autonomy of the research participant—or his or her legal representative—to give a free and informed consent prior to the initiation of research. In the case of a critical emergency, the unconscious state of the patient, the emotional stress of family members or the lack of time to start life-sustaining measures may often restrict the possibilities of communicating with the patient or his/her representative. Therefore, written informed consent is difficult to achieve, and its voluntariness in emergency situations is, at best, open to question. The mortality of patients is high without clinical interventions in emergency research. Random selection of patients is difficult and requires extra work from personnel in the emergency rooms. Recruitment, information and asking for consent may also take time, postpone the initiation of treatment and increase the risk of death and irreversible tissue and organ damage, and therefore be risky for the patient. It is therefore essential that the health care professionals recruiting suitable research participants are well motivated and well trained. Medical research in an emergency setting should always be regarded as an exceptional situation requiring special provisions. Only such research should be done as cannot be done in other conditions. An independent body must approve the research protocol and the ways in which the consent of the participant or proxy are to be sought. In addition, the trial must be expected to result in direct and significant benefit for the research participants. If research without prior consent is not approved, the development of emergency care is threatened. On the other hand, if prior consent is not required, a person could be recruited into a clinical trial against his or her will. Doing good and avoiding harm, and respecting the autonomy of the patient are in conflict in the context of emergency medical research. To develop better medicines for patients experiencing acute medical emergencies, research into such conditions should be allowed. Research participants should have the possibility to participate or refuse to participate in research that may benefit them and other patients. The risk of irreversible damage occurring as the consequence of time delays for seeking consent is unacceptable. A prior wish about participation in clinical trials should be respected, if known. The conditions under which medical research in emergencies can be considered acceptable can be determined and agreed upon nationally and internationally. An earlier version of this paper was presented at The 7th International Conference on Bioethics on “The Ethics of Research in Emergency Medicine”, held on June 2, 2006, Warsaw, Poland.     

Person—Situation Effects and Gender Differences in the Prediction of Social Responsibility

Abstract

This study examined person and situation variables as predictors of social responsibility among American students. As predicted, individuals' delay of gratification and satisfaction with the university contributed unique variance to the prediction of social responsibility. More important, delay of gratification tended to moderate the relationship between satisfaction with the university and social responsibility. Results indicated significant sex differences in these relationships.     

Gender Differences in the Importance of Work and Family Roles: Implications for Work–Family Conflict

In this study we explored between- and within-gender differences in the importance of life roles and their implications for work–family conflict. In earlier research (Cinamon & Rich, 2002) we found 3 profiles of workers who differ in attributions of importance to work and family roles: persons who assigned high importance to both the work role and the family role (“Dual” profile); participants who ascribed high importance to the work role and low importance to the family role (“Work” profile); and participants who attributed high importance to the family role and low importance to the work role (“Family” profile). We used these profiles to clarify the relationship between gender and work–family conflict. Participants were 126 married men and 87 married women who were employed in computer or law firms. Significant between- and within-gender differences were found in the distribution of participants to profiles. Men were equally distributed throughout the profiles, whereas women were underrepresented in the Work category. More women than men fit the Family profile, and more men than women fit the Work profile. No gender differences were found for the Dual profile. Women reported higher parenting and work values than men did. Between-gender differences in work–family conflict were apparent, as were within-gender differences across profiles. Results demonstrate the value of examining both between- and within-gender variation in studies of gender and work–family conflict.     

Do Occupational Performance and Social Support Predict Health and Well-Being Among Mothers of Preterm Infants?

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Giving birth to a preterm infant has significant implications on the mother’s life. The purpose of this study was to compare occupational performance...     

How Do People Process Health Information? Applications in an Age of Individualized Communication

Advances in computer technology have made it possible to customize communication, including health-education materials, to the specific needs and interests of any individual. Studies show that individually tailored health-education materials are more effective than generic materials in promoting changes in a variety of health-related behaviors. Theory and research in information processing provide an explanation for why such materials are effective. This article discusses current research on how individuals process tailored health information, and discusses directions for future research in this area.     

Will I Fit in and Do Well? The Importance of Social Belongingness and Self-Efficacy for Explaining Gender Differences in Interest in STEM and HEED Majors

Throughout the world, the labor market is clearly gender segregated. More research is needed to explain women’s lower interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) majors and particularly to explain men’s lower interest in HEED (Health care, Elementary Education, and the Domestic spheres) majors. We tested self-efficacy (competence beliefs) and social belongingness expectations (fitting in socially) as mediators of gender differences in interest in STEM and HEED majors in a representative sample of 1327 Swedish high school students. Gender differences in interest in STEM majors strongly related to women’s lower self-efficacy for STEM careers and, to a lesser degree, to women’s lower social belongingness expectations with students in STEM majors. Social belongingness expectations also partly explained men’s lower interest in HEED majors, but self-efficacy was not an important mediator of gender differences in interest in HEED. These results imply that interventions designed to lessen gender segregation in the labor market need to focus more on the social belongingness of students in the gender minority. Further, to specifically increase women’s interest in STEM majors, we need to counteract gender stereotypical competence beliefs and assure women that they have what it takes to handle STEM careers.     

How Do Leaders and their Teams Bring about Organizational Learning and Outcomes?

How do leaders generate a learning climate that yields favorable organizational outcomes? To address this question, we offer and test a model linking charismatic leadership with the team‐emergent states of shared vision and trust within the team, as predicting organizational learning climate, and long‐term assessments of organizational outcomes by key stakeholders. We examined this model in a sample of 69 Arab elementary schools in Israel using multiple sources of raters, predicting long‐term assessments by key stakeholders of respective schools (parents and superintendents) at 2 points in time: 1 year and 3 years following the survey of the teachers. In line with our expectations, we obtained an overall, indirect effect between charismatic leadership and organizational learning climate. We also found support for both the direct and indirect effects of leader charisma through trust within the team on organizational learning climate and school outcomes. Although charismatic leadership predicted shared vision among team members, shared vision did not predict organizational learning climate, and hence, our proposed mediating effects of shared vision on organizational learning climate and outcomes were not supported. We discuss both theoretical and practical implications for the effects of leaders on learning processes and outcomes.     

Do Construal Levels Affect Athletes’ Imagery and Performance Outcomes? It Depends on the Task!

We investigated the hypothesis that an interaction of construal levels and task types would improve performance outcomes, mediated by imagery abstraction levels. In a pilot study (N = 30; table tennis rallies, jumps, throws) and a main study (N = 32; badminton rallies, soccer penalties), athletes performed tasks after receiving high or low construal frames, with an imagery recall completed in the main study. Table tennis and badminton players won more rallies in low construal conditions; track athletes and soccer penalties had higher success rates in high construal conditions. Frames impacted self-reported imagery, but abstraction levels of imagery did not affect outcomes.     

Individual Differences in Young and Older Adults' Spelling: Do Good Spellers Age Better than Poor Spellers?

ABSTRACT

Young and older adults' ability to retrieve the spellings of high- and low-frequency words was assessed via tests of spelling recognition and production. One of the spelling production tests required participants to write down the correct spellings of auditorily presented words, and accuracy was used to categorize participants in both age groups as good or poor spellers. The results showed that individual spelling ability and word frequency contributed to age differences. Older adults who were poor spellers were less accurate in recognizing and producing correct spelling than young adults who were poor spellers. In contrast, no age differences occurred for good spellers. Furthermore, low-frequency words were especially difficult for young adults and poor spellers, relative to older adults and good spellers. These results indicate that aging alone is not detrimental to the processes underlying recognition or production of spelling but instead compounds existing problems caused by poor spelling.     

What Do the AMCD Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies Mean in the Context of Black Lives Matter?

In this article, the authors discuss how the legacy of hypersurveillance and egregious anti‐Black vigilante violence and police brutality helped foment the Black Lives Matter movement. The authors consider how the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (Ratts, Singh, Nassar‐McMillan, Butler, & McCullough, 2015) can operate as an ethical professional framework counselor educators can use with counselors‐in‐training to increase their awareness, knowledge, and skills in relation to the state‐sanctioned violence Black people routinely experience. En este artículo, los autores discuten cómo el legado de hipervigilancia y la violencia brutal ejercida contra personas negras por parte de la policía y patrullas urbanas ayudaron a fomentar el movimiento Black Lives Matter. Los autores consideran cómo las Competencias en Consejería Multicultural y Justicia Social (Singh, Nassar‐McMillan, Butler & McCullough, 2015) pueden funcionar como un marco ético profesional que los educadores de consejeros pueden usar con sus consejeros en formación para aumentar su conciencia, conocimientos, y habilidades en relación con la violencia autorizada por el Estado que sufren con frecuencia las personas negras.     

Do Work Values Predict the Use of Intraorganizational Influence Strategies?

It was the purpose of this paper to analyze the relationships between work values and the use of intraorganizational influence strategies. Given sufficient discretional space, it was assumed that work values either function as higher order goals or as individual constraints A prediction study with a I-year time interval was executed. At the first wave, work values were measured with the Work Values Inventory (Super, 1970). At the second wave, 4 intraorganizational influence strategies (rational persuasion, ingratiation, pressure. upward appeals) of 137 job beginners were measured. The data support the idea that work values function both as higher order goals and as individual constraints of influence behavior. The implications for the vocational career are discussed.     

Compared to What? The Importance of Control Groups in Social Comparison Research

Two experiments demonstrate the importance of control groups in social comparison research. When comparing to downward targets leads to more favorable self-evaluations than comparing to upward targets, results are often interpreted as demonstrating bidirectional contrast effects. However, without a no-comparison control group, these claims cannot be supported. The present experiments provided participants with performance feedback; some participants received information about an upward target, a downward target, or a bidirectional target (one upward, one downward). Results suggest that social comparison effects are not always bidirectional: Downward and bidirectional comparisons led to contrast whereas upward comparisons were not different from the control. Experiment 2 assessed the role of lateral targets. Overall, results suggest that existing interpretations of contrast effects should be reexamined.