Gender roles,computer attitudes,and dyadic computer interaction performance in college students

Females tend to score lower than males on measures of computer aptitude and attitudes. This study examined the potential effects of several mediating factors, sex of experimenter, sex of experimental partner, sex typing (Bem Sex Role Inventory score), and level of past experience, on a computer interaction task involving a dyad. College students, drawn from a primarily white college population, after completing paper-and-pencil measures assessing computer experience, computer attitudes, and gender roles, participated in a computer task involving drawing up to ten prescribed geometric patterns on a computer screen. Research assistants recorded the number of correctly completed patterns and videotaped participant interaction through a one-way mirror. Males reported experiencing more computer involvement than females. For males, past computer experience and masculinity were correlated with more positive computer attitude scores. For females, only past computer experience related to more positive computer attitude scores. Analyses of the computer interaction variable indicated that participants asked male research assistants significantly more questions than female research assistants. Several interaction effects were also found.A previous version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Southwestern Psychological Association, New Orleans, April 1991.     

Cognitive Level and Achievement in Computer Literacy

This study measured to what degree achievement in a computer literacy course related to each of the following variables: general cognitive level, computer aptitude and prior experience using computers, and inherent stress. Subjects were 60 students enrolled in an undergraduate business course designed to teach the use of software packages. Achievement was measured by three course exams. Achievement early in the course was moderately related to measures of computer aptitude and cognitive level, but by the end of the course prior experience using computers emerged as the most important variable. Despite the logical and empirical connections drawn between general cognitive abilities and the ability to learn how to use computers, general abilities may be only marginally relevant to the task of learning to use software.     

Joint Relationships of Task Proficiency With Aptitude,Experience, and Task Difficulty: A Cross-Level,Interactional Study

We adopted a cross-level interactional perspective in investigating the prediction of United States Air Force (USAF) jet engine mechanic task-level proficiency from aptitude, experience, and task difficulty. Aptitude, job and task experience, and task difficulty measures all were significant predictors of task proficiency. An hypothesis that task difficulty would moderate the aptitude-task proficiency relationship received no support. Similarly, hypothesized moderating effects of job experience on relationships of task proficiency with aptitude and task difficulty received little support. lhsk-level experience, however, had significant moderating effects on relationships of task proficiency with both aptitude and task difficulty. Aptitude and task difficulty had weaker relationships with task proficiency with increased task experience. We recommend that future research on performance determinants (a) clarify further the experience construct and (b) exploit theoretical and analytic advantages of cross-level and multilevel research designs.     

Current sex role conceptions and conflict

Beliefs about role sharing or sex typing in occupations, positions of authority, the care of infants and children, housekeeping chores, responsibility for the economic support of the family, and the handling of family finances were investigated for 1,048 men and women residing in New York City. Beliefs about goals of the women's movement, about equality of the sexes, and about the elimination of sex typing in the socialization of children were also investigated. Questionnaires were distributed in the spring and fall of 1973 at several business firms, university campuses, shopping centers in black and white working class districts, and at a professional building. All of the independent variables — gender, age, marital status, occupation, educational level, religion, and ethnicity — were significantly related to beliefs about sex roles. Gender was the overriding independent variable, however. Significant differences in beliefs between the sexes persisted within the categories established by the other independent variables. For the total sample, discrepancies in the beliefs of men and women ranged from very highly significant to significant on almost all items on the questionnaire, although a majority of both sexes opted for more equality, less sex typing, and more role sharing. Role conflict, insofar as this stems from a lack of mutuality in role definitions and expectations, would appear to be a likely experience of many of the men and women interviewed. The role conflict model is a valuable tool that should be applied to actual interactional settings, involving men and women, in future research.     

Psychosocial mediation of fruit and vegetable consumption in the body and soul effectiveness trial.

In this study the authors examined psychosocial variables as mediators for fruit and vegetable (FV) intake in a clustered, randomized effectiveness trial conducted in African American churches. The study sample included 14 churches (8 intervention and 6 control) with 470 participants from the intervention churches and 285 participants from the control churches. The outcome of FV intake and the proposed mediators were measured at baseline and at 6-month follow-up. Structural equation modeling indicated that the intervention had direct effects on social support, self-efficacy, and autonomous motivation; these variables also had direct effects on FV intake. Applying the M. E. Sobel (1982) formula to test significant mediated effects, the authors confirmed that social support and self-efficacy were significant mediators but that autonomous motivation was not. Social support and self-efficacy partially mediated 20.9% of the total effect of the intervention on changes in FV intake. The results support the use of strategies to increase social support and self-efficacy in dietary intervention programs.     

Sex Role Expectations in Children's Vocational Aspirations and Perceptions of Occupations

To study sex role expectations, 120 boys and girls from three age groups—preschool, second grade, and fifth grade—in two socioeconomic levels were asked to name their vocational aspirations and to choose whether a man, woman, or both could do the work in 30 occupations depicted in a slide-tape series. Results indicated that sex typing was present in the way their aspirations conformed to traditional sex roles, with a significant relationship (p <.001) between sex typing of aspirations and sex of the respondents. Significant differences in responses to the occupational slides were found on the variables of sex (p <.01), grade level (p <.001), and socioeconomic level (p <.05), with greater sex typing indicated by boys than girls, by preschool children than by older children, and by lower to lower-middle class children than by middle to upper-middle class children. The study revealed a disparity between many children's perceptions of occupations as ones in which both sexes could work and their own personalized, sex-typed aspirations.     

Electronic Communication Use and Socio-Emotional Well-Being among Military Youth

The authors seek to investigate the relationship between electronic-communication (e-communication) use and social isolation for adolescents age 11–18 in the context of military family life, with a specific focus on relationship function provided by e-communication. Self-efficacy, developmental stage (early or middle/late adolescence), sex, and military contextual factors (parents’ military rank, number of school changes and parent deployment) on social benefits and social isolation were controls in the model. Data from a computer survey administered to adolescents (N?=?1036) who had at least one active-duty military parent at five US Army installations in the US and Western Europe were analyzed using a path analysis model. Findings suggest that using e-communication to establish new relationships may be strategic for military youth, who experience many geographic relocations and school changes, in terms of creating social benefits (opportunity for nurturance). On the other hand, spending large amounts of time using e-communication may impede the establishment of nurturing relationships with others and ultimately may be linked to social isolation. Within the model, significant moderational effects related to self-efficacy, sex of the adolescent and parents’ military rank were found.     

Cognitive Indicators of Social Anxiety in Youth: A Structural Equation Analysis

Previous studies have demonstrated significant relationships among various cognitive variables such as negative cognition, self-efficacy, and social anxiety. Unfortunately, few studies focus on the role of cognition among youth, and researchers often fail to use domain-specific measures when examining cognitive variables. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine domain-specific cognitive variables (i.e., socially oriented negative self-referent cognition and social self-efficacy) and their relationships to social anxiety in children and adolescents using structural equation modeling techniques. A community sample of children and adolescents (n = 245; 55.9% female; 83.3% Caucasian, 9.4% African American, 2% Asian, 2% Hispanic, 2% “other,” and 1.2% not reported) completed questionnaires assessing social cognition and social anxiety symptomology. Three latent variables were created to examine the constructs of socially oriented negative self-referent cognition (as measured by the SONAS scale), social self-efficacy (as measured by the SEQSS-C), and social anxiety (as measured by the SPAI-C and the Brief SA). The resulting measurement model of latent variables fit the data well. Additionally, consistent with the study hypothesis, results indicated that social self-efficacy likely mediates the relationship between socially oriented negative self-referent cognition and social anxiety, and socially oriented negative self-referent cognition yields significant direct and indirect effects on social anxiety. These findings indicate that socially oriented negative cognitions are associated with youth's beliefs about social abilities and the experience of social anxiety. Future directions for research and study limitations, including use of cross-sectional data, are discussed.     

Perceived responsibility for learning,self-efficacy,and sources of self-efficacy in mathematics: a study of international baccalaureate primary years programme students

The purpose of this study was to assess the interrelationship of elementary students’ perceived responsibility for learning, self-efficacy, and sources of self-efficacy in mathematics, and differentiation as a function of gender and grade level. Participants in this study included 442 third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students from U.S. International Baccalaureate schools. Self-report measures were used to assess key study variables. Students in grade five reported higher levels of mathematics self-efficacy and perceived responsibility for learning than those in grade three. Grade four students also reported higher levels of perceived responsibility than grade three students. In addition, regression results revealed that mastery experience, vicarious experience, social persuasion, and physiological state accounted for a significant amount of variance in students’ mathematics self-efficacy, with social persuasion being the strongest predictor. Educational implications for practice within the context of International Baccalaureate schools are discussed.     

Personality and its links to quality of life: Mediating effects of emotion regulation and self-efficacy beliefs

We investigated the relationship between personality and quality of life (QoL) considering emotion regulation and self-efficacy beliefs as mediating factors. A total of 409 participants from the French-speaking regions of Switzerland and from France completed questionnaires on personality, emotion regulation, self-efficacy beliefs, and QoL. Our findings revealed that specific personality traits have significant direct and indirect effects on QoL, mediated by emotion regulation and self-efficacy. Particularly, neuroticism was strongly and negatively related to emotion regulation and QoL, but not significantly linked to self-efficacy, whereas extraversion and conscientiousness were positively associated with all variables. This is the first study to demonstrate that both emotion regulation and self-efficacy are important mechanisms that link specific personality traits to QoL, suggesting that they channel and modulate the personality effects. However, more work is needed to understand these relationships in more detail (e.g., how the personality traits concurrently influence each other as well as emotion regulation and self-efficacy).     

The Effect of Client Demeanor Upon the Verbal Responses of School Counselors

In a study of counselor verbal behavior as a function of client stimulus input, a counseling paradigm was employed using 4 client-actors and 30 counselors. Independent variables were hostile or friendly client behavior, amount of counseling experience, counselor sex and client sex. The dependent variable of counselor verbal behavior was measured by a revision of the Bales Interaction Process Analysis Categories. Analysis of variance led to the finding that all of the independent variables had a statistically significant effect upon the counselors' verbal responses, but the number of response categories affected varied from 1 to 7 depending on the variable involved. Significant interaction effects were also found. From the data, it was concluded that client demeanor and client sex significantly influenced counselors' verbal responses, but counselor experience and counselor sex were relatively unimportant in their effect upon the counselors' behavior.     

Predictors of Condom Use in Mexican Migrant Laborers

The purpose of this study was to explore predictors of condom use with occasional sex partners and regular sex partners, as well as carrying condoms in a new high-risk group for HIV infection, Mexican migrant laborers. This study extends previous findings by (1) exploring additional predictors not previously examined, (2) utilizing a large sample of male and female Mexican migrant laborers, (3) carefully controlling for the effects of various demographic and lifestyle variables related to condom use, and (4) assessing the interactive effects of gender on predictors of condom use. Snowball sampling was used to survey 501 adult Mexican migrant laborers. Results revealed that condom use with occasional sex partners was predicted by carrying condoms and condom self-efficacy and that women were more likely to use condoms with occasional partners when both men and women knew someone with HIV/AIDS. Condom use with regular sex partners was predicted by procondom social norms, less negative attitudes toward condoms, not knowing someone with HIV/AIDS, and condom self-efficacy. Carrying condoms was predicted by procondom social norms, less negative attitudes toward condoms, condom self-efficacy, worry about contracting HIV/AIDS, and women were more likely than men to carry condoms when both men and women were married. Understanding these findings, future research directions, and implications for condom promotion strategies with Mexican migrant laborers are discussed.     

The pleasures of success: game-related efficacy experiences as a mediator between player performance and game enjoyment

In the present study, the interplay of player performance, game-related self-efficacy experiences, and the resulting effects on game enjoyment are investigated. We hypothesized that a player's performance stimulates enjoyment via its potential to stimulate game-related self-efficacy experiences. In a laboratory setting, participants (N?=?213) played a jump 'n' run game. Their performance during game play was recorded by log-file software, and efficacy and enjoyment were assessed with questionnaires. As predicted, both player performance and game-related self-efficacy experience were significant predictors of enjoyment. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that game-related self-efficacy experience significantly mediates the relationship between player performance and game enjoyment.     

Sex Differences and Similarities in Video Game Experience,Preferences, and Self-Efficacy: Implications for the Gaming Industry

As computer technology continues to pervade every facet of life, the study of video game playing becomes more relevant. Studies show that sex differences continue to exist between men and women, boys and girls, in video game experience, favoring males. Few studies show any overlap in preferences between young men and women in their video gaming choices. The current study surveyed over 2,000 college undergraduates for video game experience, preferences, and self-efficacy. Although it was found that men play video games more often, have had more experience, and feel more confident in their game playing ability, a moderate female gaming population was found to exist, who also play video games regularly. Almost as many similarities as differences were found between men and women in their gaming preferences. Suggestions and implications for the video game industry are discussed.     

Personal Values and Academic Performance Among Engineering Students

Independently drawn random samples of 20 dean's list and 20 academic probation engineering sophomores were the subjects in this investigation of student academic status in relation to personal values and aptitude variables. Dean's list students differed significantly (.05 level) from academic probation students on variables such as need for achievement, direction of aspirations, peer group values, independence in planning, persistence, self-control, and high school record. No statistically significant differences were found on variables such as socio-economic status, influence of the home, self-insight or scholastic aptitude. It was concluded that the successful engineering student differs from the relatively less successful engineering student in certain measurable characteristics. These results elucidate the efficacy of the utilization of nonintellective variables in such differentiation.     

Task self-efficacy and task interest as a function of performance on a gender-neutral task

This study experimentally investigates several hypotheses about the relationships between performance on a gender-neutral task and gender, self-efficacy, performance attributions, and task interest. Ninety-two subjects were randomly assigned to a success or failure condition and attempted to solve a series of easy or difficult anagrams. Results indicated that changes in self-efficacy expectations as a result of task success or failure were in accordance with predictions from self-efficacy theory; 2 × 2 × 4 ANCOVAs, with the pretest as the covariate, were conducted on self-efficacy strength, level, and task interest. Subjects decreased their ratings of self-efficacy and task interest as a result of the failure experience, and the same ratings increased as a result of the success experience. Few gender differences were found, supporting the hypothesis that the sex linkage of the task significantly influences gender differences in self-efficacy. Analyses of global verbal and mathematical ability ratings resulted in the same trends. Finally, women in the success condition were significantly more likely than men in that condition to attribute their performance to luck; women in the failure condition were significantly more likely than men or women in any other group to attribute their failure to their lack of ability. Implications of these results for future research on career self-efficacy were discussed.     

Dispositional variables and work–family conflict: A meta-analysis

Meta-analysis was used to comprehensively summarize the relationship between dispositional variables and both directions of work–family conflict. The largest effects detected were those associated with negative affect, neuroticism, and self-efficacy; all were in expected directions. In general, negative trait-based variables (e.g., negative affect and neuroticism) appear to make individuals more vulnerable to work–family conflict, while positive trait-based variables (e.g., positive affect and self-efficacy) appear to protect individuals from work–family conflict. In addition, the different dimensions of work–family conflict (time, strain, and behavior) exhibited different patterns of relationships with several of the dispositional variables. No moderating effects were found for sex, parental status, or marital status. Results support the notion that dispositions are important predictors of work–family conflict.     

学业自我效能感与在线学习投入的关系：学习动机和心流体验的链式中介作用

为探讨学业自我效能感对在线学习投入的影响及其作用机制,采用学业自我效能感量表、学习动机量表、心流体验量表和在线学习投入量表,对310名在线学习者进行问卷调查。结果发现：（1）学业自我效能感对在线学习投入具有正向预测作用;（2）学习动机和心流体验分别在学业自我效能感和在线学习投入之间起部分中介作用;（3）学习动机、心流体验在学业自我效能感和在线学习投入之间起链式中介作用。     

Effects of coping skills training on generalized self-efficacy and locus of control

A number of studies have shown that mastery experiences strengthen self-efficacy expectancies that are specific to the mastery situation. In this study I assessed the effects of cognitive-behavioral coping skills training on generalized expectancies concerning self-efficacy and locus of control in test-anxious college students. Compared with a waiting-list control group, the trained subjects exhibited significant decreases on trait and state measures of test anxiety and a higher level of academic performance on classroom tests, as well as changes in specific self-efficacy expectancies relating to test-anxiety management and academic performance. Consistent with generalization predictions derived from self-efficacy theory, the coping skills group also exhibited decreases in general trait anxiety and increased scores on a trait measure of generalized self-efficacy. Locus of control was unaffected by the program, and changes in general self-efficacy were unrelated to changes in locus of control, suggesting the possibility that different parameters of experience are related to changes in the two types of generalized expectancies.     

Synchronous and time-lagged effects between occupational self-efficacy and objective and subjective career success: Findings from a four-wave and 9-year longitudinal study

We integrated research on the dimensionality of career success into social-cognitive career theory and explored the positive feedback loop between occupational self-efficacy and objective and subjective career success over time (self-efficacy → objective success → subjective success → self-efficacy). Furthermore, we theoretically accounted for synchronous and time-lagged effects, as well as indirect reciprocity between the variables. We tested the proposed model by means of longitudinal structural equation modeling in a 9-year four-wave panel design, by applying a model comparison approach and indirect effect analyses (N = 608 professionals). The findings supported the proposed positive feedback loop between occupational self-efficacy and career success. Supporting our time-based reasoning, the findings showed that unfolding effects between occupational self-efficacy and objective career success take more time (i.e., time-lagged or over time) than unfolding effects between objective and subjective career success, as well as between subjective career success and occupational self-efficacy (i.e., synchronous or concurrently). Indirect effects of past on future occupational self-efficacy via objective and subjective career success were significant, providing support for an indirect reciprocity model. Results are discussed with respect to extensions of social-cognitive career theory and occupational self-efficacy development over time.