Why Managerial Women are Less Happy Than Managerial Men

Women with managerial careers are significantly less satisfied with their life than their male counterparts. Why? In a representative German panel dataset (GSOEP) we find biological constraints and substitutive mechanisms determining the subjective well-being of female managers. Women’s terminated fertility has a negative impact on women’s life satisfaction between the ages of 35 and 45, when managerial careers usually take off. Money and spare time can compensate for this biological difference. But to maintain an equivalent level of happiness, women need to be compensated by much more income for each hour of spare time given up than men do. So, in order to reach better gender equality in leadership positions, women must be either paid higher incomes (on average around 10%) or must be incentivized with more spare time than men. In the conclusion, we speculate on a new mix of carrots and sticks for advanced careers in order to boost female representation in leadership positions.     

A Comparison of Paper and Computer Administered Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is one of the most widely used measures of young people’s mental health difficulties in research and clinical decision-making. Although the SDQ is available in both paper and computer survey formats, cross-format equivalences have yet to be established. The current study aimed to assess the measure’s equivalence across paper- and computer-based survey formats in a community-based school setting. The study examined self-reported measures completed by a matched sample of 11–14 year olds in secondary schools in England (589 completed paper version; 589 online version). Analyses demonstrate that the factor structure, although did not vary by survey format, resulted in poorly fitting models limiting the use of model based invariance testing. Results indicate that the measure does not operate similarly across different formats, with scale-level mean differences observed for the hyperactivity scale, which also affects the total difficulties score, with higher scores seen in the paper version. Responses to the impact supplement were also influenced by survey format, with higher impact in specific domains disclosed on the computer-based measure. Item-level differential item functioning was observed for four items in the measure; two from the prosocial scale where the DIF is large enough to affect the scale (DTF, ν² = 0.14). The inconsistency across survey formats highlights the need for more assessment of influences of different survey formats on young people, their perceived privacy and their mental health disclosures via different media. The findings also highlight the potential confounding effect of format when different methods of data collection are used, with a potentially substantive impact on cross-sample comparisons and within child clinical review.     

Self-Determination and Empowerment: A Feminist Standpoint Analysis of Talk about Disability

In this paper we offer a feminist analysis of talk about self-determination and empowerment in the context of disability, focusing on the case of developmental disabilities. We find strains of the same patterns feminist epistemologists have argued shape the organization of formal knowledge from the standpoint of the privileged. At the extreme, people with developmental disabilities appear as objects without selves, outside of the context of interpersonal and social structural relationships that constrain who they can be by defining them as other, often in multiple and interacting ways. Empowerment, from the dominant standpoint, becomes an abstract attribute or condition; something a person has or does not have. Taking the standpoint of women and other marginalized people offers a view of self-determination as a person's development of his or her self. Empowerment becomes a potential characteristic of a social relationship, one that facilitates the development of someone's self. The most empowering relationships are mutual, recognizing and building on the diverse contributions and needs of participants in ways that seek to minimize inequalities over time. The reason some of us are self-determining is that we are in interpersonal and social structural relationships that empower us. To construct interpersonal and social structural relationships that empower people with developmental disabilities requires challenging the way dominant conceptualizations of independence and productivity also express the standpoint of the privileged. The standpoint of women allows all of us to talk more of how we connect with and facilitate one another's developing selves within communities.     

Equivalence class formation in language-able and language-disabled children

Stimulus equivalence seems to have relevance to the study of semantics and of language more generally. If so, there may be a relation between language use and the demonstration of stimulus equivalence. This was examined in three groups of children ranging in chronological age and matched on a conventional measure of mental age: normally developing preschoolers, retarded children who used speech or signs spontaneously and appropriately, and retarded children who did not. All children were taught a series of four related discriminations and were then tested to determine if classes of equivalent stimuli had formed. All of the language-able children (retarded and normal) formed equivalence classes, whereas none of the language-disabled children did so. Although the exact nature of the relation between stimulus equivalence and language remains to be clarified, these results support the view that stimulus equivalence is a phenomenon with relevance to language.     

Methodological issues in the use of the concurrent activities paradigm

This paper presents a critical analysis of one type of dual-task procedure, the lateralized concurrent activities paradigm. Extrinsic and intrinsic factors that may influence the interpretation of results obtained with this paradigm are isolated and methodological refinements in experimental design and analysis are suggested.     

Cues, consequences and therapeutic talk: effects of social context and coping statements on pain

The present study examined the effects of two types of coping statements on tolerance of experimentally-induced pain when the Ss either thought the experimenter knew or did not know their statements. When Ss thought no one knew their statements, no therapeutic effects were shown. When Ss knew the experimenter knew the statements, the Ss tolerated the pain longer and showed specific effects depending on the specific type of coping statement used. The implications of this study for distinguishing informational, self-instructional and social-motivation effects in therapy are discussed.     

Instructional control of sex-related motor behavior in extremely masculine or feminine adults

The main purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which apparently sex-typed subjects manipulated behaviors on the Sex Role Motor Behavior Checklist in response to instructions to convey specific sex-role impressions. Extremely masculine and feminine males and females (10–12 per group) were assessed for their ability to change sex-related motor behavior upon request. Subjects were able to produce significant increases in masculine and feminine motor behavior, particularly in the areas of walking and sitting. Many individual behaviors, however, showed small or inconsistent changes. Apparently, many of the motor differences naturally displayed by males and females are either not consciously part of sex-typed adults' concept of given sex roles or are relatively inflexible in this population. Secondary purposes of the study were to identify specific sex-related motor behavior (a) to alter when changes in sex role seem desirable and (b) to utilize as dependent measures in measuring changes in sex role. Walking and sitting were shown to be especially important areas.The authors would like to thank David Millsaps, Reid Smith, Donna Gosnell, Ruth Rankin, and Stephanie Stohr for their assistance.