Not just playing around: Infants’ behaviors with objects reflect ability,constraints, and object properties

This study describes infants’ behaviors with objects in relation to age, body position, and object properties. Object behaviors were assessed longitudinally in 22 healthy infants supine, prone, and sitting from birth through 2 years. Results reveal: (1) infants learn to become intense and sophisticated explorers within the first 6 months of life; (2) young infants dynamically and rapidly shift among a variety of behavioral combinations to gather information; (3) behaviors on objects develop along different trajectories so that behavioral profiles vary across time; (4) object behaviors are generally similar in supine and sitting but diminished in prone; and (5) infants begin matching certain behaviors to object properties as newborns. These data demonstrate how infants learn to match their emerging behaviors with changing positional constraints and object affordances.     

Differences in Emotional Labor Across Cultures: A Comparison of Chinese and U.S. Service Workers

Purpose

In the global economy, the need for understanding cross-cultural differences and the customer service-related processes involved in emotional labor is evident. The current study attempts to examine this issue by developing and testing hypotheses pertaining to cross-cultural differences between U.S. and Chinese service workers on the levels of display rule perceptions, emotion regulation, and burnout (i.e., emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, and depersonalization) as well as the relationships among these variables.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data was collected from service workers in the U.S. (n = 280) and China (n = 231). We tested for measurement differences, mean differences, and differences in the relationships among emotional labor variables between the two samples using a variety of analyses.

Findings

It was found that the relatively robust sequence of display rules to surface acting to burnout was observed in a U.S. sample but was not observed in a Chinese sample, with some relationships being significantly weaker in the Chinese sample (e.g., surface acting to burnout dimensions) and others exhibiting relationships with the opposite sign (e.g., display rules were negatively related to surface acting in the Chinese sample).

Implications

The results of this study suggest that many of the relationships among emotional labor variables vary as a function of the cultural context under consideration.

Originality/Value

This is the first study to directly compare emotional labor across samples from Eastern and Western cultures. Additionally, this study begins to answer questions concerning why models of emotional labor generated in a Western culture may not apply in other cultures.     

Improvement of Thematic Classification in Offender Profiling: Classifying Serbian Homicides Using Multiple Correspondence,Cluster, and Discriminant Function Analyses

This paper investigates thematic classification of homicides for the purpose of behavioural investigative analysis (e.g. offender profiling). Previous research has predominantly used smallest space analysis (SSA) to conceptualise and classify offences into thematic groups based on crime scene behaviour data. This paper introduces a combined approach utilising multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), cluster analysis (CA), and discriminant function analysis (DFA) to define and differentiate crime scenes into expressive or instrumental and impersonal or personal crimes. MCA is used to derive the latent structural dimensions in the crime data and produce quantitative scores for each offence along these dimensions. Two‐step CA was then utilised to classify offences. Offence dimensional scores were then used to predict cluster membership under DFA, producing cluster centroids corresponding to MCA dimensions. Centroids were plotted on the MCA correspondence map to simultaneously conceptualise crime classification and the latent structure of the Serbian crime data. Classification of offences based on MCA dimensional scores were 91.5% accurate. This MCA–CA–DFA approach may reduce some of the more subjective aspects of SSA methodology used in classification, whilst producing a product more amenable to objective and cumulative review. Implications for offender profiling research utilising SSA and this approach are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of working memory in inferential sentence comprehension

Existing literature on inference making is large and varied. Trabasso and Magliano (Discourse Process 21(3):255–287, 1996) proposed the existence of three types of inferences: explicative, associative and predictive. In addition, the authors suggested that these inferences were related to working memory (WM). In the present experiment, we investigated whether WM capacity plays a role in our ability to answer comprehension sentences that require text information based on these types of inferences. Participants with high and low WM span read two narratives with four paragraphs each. After each paragraph was read, they were presented with four true/false comprehension sentences. One required verbatim information and the other three implied explicative, associative and predictive inferential information. Results demonstrated that only the explicative and predictive comprehension sentences required WM: participants with high verbal WM were more accurate in giving explanations and also faster at making predictions relative to participants with low verbal WM span; in contrast, no WM differences were found in the associative comprehension sentences. These results are interpreted in terms of the causal nature underlying these types of inferences.     

Negative Recurrent Thinking as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Perceived Stress and Depressive Symptoms

Both perceived stress and negative recurrent thinking (rumination and worry) have been associated with depressive symptoms. However, no research to date has investigated the association between perceived stress and negative recurrent thinking. In the present study we aimed to explore whether perceived stress and negative recurrent thinking are associated and whether negative recurrent thinking moderates the relationship between perceived stress and depressive symptoms. A convenience sample of 273 undergraduate students completed the Perceived Stress Scale, the Ruminative Responses Scale-10, the Penn State Worry Questionnaire and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale 2 weeks prior to sitting mid-year examinations. Correlation analyses showed that perceived stress, rumination and worry were positively and significantly associated with depressive symptoms and that perceived stress was positively and significantly associated with rumination and worry. A moderation analysis confirmed that negative recurrent thinking moderated the relationship between perceived stress and depressive symptoms. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

“Who said it?” How contextual information influences perceived profundity of meaningful quotes and pseudo-profound bullshit

Psychological research on pseudo-profound bullshit—randomly assembled buzz words plugged into a syntactic structure—has only recently begun. Most such research has focused on dispositional traits, such as thinking styles or political orientation. However, none has investigated contextual factors. In two studies, we introduce a new paradigm by investigating the contextual effect on pseudo-profound bullshit and meaningful quotes. In Study 1, all participants rated the profundity of statements in three contexts: (a) isolated, (b) as allegedly said by a famous author, or (c) within a vignette (short story). Study 2 serves as a conceptual replication in which participants rated statements in only one of three contexts. Overall, our results demonstrate that although contextual information such as author's name increases the perceived profundity of bullshit, it has an inconsistent effect on meaningful quotes. The present study helps to better understand the bullshit receptivity while offering a new line of research.