Do mindsets shape intentions to help those in need? Unravelling the paradoxical effects of mindsets of poverty on helping intentions

Poverty remains a pressing problem, with social support playing a crucial role in its reduction. Drawing on previous research on health-related mindsets, we propose that a growth mindset of poverty – that is, believing poverty can be changed – can have both positive and negative effects on helping intentions through increased outcome expectancy and blame, respectively. In three experiments, we found that a growth mindset of poverty is associated with increased outcome expectancy and blame, which, in parallel, mediate the relationship between mindsets and helping intentions. However, these contrary indirect effects negate each other, yielding a total null effect. Further, manipulating the relationship between mindset and outcome expectancy (but not blame) alters the relationship between mindset and helping intentions (Studies 2 and 3). By shedding light on the circumstances under which mindsets of poverty can diminish or amplify helping intentions, our research offers valuable insights for practitioners and charities dedicated to combating poverty.     

SEXIST DISCRIMINATION AS DISTANCING BEHAVIOR: I. A LABORATORY DEMONSTRATION

Attitudes toward and beliefs about women have been studied but investigations of behavior directed toward women in simple interpersonal situations have been relatively infrequent, in this study, ten previously unacquainted pairs of men, ten pairs of women, and twenty mixed–gender pairs were observed during a 10-minute task in which each pair constructed a domino structure for a contest. Under these laboratory conditions in which sexual arousal and nurturance cues were minimal it was predicted that men would behave differently toward women partners than toward men partners by manifesting avoidance or distancing behavior more frequently, but that women's responses to other–gender and same–gender partners would not be reliably different. Dependent measures were obtained by self–report and by ratings of observers who watched the dyadic interaction behind a one–way vision screen. As predicted, women in mixed–gender pairs did not differ significantly from those in same–gender pairs on any measure, but men were found to distance themselves from a woman partner (as compared to a man) by turning their faces or bodies away and making negative comments, by not following advice, and by placing dominoes closer to themselves.     

Individual differences in distancing responses to women on a photo choice task

A heterogeneous sample of adult women and men responded to a Photo Choice Task (PCT) in which they were asked to make 24 choices between two persons for a hypothetical interaction; eight of the choices were between a woman and a man. Participants also responded to a measure of adherence to Sex Role Stereotypes and to a measure of Adversarial Sexual Beliefs. On the eight choices between a woman and a man on the PCT, men over 30 and younger than 30 chose women below chance level. Women over 30 made other-gender and same-gender choices that did not differ from chance, but the women under 30 chose women over men reliably more than chance. Small but significant positive correlations were found among the scores on the PCT and the belief measures; for the total sample, the greater the choice of men over women for hypothetical interactions, the greater the agreement with sex role stereotypes and with adversarial sexual beliefs. An examination of mean differences in belief scores among groups of persons whose PCT scores (choice of men over women) were low, medium, and high revealed that men who were more likely to turn away from women in hypothetical situations were also more likely to adhere to stereotyped beliefs about sex roles and to view relationships between women and men as adversarial. This same pattern of individual differences was found among women but, for women, only the relationship between PCT scores and sex role stereotyping was significant.     

On the dimensionality of the System Usability Scale: a test of alternative measurement models

The System Usability Scale (SUS), developed by Brooke (Usability evaluation in industry, Taylor & Francis, London, pp 189–194, 1996), had a great success among usability practitioners since it is a quick and easy to use measure for collecting users’ usability evaluation of a system. Recently, Lewis and Sauro (Proceedings of the human computer interaction international conference (HCII 2009), San Diego CA, USA, 2009) have proposed a two-factor structure—Usability (8 items) and Learnability (2 items)—suggesting that practitioners might take advantage of these new factors to extract additional information from SUS data. In order to verify the dimensionality in the SUS’ two-component structure, we estimated the parameters and tested with a structural equation model the SUS structure on a sample of 196 university users. Our data indicated that both the unidimensional model and the two-factor model with uncorrelated factors proposed by Lewis and Sauro (Proceedings of the human computer interaction international conference (HCII 2009), San Diego CA, USA, 2009) had a not satisfactory fit to the data. We thus released the hypothesis that Usability and Learnability are independent components of SUS ratings and tested a less restrictive model with correlated factors. This model not only yielded a good fit to the data, but it was also significantly more appropriate to represent the structure of SUS ratings.

The Bootstrap Discovery Behaviour (BDB): a new outlook on usability evaluation

The value of λ is one of the main issues debated in international usability studies. The debate is centred on the deficiencies of the mathematical return on investment model (ROI model) of Nielsen and Landauer (1993). The ROI model is discussed in order to identify the base of another model that, respecting Nielsen and Landauer’s one, tries to consider a large number of variables for the estimation of the number of evaluators needed for an interface. Using the bootstrap model (Efron 1979), we can take into account: (a) the interface properties, as the properties at zero condition of evaluation and (b) the probability that the population discovery behaviour is represented by all the possible discovery behaviours of a sample. Our alternative model, named Bootstrap Discovery Behaviour (BDB), provides an alternative estimation of the number of experts and users needed for a usability evaluation. Two experimental groups of users and experts are involved in the evaluation of a website (). Applying the BDB model to the problems identified by the two groups, we found that 13 experts and 20 users are needed to identify 80% of usability problems, instead of 6 experts and 7 users required according to the estimation of the discovery likelihood provided by the ROI model. The consequence of the difference between the results of those models is that in following the BDB the costs of usability evaluation increase, although this is justified considering that the results obtained have the best probability of representing the entire population of experts and users.     

Computing Strong and Weak Permissions in Defeasible Logic

In this paper we propose an extension of Defeasible Logic to represent and compute different concepts of defeasible permission. In particular, we discuss some types of explicit permissive norms that work as exceptions to opposite obligations or encode permissive rights. Moreover, we show how strong permissions can be represented both with, and without introducing a new consequence relation for inferring conclusions from explicit permissive norms. Finally, we illustrate how a preference operator applicable to contrary-to-duty obligations can be combined with a new operator representing ordered sequences of strong permissions. The logical system is studied from a computational standpoint and is shown to have linear computational complexity.     

Risky Business: Framing Childbirth in Hospital Settings

"Risky Business" considers hospital childbirth and the production of the concept of risk in obstetrics. Risk is a defining concept of medicalized childbirth. Approaching obstetrical risk with a goal of challenging its hold on practices demonstrates how risk itself is produced and maintained in particular institutional contexts. The goal here is to imagine new ways of understanding and assessing obstetrical risk, as part of an overall strategy of challenging technocratic approaches to childbirth and mothering. Surveying feminist approaches to childbirth, the essay discusses how the mother's health profile affects both medical education and the construction of childbirth as "risky business."     

Serial migration and its implications for the parent-child relationship: a retrospective analysis of the experiences of the children of Caribbean immigrants

This study addressed the potential impact of serial migration for parent-children relationships and for children's psychological well-being. The experience of being separated from their parents during childhood and reunited with them at a later time was retrospectively examined for 48 individuals. A series of measures (e.g., self-esteem, parental identification) associated with appraisals at critical time periods during serial migration (separation, reunion, current) revealed that serial migration can potentially disrupt parent-child bonding and unfavorably affect children's self-esteem and behavior. Time did not appear to be wholly effective in repairing rifts in the parent-child relationship. Risk factors for less successful reunions included lengthy separations and the addition of new members to the family unit in the child's absence.