The fit and implementation of sexual harassment law to workplace evaluations

Three studies used videotaped harassment complaints to examine the impact of legal standards on the evaluation of social-sexual conduct at work. Study 1 demonstrated that without legal instructions, college students' judgment strategies were highly variable. Study 2 compared 2 current legal standards, the "severity or pervasiveness test" and a proposed utilitarian alternative (i.e., the rational woman approach). Undergraduate participants taking the perspective of the complainant were more sensitive to offensive conduct than were those adopting an objective perspective. Although the utilitarian altemative further increased sensitivity on some measures, it failed to produce a principled judgment strategy. Finally, Study 3 examined the kinds of errors that full-time workers make when applying the "severity or pervasiveness" test to examine more closely the sensitivity of the subjective approach.     

Object names and object functions serve as cues to categories for infants

Can object names and functions act as cues to categories for infants? In Study 1, 14- and 18-month-old infants were shown novel category exemplars along with a function, a name, or no cues. Infants were then asked to "find another one," choosing between 2 novel objects (1 from the familiar category and the other not). Infants at both ages were more likely to select the category match in the function than in the no-cue condition. However, only at 18 months did naming the objects enhance categorization. Study 2 shows that names can facilitate categorization for 14-month-olds as well when a hint regarding the core meaning of the objects (the function of a single familiarization object) is provided.     

Experiences and engagement with the design features and strategies of an internet-delivered treatment programme for generalised anxiety disorder: a service-based evaluation

Background: Outcome research has highlighted the efficacy of internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy (iCBT). Some process research has examined users experiences of iCBT. Understanding the user experience provides valuable feedback to developers of internet-delivered interventions.

Aim: The present study aimed to evaluate user's experiences and engagement with the design features of an internet-delivered treatment programme for anxiety.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 7 participant users of the Space from Anxiety programme. A thematic analysis framework was employed to analyse the data collected.

Results: Identified themes related to participants engagement and adherence with the programme material, participant's experience of personal development through interaction with the programme content and participants experience of the social features employed in the programme. Another theme investigated the various attributes or conditions necessary for internet-delivered therapy to be helpful to an individual.

Conclusion: Considering the experiences of users of online interventions provides insight into what works for whom both in terms of technological features and the various skills and strategies that may compose the treatment intervention. Knowing more about what design features and strategies/components of the intervention are attractive and keep users involved can only enhance the delivery of effective internet-delivered interventions for anxiety disorders.     

Identity and emergency intervention: how social group membership and inclusiveness of group boundaries shape helping behavior

Two experiments exploring the effects of social category membership on real-life helping behavior are reported. In Study 1, intergroup rivalries between soccer fans are used to examine the role of identity in emergency helping. An injured stranger wearing an in-group team shirt is more likely to be helped than when wearing a rival team shirt or an unbranded sports shirt. In Study 2, a more inclusive social categorization is made salient for potential helpers. Helping is extended to those who were previously identified as out-group members but not to those who do not display signs of group membership. Taken together, the studies show the importance of both shared identity between bystander and victim and the inclusiveness of salient identity for increasing the likelihood of emergency intervention.     

A transactional approach to social anxiety and the genesis of interpersonal closeness: Self, partner, and social context

It remains unclear whether social anxiety interferes with the generation of closeness during initial encounters. We addressed the question of whether perceived closeness between strangers differs as a function of dyad characteristics (i.e., self and partner levels of social anxiety) and social context. We conducted an experiment with 90 participants randomly assigned to either a 45-minute personal disclosure or small-talk dyadic conversation. Multilevel modeling results yielded a 3-way interaction, such that the effect of social anxiety on closeness generated during the interaction was moderated by social anxiety reported by interaction partners and social context. In the personal disclosure condition, perceived closeness was greatest when the most socially anxious individuals interacted with each other. In the small-talk condition, perceived closeness was greatest when the least socially anxious individuals interacted with each other. Across conditions, partners with substantial differences in social anxiety (i.e., mixed dyads) reported relatively less closeness than partners with similar levels of social anxiety. Social anxiety effects were not attributable to depressive symptoms or physical attraction to partners. These findings suggest that neglecting specific qualities of interaction partners and social situational factors may lead to spurious conclusions in understanding interpersonal outcomes related to social anxiety.     

Constituent Length Affects Prosody and Processing for a Dative NP Ambiguity in Korean

Two sentence processing experiments on a dative NP ambiguity in Korean demonstrate effects of phrase length on overt and implicit prosody. Both experiments controlled non-prosodic length factors by using long versus short proper names that occurred before the syntactically critical material. Experiment 1 found that long phrases induce different prosodic phrasing than short phrases in a read-aloud task and change the preferred interpretation of globally ambiguous sentences. It also showed that speakers who have been told of the ambiguity can provide significantly different prosody for the two interpretations, for both lengths. Experiment 2 verified that prosodic patterns found in first-pass pronunciations predict self-paced reading patterns for silent reading. The results extend the coverage of the Implicit Prosody Hypothesis [Fodor, J Psycholinguist Res 27:285–319, 1998; Prosodic disambiguation in silent reading. In M. Hirotani (Ed.), NELS 32 (pp. 113–132). Amherst, MA: GLSA Publications, 2002] to another construction and to Korean. They further indicate that strong syntactic biases can have rapid effects on the formulation of implicit prosody.     

Self-Report Measures of Individual Differences in Regulatory Focus: A Cautionary Note

Regulatory focus theory distinguishes between two independent structures of strategic inclination, promotion versus prevention. However, the theory implies two potentially independent definitions of these inclinations, the self-guide versus the reference-point definitions. Two scales (the Regulatory Focus Questionnaire, Higgins al., 2001, and the General Regulatory Focus Measure, Lockwood, Jordan, & Kunda, 2002) have been widely used to measure dispositional regulatory focus. We suggest that these two scales align respectively with the two definitions, and find that the two scales are largely uncorrelated. Both conceptual and methodological implications are discussed.     

Why size counts: children's spatial reorientation in large and small enclosures

When mobile organisms are spatially disoriented, for instance by rapid repetitive movement, they must re-establish orientation. Past research has shown that the geometry of enclosing spaces is consistently used for reorientation by a wide variety of species, but that non-geometric features are not always used. Based on these findings, some investigators have postulated a species-universal 'geometric module' that is transcended by the acquisition of spatial language at 6 years. This conclusion has been challenged, however, by findings that children as young as 18 months actually do use features to reorient in larger enclosures than those used in the original experiments. The reason for the room size effect is explored here in five experiments. Collectively, the data on age at which features are first used point to the importance of both restriction of movement in the small space and the fact that features are closer in the small space. In addition, success is seen at younger ages when the target object is adjacent to the feature. These results favor an adaptive combination model of spatial reorientation over a 'module-plus-language' view.     

Persistent and stable biases in spatial learning mechanisms predict navigational style

A wealth of evidence in rodents and humans supports the central roles of two learning systems—hippocampal place learning and striatal response learning—in the formation of spatial representations to support navigation. Individual differences in the ways that these mechanisms are engaged during initial encoding and subsequent navigation may provide a powerful framework for explaining the wide range of variability found in the strategies and solutions that make up human navigational styles. Previous work has revealed that activation in the hippocampal and striatal networks during learning could predict navigational style. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the relative activations in these systems during both initial encoding and the act of dynamic navigation in a learned environment. Participants learned a virtual environment and were tested on subsequent navigation to targets within the environment. We observed that a given individual had a consistent balance of memory system engagement across both initial encoding and subsequent navigation, a balance that successfully predicted the participants’ tendencies to use novel shortcuts versus familiar paths during dynamic navigation. This was further supported by the observation that the activation during subsequent retrieval was not dependent on the type of solution used on a given trial. Taken together, our results suggest a model in which the place- and response-learning systems are present in parallel to support a variety of navigational behaviors, but stable biases in the engagement of these systems influence what solutions might be available for any given individual.     

The Longitudinal Impact of a Family-Based Communication Intervention on Observational and Self-Reports of Sexual Communication

Parents can play a vital role in shaping teenagers’ sexual attitudes, behavior, and contraceptive use through communication, however, less is known about how to modify parent–adolescent communication among youth with mental health problems. The impact of a family-based sexual risk prevention intervention on both observational and self-report of parent–adolescent sexual communication was examined at 12 months among adolescents with mental health problems. Of the 721 parent–adolescent dyads recruited for the study, 167 videotapes of sexual discussions between parents and adolescent were coded for the family-based intervention and 191 videotapes for the active comparison. Longitudinal analyses examined differences between conditions (family-based vs. comparison) in self-reported and observed parent–adolescent sexual discussions and also examined the impact of gender on intervention response. More parent I-statements, healthier parent body language, and fewer adolescent Negative Vocalizations were detected for family-based intervention participants 12 months after participating in the brief intervention (11?h of total intervention time) relative to those in the comparison condition. Parents in the family-based intervention also self-reported better sexual communication at 12 months. The current study provides supporting evidence that a relatively brief family-based intervention was successful at addressing parent–adolescent sexual communication among a mental health sample.