Millennials’ (Lack of) Attitude Problem: An Empirical Examination of Generational Effects on Work Attitudes

Purpose  

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the sparse empirical literature on generational differences at work by examining (1) the effect of generation on work attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, job security, and turnover intentions) and (2) how Millennials’ work attitudes differ from prior generations.     

A developmental shift from similar to language-specific strategies in verb acquisition: A comparison of English,Spanish, and Japanese

The world’s languages draw on a common set of event components for their verb systems. Yet, these components are differentially distributed across languages. At what age do children begin to use language-specific patterns to narrow possible verb meanings? English-, Japanese-, and Spanish-speaking adults, toddlers, and preschoolers were shown videos of an animated star performing a novel manner along a novel path paired with a language-appropriate nonsense verb. They were then asked to extend that verb to either the same manner or the same path as in training. Across languages, toddlers (2- and 2.5-year-olds) revealed a significant preference for interpreting the verb as a path verb. In preschool (3- and 5-year-olds) and adulthood, the participants displayed language-specific patterns of verb construal. These findings illuminate the way in which verb construal comes to reflect the properties of the input language.     

Early maturation of frequency-following responses to voice pitch in infants with normal hearing

Neural plasticity of pitch processing mechanisms at the human brainstem, as reflected by the scalp-recorded frequency-following response (FFR) to voice pitch, has been reported for normal-hearing adults. Characteristics and maturation of such a response during the first year of life have remained unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of FFR to voice pitch in normal-hearing infants and to make a direct comparison with adults using the same stimulus and recording parameters. 9 infants and 9 adults were recruited. A Chinese monosyllable that mimics the English vowel /i/ with a rising pitch was used to elicit the FFR to voice pitch. The results demonstrated that infant FFRs showed slightly larger Pitch Strength but comparable Frequency Error, Slope Error, and Tracking Accuracy to those obtained from adults. Early maturation of FFRs was also observed in the infants starting from 1 to 3 mo. of age.     

Attributions to discrimination and self-esteem: Impact of group identification and situational ambiguity

This study examined group identification and situational ambiguity as moderators of attributions to discrimination and self-esteem following negative feedback. As predicted, high gender-identified women made more discrimination attributions than low identified women when situational prejudice cues were ambiguous, but not when prejudice cues were absent or overt. Also as predicted, women exposed to overt prejudice cues had higher self-esteem than those exposed to ambiguous cues or no prejudice cues. The relationship between discrimination attributions and self-esteem was positive among women exposed to overt prejudice but negative among those exposed to no prejudice. Across conditions, however, the more that women discounted ability as a cause of their negative feedback (i.e., blamed discrimination more than ability), the higher their self-esteem. Results qualify and extend prior research and demonstrate that personal and situational factors moderate both the tendency to make attributions to discrimination and the consequences of those attributions for self-esteem.     

Selective interference with verbal short-term memory for serial order information: A new paradigm and tests of a timing-signal hypothesis

Many recent computational models of verbal short-term memory postulate a separation between processes supporting memory for the identity of items and processes supporting memory for their serial order. Furthermore, some of these models assume that memory for serial order is supported by a timing signal. We report an attempt to find evidence for such a timing signal by comparing an “item probe” task, requiring memory for items, with a “list probe” task, requiring memory for serial order. Four experiments investigated effects of irrelevant speech, articulatory suppression, temporal grouping, and paced finger tapping on these two tasks. In Experiments 1 and 2, irrelevant speech and articulatory suppression had a greater detrimental effect on the list probe task than on the item probe task. Reaction time data indicated that the list probe task, but not the item probe task, induced serial rehearsal of items. Phonological similarity effects confirmed that both probe tasks induced phonological recoding of visual inputs. Experiment 3 showed that temporal grouping of items during list presentation improved performance on the list probe task more than on the item probe task. In Experiment 4, paced tapping had a greater detrimental effect on the list probe task than on the item probe task. However, there was no differential effect of whether tapping was to a simple or a complex rhythm. Overall, the data illustrate the utility of the item probe/list probe paradigm and provide support for models that assume memory for serial order and memory for items involve separate processes. Results are generally consistent with the timing-signal hypothesis but suggest further factors that need to be explored to distinguish it from other accounts.