Effects of Pay Expected on Pay Received: The Confirmatory Nature of Initial Expectations1

Previous research suggests that women have lower pay expectations and a lower sense of personal entitlement with respect to pay than similarly qualified men (cf. Major & Konar, in press; Major, McFarlin, & Gagnon, 1984). The present research examined, in two liking simulation experiments, the impact of a job applicant's pay expectations and gender on starting salary offers, hiring recommendations, and evaluations made by management students. Results of both experiments indicated that, given identical applicant qualifications, the higher the salary requested by an applicant, the higher the salary he or she was offered, regardless of the applicant's gender. However, women with moderate pay expectations were offered significantly more money (Experiment 1) and were significantly more likely to be hired (Experiment 2) than were men with moderate expectations. Amount of pay expected had no impact on other evaluations of the applicant. The role that gender differences in pay expectations may play in perpetuating nonperformance-related pay differences between women and men is discussed.     

Male Partners' Appraisals of Undesired Pregnancy and Abortion: Implications for Women's Adjustment to Abortion

The impact of men's attributions for pregnancy and expectations for coping with abortion on their partner's post-abortion adjustment was examined. Men's and women's attributions and coping expectations were assessed in a sample of 73 couples prior to obtaining a first-trimester abortion of an undesired pregnancy. Women's depression was assessed 30 minutes post-abortion. Partners did not differ in their coping expectations or attributions of the pregnancy to chance, situation, another person, or their own behavior, but men blamed the pregnancy more on their own character than did their partners. Male partner's coping expectancies affected women's adjustment only if the women themselves had low coping expectancies. Among women with low coping expectancies, those accompanied by partners who also had low coping expectancies were the most depressed. Men's attributions were unrelated to their partner's adjustment.     

Figurative understanding of pictures and sentences

Figurative language use involves the appropriate relatings of normally discrepant domains of knowledge. The present study determined whether college students could match a picture of the literal content of a proverb with a one-sentence target scenario which instantiated an interpretation of the proverb. More specifically, the subjects chose between a target scenario and a foil scenario designed to be a poorer instance of the interpretation. The results indicated that the subjects were successful despite the wide discrepancy in literal meaning between the pictures and scenarios. Supporting studies determined that this finding could not be attributed to response (scenario) bias or to certain characteristics of the pictures or of the scenarios alone. Apparently, the all important interaction between these materials induced the subjects to construct abstract ideas which served to relate the materials figuratively. Idea construction was heuristically described as involving analogic processes.The research was supported, in part, by a grant from the University Research Council of the University of Cincinnati to K. Voegtle.     

Intergroup Interaction and Self-Disclosure1

Two studies were designed to test hypotheses concerning self-disclosure during initial interactions with ingroup or outgroup strangers. Based on intergroup anxiety theory it was predicted that ingroup members would disclose less to outgroup strangers than to ingroup strangers. One study involved interaction with handicapped and nonhandicapped confederates and one involved interaction with Caucasian and Black confederates. It was found that on some dimensions there was less self-disclosure to outgroup than ingroup strangers during initial interactions. Additional data suggested that high levels of public self-awareness and perceived dissimilarity also reduced some aspects of self-disclosure.     

Copying strategies and memory on the Complex Figure Test in psychiatric patients

We assessed three copying strategies on the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test among 50 psychiatric patients. The strategies were featural (detail-focused), contextual (framework-focused), and mixed. Reliable classification of each patient's copying strategy showed 7 patients used a featural and 7 patients used a contextual strategy. The remaining 36 used a mixed strategy involving both elements. Analysis indicated that patients who met DSM-III-R criteria for schizophrenia tended to use a mixed strategy. Nonschizophrenic patients also favoured the mixed approach. Moreover, when subjects were divided into groups based on their strategies, there were no differences in copying accuracy. However, the groups differed on immediate and delayed recall of the Complex Figure Test. Patients who adopted a featural strategy on the copy trial had the lowest recall scores. "Process" variables may be important in understanding neurocognitive functioning in schizophrenia; however, there is little evidence that schizophrenic patients use copying strategies consistent with lateralized impairment of brain function.     

Farm women/farm work

The lack of documentation of women's farm work makes it difficult to assess women's contributions to farm businesses. A survey of farm women in western Canada showed that while younger women were more likely to have a farm work role, they also saw more barriers to farm work than older women. Variations in women's farm work may be a result of cohort differences in socialization for farm work, of farm cycle, or of family cycle. Incorporation of off-farm and household work into the analysis of women's contributions to the farm business is suggested as a more comprehensive method of assessing their work involvement.This research was funded by The Research Council of Alberta Farming for the Future.     

Palatability of food as a factor influencing obese and normal-weight children''s eating habits

The type and amount of food leftover from school lunches by normal-weight and obese elementary school children was examined for its similarity to the pattern reported by Krassner et al. (1979) in a study of normal-weight and obese college students. In this study 102 observations of children between the ages of 9–11, were taken over eight lunch periods in their school cafeteria. Overall, the normal-weight children left only slightly more food uneaten than did the obese children. However, when food palatability was examined, it was found that normal-weight children left over twice as much palatable food as did obese children. Children did not differ on the amount of unpalatable food left uneaten.

These results suggest that Krassner et al.'s observation that obese adults leave less food on their plates may be extended to children and, further, that like obese adults, obese children may be more influenced by the palatability of food than their normal-weight peers.     

Temperament, distraction, and learning in toddlerhood

The word- and nonword-learning abilities of toddlers were tested under various conditions of environmental distraction, and evaluated with respect to children's temperamental attentional focus. Thirty-nine children and their mothers visited the lab at child age 21-months, where children were exposed to fast-mapping word-learning trials and nonlinguistic sequential learning trials. It was found that both word- and nonword-learning were adversely affected by the presentation of environmental distractions. But it was also found that the effect of the distractions sometimes depended on children's level of attentional focus. Specifically, children high in attentional focus were less affected by environmental distractions than children low in attentional focus when attempting to learn from a model, whereas children low in attentional focus demonstrated little learning from the model. Translationally, these results may be of use to child health-care providers investigating possible sources of cognitive and language delay.