Effects of iconicity and semantic relatedness on lexical access in american sign language

Iconicity is a property that pervades the lexicon of many sign languages, including American Sign Language (ASL). Iconic signs exhibit a motivated, nonarbitrary mapping between the form of the sign and its meaning. We investigated whether iconicity enhances semantic priming effects for ASL and whether iconic signs are recognized more quickly than noniconic signs are (controlling for strength of iconicity, semantic relatedness, familiarity, and imageability). Twenty deaf signers made lexical decisions to the 2nd item of a prime-target pair. Iconic target signs were preceded by prime signs that were (a) iconic and semantically related, (b) noniconic and semantically related, or (c) semantically unrelated. In addition, a set of noniconic target signs was preceded by semantically unrelated primes. Significant facilitation was observed for target signs when they were preceded by semantically related primes. However, iconicity did not increase the priming effect (e.g., the target sign PIANO was primed equally by the iconic sign GUITAR and the noniconic sign MUSIC). In addition, iconic signs were not recognized faster or more accurately than were noniconic signs. These results confirm the existence of semantic priming for sign language and suggest that iconicity does not play a robust role in online lexical processing.     

His and Her Perspectives: Gender Ideology, Work-to-Family Conflict, and Marital Satisfaction

This study examines the relationships between gender ideology, work-to-family conflict, and marital satisfaction. We hypothesize that gender ideology will moderate relationships between both the respondent’s work-to-family conflict and their spouse’s work-to-family conflict in predicting marital satisfaction, and that spouses’ gender ideologies will interact in predicting marital satisfaction. The hypotheses are addressed using data from a random sample of U.S. dual-earner couples (N?=?156) in a western state. The findings indicate that the more egalitarian women’s gender ideologies, the stronger the negative relationship between women’s marital satisfaction and women’s work-to-family conflict. The results also indicate that the dependence of men’s marital satisfaction on wives’ gender ideologies varies according to men’s own gender ideologies. Implications of the study are discussed.     

Commentary: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges to the Study of Emotion Regulation and Psychopathology

In this commentary, I argue that although emotion regulation and its role in psychopathology has been the focus of considerable psychological research with both children and adults, fundamental questions remain about how these phenomena are linked. I pose four challenges to the study of emotion regulation and psychopathology that have yet to be fully met, either empirically or conceptually. I note that a multi-level developmental approach that places emotion regulation within the context of both the larger self-regulatory system and the social relationships within which regulation occurs may be useful in understanding the emergence and maintenance of early behavioral patterns that evolve into disorders of psychological functioning.     

The faultline activation process and the effects of activated faultlines on coalition formation,conflict, and group outcomes

This research examines the effects of group faultline activation on coalition formation, conflict, and group outcomes. We distinguish between dormant faultlines (potential faultlines based on demographic characteristics) and activated group faultlines (members actually perceive subgroups based on the demographic characteristics) and hypothesize that while dormant faultlines do not automatically turn into active group divisions, a group’s entitlement configuration can activate divisions among group members. Study 1 was a construct validity study to verify the psychometric properties of the activated group faultline measure and explain its connection to other process variables. In Studies 2 and 3, we tested our hypotheses and found that groups with activated faultlines were more likely to form coalitions, have high levels of group conflict, and lower levels of satisfaction and group performance than dormant faultline groups. Furthermore, team identification moderated the effects of activated faultlines on group processes such that a strong workgroup identity decreased the likelihood that activated faultlines led to coalition formation and conflict.     

A Pilot Study of Psychotherapist Trainees' Alpha-Amylase and Cortisol Levels During Treatment of Recently Suicidal Clients With Borderline Traits

Psychotherapists often experience stress while providing psychotherapy, in particular when working with difficult presentations such as suicidality. As part of a larger study on the treatment of recently suicidal college students with borderline traits, 6 therapists in training collected their own salivary samples for alpha-amylase (AA) and cortisol (C) analyses immediately before and after sessions with 2 selected clients. On average, samples were collected for the same therapist-patient dyad throughout the year-long study to ensure that data reflected therapist responses across stages of treatment. Therapists also completed a working alliance questionnaire and rated perceived session difficulty immediately after each selected session. Contrary to expectations, therapists demonstrated elevated levels of stress as measured by AA and C at presession relative to postsession levels. Greater session difficulty was related to more pronounced declines in AA, whereas a stronger working alliance was linked to more pronounced reductions in C. Results suggest that physiological stress responses while working with recently suicidal clients with borderline traits occur primarily in terms of session anticipatory anxiety, whereas AA and C changes may be affected differently by factors such as session difficulty and working alliance. This is a pilot study, limited by its sample size, but the design, findings, and inclusion of physiological measures present an initial step in an essential line of research.     

Human-centeredness is not a universal feature of young children's reasoning: Culture and experience matter when reasoning about biological entities

We consider young children's construals of biological phenomena and the forces that shape them, using Carey's (1985) category-based induction task that demonstrated anthropocentric reasoning in young urban children. Follow-up studies (including our own) have questioned the generality of her results, but they have employed quite different procedures and either have not included urban children or, when urban samples were included, have failed to reproduce her original findings. In the present study of 4–10-year-olds from three cultural communities, our procedures followed Carey's more closely and replicated her findings with young urban children. However, they yielded quite different results for young rural European American and young rural Native American children. These results underscore the importance of a complex interaction of culture and experience – including both day-to-day interactions with the natural world and sensitivity to the belief systems of the communities – in children's reasoning about the natural world.     

A new measure for dispositional optimism and pessimism in young children

We describe here a new test for dispositional optimism and pessimism in young children, the Parent‐rated Life Orientation Test of children (the PLOT) and assess its psychometric properties. Two hundred and twenty one mother–father pairs rated their children's (mean age = 8.1, SD = 0.3 years) dispositional optimism and pessimism using a new scale, the PLOT, including four optimism and four pessimism items. We associated the PLOT with parent‐rated self‐esteem (Behavioral Rating Scale of Presented Self‐Esteem in Young Children), social competence (Social Competence and Behaviour Evaluation Scale, the SCBE‐30), psychiatric symptoms (Child Behaviour Checklist, the CBCL) and temperament (Children's Behaviour Questionnaire, the CBQ) of the child. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the mother‐ and father‐rated PLOT revealed a significantly better fit for a two‐ over a one‐factor solution (p < 0.001). The optimism and pessimism subscales displayed good reliabilities, inter‐parental agreement and modest to moderate associations, in the expected direction, with the measures of self‐esteem, social competence, temperament and behaviour problems. To conclude, the PLOT shows good construct and convergent validity and reliability. The findings encourage its use to assess early emerging generalized expectancies of positive and negative outcomes in young children. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.