Agentic and Communal Generative Behavior in Four Areas of Adult Life: Implications for Psychological Well-Being

Fifty mothers and 48 fathers of soon-to-be-independent children were interviewed to determine how agentic and communal generative themes would be reflected in parenting, occupation, volunteer work, and leisure activities. Mothers reported more communal themes (F5, 83 = 2.32, p <.05). Correlations between generativity and well-being resulted in a negative relationship for mothers in parenting communal generative acts (r = –.41, p = .007) and total generative acts (r = –.3, p = .05) as assessed by the interview. Negative correlations also emerged between mothers' well-being and communal generative acts from the Generative Behavior Checklist, (r = –.33, p = .02).     

Priming third‐party ostracism increases affiliative imitation in children

Human beings are intensely social creatures and, as such, devote significant time and energy to creating and maintaining affiliative bonds with group members. Nevertheless, social relations sometimes collapse and individuals experience exclusion from the group. Fortunately for adults, they are able to use behavioral strategies such as mimicry to reduce their social exclusion. Here we test whether children, too, increase their imitation following an experience of ostracism. Given humans’ profound need to belong, we predicted that the mere hint of social exclusion – even third‐party social exclusion – would be sufficient to increase affiliative imitation in 5‐year‐olds. As predicted, children primed with videos in which one shape was ostracized by a group of other shapes subsequently imitated the actions of a model more closely than children in a control condition. These findings highlight just how sensitive humans are to social exclusion and demonstrate that children, like adults, modify their social behavior in response to ostracism.     

Semantic control of eye movements in picture scanning during sentence-picture verification

The Weber fraction, (I + Δ)/I, was measured for pure tones which were I presented either homophasically or antiphasically. For both stimuli, the Weber fraction was measured as a function of changes in the level of the standard tone Iand in the phase angle of addition between a test tone and the standard tone. The value, ΔI, in the Weber fraction was defined as that difference between the level of the test-plus-standard and the level of the standard (I) which was required for the listener to discriminate a difference between the standard and the test-plus-standard. In the homophasic case, the Weber fraction remained constant for changes in the phase angle of addition, whereas in the antiphasic condition, the Weber fraction decreased for increasing values of the phase angle of addition. For both the homophasic and antiphasic conditions and at all values of the phase angle of addition, the Weber fraction remained a constant as the value of the standard was varied. These results are in agreement with those obtained in studies involving noise masking, lateralization, and the monaural Weber fraction.     

Development of depth perception mediated by motion parallax in unidimensional projections of rotation in depth.

Motion parallax is a composite of five transformations demonstrated to be effective in adult judgments of rotation direction in polar motion projections of a horizontal row of dots rotating in depth. The effectiveness of these transformations as a function of age was tested by presenting six such motion projections to first graders (age = 6 years), seventh graders (age = 13 years), and college students (age = 19 years). Identical age functions were obtained for judged rotation direction from the four motion projections representing (1) Velocity, corresponding to the traditional definition of motion parallax as differential velocity, (2) Velocity plus differences between ratios of instantaneous displacement to instantaneous acceleration for dots on the near and far sides of the rotation axis ($\text{D}\text{A}$ Difference), (3) Velocity, $\text{D}\text{A}$ Difference, and a gradient across the row of $\text{D}\text{A}$ ratios, and (4) all transformations. First graders, unable to use horizontal transformations, performed at chance on these four projections, while older students made correct judgments. Order, separated from Velocity for the first time, resulted in chance performance at all ages, while Direction, also separated from Velocity for the first time, resulted in veridical judgments in only 4 of 24 college students.     

Unwilling versus unable: infants' understanding of intentional action

Infants experienced a female adult handling them toys. Sometimes, however, the transaction failed, either because the adult was in various ways unwilling to give the toy (e.g., she teased the child with it or played with it herself) or else because she was unable to give it (e.g., she accidentally dropped it). Infants at 9, 12, and 18 months of age reacted with more impatience (e.g., reaching, looking away) when the adult was unwilling to give them the toy than when she was simply unable to give it. Six-month-olds, in contrast, showed no evidence of this differentiation. Because infants' behavioral responses were appropriately adapted to different kinds of intentional actions, and because the adult's actions sometimes produced results that did not match her goal (when having accidents or failed attempts), these findings provide especially rich evidence that infants first begin to understand goal-directed action at around 9 months of age.     

The relationship between masculine gender role stress and psychological adjustment: A question of construct validity?

Masculine gender role stress is a theoretical construct that describes the stress created in men when they feel they are not meeting society's expectations for masculinity, or when the situation forces men to act in feminine-typed ways. The stress produced by these feelings or actions are thought to be related to negative psychological outcomes for men, but should be unrelated to well-being for women. The present study investigated the validity of the masculine gender role stress construct, especially with regard to the assumption that masculine gender role stress is related to negative psychological outcomes for men more than for women. Participants were a group of mostly Caucasian undergraduates. Results indicated that masculine gender role stress was related to depression, hostility, and anxiety, but to the same degree for both men and women. These findings suggest that, if MGRS is a valid construct, then researchers need to explore other ways in which this type of stress can negatively affect men, but not women.