The interest gap: how gender stereotype endorsement about abilities predicts differences in academic interests

This study used a novel approach to examine the link between gender ability stereotype endorsement and academic interests by examining not only stereotypes people hold within the domains of mathematics and language arts, but also between them. Grade 6 and 8 students (285 males, 363 females) reported their degree of stereotype endorsement and interest in these two academic domains. Results of path analyses revealed that stereotype endorsement within and between domains accounted for gender differences in interest. In language arts, endorsing a stereotype that females are more competent than males predicted subsequent interest in the domain and accounted for the greater language arts interest among females. In mathematics, however, the perception that males are more competent in mathematics relative to language arts was linked to students’ interest in this domain and accounted for the interest gap between genders. These results suggest that students’ interests relate to endorsed stereotypes that are either driven by a perceived gender superiority within one domain—when females are viewed as more competent than males in language arts—or a gender superiority between two domains—when males are viewed as more competent in mathematics relative to language arts. Considering not only stereotypes favoring a gender within one domain, but also between domains, provides a more accurate portrait of students’ actual stereotypes and can be useful to better understanding how the interest gap emerges.

     

Developmental perspectives on primate gesture: 100 years in the making

Animal Cognition - This paper is an introduction to the special issue entitled Evolving the study of gesture: evaluating and unifying theories of gesture acquisition in great apes. The gestures of...     

Examining Relationships between Transformational Leadership and Employee Creative Performance: The Moderator Effects of Organizational Culture

This study examined whether organizational culture moderates relationships between transformational leadership (TFL) and employee self‐rated creative performance (CP). A convenience sample of 147 working professionals from 109 Fortune 500 organizations participated in the study by completing measures of their organizations’ cultures, their managers’ leadership styles, and their own CP, as well as relevant control measures. Adhocracy culture type moderated the relationship between levels of TFL and CP. Consequently, market culture type was a non‐significant moderator for predicting TFL–CP relationships. Both adhocracy and market culture types were non‐significant mediators of TFL on CP. The theoretical model in this study provides an important extension of TFL and organizational culture theories and a greater understanding of how adhocracy culture interacts with TFL to influence employee CP. This study also provides researchers and practitioners with a better comprehension of how to achieve higher levels of CP given the interaction between TFL and adhocracy culture.     

Infants' reasoning about opaque and transparent occluders in an individuation task

There has been some debate about whether infants 10 months and younger can use featural information to individuate objects. The present research tested the hypothesis that negative results obtained with younger infants reflect limitations in information processing capacities rather than the inability to individuate objects based on featural differences. Infants aged 9.5 months saw one object (i.e. a ball) or two objects (i.e. a box and a ball) emerge successively to opposite sides of an opaque occluder. Infants then saw a single ball either behind a transparent occluder or without an occluder. Only the infants who saw the ball behind the transparent occluder correctly judged that the one-ball display was inconsistent with the box-ball sequence. These results suggest that: (a) infants categorize events involving opaque and transparent occluders as the same kind of physical situation (i.e. occlusion) and (b) support the notion that infants are more likely to give evidence of object individuation when they need to reason about one kind of event (i.e. occlusion) than when they must retrieve and compare categorically distinct events (i.e. occlusion and no-occlusion).     

Mind over matter: internalization of the thinness norm as a moderator of responsiveness to norm misperception education in college women.

The authors examine the effectiveness of norm misperception education in decreasing disordered eating. One hundred seven 1st-year college women completed questionnaires assessing their own and others' actual and ideal body size as well as their own disordered eating and were then randomly assigned to read either a norm misperception or a control brochure. Participants completed questionnaires immediately after reading the brochures and again 3 months later. Although there were no main effects of brochure condition at the follow-up, participants who primarily compared themselves with other college women and who read the norm misperception brochure had higher actual and ideal weight as well as less frequent disordered eating. The discussion focuses on the theoretical and applied implications of these findings.     

Using Technology to Deliver Immediate Corrective Feedback to Preservice Teachers

Teacher preparation programs are under scrutiny for their role in the troubled American educational system. If American education is to improve, teacher educators must identify and encourage teachers to use effective teaching practices. A promising technique for increasing use of teaching practices is providing feedback to teachers on newly acquired behaviors. The focus of this study was to examine the effects of immediate corrective feedback on one specific teaching behavior, use of three-term contingencies, to preservice teachers. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effects of immediate corrective feedback, delivered via a wireless FM listening system. Immediate corrective feedback (as compared with delayed feedback) was shown to be an effective way to increase preservice teacher completion of three-term contingency trials by all participants. These findings and other considerations for additional research using feedback are addressed.     

A multimodal data collection tool using REALbasic and Mac OS X

This project uses REALbasic 3.5 in the Mac OS X environment for development of a configuration tool that builds a data collection procedure for investigating the effectiveness of sonified graphs. The advantage of using REALbasic with the Mac OS X system is that it provides rapid development of stimulus presentation, direct recording of data to files, and control over other procedural issues. The program can be made to run natively on the new Mac OS X system, older Mac OS systems, and Windows (98SE, ME, 2000 PRO). With modification, similar programs could be used to present any number of visual/auditory stimulus combinations, complete with questions for each stimulus.     

中国香港双语儿童初步阅读能力与语音、文字加工关系的研究

采用音节检测、短时言语记忆、快速命名等语音加工任务和汉字、字母、数字等方向加工任务,探讨语音和文字加工在儿童初步阅读中的作用,116名6岁左右的香港双语儿童参加了测试。结果表明：语音加工能力是跨语言的比较稳定的因素,是预测汉语和英语阅读的较好指标;文字加工具有特异性．即汉字方向加工只能预测汉语阅读,字母方向加工则预测英语阅读。