Effect of autonomy support and dialogic learning on school children’s physical activity and sport

This study applies an intervention based on autonomy support through dialogic learning to examine effects on motivation and the promotion of physical activity and sport involvement during schoolchildren’s leisure time. One hundred and two primary school students, aged 11–13 years, participated (M = 10.93, SD = 0.75). The sample was divided into two groups: an experimental group (49 students) and a control group (53 students). A quasi-experimental study was conducted in physical education classes over the course of 9 months. Assessments of autonomy support from teachers, family, and peers; basic psychological needs; self-determined motivation in physical education and during leisure time; planned behavior variables; physical activity intention; and estimated and actual physical exercise behavior time were included in the model. Following the intervention, the results revealed that greater autonomy support by the teacher, the family and peers, satisfaction of the basic psychological needs, self-determined motivation during physical education class and during free time, greater perceived control, favorable attitude and intention to engage in physical activity contributed to the explanation of student physical activity involvement. These results suggest that when students receive extensive social support from diverse social agents that essential precursors to physical activity are strengthened and contribute to increased motivation and actual physical activity involvement. Efforts to promote effective communications with students and other pedagogical efforts, such as providing dialogic learning opportunities, should be considered in order to strengthen physical activity motivation and involvement in students.     

If you want to be one of us,then become like us: The evaluation of naturalization applicants by host nationals

Immigrant naturalization is a rite of passage, making assimilationist attitudes particularly pronounced among host nationals. Three experimental studies investigate whether heritage culture maintenance violates expectations that citizenship should be deserved by proving strong attachment to the host nation (i.e., neoliberal communitarianism). Study 1 (N = 293) demonstrates that naturalization applicants’ high degree of heritage culture maintenance impairs application evaluations. Perceived attachment to the host nation and citizenship deservingness mediated this effect. Study 2 (N = 220) replicates results across two national contexts and reveals that heritage culture maintenance impairs evaluations only among naturalization applicants from devalued countries. Study 3 (N = 117) manipulates attachment to the host nation and shows that perceived citizenship deservingness mediates the negative effects of naturalization applicants' low attachment to the host nation on application evaluations. Overall, assimilationist attitudes among host nationals are best explained by the combination of neoliberal and communitarian criteria of evaluation.     

Some New Infinity Puzzles

Philosophia - Salmon (1970) was the first to speak explicitly of paradoxes of kinematics. In this short note I introduce a new class of infinity puzzles. Following natural terminology, they should...     

Four Dimensions of Criticism Against Gender-Fair Language

Sex Roles - The gender-neutral third-person pronoun singular hen was recently introduced in Swedish as a complement to she (hon) and he (han). The initiative to add hen initially received strong...     

Speaking like a Man: Women’s Pitch as a Cue for Gender Stereotyping

Sex Roles - Women’s average voice pitch has decreased in recent years, reducing the gap between men on this vocal dimension. The present study examined whether a woman speaking at a lower...     

How Experts Adapt Their Gaze Behavior When Modeling a Task to Novices

Domain experts regularly teach novice students how to perform a task. This often requires them to adjust their behavior to the less knowledgeable audience and, hence, to behave in a more didactic manner. Eye movement modeling examples (EMMEs) are a contemporary educational tool for displaying experts’ (natural or didactic) problem-solving behavior as well as their eye movements to learners. While research on expert-novice communication mainly focused on experts’ changes in explicit, verbal communication behavior, it is as yet unclear whether and how exactly experts adjust their nonverbal behavior. This study first investigated whether and how experts change their eye movements and mouse clicks (that are displayed in EMMEs) when they perform a task naturally versus teach a task didactically. Programming experts and novices initially debugged short computer codes in a natural manner. We first characterized experts’ natural problem-solving behavior by contrasting it with that of novices. Then, we explored the changes in experts’ behavior when being subsequently instructed to model their task solution didactically. Experts became more similar to novices on measures associated with experts’ automatized processes (i.e., shorter fixation durations, fewer transitions between code and output per click on the run button when behaving didactically). This adaptation might make it easier for novices to follow or imitate the expert behavior. In contrast, experts became less similar to novices for measures associated with more strategic behavior (i.e., code reading linearity, clicks on run button) when behaving didactically.     

More Royalist Than the King? Immigration Policy Attitudes Among Naturalized Citizens

Social psychological research has analyzed immigration attitudes mostly from the perspective of natives without an immigrant background. Nevertheless, an increasing number of migrants obtain national citizenship and take a stance towards immigration policies. By studying immigration policy attitudes reported by naturalized citizens, this article develops a dual-pathway model of immigrant political incorporation featuring pathways of either absorption or transformation. Based on a unique sample of immigrants who just accomplished the naturalization procedure (N = 566), we investigate participants' preferences for permissive or restrictive immigration policies as a function of their naturalization motives and expectations about how immigrants should acculturate in the receiving society (i.e., acculturation orientations). Our findings provide evidence for both processes of political absorption and transformation. On the one hand, belongingness motives underlying naturalization were connected to orientations towards host culture adoption, which in turn predicted support for restrictive immigration policies. On the other hand, instrumental motives were connected to orientations towards heritage culture maintenance, which in turn predicted support for permissive immigration policies. To conclude, we discuss the social psychological dynamics involved in the transition from national outsiders to national insiders and highlight the effects of naturalization on power relations between national majority and immigrant minority groups.     

Decision-makers use social information to update their preferences but choose for others as they do for themselves

People's risky decisions are susceptible to the social context in which they take place. Across three experiments using different paradigms, we investigated the influence of three social factors upon participants' decisions: the recipient of the decision-making outcome (self, other, or joint), the nature of the relationship with the other agent (friend, stranger, or teammate), and the type of information that participants received about others' preferences: none at all, general information about how previous participants had decided, or information about a specific partner's preference. We found that participants' decisions about risk did not differ according to whether the outcome at stake was their own, another agent's, or a joint outcome, nor according to the type of information available. Participants did, however, adjust their preferences for risky options in light of social information.     

Corporate Social Responsibility Practices of Colombian Companies as Perceived by Industrial Engineering Students

Science and Engineering Ethics - This work describes the perceptions that Industrial Engineering students have regarding Colombian firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. It...     

Ethical Decision Making in Autonomous Vehicles: The AV Ethics Project

Science and Engineering Ethics - The ethics of autonomous vehicles (AV) has received a great amount of attention in recent years, specifically in regard to their decisional policies in accident...