Effects of household sex composition on the salience of one's gender in the spontaneous self-concept

It was hypothesized that being a boy or a girl becomes more salient in a child's self-concept to the extent the other sex numerically predominates in the child's household. This prediction was based upon an information-processing, distinctiveness postulate that a person contemplating a complex stimulus (such as the self) selectively notices and encodes its more distinctive, information-rich aspects. The spontaneous self-concept elicited by nondirective “Tell us about yourself” interviews of 560 school children were scored for spontaneous mention of one's gender. As predicted, boys spontaneously mentioned their maleness more often when they came from households where females were in the majority; girls mentioned their femaleness more often when from households with male majorities; boys mentioned their maleness more often when from father-absent than from father-present homes. Incidental findings are that gender is more salient in the negation self-concept (“Tell us what you are not”) than in the affirmation self-concept (“Tell us about yourself”) especially for girls and that gender becomes increasingly salient as the child grows older.     

Central sources of visual masking: Indexing structures supporting seeing at a single,brief glance

Summary When two briefly exposed, spatially overlapping visual fields are presented dichoptically, the identifiability of the first field is a J-shaped function of the interval separating their onsets. Three distinct sources of central masking are inferred from the selective influence of variables at different onset asynchronies. In integration through common synthesis, two fields presented at or near simultaneous onset yield one iconic representation. The distinctiveness of this source is inferred from the selective influence of eye dominance at and near simultaneous onset. At longer onset asynchronies, the selective influence of variables such as mask contrast and degree of contour overlap imply a second source of masking. This source was identified with the inhibition of sustained channels by transient channels reported elsewhere. Interchannel inhibition is proposed to affect the fidelity of the iconic representation, but here the imprecision is due to loss of form-relevant information on the first field. At yet longer onset asynchronies, where the fields are phenomenally separate, a third set of variables (e.g., words vs. nonwords and left vs. right visual fields) show their influence. These effects are taken as evidence of a replacement principle: the iconic representation of the second field directs attention from that of the first field. Here, first-field identifiability is constrained by time rather than by impoverished data.In a final series of experiments, central three-field interactions are demonstrated. A field, inserted into the temporal gap between two fields, is perceptually impaired even though it is separated from the first and third fields by intervals at which, individually, neither field is an effective mask. This second-field depression is accompanied by a first-field enhancement. The three sources of central masking are hard pressed to account for the three-field effects.     

Conservation training in four-year-old children

In Experiment 1 two training procedures were used to teach four-year-olds to conserve. Verbal rule instruction consisted of providing verbal rules and demonstrations of the operations referred to by the rules. Feedback consisted of providing verbal feedback contingent upon the children's responses. One week after training on conservation of number and length the children were given a posttest which included tests of conservation of number, length, and mass. Children who were given verbal rule instruction conserved significantly more on the number and length posttest problems than children who were not. However, this learning did not transfer to the mass problems, possibly because mass is not naturally acquired until some time after conservation of number and length. The feedback training procedure had no effect on conservation performance. In Experiment 2, the verbal rule instruction procedure was used to train four-year-olds on conservation of length and mass. One week after training the children were tested on both conservation of number, which is typically acquired before length and mass, and conservation of weight, which is typically acquired after length and mass, as well as on conservation of length and mass. Children who were given training conserved more on all four types of problems than children in the control group.     

Ensemble coding of facial identity is not refined by experience: Evidence from other-race and inverted faces

The ability to recognize identity despite within-person variability in appearance is likely a face-specific skill and shaped by experience. Ensemble coding – the automatic extraction of the average of a stimulus array – has been proposed as a mechanism underlying face learning (allowing one to recognize novel instances of a newly learned face). We investigated whether ensemble encoding, like face learning and recognition, is refined by experience by testing participants with upright own-race faces and two categories of faces with which they lacked experience: other-race faces (Experiment 1) and inverted faces (Experiment 2). Participants viewed four images of an unfamiliar identity and then were asked whether a test image of that same identity had been in the study array. Each test image was a matching exemplar (from the array), matching average (the average of the images in the array), non-matching exemplar (a novel image of the same identity), or non-matching average (an average of four different images of the same identity). Adults showed comparable ensemble coding for all three categories (i.e., reported that matching averages had been present more than non-matching averages), providing evidence that this early stage of face learning is not shaped by face-specific experience.     

Examining the Potential Mental Health Costs of Defending Victims of Bullying: a Longitudinal Analysis

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - It has been speculated that defending victims of bullying is stressful for youth, and may contribute to poor mental health among those who...     

Investigating Religion and Inequality through Women's Work-Family Pathways

This project investigates the relationship between religious involvement and women's work and family pathways in the United States. I identify five work-family configurations using National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) data and latent class analysis. These configurations incorporate cohabitation histories, timing of family formation, and maternal employment. Then, I analyze how adolescent religiosity and personal and family characteristics are associated with subsequent work-family pathways. Affiliation with an evangelical Protestant tradition is associated with women who form families early, while Catholic affiliation is tied to later family formation. Importantly, family background characteristics such as living with both biological parents and higher parental education, as well as race/ethnicity and the respondent's educational attainment, are the most consistent variables associated with work-family configurations. These results suggest that religious involvement, when considered alongside family background, contributes to women's unequal work-family pathways in adulthood. The close links between religion, family, and stratification are evident in the study of women's work-family experiences.     

The psychological bases of ideology and prejudice: testing a dual process model

The issue of personality and prejudice has been largely investigated in terms of authoritarianism and social dominance orientation. However, these seem more appropriately conceptualized as ideological attitudes than as personality dimensions. The authors describe a causal model linking dual dimensions of personality, social world view, ideological attitudes, and intergroup attitudes. Structural equation modeling with data from American and White Afrikaner students supported the model, suggesting that social conformity and belief in a dangerous world influence authoritarian attitudes, whereas toughmindedness and belief in a competitive jungle world influence social dominance attitudes, and these two ideological attitude dimensions influence intergroup attitudes. The model implies that dual motivational and cognitive processes, which may be activated by different kinds of situational and intergroup dynamics, may underlie 2 distinct dimensions of prejudice.     

Measuring health beliefs on the Internet: A comparison of paper and Internet administrations of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale

A growing number of studies have supported the use of unidimensional psychometric test instruments administered via the Internet; however, support for the use of multidimensional scales is weak. The present study compares paper and Internet administrations of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) Scale (Wallston & Wallston, 1981). In terms of reliabilities and factor structures, the Internet data were found to be at least as good as the paper data. MHLC scores were comparable for paper and Internet administrations, although the Internet sample scored significantly lower on the Powerful Others subscale. Overall, the results show that administration of the MHLC Scale via the Internet can produce data comparable to that obtained by pen-and-paper methods. However, it is concluded that generalization of these findings beyond the psychometric test instrument and sampling procedures used here is not warranted.