The ancestor effect: Thinking about our genetic origin enhances intellectual performance

The present research hypothesizes that thinking about one's genetic origin (i.e. ancestors) provides people with a positive psychological resource that increases their intellectual performance. To test this line of reasoning, we manipulated whether participants thought about their ancestors or not (manipulation of ancestor salience), and measured their expected as well as actual intellectual performance in a variety of intelligence tasks. Four studies supported our assumptions: participants show higher expected (Study 1) and actual intellectual performance (Studies 2–4) when they are reminded about their ancestors. We also have initial evidence that this effect may be fuelled by increased levels of perceived control and promotion orientation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. It is certainly desirable to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors. (Plutarch 46–120 AD) Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Education,Conflict and the Political: Introduction to the Special Issue

In recent years the French philosopher Jacques Rancière has addressed the predicament of artists and curators who, in their eagerness to convey a critical message or engage their viewers in an emancipatory process, end up predetermining the outcomes of the experience, hence blocking its critical or emancipatory potential. In this essay I consider Rancière’s writing on this topic and draw out the parallels with the predicament of teachers and curriculum designers who have critical and emancipatory objectives. The risk of education that strives for emancipation is that it can become so directive in steering students to the “right” outcomes that it does not leave these students any intellectual room. Rancière’s work is helpful in reminding us that teachers and curricula with explicitly critical, political, emancipatory objectives can defeat their own purposes and become stultifying if they do not leave the student room to use her or his own intelligence.     

Peer status in an ethnic context: Associations with African American adolescents' ethnic identity

This investigation examined the association between ethnic identity centrality and peer status for African American adolescents who represented a sizable proportion, yet numerical minority within a high school context. Initial analyses indicated that a traditional sociometric nomination procedure did not adequately characterize peer status for African American adolescents. A modified nomination procedure varying the ethnicity of nominators yielded measures of African American adolescents' peer acceptance/rejection and perceived popularity as rated by African American or European American peers. Results suggest that high levels of peer acceptance and popularity as rated by African American peers were associated with high ethnic identity centrality; however, acceptance and popularity as rated by European American peers were unrelated to ethnic identity centrality among African American adolescents. Findings suggest the importance of examining peer status of African American adolescents with consideration given to ethnicity as a relevant context.     

Building a Committed Hospice Volunteer Workforce—Do Variables at the Experience Stage Matter?

Volunteers are crucial to the survival of non‐profit organisations, who therefore have a fundamental interest in sustaining voluntary engagement over time. A central variable regarding sustained voluntary engagement is volunteers' organisational commitment, which has so far been a neglected research issue. The study at hand therefore explicitly focuses on hospice volunteers' commitment. Starting from the assumption that variables at the experience stage of volunteerism may be relevant in predicting volunteer commitment, questionnaire data on volunteers' motives, motive fulfilment and role identity were collected in a sample of hospice volunteers (N = 276). Results of multiple regression analyses show positive relationships between altruistic motive fulfilment and a volunteer role identity on the one hand and volunteer commitment on the other. Observed interaction effects imply that altruistic motive fulfilment is of importance both at the initial phase of volunteering and for long‐term volunteers. Moreover, interaction effects provide evidence that the fulfilment of egoistic motives is of particular importance amongst volunteers to whom egoistic motives are central. Thus, the fulfilment of altruistic motives and facilitating the development of a volunteer role identity should be permanent concerns in building a committed workforce. Egoistic motive fulfilment in contrast is of special relevance, when egoistic motives for volunteering are strong. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Age-related qualitative differences in post-error cognitive control adjustments

Detecting an error signals the need for increased cognitive control and behavioural adjustments. Considerable development in performance monitoring and cognitive control is evidenced by lower error rates and faster response times in multi-trial executive function tasks with age. Besides these quantitative changes, we were interested in whether qualitative changes in balancing accuracy and speed contribute to developmental progression during elementary school years. We conducted two studies investigating the temporal and developmental trajectories of post-error slowing in three prominent cognitive conflict tasks (Stroop, Simon, and flanker). We instructed children (8-, 10-, and 12-year-old) and adults to respond as fast and as accurately as possible and measured their response times on four trials after correct and incorrect responses to a cognitive conflict. Results revealed that all age groups had longer response times on post-error versus post-correct trials, reflecting post-error slowing. Critically, slowing on the first post-error trial declined with age, suggesting an age-related reduction in the orienting response towards errors. This age effect diminished on subsequent trials, suggesting more fine-tuned cognitive control adjustments with age. Overall, the consistent pattern across tasks suggests an age-related change from a relatively strong orienting response to more balanced cognitive control adaptations.     

Mind the ad: How personality requirements affect older and younger job seekers' job attraction

Age discrimination may explain lower labour market chances of older and younger job seekers. What remains underresearched, however, is how older/younger job seekers might self-select out from early recruitment procedures due to stigmatizing information in job ads. Building on theories of metastereotypes and the linguistic category model, two experimental studies investigated how personality requirements that older/younger job seekers hold negative metastereotypes about and the way in which these requirements are worded (behavioural vs. dispositional) affected their job attraction. Within-participant mediation analyses showed that as expected, job attraction was higher for older (N = 123, aged 50 years or more) and younger (N = 151, 30 years or less) job seekers when requirements were worded in a behavioural way (e.g., ‘You can be flexible’), compared with a dispositional way (e.g., ‘You are flexible’). This relation was mediated by perceptions of challenge among younger but not older job seekers. Contrary to expectations, perceptions of threat did not explain the effects of negatively metastereotyped personality requirements on job attraction. Understanding how job seekers perceive information in job ads might help recruiters to design age-sensitive recruitment policies.     

Self-critical Rumination and Associated Metacognitions as Mediators of the Relationship Between Perfectionism and Self-esteem

Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy - Past research has shown that perfectionism, can negatively impact self-esteem. However, the mediating factors that explain this...     

Snitching versus reporting: A qualitative analysis of barriers and facilitators to addressing safety concerns among high school students

Social Psychology of Education - Creating effective school-wide safety mechanisms depends on understanding students' previous experiences of reporting, however, students may also be...     

“Picturesque Incisiveness”: Explaining the Celebrity of James's Theory of Emotion

William James is the name that comes to mind when asked about scientific explanations of emotion in the nineteenth century. However, strictly speaking James's theory of emotion does not explain emotions and never did. Indeed, James contemporaries pointed this out already more than a hundred years ago. Why could “James’ theory” nevertheless become a landmark that psychologists, neuroscientists, and historians alike refer to today? The strong focus on James and Anglo‐American sources in historiography has overshadowed all other answers given to the question of emotion at the time of James. For that reason, the article returns to the primary sources and places James's work back into the context of nineteenth century brain research in which it developed.