Predicting intergroup bias: the interactive effects of implicit theory and social identity

This research sought to integrate the implicit theory approach and the social identity approach to understanding biases in intergroup judgment. The authors hypothesized that a belief in fixed human character would be associated with negative bias and prejudice against a maligned group regardless of the perceiver's social identity. By contrast, a belief in malleable human character would allow the perceiver's social identity to guide intergroup perception, such that a common ingroup identity that includes the maligned group would be associated with less negative bias and prejudice against the maligned group than would an exclusive identity. To test these hypotheses, a correlational study was conducted in the context of the Hong Kong 1997 political transition to examine Hong Kong Chinese's perceptions of Chinese Mainlanders, and an experimental study was conducted in the United States to examine Asian Americans' perception of African Americans. Results from both studies supported the authors' predictions.     

A longitudinal study of motor ability and kinaesthetic acuity in young children at risk of developmental coordination disorder

Several studies have linked poor kinaesthetic ability with poor motor coordination in school-aged children. However, few studies have investigated kinaesthesis in younger children. The aim of this study was to determine if preschool aged children who have been identified as at risk of developing developmental coordination disorder (DCD) have poorer kinaesthetic ability than matched controls. Kinaesthetic ability and performance IQ were examined in a group of children aged between 4 and 5 years. Following individual assessment of 291 children, 31 were identified as at risk of DCD at this age. One year later, 30 of these children were retested, and 23 were still found to be at risk. These children were matched on verbal IQ, age and sex with control children and their performance compared on the kinaesthetic acuity test (KAT) [D.J. Livesey and N.A. Parkes, Aust. J. Psychol., 47 (1995) 160] and three subtests of the WPPSI-R performance IQ (D. Wechsler, Manual for the Wechsler preschool and primary scale of intelligence--revised, Psychological Corporation, New York, 1989). Both the KAT and the performance subtest scores were found to be significantly poorer in the children at risk of DCD. Follow-up testing one year later showed that both groups improved their kinaesthetic acuity score although the control children remained significantly better than the children with poor motor coordination.     

Studying Stepfamilies: Four Eras of Family Scholarship

Historically, there have always been stepfamilies, but until the early 1970s, they remained largely unnoticed by social scientists. Research interest in stepfamilies followed shortly after divorce became the primary precursor to stepfamily formation. Because stepfamilies are structurally diverse and much more complex than nuclear families, they have created considerable challenges for both researchers and clinicians. This article examines four eras of stepfamily scholarship, tracing the development of research questions, study designs and methods, and conceptual frameworks from the mid‐1970s to the present and drawing implications for the current state of the field.     

Selective Attention and Perceptual Load in Autism Spectrum Disorder

ABSTRACT— It has been suggested that the locus of selective attention (early vs. late in processing) is dependent on the perceptual load of the task. When perceptual load is low, irrelevant distractors are processed (late selection), whereas when perceptual load is high, distractor interference disappears (early selection). Attentional abnormalities have long been reported within autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and this study is the first to examine the effect of perceptual load on selective attention in this population. Fourteen adults with ASD and 23 adults without ASD performed a selective attention task with varying perceptual loads. Compared with the non-ASD group, the ASD group required higher levels of perceptual load to successfully ignore irrelevant distractors; moreover, the ASD group did not show any general reduction in performance speed or accuracy. These results suggest enhanced perceptual capacity in the ASD group and are consistent with previous observations regarding superior visual search abilities among individuals with ASD.     

The Contribution of Social Relationships to Children’s Happiness

The association between happiness and social relationships was examined in 9- to 12-year-old children. Participants included 432 children and their parents. Children’s happiness was assessed using self-rating scales, parent’s ratings, and the Happiness and Satisfaction Subscale from the Piers-Harris Children’s Self-Concept Scale, Second Edition (Piers and Herzberg 2002). Children’s social relations were assessed with items from the Piers-Harris scale and questionnaires given to the children and their parents. These items were grouped into two positive (i.e., family and friends) and two negative categories (i.e., negative relations with peers and behaving badly toward others). Variance in children’s happiness was partially accounted for by positive social interactions involving the family (e.g., children agreeing that they are important members of their family) and friends (e.g., parents reporting that their children visit with friends more frequently). Negative social interactions also explained variance in children’s happiness including negative relations with peers (e.g., children agreeing that they feel left out of things) and behaving badly toward others (e.g., children agreeing that they are often mean to other people, and they cause trouble for their family). Demographic variables related to the family (i.e., number of siblings, age of parents, and marital status of parents) were only weakly, or not at all, associated with children’s happiness. The results parallel findings from the literature involving adults and adolescents; social relationships are significant correlates and predictors of happiness.     

Unfamiliar face recognition in children with autistic spectrum disorders

We investigated unfamiliar face recognition in low‐functioning children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) using a ‘part‐of‐face’ method. This method has not previously been used for unfamiliar faces with this population. The ‘part‐of‐face’ procedure provides measures of both face recognition accuracy and of processing style. We compared the performance of the children with ASD with three control groups: children with developmental delay (DD), typically developing (TD) children matched for verbal cognitive ability and TD children matched for chronological age (CA). Compared to the DD group, the ASD group showed similar processing in recognition accuracy and processing style. Compared to the TD children, the ASD group did not show the same level of accuracy as controls of the same CA, instead showing similar performance to younger TD children. However, as both children with ASD and DD showed the same performance, no ASD‐specific deficit was found. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Q-Sort assessment of parents' beliefs about parenting in six midwestern states

Little is known about what today's new parents believe about parenting. A team of seven researchers from six midwestern universities have initiated a longitudinal investigation of rural and urban parents' beliefs concerning ideal and actual parenting practices. This article describes the research and the development of the Inventory of Parenting Behavior, a Q-Sort measure developed by the project team specifically for this study.