Sex and cultural differences in the factorial structure of the self-directed search

Holland's Self-Directed Search was administered to 247 male and 252 female high school students, aged 16 to 18 years, attending state schools in New Zealand. Principal factor analysis was used in an attempt to identify six orthogonal factors analogous to Holland's six personality types. The Social and Enterprising scales could not be split into two factors in either sample, and the Investigative and Realistic scales defined a single factor for the female students. Computed distances between pairs of the six personality types in five dimensional factorial space were compared with the relative ordering of the distances expected from Holland's hexagonal model. The positions of the types in space corresponded more closely with the model for the males than they did for the females. The results, in conjunction with those of similar studies in Israel and the United States, imply that the correspondence between some summary codes on the SDS and existing occupational classifications based on Holland's types may be less than perfect, particularly for females. Also, care should be taken when using codes on the SDS to calculate Holland's indices of “consistency,” especially for females.     

跨文化发展心理学的研究方法和新趋势

本文论述了跨文化发展心理学研究所依据的方法学原则以及当前的研究动向和发展趋势。     

The sources of developmental differences in children's incidental processing during discrimination trials

Crane and Ross reported that second graders learned more than sixth graders about attributes made relevant after solution of a discrimination task. Here two experiments are reported that enlighten the sources of this developmental difference. Both make use of an experimental technique whereby children verbalize their hypotheses during solution of a discrimination problem. The results indicate that ten-year-olds do not learn about incidental attributes that they tested while irrelevant in the pre-solution period, but that five-year-olds and seven-year-olds do. Children of all three ages process incidental information about attributes that they did not sample pre-solution. With some qualification, the incidentally processed information is retained throughout a five-minute delay interval. The results bear on developmental trends in the distribution of attention and on theoretical accounts of incidental learning in discrimination tasks.     

An examination of how one's attitudes toward women are reflected in one's defensiveness and self-esteem

The Berger Self-Esteem Measure, the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, and Spence's (1972) Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS) were used to test 96 undergraduates. Subjects were divided according to sex and median split scores on the personality measures. Analysis of variance revealed a significant main effect for sex and defensiveness and approached significance for the sex × self-esteem effect (p<.10). Males and females were found to respond significantly differently on the AWS scale. Highly defensive males were more discriminating toward women and self-concept appeared to be an influential variable. However, self-esteem alone did not seem to have any significant effects.     

Methodological improvements to a Procedure for Rapidly Establishing Steady-State Behavior

We performed three experiments to improve the quality and retention of data obtained from a Procedure for Rapidly Establishing Steady-State Behavior (PRESS-B; Klapes et al., 2020). In Experiment 1, 120 participants worked on nine concurrent random-interval random-interval (conc RI RI) schedules and were assigned to four conditions of varying changeover delay (COD) length. The 0.5-s COD condition group exhibited the fewest instances of exclusive reinforcer acquisition. Importantly, this group did not differ in generalized matching law (GML) fit quality from the other groups. In Experiment 2, 60 participants worked on nine conc RI RI schedules with a wider range of scheduled reinforcement rate ratios than was used in Experiment 1. Participants showed dramatic reductions in exclusive reinforcer acquisition. Experiment 3 entailed a replication of Experiment 2 wherein blackout periods were implemented between the schedule presentations and each schedule remained in operation until at least one reinforcer was acquired on each alternative. GML fit quality was slightly more consistent in Experiment 3 than in the previous experiments. Thus, these results suggest that future PRESS-B studies should implement a shorter COD, a wider and richer scheduled reinforcement rate ratio range, and brief blackouts between schedule presentations for optimal data quality and retention.     

Freedom as Non-domination,Robustness, and Distant Threats

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - It is a core feature of the conception of freedom as non-domination that freedom requires the absence of exposure to arbitrary power across a range of relevant...     

Integrated learning communities as a peer support initiative for first year university students

Peer Mentoring schemes tend to be developed as retention strategies, however, they can also serve other purposes (psychosocial or career-related). However, evidence of the effectiveness of these presents mixed results and less is known about the horizontal peer support schemes which may help students capitalize on existing peer relationships. We developed an integrated learning communities (ILC) peer support scheme, building on the theoretical principles of social identity theory, which we embedded within our existing teaching framework and designed functional activities. Collective activities were undertaken to promote the processes of social identity with the intention that these may foster social and academic integration experiences. This intervention was undertaken with an entire cohort of first year undergraduate psychology students. We conducted semi-structured interviews with a self-selected sample of these students (N = 17). Thematic analysis revealed two main themes, each with two sub-themes. These were: “Divergent Experiences” with the sub-themes of “dependent on people” and “types of support”, and “Good idea in principle” with the sub-themes of “Theory ≠ Practice” and “Dependent on student engagement”. Although identifying with a peer group was not transparent in the interviews, the existence of a peer support scheme was perceived positively by students which might explain the success of the newly developed student-led Psychology Society. Indeed, this Psychology Society can provide a lasting framework for further amplification of the student voice. We conclude that our embedded ILC was both feasible and potentially valuable, but it is crucial for the peer support approach to have transactional significance.     

Recruiting (Dis)Advantage: Men’s Versus Women’s Evaluations of Gender-Based Targeted Recruitment

Sex Roles - Organizations use targeted recruitment to attract applicants with specific demographic characteristics to diversify the workforce. Research reports mixed findings regarding the extent...     

Configural face processing develops more slowly than featural face processing

Expertise in face processing takes many years to develop. To determine the contribution of different face-processing skills to this slow development, we altered a single face so as to create sets of faces designed to measure featural, configural, and contour processing. Within each set, faces differed only in the shape of the eyes and mouth (featural set), only in the spacing of the eyes and mouth (spacing set), or only in the shape of the external contour (contour set). We presented adults, and children aged 6, 8, and 10 years, with pairs of upright and inverted faces and instructed them to indicate whether the two faces were the same or different. Adults showed a larger inversion effect for the spacing set than for the featural and external contour sets, confirming that the spacing set taps configural processing. On the spacing set, all groups of children made more errors than adults. In contrast, on the external contour and featural sets, children at all ages were almost as accurate as adults, with no significant difference beginning at age 6 on the external contour set and beginning at age 10 on the featural set. Overall, the results indicate that adult expertise in configural processing is especially slow to develop.     

Glance analysis of driver eye movements to evaluate distraction

With the increasing use of in-vehicle devices in cars, an understanding of the safety implications of secondary tasks has become crucial. It is now possible to study the effects of many in-vehicle devices and tasks on driving by using head-mounted eye-tracking devices (HEDs) to collect eye positions and pupil diameters, which have been considered indicators of attentional focus. The collection of eye-position and pupil-diameter data of automobile drivers under on-road conditions and while completing various secondary tasks is described in this paper. Drivers were asked to drive on a preselected two-lane road for a total distance of 22 miles while gaze data were recorded using a HED. Longer off-road fixation durations were observed in radio-tuning and rearview mirror checking tasks, but not in the odometer checking task. In addition, the standard deviations of fixation displacements during a cognitive task involving the computation of a date for a meeting were shorter than those observed during normal driving.