The influence of gender and ethnicity on children's peer collaborations

Gender and ethnicity are important aspects of children's everyday social relationships, yet little is known about how these social categories influence children's collaborative interactions. In the present study, 322 White (Caucasian) and South Asian boys and girls (mean age, 7.5 years) collaborated in pairs on easy and difficult versions of a model completion task. As expected, girls were less assertive than boys in conversation, yet this relation held only for all‐Asian pairs (i.e., an Asian boy and girl in conversation). Also consistent with expectations, levels of conversational affiliation were lowest in cross‐ethnic interaction. The influence of gender and ethnicity on conversations did not vary in light of contrasting cognitive demands of the tasks. Results are discussed in relation to work on effective peer collaboration and the potential role of contact in promoting positive ethnic and gender group attitudes.     

Erratum: Bonus of rebate?: The impact of income framing on spending and saving

Bonus of Rebate?: The Impact of Income Framing on Spending and Saving. By N. Epley, D. Mak and L. C. Idson (Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 213–227, 2006). DOI: 10.1002/bdm.519 The above paper was published with an error in the title. The title should read: Bonus or Rebate?: The Impact of Income Framing on Spending and Saving.     

The Role of Threat in Attitudes Toward Affirmative Action and Its Beneficiaries1

This set of two studies employed the integrated threat theory to examine attitudes toward affirmative action (AA). The first study found that opposition to the policy of AA was predicted by realistic threats, symbolic threats, and personal relevance; while attitudes toward the beneficiaries of AA were predicted by three of the four threat variables (symbolic threats, intergroup anxiety, and negative stereotypes), and in‐group identity. The second study replicated and expanded on the first study and found that the effects of several individual‐difference variables (racism, anti‐Black affect, and political conservatism) on opposition to AA were mediated by three of the threats in the integrated threat theory (realistic threats, symbolic threats, and negative stereotypes). The implications of the results are discussed.     

Defining the Nature and Impact of Goals in Children and Adolescents with a Chronic Health Condition: A Review of Research and a Theoretical Framework

This paper presents a review of research related to goals in youth with a chronic health condition (CHC) and a related framework to inform theory and research. Performed literature review using PsychINFO and Medline with a combination of many key words related to health, goals, and youth. Sixteen studies related to goals in youth with a CHC were identified. An integrative framework to inform research on goals in pediatric CHCs was presented based on studies reviewed. The impact of a CHC on goals and related behaviors, impact of goal conflict and collaboration, interventions with goal-setting components, and impact of developmental, disease, socioeconomic, and cultural factors were described. Recommendations for future research were discussed. The application of theory related to the nature and impact of goals in youth with a CHC will advance the field from a research and clinical standpoint.     

Sizing up the associative account of repetition priming

Three studies which test an associative account of repetition priming in a size comparison task are reported. Congruence of decision between priming and test affected performance when the priming task and test tasks were the same but not when they differed. This congruence effect was unaffected by the proportion of trials with congruent responses. Same-task priming exceeded cross-task priming even when both tasks required the same aspect of semantic knowledge. The results indicate that a component of priming is due to associations which are formed during priming and automatically activated when stimuli are repeated at test. Stimuli do not become associated with motor responses but are associated with the results of processing at a number of other levels.     

Defining consciousness in the context of incidental sequence learning: theoretical considerations and empirical implications

The notion that sequential regularities can be learned implicitly without ensuing conscious knowledge has sparked off a prolific research program within cognitive psychology. However, there is continuing dissent among researchers about the very existence of the phenomenon. This is, at least in part, due to a failure to ground research on implicit sequence learning in conceptual definitions of “consciousness” and “conscious sequence knowledge.” In this article the authors take up a definition of consciousness according to which conscious mental contents are characterized by their global availability to cognitive processes (e.g., Baars in: A cognitive theory of consciousness Cambridge University Press, 1988; in: In the theater of consciousness: the workspace of the mind Oxford University Press, 1997). It is argued that unlike recognition tests or generate tasks, verbal report is a sensitive and specific measure of conscious (i.e., globally available) sequence knowledge. Finally, it is shown that the choice between two commonly used measures of conscious sequence knowledge can profoundly affect the outcome of a sequence learning experiment.