Student Behavior and Epistemological Framing: Examples from Collaborative Active-Learning Activities in Physics

The concept of framing from anthropology and sociolinguistics is useful for understanding student reasoning. For example, a student may frame a learning activity as an opportunity for sensemaking or as an assignment to fill out a worksheet. The student's framing affects what she notices, what knowledge she accesses, and how she thinks to act. We find evidence of framing in easily observed features of students' collaborative behavior. We apply this observational methodology to explore dynamics among behavior, framing, and the conceptual substance of student reasoning in the context of collaborative active-learning activities in an introductory university physics course. We find evidence that certain student behaviors indicate and support a relatively sophisticated epistemological framing of these activities, one in which students discuss the substance of the ideas at hand.     

Extending Religion-Health Research to Secular Minorities: Issues and Concerns

Claims about religion’s beneficial effects on physical and psychological health have received substantial attention in popular media, but empirical support for these claims is mixed. Many of these claims are tenuous because they fail to address basic methodological issues relating to construct validity, sampling methods or analytical problems. A more conceptual problem has to do with the near universal lack of atheist control samples. While many studies include samples of individuals classified as “low spirituality” or religious “nones”, these groups are heterogeneous and contain only a fraction of members who would be considered truly secular. We illustrate the importance of including an atheist control group whenever possible in the religiosity/spirituality and health research and discuss areas for further investigation.     

WORKPLACE SOCIAL SUPPORT AND WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT: A META-ANALYSIS CLARIFYING THE INFLUENCE OF GENERAL AND WORK-FAMILY-SPECIFIC SUPERVISOR AND ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT

This article uses meta-analysis to develop a model integrating research on relationships between employee perceptions of general and work-family-specific supervisor and organizational support and work-family conflict. Drawing on 115 samples from 85 studies comprising 72,507 employees, we compared the relative influence of 4 types of workplace social support to work-family conflict: perceived organizational support (POS); supervisor support; perceived organizational work-family support, also known as family-supportive organizational perceptions (FSOP); and supervisor work-family support. Results show work-family-specific constructs of supervisor support and organization support are more strongly related to work-family conflict than general supervisor support and organization support, respectively. We then test a mediation model assessing the effects of all measures at once and show positive perceptions of general and work-family-specific supervisor indirectly relate to work-family conflict via organizational work-family support. These results demonstrate that work-family-specific support plays a central role in individuals' work-family conflict experiences.     

When forewarning backfires: Paradoxical effects of elaborating social feedback on entrapment in a losing course of action

Entrapment occurs if people persist with losing courses of action. In two experiments, we show how elaborating social feedback (i.e., premature praise or forewarning regarding the chosen course of action) can have paradoxical effects on entrapment. The participants acted as head of a translation department and had to choose one out of four possible translation strategies for their employees. After choosing, they read four arguments (presumably written by former participants) which were either all in favor of the strategy chosen, all against it, or mixed. Half of the participants only read these arguments, whereas the other half elaborated on them by providing written comments (Experiment 1). The results showed that elaborating on other persons' arguments led to stronger entrapment, independently of whether the arguments were positive or negative. This pattern was due to biased argument processing: Whereas confirming thoughts were generated for positive arguments, negative arguments were refuted. Experiment 2 confirmed that this biased argument processing caused subsequent entrapment. These results indicate that elaborating any type of argument can lead to heightened entrapment and, hence, forewarning can backfire. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gender Stereotypes in Portuguese Television Advertisements

This study examined the portrayal of men andwomen in a sample of Portuguese television commercials,attempting to replicate and extend past investigationsdone in America, Australia, Britain, and Italy. The aim was to update Portuguese research andto compare findings across cultures. Three hundred andfour evening commercials were content analyzed by tworaters, one male and the other female, to check reliability. The attributes of each of theircentral figures were classified into 11 categories:gender, mode of presentation, credibility, role,location, age, argument, reward type, product type,background, and end comment. Strong evidence of differencesin the presentation of male and female characteristicswas obtained. The implications of results for thedevelopment and maintenance of gender roles arediscussed.     

SELF-REPORTED EXPRESSION AND CONSEQUENCES OF EMBARRASSMENT IN PORTUGAL AND THE U.K.

Data was collected by questionnaire from Portuguese and U.K. college students in order to compare self-reports of the physiological/behavioural response associated with embarrassment, coping attempts and observer reactions to the actor's embarrassment in the two cultures. Blushing/increased temperature, increased heart rate and smiling/grinning characterised embarrassment in both cultures, although blushing was referred to with less frequency by the Portuguese sample; gaze aversion was a response specific to the U.K. sample. Smiling/grinning as a method of coping with embarrassment and as a reported reaction from an observer was reported with similar frequency by both samples; gaze aversion as a method of coping with embarrassment was referred to with greater frequency by the U.K. sample; staring by observers was mentioned with greater frequency by the Portuguese sample. More intense experiences of embarrassment were reported by the Portuguese sample who also reported being more successful in attempts to control their embarrassment. The results are discussed in relation to national stereotypes. Un questionnaire a été utilisé pour ramasser des données chez des étudiants portugais et britanniques, afin de comparer leurs auto-évaluations de la réaction psychologique/comportementale associée i rembarras, avec les tentatives d'adaptation et les réactions des observateurs à l'embarras de l'acteur dans les deux cultures. Le fait de rougir associé à une élévation de la température, la tachycardie, ainsi que le sourire caractérisaient l'embarras dans les deux cultures, bien que le fait de rougir était moins souvent mentionné par les sujets portugais; détourner le regard était une réponse particulière des sujets britanniques. Le sourire comme façon d'éviter l'embarras et en tant que réaction d'un observateur était rapporté tout aussi fréquemment par les deux échantillons de sujets; détourner le regard comme façon de se sortir d'embarras était rapporté beaucoup plus fréquemment par les sujets britanniques; par contre, fixer quelqu'un du regard était mentionné plus fréquemment par les observateurs portugais. Des expériences embarrassantes plus intenses étaient rapportées par les sujets portugais, qui ont aussi rapporté un succès plus grand pour ce qui est du contrôle de leur embarras. Les résultats sont discutés en relation avec des stéréotypes nationaux.     

Der Foto-Hand-Test

Projective psychological techniques might be useful for measuring forensically relevant constructs in the context of a multimodal assessment strategy but are often considered to be deficient concerning reliability and validity. The Photo Hand Test (FHT), a German version of the Hand Test, is a diagnostic tool aimed at measuring aggressive dispositions. It uses photographs of hand gestures which test persons are required to interpret. The answers are coded and an acting-out score is computed from diverse categories.A study on the reliability and validity of the FHT protocols from 98 offenders and a comparison group of 55 non-offenders was carried out. Internal consistency coefficients of the FHT scores were low and unsatisfactory. Offenders had higher acting-out scores than non-offenders, they did not give more aggression-prone interpretations but more interpretations coded as aggression-inhibiting. Correlations of the FHT scores with self-report scales from the Antisocial Personality Questionnaire did not show the expected patterns; however, they did suggest effects of a hostility bias: persons who interpreted many hand gestures as aggression-prone did not describe themselves as highly aggressive or impulsive but were more distrustful and paranoid. This indicates a projection mechanism different from the one postulated by the FHT authors.The results suggest that FHT measures should be interpreted with caution in forensic evaluations.     

Event-related potentials in a two-interval forced-choice detection task

In an attempt to elucidate the nature of the subject’s strategy in a two-interval forcedchoice auditory detection task, event-related potentials were studied at two intensities which yielded mean accuracies of 82% and 98%. Subjects reported the observation interval in which they judged the signal to be present and the confidence of the judgment. Principal components varimax analyses yielded four components: a CZ maximal P300, a Slow Wave, a slow negative shift, and a late negative component. The P300 amplitude findings suggest that different strategies are utilized for high-confidence and low-confidence detections. At high confidence, P300 amplitude is large for the observation interval in which the signal is presented, indicating a strategy involving serial independent detection. However, the P300 latency findings at high confidence suggest that absence of the signal in the first observation interval is nonetheless noted: P300 latency in response to signal presence is shorter for the second observation interval than for the first observation interval. At low confidence, P300 is small or absent for both observation intervals, indicating a deferred decision, presumably arrived at through comparison of the two percepts.     

Locus of control and career self-management among nonsupervisory employees in industrial settings

The effects of locus of control on career self-management and career experiences of nonsupervisory workers were examined in different organizational environments. In organizational settings which encouraged personal initiative in career development through personnel policies and promotion practices. Internals played a more active role in their career progress than Externals by initiating their own job searches, and they had more favorable career experiences. In situations which hampered self-initiative, locus of control had little effect on career self-management and subsequent job experiences.