Telling young children they have a reputation for being smart promotes cheating

The present research examined the consequences of telling young children they have a reputation for being smart. Of interest was how this would affect their willingness to resist the temptation to cheat for personal gain as assessed by a temptation resistance task, in which children promised not to cheat in the game. Two studies with 3‐ and 5‐year‐old children (total N = 323) assessed this possibility. In Study 1, participants were assigned to one of three conditions: a smart reputation condition in which they were told they have a reputation for being smart, an irrelevant reputation control condition, or a no reputation control condition. Children in the smart reputation condition were significantly more likely to cheat than their counterparts in either control condition. Study 2 confirmed that reputational concerns are indeed a fundamental part of our smart reputation effect. These results suggest that children as young as 3 years of age are able to use reputational cues to guide their behavior, and that telling young children they have a positive reputation for being smart can have negative consequences.     

Speaking a tone language enhances musical pitch perception in 3–5‐year‐olds

Young children learn multiple cognitive skills concurrently (e.g., language and music). Evidence is limited as to whether and how learning in one domain affects that in another during early development. Here we assessed whether exposure to a tone language benefits musical pitch processing among 3–5‐year‐old children. More specifically, we compared the pitch perception of Chinese children who spoke a tone language (i.e., Mandarin) with English‐speaking American children. We found that Mandarin‐speaking children were more advanced at pitch processing than English‐speaking children but both groups performed similarly on a control music task (timbre discrimination). The findings support the Pitch Generalization Hypothesis that tone languages drive attention to pitch in nonlinguistic contexts, and suggest that language learning benefits aspects of music perception in early development. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/UY0kpGpPNA0     

Assessing gender differences in the relationship between religious coping responses and alcohol consumption

The purpose of this study is to see if the use of religious coping responses is associated with alcohol intake. In addition, tests are conducted to see if the relationship between religion and alcohol use varies by gender. Data from a recent nationwide survey (N?=?2173) indicate that greater use of religious coping responses is associated with less alcohol consumption. The findings further reveal that even though women use religious coping responses more often than men, the relationship between the use of religious coping responses and alcohol consumption is stronger for men than for women. This suggests that, with respect to alcohol consumption, men may benefit more from using religious coping responses than women. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed.     

Mozambican immigrants to South Africa: Their xenophobia and discrimination experiences

We explored Mozambican immigrants’ lived experiences of xenophobia and discrimination in South Africa. Informants were 15 Mozambican immigrants (female = 7, male = 8) living in an informal settlement in Zandspruit, Gauteng Province. They completed open-ended written narratives on xenophobic and discriminatory experiences. Following thematic analysis, we identified three themes to characterise the Mozambican immigrants’ experiences of xenophobia and discrimination: (i) abusive attitudes, (ii) ethnic discrimination, and (iii) scapegoating. The Mozambican immigrants’ experiences of xenophobia and discrimination are consistent with findings from the extant international literature on ingroup/outgroup social strife with real or perceived scarcity of resources.     

Masculinity and femininity in middle childhood: Developmental and factor analyses

Developmental differences in children's self-perceptions of masculinity and femininity during the middle childhood period were investigated in English-speaking children from Grades 2–7 (N=517). The majority of participants were Caucasian and from middle socioeconomic families. The multidimensionality of masculinity and femininity was also examined. The Children's Personal Attributes Questionnaire (CPAQ), a standardized self-report instrument, was used to assess masculinity (instrumentality) and femininity (socioemotional expressiveness). Developmental differences were found within a cross-sectional design, with a decrease in feminine responding and an increase in masculine responding. At the item level, however, both boys and girls were relatively selective and limited in the items that had a grade effect. Interestingly, greater symmetry was observed between boys' masculine and feminine scores than between girls' scores. Furthermore, fewer boys had predominantly masculine responding than girls had predominantly feminine responding. Factor analysis provided initial support for the presence of three factors—interpersonal orientation, leadership, and emotionality—which appear to have greater specificity and reflect more distinct subtraits than the original scales of the CPAQ. The results of the present study suggest that meaningful developmental changes occur during the middle childhood period, and that a single summary score for masculinity or femininity ignores variations in gender-typed subtraits and thus raises both scoring and interpretation concerns.     

The development of a taxonomy of career competencies for professional women

The purpose of this study was to develop a taxonomy of the competencies necessary to women's pursuit of professional-level, especially academic, careers. During the first phase of the study two research activities, a review of literature in the areas of career development, career counseling, and the psychology of women, and a semistructured “critical incidents” interview with each of 50 female faculty members from a large midwestern university, resulted in a list of 620 career-relevant behaviors and skills. This pool of career competencies was then examined by three counseling psychologists, and a classification scheme to describe the data was developed. Finally, rates attempted to assign the original competency items to the proposed categories in order to validate the taxonomy. The final, refined version of the taxonomy is presented, and the utility of these results for counseling and research in the area of women's career development is discussed.