The paradox of the contented female business owner

According to survey responses from 201 business owners, although the firms of male business owners were more successful than those of female business owners on frequently used measures of business success (business performance compared to competitors and sales), business owner sex did not predict satisfaction with business success, supporting the existence of a “paradox of the contented female business owner”. A differential values explanation for this paradox was strongly supported, whereas a differential inputs explanation was unsupported. Female business owners placed less value on achieving business success than their male counterparts. Also, female business owners’ satisfaction with business success was less related to fluctuations in business performance and sales than that of male business owners. However, results for male business owners displayed a different kind of paradox, as their satisfaction with business success was positively related to business performance and negatively related to sales.     

Supporting Fourth-Grade Students' Word Identification Using Application Software

A quasi-experimental study examined effects of a 10-week word structure intervention with fourth-grade students. During daily 10–15-minute practice periods, students worked individually with mobile apps focused on specific aspects of word identification. Pre- and post-treatment assessments showed no differences in rate and accuracy of oral reading between groups that did and did not use the apps, with little effect on motivation to read. Some differences were found in level of texts read and in spelling favoring the intervention students. However, practical significance was found in gains in percentile rank scores on standardized vocabulary and comprehension measures.     

IF ATTITUDES AFFECT HOW STIMULI ARE PROCESSED, SHOULD THEY NOT AFFECT THE EVENT-RELATED BRAIN POTENTIAL?

Abstract— In Experiment 1, subjects completed an attitude survey to identify items toward which they held positive and negative attitudes. Subsequently, subjects were instructed to count the number of positive (or negative) stimuli in a series. Each series contained six attitude stimuli from a given semantic category (e.g., fruits), and the structure of the series was varied so that positive and negative stimuli, as indexed by subjects' idiosyncratic attitudes, were evaluatively consistent or inconsistent within the series. In Experiment 2, subjects were exposed to personality traits that were positive or negative in series of six. Again, the structure of the series was varied so that positive and negative traits were evaluatively consistent or inconsistent within the series. Results of Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that although the event-related brain potential did not differ as a function of stimulus valence per se, evaluatively inconsistent, in contrast to consistent, stimuli evoked a larger amplitude late P300-like positive component that was maximal over the centroparietal region.     

A PEIRCEAN RESPONSE TO THE EVOLUTIONARY DEBUNKING OF MORAL KNOWLEDGE

The evolutionary debunking argument advanced by Sharon Street, Michael Ruse, and Richard Joyce employs the logic of Paul Griffiths and John Wilkins to contend that humans cannot have knowledge of moral truths, since the evolutionary process that has produced our basic moral intuitions lacks causal connections to those (putative) truths. Yet this argument is self‐defeating, because its aim is the categorical, normative claim that we should suspend our moral beliefs in light of the discoveries about their non‐truth‐tracking origins, when it is precisely this claim that relies upon the normativity under attack. This article cites Charles S. Peirce (1839–1914) to argue that such self‐defeat can be avoided by expanding upon the basic structure of the argument put forth by Griffiths and Wilkins, provided that one embraces a version of realism that corresponds with Peirce's doctrine of final causation. So construed, final causation reconciles real generals (including real moral values) with natural selection and undergirds further speculation of moral facts within values per se.     

No pain,no gain? A resource-based model of work-to-family enrichment and conflict

Work–family scholars tend to work in two largely disconnected research streams, focusing on either work–family enrichment—the positive side of the work–family interface—or work–family conflict—the negative side of this interface. The purpose of this study is to suggest a reconciliation of the two research streams by proposing and testing a resource-based model of work-to-family enrichment and conflict. Specifically, we propose that an individual's work role engagement has two independent outcomes, work role resource gain and loss, and they separately mediate the relationships between work role engagement and work-to-family enrichment and conflict. We further propose that two dimensions of regulatory focus, promotion focus and prevention focus, moderate the relationships between work role engagement and work role resource gain and loss respectively. Structural equation modeling results based on data from 1052 employees of Chinese firms offer general support for these notions.     

Career Interventions and the Career Thoughts of Pacific Island College Students

Students enrolled in a college success course were assigned to (a) a cognitive intervention using the Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI) workbook ( Sampson, Peterson, Lenz, Reardon, & Saunders, 1996b ), (b) an occupational research project involving an oral report, and (c) a control condition. The workbook condition had a significant effect on the CTI total score, whereas the research condition and the control condition did not. Both workbook and research conditions had a significant positive effect on decision‐making confusion and commitment anxiety.     

Broverman's methodology reversed: assessing university students' perceptions of the gender-role characteristics of counselors

This study examined university students' perceptions of which gender-role characteristics described helpful counselors for 137 nonmajors from an introduction to counseling class. Using a modification of the Broverman, et al. method (1970) and a modified version of their Stereotype Questionnaire, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. Participants indicated the characteristics of a helpful counselor, a helpful female counselor, or a helpful male counselor using 20 bipolar items of gender-role characteristics. t tests were applied to whether agreement of the pole considered most frequently was greater than chance (50%). Analysis indicated agreement on characteristics were most helpful in a counselor, and the direction of this agreement did not differ across the three conditions or as a function of participants' sex. Agreement was high for the individual gender-role characteristic items across conditions as two of 20 items showed significant differences. There was significantly more agreement that male counselors should not have their feelings easily hurt than female counselors and significantly less agreement that male counselors should be able to express tender feelings easily relative to a counselor of unspecified sex.     

The impact of parental borderline personality disorder on vulnerability to depression in children of affectively ill parents

Children of parents with major depressive disorder (MDD) are four to six times more likely than other children to develop MDD. Little research has examined whether comorbid parental diagnoses further increase children's risk. This study examines whether children of parents with comorbid MDD and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) (1) are at greater risk for experiencing depressive symptoms and/or episodes and (2) whether such increased risk may be due, in part, to their exhibiting higher levels of cognitive/interpersonal vulnerability factors. Children (n = 140; ages 6-14) of parents with MDD completed measures assessing cognitive/interpersonal vulnerability factors. Parents completed semi-structured clinical interviews assessing severity of current depressive symptoms and BPD. Both children and parents completed a semi-structured clinical interview assessing the child's current and past history of MDD. Children of parents with comorbid MDD and BPD exhibited higher levels of current depressive symptoms and higher levels of cognitive/interpersonal vulnerability factors than children of parents with MDD but no BPD, even after controlling for parents' current levels of depressive symptoms. The relationship between parental BPD and chil-dren's current levels of depressive symptoms was partially mediated by children's cognitive/interpersonal vulnerability factors. Last, children of parents with comorbid BPD and MDD were 6.84 times more likely to exhibit a current or past diagnosis of MDD.     

Tobacco use in adolescence: longitudinal links to later problem behavior among African American and Puerto Rican urban young adults

In this study, the authors assessed the relationship between adolescent tobacco smoking and measures of inner control, deviant behavior, and associating with deviant peers, which are indicators of problem behavior. African American (N = 333) and Puerto Rican (N = 329) early adolescents completed questionnaires in their classrooms in 1990 at Time 1 (T1) and were individually interviewed thereafter when they were late adolescents in 1995 at Time 2 (T2) and as young adults in 2000 at Time 3 (T3). The authors used ordinary least squares regression analysis to assess the comparative association of adolescent smoking patterns at T1 and T2 and the young adult outcomes at T3; they controlled for demographic variables, level of the outcome measure at T2, and marijuana use at T2. The analyses suggested that experimental tobacco smokers demonstrated more problem behaviors than did nonsmokers, and late and continuous smokers demonstrated more problem behaviors as young adults than did experimental smokers and nonusers. These findings may provide a useful guide to a next step that involves translational research.