The others: Universals and cultural specificities in the perception of status and dominance from nonverbal behavior

The current study analyzes trans-cultural universalities and specificities in the recognition of status roles, dominance perception and social evaluation based on nonverbal cues. Using a novel methodology, which allowed to mask clues to ethnicity and cultural background of the agents, we compared impression of Germans, Americans and Arabs observing computer-animated interactions from the three countries. Only in the German stimulus sample the status roles (employee vs. supervisor) could be recognized above chance level. However we found significant correlations in dominance perception across all countries. Significant correlations were only found for evaluation between German observers and observers from the other two countries. Perceived dominance uniformly predicted the assignment of status-roles in all cultures. Microanalysis of movement behavior further revealed predictive value of specific nonverbal cues for dominance ratings. Results support the hypothesis of universalities in the processing of dominance cues and point to cultural specificities in evaluative responses to nonverbal behavior.     

Philosophy on steroids: a reply

Brent Kious has recently attacked several arguments generally adduced to support anti-doping in sports, which are widely supported by the sports medicine fraternity, international sports federations, and international governments. We show that his attack does not succeed for a variety of reasons. First, it uses an overly inclusive definition of doping at odds with the WADA definition, which has global, if somewhat contentious, currency. Second, it seriously misconstrues the position it attacks, rendering the attack without force against a more balanced construal of an anti-doping position. Third, it makes unwarranted appeals to matters Kious considers morally ‘clear’, while simultaneously attacking a position many others take to be equally morally ‘clear’, namely that of anti-doping. Such an inconsistency, attacking and appealing to the moral status quo as befits one’s argument, is not acceptable without further qualification. Fourth, his position suffers from a general methodological flaw of over-reliance upon argumentation by analogy. Moreover, it is argued that the analogies, being poorly selected and developed, fail to justify his conclusion that the anti-doping lobby lacks philosophical and moral authority for its stance. These issues are symptomatic of a more fundamental problem: any attempt at providing a blanket solution to the question of whether doping is morally acceptable or not is bound to run up against problems when applied to highly specific contexts. Thus, rather than reaching any particular conclusion for or against doping products or processes in this article, we conclude that an increased context-sensitivity will result in a more evenhanded appraisal of arguments on the matter.     

The self beyond words: comment on ‘Is there a place for individual subjectivity within a social constructionist epistemology’

Roy‐Chowdhury (2010) is on a quest to reclaim the subject in constructionist practice, specifically therapeutic practice. His argument rests on the claim that there is no subject, no self, no individual outside language in social construction. To be sure, the notion of a self‐contained, privately cognizing individual is dismissed within social construction, noting instead that knowledge of self and world is a byproduct of relational interchange. As Lock and Strong (2010 , p.7) put it, ‘meaning and understanding have their beginnings in social interaction, in shared agreements as to what these symbolic forms are to be taken to be’. The relational self – social construction's version of the self – is very much alive and well. The relational self is very much a person.     

Organizational Support and Contract Fulfillment as Moderators of the Relationship Between Preferred Work Status and Performance

Purpose  

The purpose of this study was to examine organizational context variables as moderators of the relationship between preferred work status and job performance. The moderators were perceived organizational support (POS) and psychological contract fulfillment.     

The Duke Religion Index: A Psychometric Investigation

This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Duke Religion Index (DRI) in two separate samples (n ₁=628, n ₂=243) of college students enrolled in randomly selected courses. An exploratory factor analysis of the DRI in the first sample supported a one-factor structure. A subsequent confirmatory factor analysis in the second sample confirmed this model. The internal consistency was excellent in both samples. A significant, positive correlation was found between the DRI and a measure of religious beliefs, supporting the convergent validity of the DRI. These findings provide further support for the reliability and construct validity of the DRI.     

Correlates of professional versus organizational withdrawal cognitions

Using a more rigorous research design than previous studies, results generally supported the discriminant validity of professional withdrawal cognitions (PWC) versus organizational withdrawal cognitions (OWC). The sample consisted of 226 medical technologists tracked over a five year period, and the research design used pre- and post-measures of PWC and OWC. Attitudinal professional commitment had a stronger negative relationship to subsequent PWC versus OWC, while gender discrimination and organizational support had stronger relationships to subsequent OWC versus PWC.     

Vindication of the Human and Social Science of Kurt H. Wolff

The purpose of this article is to vindicate the viability of Kurt H. Wolff's methodology of surrender-and-catch for the human and social sciences. The article is divided into three sections. The first section explicates the fundamental significance of surrender-and-catch and Wolff's motivation for advocating its practice. The second section compares surrender-and-catch with phenomenological methodology as well as objective science and the province of the everyday. The third section illustrates surrender-and-catch through my own practice. In this section I contextualize surrender-and-catch in a triangulated design, which exhibits its flexibility and compatibility for use in conjunction with other forms of research.     

Feedback Facilitates the Acquisition and Retention of Numerical Fact Series by Elementary School Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities

The Psychological Record - The effects of feedback to assist elementary school students classified as either normally achieving (NA) or with a mathematics learning disability (MLD) in acquiring the...     

Regression to the mean and football wagers

Football performances are an imperfect measure of abilities, and consequently exaggerate differences in abilities. The skills of those football teams that perform the best and the worst are not really that far from average; thus their future performances regress to the mean. Betting data indicate that gamblers do not fully account for this regression. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.