I hear, I listen and I care: a qualitative investigation into the function of a self-harm message board

This paper reports on the findings of a qualitative inquiry into the interactions on a nonprofessional self-harm message board. Individuals using the message board were very positive about the message board and appeared to feel that their needs for support, venting, and validation were being met. However, we found that negative harmful behaviors mentioned in messages posted on the board were either not acknowledged, or were legitimized and normalized by those who responded to the messages. We suggest that this process of minimizing the seriousness and/or normalizing the behaviors may actually be encouraging the maintenance of such behaviors and therefore conclude that caution should be exercised when using nonprofessional self-harm message boards.     

The power of the majority: Social conformity in sexual harassment punishment selection

In his famous social conformity experiments in the 1950's, Asch found 75% of participants conformed to confederates’ incorrect answers at least once, with an overall conformity rate of 32%, revealing that humans are highly likely to conform to group behavior even when that behavior is clearly wrong. The purpose of this study was to determine if the social conformity effect generalized to scenarios involving sexual harassment punishment selections in the workplace. Participants read various workplace sexual harassment scenarios and then witnessed four confederates chose one of three types of punishments (verbal warning, 1-week suspension, or termination). The confederates stated aloud punishments that were either appropriate (i.e., similar to normative data) or inappropriate (i.e., deviating either too harshly or leniently to normative data). Participants then provided their punishments selection aloud, and confidentially rated their decision confidence. We found an overall conformity rate of 46%, as 82.67% conformed at least once to harsh or lenient punishment selections. Participants who conformed to incorrect punishment selections exhibited lower levels of decision confidence, indicating that conformity may have been due more to social normative influence. The current results imply the social responses of others (i.e., coworkers, supervisors, or HR) can impact responses to sexual harassment. The results imply that social influence may be a significant contributing factor in mislabeling, misreporting, or inappropriately punishing sexual harassment in some organizations.     

Community group membership protects the well‐being of adults experiencing socio‐economic disadvantage

The present research examined the mechanisms through which community groups improve well‐being in adults (N = 156) experiencing socio‐economic disadvantage. Analysis showed that joining a group improved outcomes by enhancing people's group identification and wider sense of belonging to multiple groups and that this effect was stronger for more socio‐economically disadvantaged participants.     

Investigating the social environment of the A‐not‐B search task

Controversy exists concerning the origins of object permanence, with different measures suggesting different conclusions. Looking measures have been interpreted as evidence for early understanding (Baillargeon, 1987, Developmental Psychology, 23 :655), while Piaget (The construction of reality in the child, 1954) interpreted perseverative reaching behaviour on his AB search task to be indicative of limited understanding. However, looking measures are often reported to be an unreliable index of infant expectation (Haith, 1998, Infant Behaviour and Development, 21 :167) and reaching behaviour has been explained by many alternative processes (e.g. Smith et al., 1999, Psychological Review, 106 :235; Topál et al., 2008, Science, 321 :1831). We aimed to investigate whether social looking (Dunn & Bremner, 2017, Developmental Science, 20 :e12452; Walden et al., 2007, Developmental Science, 10 :654) can be used as a valid measure of infant expectation of object location during the Piagetian AB search task. Furthermore, we aimed to test the social accounts of perseverative reaching by investigating how the direction of experimenter gaze would affect infant search and social behaviour. Infant search and social behaviour was compared on B trials across three different conditions, namely experimenter gaze to midline, location A and location B. Search performance significantly improved when the experimenter looked to location B. Infant social looking indicated that infants expect the object to be found in the location in which they search and are actively seeking information about object location from the experimenter. We conclude that social looking is a valid index of infant expectation that has provided support for the importance of the social environment on the AB search task. This casts doubt on the potential for this task to provide information related to the development of object permanence in infancy.     

Amer-Ind versus ASL: recognition and imitation in aphasic subjects

The imitation and recognition ability of brain-damaged and normal subjects was tested for 30 pairs of semantically matched ASL signs and corresponding Amer-Ind gestures. Subjects were rated according to severity and site of lesion. They were 6 nonaphasic, right-hemisphere brain-damaged subjects, 12 aphasic subjects, and 12 non-brain-damaged geriatric subjects. Results indicated that the Amer-Ind gestures were significantly easier to imitate and to recognize than the matched ALS signs. The relationships between these gestural abilities and severity of aphasia, site of lesion, Amer-Ind transparency ratings, and subjects' performance on a standardized aphasia test are outlined. The theoretical implications that concern the neural systems which mediate spoken and limb gestures are discussed.     

The Scan-Copier Mechanism and the Positional Level of Language Production: Evidence from Phonemic Paraphasia

In this paper I argue that phonemic paraphasia in the fluent aphasias is best characterized as a computational disruption in the processes that map the Functional Level onto the Positional Level of the model of sentence production developed by Merrill Garrett. I claim that a scan-copying mechanism of the sort proposed by Shattuck-Hufnagel operates among the computations leading to the Positional Level and that mechanism, when it derails, gives rise to the production of phonemic level errors in the language of fluent aphasies with posterior left cerebral lesions. I then argue that phonetic level errors in non-fluent, verbal apraxia cannot be handled by the scan-copier, nor can they be accounted for at the Positional Level.