Links between family gender socialization experiences in childhood and gendered occupational attainment in young adulthood

Gendered occupational segregation remains prevalent across the world. Although research has examined factors contributing to the low number of women in male-typed occupations – namely science, technology, engineering, and math – little longitudinal research has examined the role of childhood experiences in both young women's and men's later gendered occupational attainment. This study addressed this gap in the literature by examining family gender socialization experiences in middle childhood – namely parents' attitudes and work and family life – as contributors to the gender typicality of occupational attainment in young adulthood. Using data collected from mothers, fathers, and children over approximately 15 years, the results revealed that the associations between childhood socialization experiences (~ 10 years old) and occupational attainment (~ 26 years old) depended on the sex of the child. For sons but not daughters, mothers' more traditional attitudes toward women's roles predicted attaining more gender-typed occupations. In addition, spending more time with fathers in childhood predicted daughters attaining less and sons acquiring more gender-typed occupations in young adulthood. Overall, evidence supports the idea that childhood socialization experiences help to shape individuals' career attainment and thus contribute to gender segregation in the labor market.     

Moderators of the Relationship Between Cognitive Ability and Performance: General Versus Context–Specific Achievement Motivation1

Despite positing a multiplicative model of performance, 3 recent studies failed to find support for a theoretically meaningful interaction between cognitive ability and trait motivation in predicting performance. We suggest that it is important to consider that these studies used trait–motivation constructs that are general in nature, rather than context–specific. Yet, existing theory and research suggests that it may be beneficial to use trait–motivation constructs that are expressly contextual, especially when investigating a multiplicative performance model. This study, therefore, compared general versus context–specific achievement motivation as moderators of the relationship between cognitive ability and performance. The proposition that only context–specific achievement motivation should interact with cognitive ability in predicting performance was supported. Implications are discussed.     

Errors in judging information about reflections in mirrors

We investigated people's perception and knowledge of planar mirror reflections. People were accurate at deciding when they could first see their reflection as they approached a mirror from the side, but only if their reflection was visible. Most people stopped too early if the mirror was covered up. People also overestimated the size of the reflection of their face on the surface of a mirror if they were shown a covered mirror. Their accuracy improved somewhat if their reflection was visible but, unlike the first task, they still made striking errors. Perceptual feedback thus improved performance at predicting the behaviour of mirror reflections in both tasks but failed to eliminate errors in the second task. The overestimation of reflection size was not face-specific as it generalised to novel stimuli (paper ellipses) and it was found with both a matching response and for verbal size estimations. The early error in the first task appears to be due to an inaccurate belief that can be overridden by perceptual feedback. The overestimation in the second task is primarily caused by a powerful size-constancy effect.     

Choice of conflict-handling strategy: a matter of context

In this study, a follow-up to Callanan and Perri (2006), the authors investigated whether individuals are inclined to choose a conflict-handling approach based on their primary orientation as given by a standardized instrument, or whether they choose a style different from their primary orientation. The authors also assessed whether individuals are inclined to choose the appropriate or "optimal" strategy as based on contextual factors embodied in the conflict situation. Participants in the study were 184 graduate and undergraduate students from two universities located in the United States. Results show that when individuals are presented with conflict scenarios based on real-life events, they can and do choose conflict-handling strategies that are different from their presumed dominant strategy. Further, results show that individuals are generally able to read contextual factors and social cues to select the most "situationally appropriate" conflict-handling response. This study presents implications for future research and discusses issues related to the management of interpersonal and intragroup conflict.     

Optimization of Blocked Designs in fMRI Studies

Blocked designs in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are useful to localize functional brain areas. A blocked design consists of different blocks of trials of the same stimulus type and is characterized by three factors: the length of blocks, i.e., number of trials per blocks, the ordering of task and rest blocks, and the time between trials within one block. Optimal design theory was applied to find the optimal combination of these three design factors. Furthermore, different error structures were used within a general linear model for the analysis of fMRI data, and the maximin criterion was applied to find designs which are robust against misspecification of model parameters.     

Urbanization and Changing Perceptions of Responsibilities Among African Fathers

This study examined the effect of urbanization on 102 South African fathers' perceptions of their paternal responsibilities. Fathers were categorized as rural, transitional, or urban on the basis of a standardized interval measure of urbanization. Perceptions of paternal responsibilities were rank-ordered into three basic anthropologically sequential categories: breadwinner, governor, and family. Results indicated that rural, transitional, and urban fathers all viewed breadwinner responsibilities as most important but that urbanization had a significant effect on fathers' perceptions of their responsibilities.     

The Effect of Electrophysiological Neuroscientific Deception Detection Evidence on Juror Judgments in a Criminal Trial

There are concerns that if neuroscientific deception detection evidence becomes admissible in court, jurors may weigh it inappropriately. We investigated whether mock jurors were influenced more by electrophysiological than behavioral evidence that a defendant in a criminal trial was lying. Participants’ perceptions of evidence quality predicted verdict choice, and quality ratings were higher for neuroscientific than for behavioral evidence. However, both types of evidence increased guilty verdicts similarly, and the inclusion of neuroimages had no additional impact. These findings suggest that neuroscientific evidence may be processed differently than other types of deception evidence, but it is not necessarily more persuasive.     

Psychometric Support for an Abbreviated Version of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) Parent Form

The objectives of this study were to systematically develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of an abbreviated version of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) Parent Report; a questionnaire widely used by pediatric neuropsychologists. A total of 24 items from the original BRIEF Parent Form were selected for the short-form, which was then evaluated in three complementary samples, according to six a priori psychometric criteria. The short-form generally demonstrated appropriate psychometric qualities, with convincing evidence for the reliability and validity of the three composite indices: Behavioral Regulation, Metacognition, and the Global Executive Composite. Potential clinical applications include screening at-risk children in medical clinics to facilitate appropriate referrals for further psychological consultation. In research settings, the short-form can be easily integrated into studies involving mass collection of data (e.g., large-scale epidemiological research), facilitating advancements in the scientific understanding of neuropsychological morbidity in medically involved populations.     

Disunity defended: A reply to Bayne

In this paper, I critically examine the two dominant views of the concept of luck in the current literature: lack of control accounts and modal accounts. In particular, I argue that the conditions proposed by such views—that is, a lack of control and the absence of counterfactual robustness—are neither necessary nor sufficient for an event's being lucky. Hence, I conclude that the two main accounts in the current literature both fail to capture what is distinctive of, and central to, the concept of luck.