The Effect of Posture on Early Reaching Movements

Infants of about 5 months of age who have just mastered the ability to reach succeed more frequently in contacting an object when they are seated upright than when they are supine or reclined. That effect of posture disappears in the subsequent months. Whether that effect can be attributed either to insufficient muscular strength or to insufficient control over the mechanically unstable arm was the subject of the present investigation. Kinematics and electromyography (EMG) of reaching movements of 8 sitting and supine infants at 12, 16, and 20 weeks of age were recorded. Maximum levels of shoulder torque as well as kinematic stability measures were similar in both postures. Coactivation levels and the frequency of on-off switching of muscles turned out to be higher in the sitting than in the supine posture. The authors suggest that the difference in reaching behavior resulted from the degree of error in the feedforward control signal that was allowed by the different postures rather than either insufficient muscular strength or insufficient control over the mechanically unstable arm.     

Do you really expect me to apologize? The impact of status and gender on the effectiveness of an apology in the workplace

We examine the effectiveness of apology following a workplace offense, as influenced by the achieved or ascribed status (i.e., professional status or gender) of the parties involved. A total of 780 undergraduates participated in a scenario experiment. The results demonstrate that apologizing is more effective than not apologizing. Yet apology is most effective when the apologizer is a male, a manager or is a male apologizing to a female. Moreover, apology expectancy mediates the relationships between the apologizer's status and the apology's effectiveness: Apologies are less expected from managers and males than from subordinates and females, and the less expected they are, the greater their effectiveness. Apology expectancy has a unique effect unrelated to the apologizer's sincerity and perceived motive.     

Volunteer work in youth organizations: predicting distinct aspects of volunteering behavior from self‐ and other‐oriented motives

This study examined the impact of motivational underpinnings of volunteerism on self‐reported volunteer behaviors and satisfaction. Data from 153 volunteers in youth organizations supported a two‐dimensional structure of self‐ and other‐oriented motives. Self‐oriented motives were more important in explaining in‐role volunteer behavior, while other‐oriented concerns were also important in predicting extra‐role volunteer behavior and satisfaction. These findings are discussed in the context of a functional approach to volunteerism and linked to recent findings regarding the role of self‐ and other‐oriented motives from the organizational literature. Suggestions for recruiting and motivating young volunteers in youth development organizations are presented.     

Gender Differences in Reasons for Entering and Leaving Education Administration: Discriminant Function Analyses

Using discriminant function analyses on survey data collected from 457 students in 29 education administration programs across the United States, the authors inquired into whether men and women decide to enter and possibly leave education administration for different reasons. There were statistically significant functions separating men and women in their reasons for entering and leaving education administration. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Mechanisms of change in adolescent life satisfaction: A longitudinal analysis

This study explored the psychosocial mechanisms of change associated with differences in levels and linear change of adolescents' global life satisfaction across a 2-year time period. Based on a theoretical model proposed by Evans (1994), this study tested the relations between selected personality (i.e., extraversion and neuroticism) and environmental (stressful life events) variables and global life satisfaction when mediated by internalizing and externalizing problems. The results suggested support for internalizing problems as a mediator of the relationship of personality and environmental variables with life satisfaction. Pathways mediated by internalizing problems significantly predicted levels and linear change of life satisfaction across a 2-year time span. Furthermore, pathways mediated by externalizing problems significantly predicted the level but not the linear change of life satisfaction. Thus, behavior problems and their antecedents appear to relate significantly to adolescents' perceptions of their quality of life. Implications for adolescent mental health promotion were discussed.     

Simple Discrimination Behavior of Young Chimpanzees: Comparisons with Human Aments and Domestic Animals

The authors' purpose in this paper was to examine how the use of the “sad passive” coping style may be related to adolescent self-reported loneliness. Subjects were asked to complete the revised UCLA Loneliness Scale (Russell, Peplau, & Cutrona, 1980) to determine self-reported loneliness and the Coping with Loneliness Questionnaire (CLQ; Rubenstein & Shaver, 1980) in order to examine coping styles. We hypothesized that those adolescents whose coping strategies fell into the category of sad passivity described by Rubenstein and Shaver would indicate greater loneliness than those adolescents whose coping strategies fell into other categories. Results indicated that sad passivity was used by both lonely and nonlonely adolescents, but that nonlonely youngsters resorted to this method only temporarily and in preparation for a more active coping style. Lonely teens, on the other hand, appeared to remain in the sad-passive mode to a maladaptive degree. These results were discussed in terms of their importance for theories of adolescent loneliness and for possible intervention strategies.     

Distraction Affects the Performance of Obstacle Avoidance During Walking

In this study, dual-task interference in obstacle-avoidance tasks during human walking was examined. Ten healthy young adults participated in the experiment. While they were walking on a treadmill, an obstacle suddenly fell on the treadmill in front of their left leg during either midswing, early stance, or late stance of the ipsilateral leg. Participants were instructed to avoid the obstacle, both as a single task and while they were concurrently performing a cognitive secondary task (dual task). Rates of failure, avoidance strategy, and a number of kinematic parameters were studied under both task conditions. When only a short response time was available, rates of failure on the avoidance task were larger during the dual task than during the single task. Smaller crossing swing velocities were found during the dual task as compared with those observed in the single task. The difference in crossing swing velocities was attributable to increased stiffness of the crossing swing limb. The results of the present study indicated that divided attention affects young and healthy individuals' obstacle-avoidance performance during walking.     

Empathy is a beautiful thing: Empathy predicts imitation only for attractive others

Research shows that we spontaneously imitate people. Moreover, empathy predicts the degree of this non‐conscious imitation. Little is known, however, if or how this expression of empathy is influenced by stable physical characteristics of our interaction‐partners. In two studies, we tested whether attractiveness of others moderated the relation between empathy and imitation. While seeing a woman performing joystick movements, participants either imitated, or non‐imitated these movements. Results showed that the higher participants empathy score, the faster they imitated an attractive person. The level of empathy did not predict the degree of imitation of unattractive targets. The findings demonstrate that the expression of empathy through imitation can be moderated by attractiveness, thereby introducing a new dimension to the conditionality of empathy.