What Predicts Attitudes toward Transgender and Nonbinary People? An Exploration of Gender,Authoritarianism, Social Dominance,and Gender Ideology

Transgender and nonbinary (TGNB) people face discrimination based on negative societal attitudes toward TGNB identities. Our study explored factors contributing to negative TGNB attitudes, including participants’ gender, age, religion, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), and adherence to traditional gender ideologies. Our sample of 808 U.S. Mechanical Turk participants completed measures of RWA, SDO, traditional masculinity and femininity, and transgender attitudes and beliefs. Because TGNB people have diverse identities, we modified the transgender attitudes and beliefs scale to measure attitudes toward trans man, trans woman, and nonbinary targets instead of the single “transgender” umbrella. Results of multiple regression analyses indicated that gender was a significant predictor of attitudes toward trans men and trans women. Higher levels of RWA, traditional masculinity, and anti-egalitarianism (a domain of SDO) predicted negative attitudes toward all TGNB identities, with RWA generally being the strongest predictor. Traditional femininity and the dominance domain of SDO did not significantly contribute to our predictive model for most groups, although we were surprised to find that for nonbinary people, higher levels of traditional femininity predicted positive attitudes. These results can inform targeted interventions aimed at reducing transprejudice.

     

The spacing effect in children's memory and category induction

The spacing effect describes the robust phenomenon whereby memory is enhanced when learning events are distributed, instead of being presented in succession. We investigated the effect of spacing on children's memory and category induction. Three-year-old children were presented with two tasks, a memory task and a category induction task. In the memory task, identical instances of an object were presented and then tested in a multiple choice test. In the category induction task, different instances of a category were presented and tested in a multiple choice test. In both tasks, presenting the instances in a spaced sequence resulted in more learning than presenting the instances in a massed sequence, despite the difficulty created by the spaced sequence. The spaced sequence increased the difficulty of the task by allowing children time to forget the previous instance during the spaced interval.     

Effects of aging on the relation between episodic simulation and prosocial intentions

Imagining helping a person in need can facilitate prosocial intentions. Here we investigated how this effect can change with aging. We found that, similar to young adults, older adults were more willing to help a person in need when they imagined helping that person compared to a baseline condition that did not involve helping, but not compared to a conceptual helping control condition. Controlling for heightened emotional concern in older adults revealed an age-related difference in the effect of imagining on willingness to help. While we observed age-related condition effects, we also found that the subjective vividness of scene imagery predicted willingness to help for both age groups. Our findings provide insight into the relations among episodic simulation, healthy aging, emotion, and prosociality. Implications for effects of episodic memory and aging on social decision-making are discussed.     

Parent and Teacher Ratings of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Preschool: The ADHD Rating Scale-IV Preschool Version

Efforts for early identification and intervention for children with AD/HD have necessitated the development of rating scales of behavior for the preschool population. The standardization, reliability, and validity data were presented for the ADHD Rating Scale-IV Preschool Version. Parent and teacher ratings were collected on 902 and 977 children 3 to 5 years of age, respectively. Raw scores for the Inattention, Hyperactivity/Impulsivity and Total scores were converted to T-Scores and percentile ranks. Reliability coefficients ranged from 0.80 to 0.95 indicating good test–retest reliability. Concurrent validity with the Conners Teacher Rating Scales: Revised-Short and Conners Parent Rating Scale: Revised-Short ranged from 0.54 to 0.96. The ADHD-Rating Scale-IV appears to be a reliable, valid and user friendly measure for screening preschoolers with behavior problems. Future research is needed to validate its widespread use as a screening and diagnostic tool.     

Studies of Rorschach Content; A Review of Research Literature Part II; Non-Traditional Uses of Content Indicators

This paper deals with the extension of research on Rorschach content to new modes of scoring and classifying test reponses that lie outside of the conventional classification scheme. Four avenues of going beyond the traditional content categories are presented and reviewed: study of subdivisions within the units of the generally used scoring system, exploration of the symbolic meaning of Rorschach responses, investigation of constellations of content signs, and development and validation of content scales. Little systematic work has been done in the first two areas of endeavor. As far as the latter two research topics are concerned, the evidence accumulated suggests that, at best, scales and signs derived from content yield overlap, and not correspondence, with their respective real-life referents. The study of mediating variables that act to magnify or reduce the extent of this relationship has merely begun and remains the major unfulfilled task in Rorschach content research.     

Laboratory Simulated Gambling: Risk Varies Across Participant-Stake Procedure

ABSTRACT. This study investigated whether risk taking on a laboratory gambling task differed depending on whether participants gambled with earned or experimenter-provided game credits. Participants made repeated choices between two options, one to wager game credits on a game that produced probabilistic gains and losses, and one to gain game credits with certainty. Choice was investigated across stake and no-stake conditions and condition order was counterbalanced across conditions. Risk taking was higher under stake than no-stake conditions, but only when stake conditions were experienced first. There was no effect on risk taking of the amount of the certain gain. Results are consistent with previous research showing that participant-stake procedures promote greater risk taking than procedures that allow participants to gamble with their own earnings, and also show that experience gambling with earned credits has an enduring effect on risk taking.     

Maternal Emotional Distress,Abuse Risk,and Children's Symptoms: Child Gender as a Moderator of Parent Sensitivity as a Mediator

Mothers' distress is a correlate of their children's elevated behaviour problems and symptoms. Parenting practices have been shown to mediate these associations, but few studies have observed parenting or focused on parents at risk of child abuse. In this study of 269 high‐risk mothers and their young children (M = 4.2 years), structural equation modelling was used to test associations between mothers' distress and child externalizing and internalizing symptoms. Associations were expected to be partly indirect via mothers' observed low sensitivity, and child gender was expected to moderate associations. Also, mothers' child abuse risk was examined as a unique correlate of sensitivity and children's symptoms, and a moderator of associations of distress with sensitivity and symptoms. Associations showed a pattern of gender‐moderated mediation with the link between mothers' distress and internalizing mostly direct for boys, and equally direct and indirect via sensitivity for girls. The association of mothers' distress with externalizing was mostly direct for boys and girls. Mothers' child abuse risk was not uniquely associated with sensitivity or symptoms and did not moderate any associations. There were no differences in model paths between mothers referred from child welfare/mental health compared with other sources or self‐referred. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.