Text or talk? Social anxiety, loneliness, and divergent preferences for cell phone use.

This paper investigates whether social anxiety and loneliness lead to contrasting beliefs and preferences among cell phone users towards texting and talking on their cell phones. Three hypotheses are examined: (1) that social anxiety and loneliness are differentially associated with generalized preferences either for texting or for talking on the cell phone, (2) that these preferences are linked to contrasting beliefs concerning the social functionality of the short message service (SMS), and (3) that these divergent beliefs mediate the effects of social anxiety and loneliness on cell phone users' generalized preferences for texting or talking. Results from an Internet questionnaire (N=158) showed that, whilst lonely participants preferred making voice calls and rated texting as a less intimate method of contact, anxious participants preferred to text, and rated it a superior medium for expressive and intimate contact. These divergent beliefs accounted for 36% and 16% of the variance in preference for texting and voice calls, respectively, and significantly attenuated the influence of loneliness and social anxiety when they were added to the regression equations for these measures. Results are discussed in terms of the hyperpersonal possibilities of mobile communications technologies.     

Cultural models of education in American Indian,Asian American and European American contexts

Three studies examined models of education among American Indian (AI), Asian American (AA), and European American (EA) students. Cultural models of education are patterns of ideas and practices relevant to schools, teachers, and self that mediate and regulate behavior in the academic domain. In study 1, mainstream university students (N = 148) and AI University students (N = 187) viewed education as a tool for success. AI, however, generated more mentions of education as a tool for community success and more negative associations to education. Study 2 (N = 166) showed that AI, in contrast to EA and AA, placed family and community concerns ahead of academic concerns. In Study 3 (N = 118), AI and AA endorsed independent and interdependent representations of self, while EA endorsed only independent representations. For AI and AA, but not for EA, interdependent representations were positively related to trust for teacher.     

Effects of reactivity to observations on staff performance

We examined reactivity of staff behavior to observations of their work performance. After training 2 job coaches to reduce completion of break activities for supported workers, we evaluated job-coach behavior using both conspicuous and inconspicuous observations. Results indicated that both coaches completed none of the activities when observations were conspicuous but most of the activities when observations were inconspicuous. Subsequently, job coaches were taught to self-record their performances, and their completion of activities remained low with inconspicuous observations. Implications of reactivity are discussed for investigations that target staff behavior.     

Choice as an act of meaning: the case of social class

Social class is one important source of models of agency--normative guidelines for how to be a "good" person. Using choice as a prototypically agentic action, 5 studies test the hypotheses that models of agency prevalent in working-class (WK) contexts reflect a normative preference for similarity to others, whereas models prevalent in middle-class (MD) contexts reflect a preference for difference from others. Focusing on participants' choices, Studies 1 and 2 showed that participants from WK relative to MD contexts more often chose pens that appeared similar to, rather than different from, other pens in the choice set, and more often chose the same images as another participant. Examining participants' responses to others' choices, Studies 3 and 4 demonstrated that participants from WK relative to MD contexts liked their chosen pens more when a confederate chose similarly and responded more positively when a friend chose the same car in a hypothetical scenario. Finally, Study 5 found that car advertisements targeting WK rather than MD consumers more often emphasized connection to, rather than differentiation from, others, suggesting that models of agency are reflected in pervasive cultural products.     

The shaping of discourse positions in the development of support and supervision for personal advisers in England

A policy of inclusion has focused the 'gaze' of the UK government toward youth services and resulted in the development of the Connexions service in England. Within that context, the practice and professional identity of careers advisers (now called personal advisers) has changed. Many are working intensively with so-called 'harder-to-help' young people in 'challenging' situations where support and supervision appears to be essential. This paper discusses the findings from a qualitative case study, which sought to question that need and to investigate the perceived purpose of support and supervision. The study explored these perspectives with the aim of foregrounding differences and similarities. It is not suggested that the themes discussed are fixed; however, the discourse of practitioners needs to be heard and not silenced by louder definitions about purpose. The findings, however tentative, may be pertinent for circumstances where guidance and counselling are seen as relevant activities for the promotion of social inclusion.     

Order in Choice: Effects of Serial Position on Preferences

ABSTRACT— When several choice options are sampled one at a time in a sequence and a single choice of the best option is made at the end of the sequence, which location in the sequence is chosen most often? We report a large-scale experiment that assessed tasting preferences in choice sets of two, three, four, or five wines. We found a large primacy effect—the first wine had a large advantage in the end-of-sequence choice. We also found that participants who were knowledgeable about wines showed a recency effect in the longer sequences. We conclude with a process model that explains our findings.     

The “Deliberative Digital Divide:” Opinion Leadership and Integrative Complexity in the U.S. Political Blogosphere

This study examined the association between political ideology and linguistic indicators of integrative complexity and opinion leadership in U.S. political blog posts (N = 519). Using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) text analysis, we found that the posts of conservative bloggers were more integratively simple than those of liberal bloggers. Furthermore, in support of a proposed opinion leadership model of integrative complexity, the relationship between ideology and integrative complexity was mediated by psychological distancing (an indicator of a hierarchical communication style). These findings demonstrate an ideological divide in the extent to which the blogosphere reflects deliberative democratic ideals.     

Teaching Comparative Theology from an Institution's Mission

Although comparative theology is a continuously growing method in the study of religion, it is still relatively new and not widely accepted in either confessional or secular institutions. Scholars may face difficulty when seeking their institutions' acceptance for a comparative theology course. One way of generating interest and approval for such a course is by designing it from the center of the institution's mission. Professors can look to the institution's mission as a resource for teaching comparatively. We offer four examples from Catholic institutions of how this might be done. Reid Locklin offers further insights in his response to our explorations.     

Failure of further learning: Activities,structure, and meaning

Previous research has shown that little benefit is achieved through spaced study and recall of text passages after the first recall attempt, an effect that we term the failure‐of‐further‐learning. We hypothesized that the effect occurs because a situation model of the text's gist is formed when the text is first comprehended and is consolidated when recalled; it dominates later recall after verbatim memories of more recent study episodes have been lost. Experiments 1 and 2 attempted to circumvent the effect by varying the activities of participants and requiring interactive exploration. In both experiments, recall after four, weekly sessions showed little benefit beyond performance on the first recall. Experiment 3 interfered with the formation of an immediate situation model by introducing passages that were hard to comprehend without a title. Performance improved substantially across four sessions when titles were not supplied, but the standard effect was replicated when titles were given. Experiment 4 made verbatim memories available by incorporating all re‐presentations and tests into one session; as predicted, recall improved over successive tests.     

The effectiveness of short-format refutational fact-checks

Fact-checking has become an important feature of the modern media landscape. However, it is unclear what the most effective format of fact-checks is. Some have argued that simple retractions that repeat a false claim and tag it as false may backfire because they boost the claim's familiarity. More detailed refutations may provide a more promising approach, but may not be feasible under the severe space constraints associated with social-media communication. In two experiments, we tested whether (1) simple ‘false-tag’ retractions can indeed be ineffective or harmful; and (2) short-format (140-character) refutations are more effective than simple retractions. Regarding (1), simple retractions reduced belief in false claims, and we found no evidence for a familiarity-driven backfire effect. Regarding (2), short-format refutations were found to be more effective than simple retractions after a 1-week delay but not a one-day delay. At both delays, however, they were associated with reduced misinformation-congruent reasoning.