Women's self-estimates of competence and the resolution of the career/home conflict

Relationships among women's role factors, self-estimates of competence, and career commitment were investigated. Eighty female business students and 111 business alumnae completed the Attitudes Toward Women Scale, the Performance-Self-Esteem Scale (PSES), and questions regarding home and career choices. As predicted, PSES scores were related to extent of career commitment, and PSES scores mediated the relationship between career commitment and women's role factors. Among high PSES subjects, career commitment was positively related to nontraditional sex-role attitudes and negatively related to family involvement. Among low PSES subjects, the relationship between career commitment and women's role factors was weaker. Implications for women's career development are discussed.     

The effects of unipolar sex-role identities and situational determinants on components of fear of success

In the present study the relationship between unipolar models of sex-role identity (i.e., the degree to which a person perceives him/her self as relatively masculine and/or feminine) and situational cues (i.e., females engaged in successful activities which vary in their sex-role appropriateness) on fear of success was investigated. An alternative, objective measure of fear of success was employed which generated 16 variables thought to reflect various theoretical and empirical components of the motive to fear success. These variables dealt with personal attributes of the successful characters, reasons for their success, and possible consequences of their success. It was found that situational rather than psychological variables are of greater importance in affecting female response to female success. However, there was some support for the notion that general diffusion of sex-role identity (undifferentiated sex-role identity group) rather than high femininity may be related to avoidance of success.     

The Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism (Autism CRC) Conceptual Model to Promote Mental Health for Adolescents with ASD

Despite an increased risk of mental health problems in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), there is limited research on effective prevention approaches for this population. Funded by the Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism, a theoretically and empirically supported school-based preventative model has been developed to alter the negative trajectory and promote wellbeing and positive mental health in adolescents with ASD. This conceptual paper provides the rationale, theoretical, empirical and methodological framework of a multilayered intervention targeting the school, parents and adolescents on the spectrum. Two important interrelated protective factors have been identified in community adolescent samples, namely the sense of belonging (connectedness) to school and the capacity for self and affect regulation in the face of stress (i.e. resilience). We describe how a confluence of theories from social psychology, developmental psychology and family systems theory, along with empirical evidence (including emerging neurobiological evidence), supports the interrelationships between these protective factors and many indices of wellbeing. However, the characteristics of ASD (including social and communication difficulties, and frequently difficulties with changes and transitions, and diminished optimism and self-esteem) impair access to these vital protective factors. The paper describes how evidence-based interventions at the school level for promoting inclusive schools (using the Index for Inclusion) and interventions for adolescents and parents to promote resilience and belonging [using the Resourceful Adolescent Program (RAP)] are adapted and integrated for adolescents with ASD. This multisite proof-of-concept study will confirm whether this multilevel school-based intervention is promising, feasible and sustainable.     

Students' Quality of Experience and Perceptions of Intolerance and Bias in the Women's and Gender Studies Classroom

Student evaluations of the quality of their women's and gender studies (WGS) experience and predictors of experience quality were studied in a sample of 326 students from 23 WGS classes. Higher initial appreciation/acceptance of diversity, capacity for interpersonal relationships, and class expectations predicted more positive experience ratings. These relationships were mediated by students' alliance with their teacher and cohesion with classmates. A small proportion of students (11.6%), spread across 14 classes, did not rate their experience positively. Perceptions of teacher and classmate intolerance and bias were assessed in this subset of students. Average ratings of intolerance were slightly positive for teachers and neutral for classmates. Implications of the findings for understanding students' WGS experiences are discussed.     

Accounting for achievement in parent-teacher interviews

This paper examines features of the talk in a number of teacher-parent interviews recently audio-recorded in a secondary school in Brisbane, Australia. The central topic of the talk is the academic achievement of the student. In offering accounts of the student's achievement, participants offer moral versions of themselves as parents and teachers. These institutional identities are oriented to and elaborated in the course and in the organisation of this talk. The student about whom the talk is done is present but largely silent, an overhearing audience to this talk. The analysis shows how parents and teachers talk two institutions, and the relation between them, into being.We wish to thank the participants in the interviews for their agreement to have the interviews audio-recorded.     

Integrating Expressiveness and Instrumentality in Real-Life Settings: A New Perspective on the Benefits of Androgyny

Personality trait research has failed to substantiate a link between androgyny and well-being. Using an alternate, social context approach, the present study investigated (a) positive and negative aspects of situations in which expectations for androgynous behavior were salient (dual expectation situations), and (b) associations between gender role coping strategies and well-being in these situations. Interviews were conducted with 124 female and 70 male undergraduates, most of whom were African American (14%) or White American (81%). Participants reported significantly more negative aspects of the process of coping with dual expectation situations and more positive aspects of the outcomes of the situations. Androgynous coping strategies were associated with greater positive well-being and lesser negative well-being than were instrumental or indeterminate strategies. Well-being scores of expressive strategists were not significantly different from those of androgynous strategists.     

Development of dopaminergic genetic associations with visuospatial,verbal and social working memory

Dopamine transmission in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) supports working memory (WM), the temporary holding, processing and manipulation of information in one's mind. The gene coding the catechol‐O‐methyltransferase (COMT) enzyme, which degrades dopamine, in particular in the PFC, has a common single nucleotide polymorphism leading to two versions of the COMT enzyme which vary in their enzymatic activity. The methionine (Met) allele has been associated with higher WM performance and lower activation of the PFC in executive function tasks than the valine (Val) allele. In a previous study, COMT genotype was associated with performance on verbal and visuospatial WM tasks in adults, as well as with performance on a novel social WM paradigm that requires participants to maintain and manipulate information about the traits of their friends or family over a delay. Here, data collected in children and adolescents (N = 202) were compared to data from the adult sample (N = 131) to investigate possible age differences in genetic associations. Our results replicate and extend previous work showing that the pattern of superior WM performance observed in Met/Met adults emerges during development. These findings are consistent with a decrease in prefrontal dopamine levels during adolescence. Developmentally moderated genetic effects were observed for both visuospatial and social WM, even when controlling for non‐social WM performance, suggesting that the maintenance and manipulation of social information may also recruit the dopamine neurotransmitter system. These findings show that development should be considered when trying to understand the impact of genetic polymorphisms on cognitive function.     

Job and home attitudes of undergraduate women and their mothers

Seventy-seven undergraduate women and their mothers participated in a study of job/home attitudes. All subjects rated 10 conflict elements and 8 conflict types: mothers also rated the conflict elements and types retrospectively, as young adults, and responded to related open-ended questions. Cohort effects were stronger than historical period or stage-of-life effects. Mothers' current and retrospective responses both indicated significantly more interest, confidence, and perceived external support for home-related than job-related activities, whereas daughters' responses reflected approximately equal interest, confidence, and support for home- and job-related activities.     

Infant sensitivity to shadow motions

Preferential looking experiments investigated 5- and 8-month-old infants' perception and understanding of the motions of a shadow that appeared to be cast by a ball upon a box. When all the surfaces within the display were stationary, infants looked reliably longer when the shadow moved than when the shadow was stationary, indicating that they detected the shadow and its motion. In further experiments, however, infants' looking was not consistent with a sensitivity to the shadow's natural motion: They looked longer at natural events in which the shadow moved with the ball or remained at rest under the moving box than at unnatural events in which the shadow moved with the box or remained at rest under the moving ball. These findings suggest that infants overextend to shadows a principle that applies to material objects: Objects move together if and only if they are in contact. In a final experiment, infants were habituated to a moving shadow that repeatedly violated one aspect of the contact principle. In a subsequent test they failed to infer that the shadow would violate another aspect of the contact principle. Instead, they appeared to suspend all predictions concerning the behavior of the shadow.