What Differences Do They See? Using Mixed Methods to Capture Adolescent Perceptions of Neighborhood Contexts

Recent neighborhood research emphasizes the importance of individuals’ perceptions of their neighborhoods, as well as expands the definition of “neighborhood” to include the different contexts encountered during routine daily activities (Coulton et al., 2013; Kwan, 2012). The present study uses qualitative interviews, sketch mapping, and survey data to explore adolescents’ experiences of different neighborhoods within their activity space. Participants included 55 racially diverse youth aged 11–19 (M = 14.64, SD = 2.33) who resided in low-income neighborhoods in a small city in the Midwest. The majority reported spending time in multiple self-defined neighborhoods, noting significant differences between neighborhoods on collective efficacy, street code, and on participant-generated dimensions. Self-defined neighborhoods did not correspond to Census tracts, and Census indicators were not associated with youth's perceptions (e.g., collective efficacy, street code). Youth spent time in neighborhoods that differed significantly on multiple Census indicators of structural disadvantage, though within-individual differences tended to be small in magnitude. Type of routine activity was largely not predictive of distance traveled from home, though some findings suggest youth were more likely to cross neighborhood boundaries to engage in structured activities compared to different unstructured activities. Implications for neighborhood research and interventions are discussed.     

A Qualitative Exploration of Religion,Gender Norms,and Sexual Decision-Making within African American Faith-Based Communities

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) continues to be a prominent health and social justice issue, especially for African American communities in the Southern United States. Gender role norms, specifically within faith-based communities in the South, pose challenges to empowering women to make safer sexual health decisions. To explore perceptions of gender norms and sexual health, 42 qualitative interviews were gathered from female members of 16 predominantly African American churches in Atlanta, GA. Constructs from the theory of gender and power and the social ecological model were used to guide coding and analysis. Participants discussed their experiences with gender norms and gender-based power differentials at the institutional (i.e., church), familial, and interpersonal (i.e., intimate relationship) levels. Because of the attitudes and beliefs held by their religious communities and families, many participants recalled struggling to assert themselves in sexual relationships and recalled engaging in risky and unwanted sexual behavior, especially during their young adult years. However, as the participants matured, they worked to overturn traditional gender norms, empowering both their children and women in their religious communities to make healthy, autonomous sexual decisions. Moving forward, participants want their churches and members of their faith communities to play an active role in the empowerment of African American women and provide them with the confidence and education necessary to negotiate sexual decisions with their partners.

     

How Gender and Race Stereotypes Impact the Advancement of Scholars in STEM: Professors’ Biased Evaluations of Physics and Biology Post-Doctoral Candidates

Sex Roles - The current study examines how intersecting stereotypes about gender and race influence faculty perceptions of post-doctoral candidates in STEM fields in the United States. Using a...     

Cerebellar Contributions to Proactive and Reactive Control in the Stop Signal Task: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Studies

Neuropsychology Review - The cerebellum facilitates and modulates cognitive functions using forward and inverse internal models to predict and control behavior, respectively. Despite neuroimaging...     

From What to How: An Initial Review of Publicly Available AI Ethics Tools,Methods and Research to Translate Principles into Practices

Science and Engineering Ethics - The debate about the ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence dates from the 1960s (Samuel in Science, 132(3429):741–742, 1960....     

Effects on memory of early testing and accuracy assessment for central and contextual content

ABSTRACT

Memory for an event is influenced by many factors including retention interval, frequency of assessment, and type of information assessed concerning the event. We examined the usefulness of observer memory for contextual information in assessing accuracy of memory for central information. Participants viewed a video of a purse being stolen and were asked questions concerning the perpetrator and surrounding context of the event, including where and when the event occurred and who else was present. Participants tested immediately after seeing the video exhibited better memory than those tested for the first time 48 hours after the event. Additionally, testing immediately after viewing the video reduced forgetting over the 48-hour delay (i.e. early testing attenuated subsequent forgetting). Moreover, memory for the context of the event correlated positively with memory of the central information (i.e. perpetrator), and memory concerning other people at the event tended to have the highest correlation with perpetrator memory.     

Effects of Inferred Motive on Evaluations of Nonaccommodative Communication

In two studies, we propose, refine, and test a new model of inferred motive predicting of individuals' reactions to nonaccommodation, defined as communicative behavior that is inappropriately adjusted for participants in an interaction. Inferring a negative motive for others' problematic behavior resulted in significantly less positive evaluations of both the interaction and the speaker than inferring either a positive motive or a lack of intentionality. It was also found that underaccommodation is consistently evaluated less positively than overaccommodation, likely due to inferred motive. In light of this, important amendments to communication accommodation theory's principles are suggested, and implications for future research are discussed.