Teaching preschoolers to avoid abduction by strangers: Evaluation of maintenance strategies

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of effective training procedures for teaching preschoolers to avoid abduction by strangers and to evaluate strategies to promote maintenance of the acquired skills. The study was conducted in three Head Start classrooms with a total of 46 children. A multiple probe design across groups within each class and replicated across the three classrooms was used to evaluate two strategies for promoting maintenance: (a) monthly reviews involving verbal rehearsal, modeling, and feedback; and (b) monthly reviews involving verbal rehearsal, modeling, feedback, and in-class role play. The findings of the study indicate: (a) classroom teachers implemented the training procedures with a high degree of procedural fidelity, (b) all children were taught to resist the lures of strangers, (c) children maintained the critical abduction avoidance behavior (moving away from a stranger) while the maintenance promotion strategies were used, and (d) minimal differences were noted in the effectiveness of the two maintenance promotion strategies for the critical abduction avoidance behavior.     

Matching Messages to Motives in Persuasion: A Functional Approach to Promoting Volunteerism1

This study examined a functional strategy for investigating audience responses to motivationally-based persuasive appeals. It was predicted that people exposed to advertisements informing them how they could satisfy personally relevant motivations through volunteering (i.e., functionally matched messages) would judge these ads to be more persuasive, more emotionally positive, and would report being more likely to volunteer than people exposed to advertisements unrelated to their personally relevant motivations (i.e., functionally mismatched messages). These predictions were confirmed in an experiment wherein participants whose attitudes toward volunteerism served a Social Adjustive, Value Expressive, Utilitarian, Knowledge, or Ego Defensive function viewed advertisements promoting volunteerism that either matched or mismatched their personally relevant motivations. Results confirmed predictions as participants responded more favorably to the functionally matched than mismatched messages. The implications of this research for understanding the mechanisms by which functionally matched messages exert persuasive influence and the ramifications of the research for the practice of volunteerism are discussed.     

Measures of job perceptions: Gender and age of current incumbents,suitability, and job attributes

Two ways of examining the gender and age stereotypes of jobs, characteristics of current incumbents and potential suitability, were compared. Female (n = 70) and male (n = 66) college students, predominantly Caucasian ranging in age from 18 to 57 years, provided their gender and age perceptions for 58 jobs. Although the two concepts have not been clearly distinguished in the literature, they are conceptually and (as found here) empirically distinct. The important roles of current incumbents, suitability, and job attribute perceptions for discrimination research are presented.     

Gender Differences in Preschoolers' and Kindergartners' Artistic Production and Preference

There are striking differences between boys' andgirls' art during the elementary school years, but it isunknown whether such artistic gender differences emergeearlier in childhood. We tested 20 preschoolers (12 boys, 8 girls) and 29 kindergartners (15boys, 14 girls), most White and middle-class, on threetasks to assess gender-stereotypicality in theirdrawings and preferences for pictures. As predicted, in a production task, boys and girls drewgender stereotypical pictures, though neither group wasextremely stereotypical. Interestingly, evenpre-representational preschoolers' scribbles were ratedas gender-stereotypical, despite the absence ofidentifiable thematic content. In a second task,children chose coloring-book sheets, previously ratedfor gender-stereotypicality, which they expected tocolor. Boys chose masculine and girls chose femininesheets. In a third task, boys and girls preferredgender-stereotypical pictures and were similar in howstrongly stereotypic their choices were. The tasksdemonstrate that gender differences in artistic productionand preference emerge in the preschool years, earlierthan previously reported. Beneficial future work wouldaddress relations between children's artistic production and preference and their genderschema flexibility and socializationexperiences.     

Biodata: Meeting Clients’ Needs for a Better Way of Recruiting Entry-level Staff

Biodata as a selection technique is gaining greater acceptance in Australia and interest in the technique appears to be growing. There are a number of reasons for its rise in popularity, including particular advantages afforded by the technique such as enhanced validity and decreased adverse impact. This paper presents an overview of the development of a biodata instrument for large-scale recruitment and focuses specifically on how clients' needs were met by incorporating biodata in a revised recruitment system. The reader is also referred to another article in this issue by Karas and West that reports on this project, but covers technical aspects of the rational-empirical approach taken to instrument development. The biodata technique was chosen to meet specific requirements of a new selection system for entry level clerical and graduate staff of the Australian Public Service. Broadly, the system sought to assess a range of job-related skills encompassing both cognitive and noncognitive abilities and to maximize the validity and fairness of the recruitment process. The addition of a biodata questionnaire, as an integral part of the selection system, assisted in meeting these aims and providing clients with a more comprehensive process which offered greater flexibility and the reliable assessment of noncognitive attributes that are critical to success in today’s workplace.     

A Two-Year Longitudinal Study of Neuropsychological and Cognitive Performance in Relation to Behavioral Problems and Competencies in Elementary School Children

Despite interest in early neuropsychological status as a possible contributor to children's behavioral development, prospective longitudinal investigations of neuropsychological measures in relation to later behavioral outcomes in childhood are few. A 2-year longitudinal study in a nonselected childhood sample is reported. The study tested the influence of early neuropsychological performance (verbal fluency, mental inhibitory control, and visual spatial ability) on later childhood behavioral problems and social competency. Regular education children (n = 235) were assessed at three time points 1 year apart. To control for autocorrelation of outcome measures, Time 1 behavior was partialed while testing the effects of Time 1 neuropsychological scores on Time 3 outcome. To control for autocorrelation of neuropsychological scores, Time 2 scores were partialed while testing the predictive effect of Time 1 scores on Time 3 outcome. Both sets of regression models suggested modest but statistically significant effects for inhibitory control and verbal fluency, but not IQ, reading, or visual spatial ability, on behavioral outcome. Study results are consistent with a modest causal effect of selected neuropsychological skills on later behavioral adjustment. The findings support theories that implicate subtle neuropsychological dysfunction in the development of behavioral problems in childhood.