A Structural Social Psychological View of Gender Differences in Cooperation

We analyze differences in cooperation between men and women in social dilemma settings. Using a structural social psychological framework, we examine how the actor, the encounter, the microstructure, and the macrostructure might influence when gender differences emerge in cooperation. Many of the interaction differences, often linked to innate differences between men and women, are modified when the context is modified. We pay particular attention to how status and identity are connected to such modifications.     

“100% of anything looks good”: The appeal of one hundred percent

People overweight certainty, even when certainty is only an illusion. A vaccine that was described as 100% effective against 70% of disease targets was preferred to one described as 70% effective against 100% of disease targets (Studies 1 and 2). The appeal of 100% extends beyond the probability attribute. In Study 2, participants preferred both of the vaccines above to normatively equivalent vaccines that were less than 100% effective toward fewer than 100% of targets. In Study 3, participants preferred a 100% discount on a cup of coffee every 10 days to other more frequent, but lower amount, discounts. This preference evaporated, however, when savings were framed as points rather than as percentage discounts. We propose that people view 100% as a salient reference point and overweight it in those domains where it cannot be exceeded (e.g., probability, discount); the overweighting is weaker in domains where 100% can be exceeded (e.g., target range, points).     

Racial Discrimination: A Continuum of Violence Exposure for Children of Color

This article reviews and examines findings on the impact of racial discrimination on the development and functioning of children of color in the US. Based on current definitions of violence and child maltreatment, exposure to racial discrimination should be considered as a form of violence that can significantly impact child outcomes and limit the ability of parents and communities to provide support that promotes resiliency and optimal child development. In this article, a conceptual model of the effects of racial discrimination in children of color is presented. The model posits that exposure to racial discrimination may be a chronic source of trauma in the lives of many children of color that negatively influences mental and physical outcomes as well as parent and community support and functioning. Concurrent exposure to other forms of violence, including domestic, interpersonal and/or community violence, may exacerbate these effects. The impact of a potential continuum of violence exposure for children of color in the US and the need for future research and theoretical models on children’s exposure to violence that attend to the impact of racial discrimination on child outcomes are discussed.     

Performance of students with learning disabilities on validity indexes of the Perception of Ability Scale for Students.

The present study examined the performance of 78 students with learning disabilities and 71 normally achieving students in regular Form 1 (Grade 6) classes on three validity indexes of the Perception of Ability Scale for Students, a measure of academic self-concept. The three indexes assess consistency of responding, negative or positive response biases, and misrepresentation of self-perceptions in terms of unrealistic perceptions of perfection in school. Analysis showed that learning disabled students obtained significantly lower Full Scale scores than the normal students, but no significant differences appeared on the three validity indexes. Users of the test can be confident that learning disabled students respond to items in as valid a manner as other students. Having specific learning problems in school should not interfere with response patterns on this scale.     

Attitudes toward sexual abuse: Sex differences and construct validity

An “Attitudes toward Sexual Abuse” scale is introduced, and its reliability and validity in a study of university students is described. Attitudes supportive of sexual contact with children were associated with variables previously linked to sexual interest in children: male gender, use of pornography, greater numbers of sex partners, and greater endorsement of a scale measuring acceptance of sexual aggression against women. Such beliefs predicted both male and female university students' self-reported interest in having sex with a child, given the absence of detection or punishment, suggesting the potential importance of socially transmitted attitudes in the etiology of sexually abusive behavior.     

Face recognition memory: The effects of exposure duration and encoding instruction

Two experiments test the effects of exposure duration and encoding instruction on the relative memory for five facial features. Participants viewed slides of Identi-kit faces and were later given a recognition test with same or changed versions of each face. Each changed test face involved a change in one facial feature: hair, eyes, chin, nose or mouth. In both experiments the upper-face features of hair and eyes were better recognized than the lower-face features of nose, mouth, and chin, as measured by false alarm rates. In Experiment 1, participants in the 20-second exposure duration condition remembered faces significantly better than participants in the 3-second exposure duration condition; however, memory for all five facial features improved at a similar rate with the increased duration. In Experiment 2, participants directed to use feature scanning encoding instructions remembered faces significantly better than participants following age judgement instructions; however, the size of the memory advantage for upper facial features was less with feature scanning instructions than with age judgement instructions. The results are discussed in terms of a quantitative difference in processing faces with longer exposure duration, versus a qualitative difference in processing faces with various encoding instructions. These results are related to conditions that affect the accuracy of eyewitness identification.     

Unfair Discrimination in the Selection Interview: An Attributional Account

The selection interview remains the most popular method by which organizations select employees, yet it is also widely criticized for being vulnerable to bias and unfair discrimination. This paper draws upon two specific areas of attribution research: cross-cultural studies of attributional processes and studies of intergroup attributional bias in order to discuss how attributional processes can contribute to unfair discrimination in selection interviews. It is argued that unfair discrimination can arise in two ways: first, as a consequence of ethnocentric attributional biases on the part of interviewers when explaining the behaviour of candidates associated with in-group or out-group status; second, as a result of different patterns of attributions manifest by candidates from diverse cultural groups.     

Recognition of Facial Expressions of Emotion by Children with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Interpreting and responding appropriately to facial expressions of emotion are important aspects of social skills. Some children, adolescents, and adults with various psychological and psychiatric disorders recognize facial expressions less proficiently than their peers in the general population. We wished to determine if such deficits existed in a group of 133 children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). The subjects were receiving in-patient psychiatric services for at least one of substance-related disorders, adjustment disorders, anxiety disorders, mood disorders or disruptive behavior disorders. After being read stories describing various emotional reactions, all subjects were tested for their ability to recognize the 6 basic facial expressions of emotion depicted in Ekman and Friesen's (1976) normed photographs. Overall, they performed well on this task at levels comparable to those occurring in the general population. Accuracy increased with age, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, or clinical diagnosis. After adjusting for age effects, the subjects diagnosed with either adjustment disorders, mood disorders, or disruptive behavior disorders were significantly more accurate at identifying anger than those without those diagnoses. In addition, subjects with mood disorders identified sadness significantly more accurately than those without this diagnosis, although the effect was greatest with younger children.     

Reducing Avoidance of Social Interaction with a Physically Disabled Person by Mentioning the Disability Following a Request for Aid1

The effectiveness of strategies for reducing avoidance of social interaction with a physically disabled person was experimentally investigated. Female college students privately expressed their preference for social interaction before and after learning the other was a female in a wheelchair or nondisabled. The results provide evidence for the effectiveness of mentioning the disability following a request for aid related to the disability (the Request-mention Strategy). Change in preference for social interaction was more positive when the disabled person employed the Request-mention strategy than when she said nothing. Requesting aid without mentioning the disability was not found to be effective. A request for aid unrelated to the disability was clearly ineffective. The disabled person who said nothing was avoided, in comparison to when the same person was nondisabled. Favorability of impressions of the other, as measured by ratings of her characteristics, was not influenced by the experimental conditions.