Parent’s Social Support for Children’s Outdoor Physical Activity: Do Weekdays and Weekends Matter?

In this study we examined the relationships among parental social supportive behaviors for children’s weekday and weekend outdoor physical activity (OPA). Thirty-nine girls and 29 boys 8 to 11 years wore pedometers for 7 days. Sixty-five mothers and 50 fathers responded to a social support questionnaire about OPA that was comprised of four dimensions: encouragement, playing with, use of activity as family recreation, and watch. After controlling for age and sport participation, regression analyses indicated that mothers’ use of activity as recreation was positively associated with girls’ weekday OPA. On the weekend, fathers’ play with son was positively related to OPA. The effectiveness of family-based activity interventions depends on when parents have opportunities to be present for their child’s activity and gender differences in the support provided.     

Contrast and Rater-Perspective Effects on Judgments of Sexual Harassment Severity: What He Thinks She Thinks,and Vice Versa

We looked at whether ratings biases can influence judgments people make about sexually harassing behaviors. Online participants (N = 176) read and rated the severity of complaint scenarios describing different incidents of alleged harassment. We manipulated: (1) contrast effects, by having people judge other, independent scenarios before judging a target scenario, and (2) rater-perspective effects, by having people judge from both a self- and then an opposite-gender perspective. For the former, we hypothesized that if judgments about harassment are qualitatively similar to judgments made in other areas (e.g., performance appraisal), they too should show contrast effects. For the latter, we hypothesized people would use stereotypes about the other gender, thereby overestimating the true (i.e., self-perspective driven) gender difference. Results supported both hypotheses, suggesting that decision makers should be aware of the possible influence of biases when judging whether behaviors constitute harassment.     

Information Processing in Joined and Severed Trials

The present study was conducted to determine the process by which jurors reach verdicts in trials in which multiple charges are joined in one indictment. The experiment was designed to test the impact of joinder of affenses, similarity of offenses, and evidentiary strength of jurors' ability to process trial evidence. The results gathered from 220 male and female subjects indicated, as previous research has shown, that joined trials lead to more guilty verdicts than severed trials; that the first charge in a joined trial accounts for this "joinder effect," receiving significantly more guilty verdicts than its severed counterpart. When joined trials are composed of similar categories of crimes, guilt verdicts increase and jurors tend to confuse evidence-as shown by a high rate of antidefendant intrusions from case two to case one. More antidefendant cognitions were also found when the cases were similar. Furthermore, case similarity interacted with the evidentiary strength of the charges in joined trials.     

Genetic and environmental contributions to the co-occurrence of depressive personality disorder and DSM-IV personality disorders

One of the main controversies with regard to depressive personality disorder (DPD) concerns the co-occurrence with the established DSM-IV personality disorders (PDs). The main aim of this study was to examine to what extent DPD and the DSM-IV PDs share genetic and environmental risk factors, using multivariate twin modeling. The DSM-IV Structured Interview for Personality was applied to 2,794 young adult twins. Paranoid PD from Cluster A, borderline PD from Cluster B, and all three PDs from Cluster C were independently and significantly associated with DPD in multiple regression analysis. The genetic correlations between DPD and the other PDs were strong (.53-.83), while the environmental correlations were moderate (.36-.40). Close to 50% of the total variance in DPD was disorder specific. However, only 5% was due to disorder-specific genetic factors, indicating that a substantial part of the genetic vulnerability to DPD also increases the vulnerability to other PDs.     

Facilitating the Pygmalion effect: The overlooked role of subordinate perceptions of the leader

For many years, the Pygmalion effect has served as a colourful, conceptual reminder of the power of supervisory expectations in enhancing subordinate performance. However, regardless of the myriad of studies that have sought to replicate this effect and identify its parameters, little attention has actually been paid to the processes underlying this phenomenon. Rather, the existing model implies that the subordinate is an ‘always‐willing’, yet somewhat ‘passive’ recipient of Pygmalion‐oriented leader efforts. Our theoretical paper unpacks the role of subordinate perceptions of the leader and considers how it can influence receptiveness to the leader's Pygmalion‐oriented efforts. By revisiting and building upon the original Pygmalion model, we attempt to enrich our understanding of this phenomenon, as well as to offer insight into why not all Pygmalion leader efforts are equally successful.     

Factor structure of the primary scales of the Inventory of Personality Organization in a nonclinical sample using exploratory structural equation modeling

Using exploratory structural equation modeling and multiple regression, we examined the factor structure and criterion relations of the primary scales of the Inventory of Personality Organization (IPO; Kernberg & Clarkin, 1995) in a nonclinical sample. Participants (N = 1,260) completed the IPO and measures of self-concept clarity, defenses, affect and emotion regulation, and risky and self-injurious behavior. In contrast to that of Lenzenweger, Clarkin, Kernberg, and Foelsch (2001), a 4-factor measurement model was derived with factors representing instability of sense of self and other, instability of goals, instability of behaviors, and psychosis. The 1st of these factors related most strongly to external measures of self-concept clarity, defenses, and affect, whereas the 3rd factor related most strongly to measures of risky behavior and self-injury. These results suggest that the IPO's factor structure does not conform to the hypothesized 3-factor model, although it does capture important elements of Kernberg's (1996) theory of personality organization, especially the central construct of representations of self and others. The results point to several areas in which the IPO might be refined to provide a more comprehensive and theoretically appropriate measure of the borderline personality organization construct.     

Deconstructing the age-prevalence curve of alcohol dependence: why "maturing out" is only a small piece of the puzzle

Epidemiological studies have consistently demonstrated that heavy alcohol use and alcohol dependence (AD) tend to increase in adolescence and emerging adulthood and then show a large decline in the late 20s, a phenomenon called maturing out. This decline has been explained as an effect of "role incompatibility" in which involvement in new roles and activities interferes with a heavy drinking lifestyle. However, maturing out has been conceived mostly as a decrease in offset, with little attention paid to reductions in new onset or recurrence across decades of life. Moreover, although role incompatibility processes have been studied with young samples, little is known about the effect of life transitions (e.g., marriage, parenthood, changes in employment status) on AD later in life and whether similar effects are observed. Using longitudinal data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, a nationally representative epidemiologic survey, we examined the patterns of stability and change in AD across the life span and the differential effect of life transitions on AD across different age strata. Results showed that persistence of AD tended to increase with age, although not dramatically, and that onset and recurrence tended to decrease with age. Moreover, the effects of life transitions on the course of AD varied across the life span and were different for men and women. These results indicate that life transitions differentially affect the patterns of stability and change in younger versus older people, have a different impact for men and women, and highlight the need to consider the unique aspects of each stage of adult development on the course of AD.     

Social Construction and its Development: Liping Yang Interviews Kenneth Gergen

Nanjing University psychologist Liping Yang interviews Kenneth Gergen on the development of social constructionist thought and practice. The conversation treats a variety of issues, including the development of constructionism as a new paradigm, qualitative research, education and other practices informed by constructionism, value loaded science, relativism, and the Taos Institute.     

The cost of action miscues: hemispheric asymmetries

Adaptive behaviors require preparation and when necessary inhibition or alteration of actions. The right hemisphere has been posited to be dominant for preparatory motor activation. This experiment was designed to learn if there are hemispheric asymmetries in the control of altered plans of actions. Cues, both valid and invalid, which indicate the hand most likely to be called onto respond, as well as the imperative stimuli that indicate the actual response hand, were presented to either the right or left visual fields of 14 normal right handed participants. The delay after a miscue is dependent on the time taken to inhibit the premotor and motor systems of the incorrectly activated hemisphere, as well as to activate the motor systems of the opposite hemisphere, which might have been interhemispherically inhibited by this miscue. Analyses of reaction times revealed that miscues presented in left hemispace (right hemisphere) cost more time than those miscues presented in right hemispace (left hemisphere), suggesting that activation of the preparatory systems controlled by the right hemisphere may take longer to reverse than those controlled by the left hemisphere. This asymmetry may be related to asymmetries in the strength of hemispheric activation with contralateral inhibition.