Gender Essentialism,Authoritarianism, Social Dominance Orientation,and Filial Piety as Predictors for Transprejudice in Chinese People

Sex Roles - Although research on prejudice against gender and sexual minorities has been increasing in recent years, little attention has been paid to predictors for transprejudice and its...     

Novices,Apprentices, and Mnemonists: Acquiring Expertise with the Phonetic Mnemonic

Three kinds of participants can be identified in research with the phonetic mnemonic—novices, apprentices, and mnemonists, and most research has involved novices. Two experiments investigated whether ordinary college students using the phonetic mnemonic could duplicate two feats of Luria's memorist identified as S: memorizing a 20-digit matrix in 40 seconds, and memorizing a 50-digit matrix in 3 minutes. Experiment 1 was a large-n study in which novices were provided with phonetic keywords along with the matrices; nearly half of the students successfully memorized each matrix with no errors in recall. Experiment 2 was a small-n study in which apprentices were not given the keywords with the matrices; three of the four students also successfully memorized each matrix with perfect recall. The results suggest that ordinary college students are capable of acquiring a level of skilled memory that rivals the abilities that appear to be innate or idiosyncratic in memorists and mnemonists, and that additional research with mnemonic apprentices might be beneficial. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bullying in elementary school, high school, and college

This study investigated the continuity in being a bully, victim, or bully-victim from elementary school through college in 119 undergraduates. Of 25 who bullied in college, 18 (72%) had been bullied in high school and elementary school. Of 26 bullies in college, 14 (53.8%) had been bullies in high school and elementary school. Of 12 bully-victims in college, 5 (41.6%) had been bully-victims in high school and elementary school. There were significant positive correlations between being a bully in college, high school, and elementary school, and being bullied in college and high school, and high school and elementary school, and between being both a bully and victim in elementary school, a bully and victim in high school, and a bully and victim in college.     

Discovery of the pendulum and spring dynamics in the early stages of walking

The authors investigated the self-selected, overground walking patterns of 7 children (aged 11 months to 1 year, 5 months) at the initiation of walking (brand-new walkers [BNWs]) and for the next 6 months at 1-month intervals. Walking speed, stride length, and stride frequency increased significantly between the first 2 visits without significant changes in height and weight. The authors calculated sagittal plane angular accelerations of the center of mass over the foot for each step as an indicator of the escapement pulse. Results for the acceleration profiles changed after the 1st visit to positive, single-peaked accelerations that occurred < 0.20 s after initial foot contact. Increases in sagittal plane hip angular displacement and decreases in frontal plane pelvic angular displacement were observed. The pattern changes suggest that children quickly discover appropriately timed and directed escapements that initiate and support the conservative sagittal plane pendulum and spring dynamics observed in older children.     

Classroom racial proportion: influence on self-concept and social competence in Zimbabwean adolescents

The authors measured self-concept and social competence relationships in 372 Zimbabwean adolescents (41% Black, 59% White) who attended classrooms in which they were either a racial minority or a racial majority (M age = 12.95 years, SD = 1.47). The authors used self-, peer-, and teacher-rating scale sociometric measures of social competence and a multidimensional measure of self-concept. The regression analysis predicted self-concept from social competence measures. Teacher-rated social competence predicted physical appearance self-concept in the Black adolescents and reading self-concept in White adolescents in White-majority classrooms. Self-rated social competence and peer-rated social competence predicted school self-concept in Black adolescents attending Black-majority classrooms. The authors concluded that classroom racial proportions influence aspects of social perception of Black and White adolescents.     

Too much of a good thing: the curvilinear effect of leader-member exchange on stress

Organizational researchers have given considerable attention to the construct of leader-member exchange (LMX). Numerous studies have empirically supported the negative correlations between LMX relationships and unwanted individual outcomes, including stress. However, in the present study, the authors investigated whether the relationship is best represented as linear or curvilinear. The authors tested their research hypothesis in two organizational samples of 120 and 402 employees, respectively, and found support for the nonlinear relationship in both samples. The authors described strengths, limitations, practical implications, and directions for future research.     

Measures of effect size for chi-squared and likelihood-ratio goodness-of-fit tests

A fundamental shift in editorial policy for psychological journals was initiated when the fourth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (1994) placed emphasis on reporting measures of effect size. This paper presents measures of effect size for the chi-squared and the likelihood-ratio goodness-of-fit statistic tests.     

Self-referential tags in the discourse of people with Alzheimer's disease

In a study of the discourse of 100 people with Alzheimer's disease treated for 12 months with donepezil, we observed that, as a group, they used a form of tag, described here as a self-referential tag (SRT), 14 times more frequently than did caregivers. Patients use SRTs to check propositions dependent on episodic memory as in I haven't seen the doctor recently, have I? and to monitor information flow as in I told you that already, didn't I? Based on criteria developed for distinguishing checking from monitoring tags, we document the type and frequency of patients' SRT use in the ACADIE corpus and analyze these in relation to standard measures of cognitive function (Mini Mental State Exam and Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-cognitive sub-scale) at baseline and 12 months. Patients using monitoring SRTs (N=31), with or without checking SRTs, show significantly better cognitive test scores at 12 months, than are seen in patients who never use tags (N=29), or who only use checking tags (N=40). SRT use may be an independent measure of potential treatment responsiveness.