Can the Media Help Women Be Better at Math? Stereotype Threat,Selective Exposure,Media Effects,and Women's Math Performance

This study examines women's media selections when under the gender–math stereotype threat and the subsequent media effects on their math performance through the lens of the Selective Exposure Self‐ and Affect‐Management (SESAM) model, mood management theory, and social comparison theory. Female college students were randomly assigned to the stereotype threat condition or the control condition; then, they selectively browsed magazine pages showing female role models in stereotypical domains (beauty or family) and counterstereotypical domains (career or science) before taking the math test. The results show that women spent more time on career magazines when under threat, and this selective exposure's effect on their math performance was moderated by their assimilation to the role models.     

Leibniz's Rigorous Foundation Of Infinitesimal Geometry By Means Of Riemannian Sums

In 1675, Leibniz elaborated his longest mathematical treatise he everwrote, the treatise ``On the arithmetical quadrature of the circle, theellipse, and the hyperbola. A corollary is a trigonometry withouttables'. It was unpublished until 1993, and represents a comprehensive discussion of infinitesimalgeometry. In this treatise, Leibniz laid the rigorous foundation of thetheory of infinitely small and infinite quantities or, in other words,of the theory of quantified indivisibles. In modern terms Leibnizintroduced `Riemannian sums' in order to demonstrate the integrabilityof continuous functions. The article deals with this demonstration,with Leibniz's handling of infinitely small and infinite quantities,and with a general theorem regarding hyperboloids.     

Mood Adjustment to Social Situations Through Mass Media Use: How Men Ruminate and Women Dissipate Angry Moods

Mood adjustment goals served to explain gender differences regarding media preferences. Before reacting to antagonism, females are likely to prevent aggression by dissolving aversive states through media consumption, whereas males could preserve aggression by choosing negative content. In a computerized procedure, participants (N = 86) were provoked by supervisor feedback to instigate angry moods. Half of the sample was led to anticipate a retaliation opportunity. In a purportedly separate study, participants were free to choose from online news while software unobtrusively logged their selective news exposure. The articles had been classified as positive or negative news in a pretest. When anticipating a retaliation opportunity, females spent more time reading positive news to dissipate their anger. Males expecting a retaliation opportunity spent more time on negative news to sustain their anger. Males’ generally lower news consumption, especially when anticipating a chance to retaliate, indicated anger rumination through news avoidance altogether.     

Evaluating a Contextual Model of Responses to Relational Uncertainty Increasing Events

This study formulates and tests a contextual model of communication about events that increase relational uncertainty within courtship (N = 278 participants). Intimacy is examined as a feature of the distal context, and appraisals and emotions are investigated as features of the proximal context. As expected, intimacy coincided with positively‐valenced behaviors (Hypothesis 1). Appraisals also explained variance in behaviors (Hypothesis 2), especially attentional activity, relevance, obstacle, power, and legitimacy (Research Question 1). With some exceptions, emotions predicted behaviors beyond the effects of appraisals (Hypothesis 3, Research Question 2). Emotions partially mediated the association between appraisals and behaviors (Hypothesis 4), but intimacy, appraisals, and emotions were all unique predictors of behaviors (Hypothesis 5), and intimacy did not moderate the effects of appraisals or emotions on behaviors (Research Question 3). Although the pattern of covariation was consistent across the self‐reported and hypothetical events, the self‐reported events generated more negatively‐valenced appraisals, emotions, and behaviors than the hypothetical events (Research Question 4). The discussion examines how knowledge can accumulate by assimilating features of the distal and proximal contexts.     

Relational Uncertainty and Message Production Within Courtship: Features of Date Request Messages

This paper theorizes about how relational uncertainty may predict features of date request messages within courtship. It reports a study in which 248 individuals role‐played leaving a date request voice mail message for their partner. Relational uncertainty was negatively associated with the fluency (H1), affiliativeness (H2), relationship focus (H3), explicitness (H4), and perceived effectiveness (H5) of messages. Also as expected, relational uncertainty was negatively associated with people’s perceptions of the effectiveness of their messages after covarying the judgments of independent observers (H6). Relational uncertainty continued to predict features of messages when length of romantic interest was covaried (RQ1). The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the results for understanding the link between relational uncertainty and message production.     

Manifestations of Relationship Conceptualizations in Conversation

A question fundamental to the study of interpersonal communication in close relationships is how the characteristics people associate with their relationships are evident in their conversation. We begin by explicating 3 key aspects of relationship conceptualizations: reliance on relational knowledge, interdependence, and mutual commitment. Then we advance hypotheses linking those relationship conceptualizations with features of people's content and relational messages. We report the results of a study in which 120 dating couples engaged in videotaped conversations. Findings offered modest support for our predictions regarding reliance on relational knowledge; results were less consistent with our hypotheses involving interdependence and mutual commitment. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for understanding how perceptions of relationships are apparent in conversation.