Does Reducing Male Domination in Teams Attenuate or Intensify the Harmful Effects of Perceived Discrimination on Women's Job Satisfaction? A Test of Competing Hypotheses

This study tested competing theoretical predictions surrounding the moderating effect of male domination in teams on the relation between women's perceptions of gender discrimination and their job satisfaction. Using archival data from an all-female sample of active military personnel (n = 3,015) comprising 321 work teams, which fell on a continuum from less male dominated to more male dominated, we found that the extent to which teams were male dominated moderated the negative link between perceived gender discrimination and job satisfaction, such that perceptions of discrimination were more negatively related to job satisfaction for women working in teams that were less male dominated than for those working in teams that were more male-dominated. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for research and practice and highlight several avenues for future research.     

Molecular Tumor Boards: Ethical Issues in the New Era of Data Medicine

The practice and development of modern medicine requires large amounts of data, particularly in the domain of cancer. The future of personalized medicine lies neither with “genomic medicine” nor with “precision medicine”, but with “data medicine” (DM) (big data, data mining). The establishment of this DM has required far-reaching changes, to establish four essential elements connecting patients and doctors: biobanks, databases, bioinformatic platforms and genomic platforms. The “transformation” of scientific research areas, such as genetics, bioinformatics and biostatistics, into clinical specialties has generated a new vision of care. Molecular tumor boards (MTB) are one response to these changes and are now providing better access to next-generation sequencing (NGS) and new cancer treatments to patients with inoperable or metastatic cancers, and those for whom the usual treatment has failed. However, MTB face a crucial ethical challenge: maintaining and improving the trust of patients, clinicians, researchers and industry in academic medical centers supported by private or public funding rather than providing genetic data directly to private companies. We believe that, in this era of DM, appropriate modern digital communication networks will be required to maintain this trust and to improve the organization and effectiveness of the system. There is, therefore, a need to reconsider the form and content of informed consent (IC) documents at all academic medical centers and to introduce dynamic and electronic informed consent (e-IC).     

How Interviewers Judge Job Applicants: A Qualitative Study

The aim of a job interview is to allow an interviewer to judge whether an applicant will fit into the job at stake. This study investigated how various constructs (for instance, preinterview impressions, professional competencies, and attraction to applicants) influence interviewers’ judgment of applicants. The data were obtained from 49 qualitative interviews with job interviewers about their judgment of applicants. Attraction to the applicant was considered the most important construct in interviewers’ judgment processes, despite the fact that this has little to do with an applicant's job performance. The study argues that interviewers’ judgment processes are problematic, and that this is not due to poor interviewers. Instead, the very concept of the job interview leads to interviewers’ use of problematic constructs. The qualitative approach in the study provides insight into the way in which specific job interviewers judge applicants. Such insight cannot be gained from a quantitative approach, which has traditionally been used in job interview research. Finally, the study will provide a critical discussion of the psychological reasons for job interviewers’ use of problematic constructs in their decision making process.     

Is two better than one? Comparing children’s narrative competence in an individual versus joint storytelling task

This research looks at the potential of peer interaction practices in improving narrative competence by analyzing the efficacy of peer learning on children’s oral narrative productions. Gains on a macro-level (structure and coherence of the narrative) and a micro-level (cohesion of the narrative) were analyzed. Fifty-six primary school children participated in this study. Each child told a narrative either individually (individual condition) or while interacting with a peer (joint condition). We explored whether children produced longer, more structured, coherent and cohesive narratives in a joint condition rather than individually, and in which condition the joint task was more beneficial for children’s narrative competence in terms of narrative scores in the individual condition, discrepancy between the members of the same pair, and quality of the interaction. The advantage of peer learning does not derive from the direct comparison of the individual versus the joint condition but depends on specific conditions: the joint condition was beneficial for individuals with lower individual competence and for pairs with a high discrepancy between individual scores. Children’s quality of interaction did not seem to influence the efficacy of peer learning on their narrative competence.     

Reduction of implicit cognitive bias with cathodal tDCS to the left prefrontal cortex

Implicit associations can interfere with cognitive operations and behavioral decisions without direct intention. Enhancement of neural activity with anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) was proposed to reduce implicit associations by means of improved cognitive control. However, a targeted reduction of distractive implicit associations by inhibitory cathodal tDCS, recently shown in spatial–numerical associations, provides an interesting alternative approach to support goal-directed behavior with transcranial brain stimulation. To test this rationale with a sham-controlled cross-over design, a standardized Implicit Association Test (IAT) was performed by 24 healthy participants parallel to 1 mA cathodal or sham tDCS to the left prefrontal cortex. In this double-classification task, insect versus flower pictures and negative versus positive words are mapped together onto two shared response keys with crossed response assignments in separate blocks. Responses were faster when insect + negative and flower + positive stimuli required the same answer (IAT effect). Most critically, the IAT effect was reduced during cathodal tDCS as compared to sham stimulation. Thus, results are consistent with the proposed stimulation rationale, with previous observations, and complementary to previous studies using different tDCS configurations.     

How socioemotional setting modulates late-stage conflict resolution processes in the lateral prefrontal cortex

The goal-directed control of behaviour critically depends on emotional regulation and constitutes the basis of mental well-being and social interactions. Within a socioemotional setting, it is necessary to prioritize effectively the relevant emotional information over interfering irrelevant emotional information to orchestrate cognitive resources and achieve appropriate behavior. Currently, it is elusive whether and how different socioemotional stimulus dimensions modulate cognitive control and conflict resolution. Theoretical considerations suggest that interference effects are less detrimental when conflicting emotional information is presented within a “positive socioemotional setting” compared with a “negative socioemotional setting.” Using event-related potentials (ERPs) and source localization methods, we examined the basic system neurophysiological mechanisms and functional neuroanatomical structures associated with interactive effects of different interfering facial, socioemotional stimulus dimensions on conflict resolution. We account for interactive effects of different interfering socioemotional stimulus dimensions on conflict resolution, i.e., we show how the socioemotional valence modulates cognitive control (conflict processing). The data show that conflicts are stronger and more difficult to resolve in a negative emotional task-relevant setting than in a positive emotional task-relevant setting, where incongruent information barely induced conflicts. The degree of emotional conflict critically depends on the contextual emotional valence (positive or negative) in which this conflict occurs. The neurophysiological data show that these modulations were only reflected by late-stage conflict resolution processes associated with the middle (MFG) and superior frontal gyrus (SFG). Attentional selection processes and early-stage conflict monitoring do not seem to be modulated by interactive effects of different interfering socioemotional stimulus dimensions on conflict resolution.     

Affordances in Interaction: The Case of Aikido

Our title can be read as trivially true, namely, that perceived affordances shape real-time interaction dynamics. A less trivial reading suggests that affordances themselves interact in a shared dyadic field, such that the number and quality of As and Bs affordances are dynamically coupled with bidirectional causality. In dance, martial arts, or team sports agents strategically comodulate each other's affordances while pursuing their aims. In Aikido, where agents try to break their opponents' balance, this trade-off globally approximates a zero-sum game—the better A's affordances are, the lousier B's affordances get. The agents are subject to ceaseless cross-causation in this shared field. They seek to obstruct their opponents' options while strategically enabling, augmenting, and sculpting their own by employing subtle perceptual manipulation skills, redirecting force, brinkmanship, and switching techniques opportunistically. To overcome static views, we conceptualize affordances as cascading and having fluid onsets; we also identify nested affordances in goal hierarchies and describe a spectrum of affordance functions. Ultimately, we suggest rethinking the ontology of affordances as being sensitive to dynamic engagements, hence defined relative to interpersonal emergence.