Men,Women, and the Self-Presentation of Achievement

This study examined men's and women'sself-presentation of academic achievement in aninteractional context. First-year college students wereled to expect an interaction with a peer to discussacademic achievement. However, the peer was actually aconfederate who portrayed his or her achievement in aboastful, moderate, or self-deprecating manner. Prior tothe anticipated interaction, subjects were induced to describe their own academic achievement andmake predictions about their first-semester grade pointaverages (GPAs) to be shared with the peer. Men's GPApredictions were highest in the boastful condition (and higher than their actual GPAs), nexthighest in the moderate condition, and lowest (and lowerthan their actual GPAs) in the self-deprecatingcondition. Women's predicted GPAs,unexpectedly,didnotvary by condition. Women were less comfortable inpredicting their GPAs than men, and there was a tendencyfor men to be more comfortable than women whileobserving the boastful peer and women to be morecomfortable than men while observing the self-deprecatingpeer. Results are discussed with regard to past researchand self-in-relation theory.     

The Bank Job: A Field Study of Sexually Discriminatory Performance on a Neutral-Role Task

Sixty-four checks were cashed in a field examination of sex role discrimination using a non-sex-role stereotyped (neutral role) task. Experimenter (customer) sex, subject (teller) sex, amount of the check, and bank branch were varied to produce a 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 design. Transaction times were longer for female customers than for male customers, and were longer with male tellers than with female tellers. Results were interpreted as supporting the hypothesis of greater sex role salience in cross-sex, as compared with same-sex dyads. Suggestions are made for further research using neutral-role tasks to better define certain role concepts.     

The absence of numbers to express the amount may affect delay discounting with humans

Human delay discounting is usually studied with experimental protocols that use symbols to express delay and amount. In order to further understand discounting, we evaluated whether the absence of numbers to represent reward amounts affects discount rate in general, and whether the magnitude effect is generalized to nonsymbolic situations in particular. In Experiment 1, human participants were exposed to a delay‐discounting task in which rewards were presented using dots to represent monetary rewards (nonsymbolic); under this condition the magnitude effect did not occur. Nevertheless, the magnitude effect was observed when equivalent reward amounts were presented using numbers (symbolic). Moreover, in estimation tasks, magnitude increments produced underestimation of large amounts. In Experiment 2, participants were exposed only to the nonsymbolic discounting task and were required to estimate reward amounts in each trial. Consistent with Experiment 1, the absence of numbers representing reward amounts produced similar discount rates of small and large rewards. These results suggest that value of nonsymbolic rewards is a nonlinear function of amount and that value attribution depends on perceived difference between the immediate and the delayed nonsymbolic rewards.     

Numeracy,Health Numeracy,and Older Immigrants’ Primary Language: An Observation-Oriented Exploration

Health information is often provided in number formats not equally present in all languages. We explored the relation between immigrants’ primary language and comprehension of context-free and health numeric information presented in English. The study compared speakers of Kikuyu (Kenya) and Mandarin (China), two languages that differ in the quantity of numeric concepts in their structures. Observation-oriented analysis was performed to determine how accurately the observed data conform to language group. We show how such analysis compares to standard statistical analysis. We argue that primary language contributes to some of the differences in numeracy and health numeracy.     

Teaching Mathematics for Spatial Justice: An Investigation of the Lottery

This article explores integrating place-based education with critical mathematics toward teaching mathematics for spatial justice. Local Lotto, a curricular module with associated digital tools, was designed to investigate the lottery as a critical spatial phenomenon and piloted in urban high schools. This article describes findings from the second iteration in a remedial class in a low-income neighborhood. The research questions consider how the spatial focus supported the learning of mathematics and provided opportunities for students to think critically about the lottery using that mathematics. Findings include student interest in and engagement with the theme of the lottery familiar from outside of school with associated social justice implications. Students used mathematics and spatial evidence, at various levels of spatial scale, to support arguments about the lottery with greater success at narrower levels of scale. Suggestions about further innovations to scaffold place in a “critical pedagogy of place” in mathematics are provided.     

The Role of Family Support in Interparental Conflict and Adolescent Academic Achievement

Family support was examined as a mediator of the relation between interparental conflict and adolescent academic achievement. Results indicated that two dimensions of family support, family cohesion and parent–school involvement, mediated the relation between interparental conflict and academic achievement. The results further suggested that family support was more likely to function as a mediator for girls than for boys. Lastly, in the presence of a mediating effect, a direct path remained between interparental conflict and grade point average.     

Two‐year‐olds’ naîve predictions for horizontal trajectories

Hood recently reported that preschool children overgeneralized the prediction that falling objects travel in a straight line in spite of extensive counter‐evidence that the object had been deviated to a non‐aligned box by a tube. This behaviour was interpreted as a na?^ve theory of gravity resulting from an overgeneralization derived from experience of falling objects. The current study set out to test whether there was also a significant tendency for 2‐year‐olds to predict that objects travel in a straight line in the horizontal plane. This was achieved by comparing search for an invisibly displaced object moving either vertically or horizontally. The findings confirmed a gravity bias for falling events but did not reveal a similar tendency in the horizontal condition. In the horizontal task, children were as likely to search at an incorrect non‐aligned box as an aligned incorrect box. This supports the interpretation of a na?^ve gravity bias present from at least 2 years of age.     

Motor development during the first 6 months: the case of Brazilian infants

This investigation documents the pattern of motor development of Brazilian infants over the first 6 months and compares the findings with a US norm. Infants were assessed once each month for the 6‐month period using the Bayley II Motor Scale, which represented the US norm for comparison. Participants monthly scores increased with age and were similar to the US profile. However, the Brazilian infants did exhibit mean scores significantly lower than their counterparts on tasks of sitting and grasping in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th month; at the 6th month, scores were comparable. Explanations for differences focus on possible cross‐cultural and maturational influences. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.