Self-confidence of managers in work and social situations: A look at gender differences

This study examined gender differences in self-confidence among working managers in two situations (work and social/family) as well as relationships between self-confidence, personal adjustment, and gender identity. Respondents were 437 women and men managers (208 men and 229 women) in southeast Florida. Although the sample was predominantly non-Hispanic white, an effort was made to include as many as possible Hispanic and black managers of both genders. Meaningful subgroup analysis was not possible, however, due to the small number of minority managers. Results showed that contrary to commonly held beliefs, the women and men managers were not significantly different in self-confidence in either situation, but both were higher in self-confidence at work than the same gender was in the social/family environment. Strong gender identity—either masculine or feminine—was associated with self-confidence at work for both genders, as was high personal adjustment. Implications are discussed.     

Hide-and-seek or show-and-tell? Emerging issues of informed consent

This article reviews key philosophical and legal underpinnings of mental health professionals' obligation to obtain informed consent from consumers of their services. The basic components of informed consent are described, and strategies for clinically and ethically appropriate methods of obtaining informed consent are discussed. Emerging issues in informed consent involving duty to assess and protect against client dangerousness, obligations to third parties, and issues of deception are considered as well. The article proposes that part of the process of obtaining informed consent is the cultivation of a treatment environment that emphasizes beneficence and client autonomy.     

Advancing psychological jurisprudence

Recent articles and literature reviews within the field of social science and law point to the importance of developing interdisciplinary jurisprudence. An overview of psychological jurisprudence is presented. Next, three approaches to the specific construction of psychological jurisprudence are reviewed. Finally, the relationship between legal psychology and psychological jurisprudence is discussed.     

Sex Differences on Affective Dimensions: Continuing Examination

This study was designed to explore sex differences along several affective dimensions. A sample of 455 undergraduate students was administered several affective scales. A discriminant analysis was performed using the affective scales as discriminating variables and sex as the group variable. Significant sex differences were found on only two of nine affective scales, and the substantive significance of these differences seems to he minimal. The authors concluded that the promotion of faulty stereotypical beliefs should be abandoned in favor of increasingly complex inquiry in this area.     

The processing of inflected words

Summary Is an inflected word identified by first decomposing it into stem plus suffix or, instead, is it recognized as a whole? Several lexical decision experiments studied the recognition of inflected words in English (a language with few inflections) and Serbo-Croatian (a heavily inflected language). If recognition depended on decomposition, preceding the inflection with a brief exposure of the stem (<100 ms) should have primed the lexical entry for the stem and, therefore, facilitated recognition of the whole inflected word that followed. It did not. It was also found that the speed of recognizing an inflected word was more strongly associated with the frequency of the whole inflected form than with the frequency of its stem. The results suggested that in word recognition, lexical contact is first made with the whole word form. Nevertheless, morphological decomposition may still occur in subsequent processing.     

Traditional gender role beliefs and individual outcomes: An exploratory analysis

The results of a survey administered to 806 undergraduate students serve as the basis for analyzing the relationships among traditional gender roles, same-sex intimacy, and homophobia. High levels of homophobia and low levels of intimacy were found among those who believe strongly in the traditional roles. Previous research has shown both homophobia and a lack of intimacy to be harmful to individuals and for society. The present findings may, therefore, constitute empirical evidence of the negative effects of gender roles. Sex differences found in the survey results also support this contention. A general model of the consequences of traditional gender role beliefs for those who hold these views is also speculated.     

Dos-based exercises that demonstrate classic studies in human memory

Ten exercises are described that demonstrate some classic experiments in human memory and cognition. The studies, prepared in MEL Professional V1.0, have been incorporated in an undergraduate class taught by the author for a number of years. Survey data from students completing the course indicate that the exercises promote understanding of class material. Availability of the programs is described.     

Effects of timing and justification of witnessed aggression on the observers' punitiveness

Sixty university men who had been treated harshly by the experimenter's accomplice were distributed evenly among four conditions comprising a 2 × 2 factorial design and a “control” group. All of the men watched a moderately aggressive segment from a TV program but in the former case they were given a story summary which depicted the witnessed aggression as either justified or less justified and this summary was provided either immediately before or just after the scene was shown. The fifth group did not have any story synopsis. When the men had an opportunity to punish the confederate at the conclusion of the film, they were nost punitive if they had heard the justified aggression summary after the movie just before they shocked the confederate, and were least punitive if they had been given the nonjustified aggression version before they watched the aggressive incident. These results extend the generality of the findings obtained by other research in this area and also suggest that the violent scene had elicited as well as disinhibited aggression-facilitating reactions in the viewers.