When Low-Warmth Targets Are Liked: The Roles of Competence,Gender, and Relative Status

Previous research has shown that people use warmth and competence as basic dimensions to evaluate others and to interpret their behavior, but little research has examined the conditions under which low-warmth targets are liked. A series of 3 experiments involving 4 vignettes showed, in general, that low-warmth targets were better liked when they exhibited higher competence and that high-status persons displayed greater tolerance toward the low-warmth person of low status. Exceptions to these patterns were predicted and found as a function of the type of organizational context in which evaluations were made: groups that place priority on individual goals over common goals and groups that are performance oriented rather than relationship oriented. Target gender interacted with competence and relative status.     

Psychological stress and glucose metabolism in obese and normal-weight subjects: a possible mechanism for differences in stress-induced eating

Acute psychological stress has been found to impair the handling of a glucose load in normal-weight individuals and to produce a delay in gastrointestinal transit time. The present study utilized the same paradigm to compare 10 obese and 10 normal-weight subjects. All subjects participated in two counterbalanced sessions (stress and nonstress). At each session, subjects were fed a carbohydrate load, and glucose was measured 0, 30, 60, 90, and 120 min after the load. On nonstress days, subjects relaxed after the drink; on stress days, subjects participated in 30 min of competitive tasks. The stressor significantly delayed the glucose response in the normal-weight subjects but did not affect the glucose response in obese subjects. This finding may have implications for differences between obese and normal-weight individuals in stress-induced eating, possibly explaining the decreased consumption of normal-weight individuals during stress.     

Domestic dogs’ (Canis familiaris) choices in reference to information provided by human and artificial hands

Even young humans show sensitivity to the accuracy and reliability of informants’ reports. Children are selective in soliciting information and in accepting claims. Recent research has also investigated domestic dogs’ (Canis familiaris) sensitivity to agreement among human informants. Such research utilizing a common human pointing gesture to which dogs are sensitive in a food retrieval paradigm suggests that dogs might choose among informants according to the number of points exhibited, rather than the number of individuals indicating a particular location. Here, we further investigated dogs’ use of information from human informants using a stationary pointing gesture, as well as the conditions under which dogs would utilize a stationary point. First, we explored whether the number of points or the number of individuals more strongly influenced dogs’ choices. To this end, dogs encountered a choice situation in which the number of points exhibited toward a particular location and the number of individuals exhibiting those points conflicted. Results indicated that dogs chose in accordance with the number of points exhibited toward a particular location. In a second experiment, we explored the possibility that previously learned associations drove dogs’ responses to the stationary pointing gesture. In this experiment, dogs encountered a choice situation in which artificial hands exhibited a stationary pointing gesture toward or away from choice locations in the absence of humans. Dogs chose the location to which the artificial hand pointed. These results are consistent with the notion that dogs may respond to a human pointing gesture due to their past-learning history.     

Interpersonal Functioning in Obsessive–Compulsive Personality Disorder

The core symptoms of obsessive–compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) often lead to interpersonal difficulties. However, little research has explored interpersonal functioning in OCPD. This study examined interpersonal problems, interpersonal sensitivities, empathy, and systemizing, the drive to analyze and derive underlying rules for systems, in a sample of 25 OCPD individuals, 25 individuals with comorbid OCPD and obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), and 25 healthy controls. We found that OCPD individuals reported hostile-dominant interpersonal problems and sensitivities with warm-dominant behavior by others, whereas OCPD+OCD individuals reported submissive interpersonal problems and sensitivities with warm-submissive behavior by others. Individuals with OCPD, with and without OCD, reported less empathic perspective taking relative to healthy controls. Finally, we found that OCPD males reported a higher drive to analyze and derive rules for systems than OCPD females. Overall, results suggest that there are interpersonal deficits associated with OCPD and the clinical implications of these deficits are discussed.     

Learning to “See” Less Than Nothing: Putting Perceptual Skills to Work for Learning Numerical Structure

How can children's natural perceptuo-motor skills be harnessed for teaching and learning mathematical structure? We address this question in the case of the integers. Existing research suggests that adult mental representations of integers recruit perceptuo-motor functionalities involving symmetry. Building on these findings, we designed a hands-on curriculum that emphasizes symmetry to teach integer concepts to fourth graders. Compared to two control conditions, children who went through the experimental curriculum showed evidence of incorporating symmetry into their mental representations of integers and performed higher on problems beyond the scope of instruction, including negative fractions and algebra-readiness problems. Gains did not come at the expense of basic integer computation skill. This study has direct practical implications, as current integers curricula generally omit symmetry. The research demonstrates an approach to designing instruction that involves identifying perceptuo-motor functionalities underlying numerical cognition and creating learning activities to recruit them.     

Adolescent Cell Phone Communications with Mothers and Fathers: Content,Patterns, and Preferences

Adolescents participated in qualitative interviews (N?=?40) and permitted researchers to check their cell phone histories (N?=?35) for the content and frequency of text and call communications with parents. Communications focused predominantly on day-to-day “managerial” aspects of parent–child relationships but also facilitated emotional connections between adolescents and parents. Adolescents preferred to use texts to engage in managerial communications and calls to connect emotionally, but logistical constraints resulted in most cell phone communications between adolescents and parents involving calls. Participants communicated more with mothers than fathers, regardless of communication content or medium. This was true regardless of family structure, although gender-of-parent differences were accentuated for adolescents in mother-only households. This pattern was explained by both greater maternal accessibility and adolescent preferences for communication with mothers. Communications with fathers tended to occur either when mothers were not available or when the communication was focused on a highly specific set of stereotypically masculine content areas.     

Support processes in same‐ and mixed‐sex relationships: Type and source matters

Research has established that social support for relationships is an important predictor of well‐being. However, the underlying assumption that social support specifically for relationships is a separate construct from general social support has not been properly tested empirically, nor has the question of whether support processes vary by source (friends vs. family). The current study (N = 1,281) used confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to address these issues. Support was found for a theoretical model in which social support specifically for relationships predicts relationship well‐being and, in turn, mental and physical health, even while controlling for general social support. Somewhat different patterns were found by source of support (family vs. friends) and by relationship type (same sex vs. mixed sex).     

Public Lab: Community-Based Approaches to Urban and Environmental Health and Justice

This paper explores three cases of Do-It-Yourself, open-source technologies developed within the diverse array of topics and themes in the communities around the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (Public Lab). These cases focus on aerial mapping, water quality monitoring and civic science practices. The techniques discussed have in common the use of accessible, community-built technologies for acquiring data. They are also concerned with embedding collaborative and open source principles into the objects, tools, social formations and data sharing practices that emerge from these inquiries. The focus is on developing processes of collaborative design and experimentation through material engagement with technology and issues of concern. Problem-solving, here, is a tactic, while the strategy is an ongoing engagement with the problem of participation in its technological, social and political dimensions especially considering the increasing centralization and specialization of scientific and technological expertise. The authors also discuss and reflect on the Public Lab’s approach to civic science in light of ideas and practices of citizen/civic veillance, or “sousveillance”, by emphasizing people before data, and by investigating the new ways of seeing and doing that this shift in perspective might provide.     

Narcissism in Organizations: A Multisource Appraisal Reflects Different Perspectives

The majority of employees state that their manager is the worst aspect of their job. Over the past decade, a considerable amount of research has been devoted to identifying factors that contribute to immoral and ineffective leader behavior. Researchers have continually linked personality, and in particular narcissism, to the proclivity of leaders to behave ineffectively and unethically. This study represents an initial attempt to examine the relationship between narcissism and leadership in an organizational setting to determine the extent to which narcissism is related to managerial effectiveness and integrity. Results indicated that narcissism was negatively related to supervisor ratings of interpersonal performance and integrity. In contrast, narcissism was unrelated to subordinate ratings of interpersonal performance and integrity. Furthermore, narcissism was unrelated to supervisor and subordinate ratings of conceptual performance. The unique relationship between narcissistic leaders and their followers is offered as an explanation for these findings.