How temporal distance from past selves influences self‐perception

The present studies examine how perceived temporal distance from past selves influences perceptions of the current self. Participants recalled their past self either at age 9 or 15. These two past selves differ in levels of identification with gender and thus denote different standards of comparison. Three hypotheses were tested. Temporal distance should determine whether recalled past selves produce assimilation or contrast effects on the current self. Second, temporal comparison effects should be weaker when people recall their past in terms of stable, relatively enduring characteristics (e.g. traits). Third, past selves should to a greater extent be biased by stereotypical knowledge about former lifetime periods the farther away individuals feel from past selves. Past selves coloured by stereotypical knowledge are more extreme and should thus produce stronger judgemental effects on the current self. The results supported the hypotheses. Implications for autobiographical remembering are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Autonomy-Connectedness and Gender

The present study aimed to examine gender differences in autonomy-connectedness in a large, Dutch, representative community sample (N?=?2,256). All participants completed the Autonomy-Connectedness-Scale (ACS-30; Bekker and van Assen, J Pers Assess 86:51–60, 2006) with subscales self-awareness (SA), sensitivity to others (SO), and capacity to manage new situations (CMNS), and a scale measuring demographic factors. We found much higher SO in women than in men, and slightly higher scores of men on SA and CMNS. Associations between SO and socio-demographic variables related to caring for others could be completely explained by gender, while the associations between SA and CMNS with socio-economic independence variables could only partly be explained by gender. ACS-30 norm scores are presented, and clinical implications of our results are discussed.     

The British Sign Language (BSL) norms for age of acquisition,familiarity, and iconicity

Research on signed languages offers the opportunity to address many important questions about language that it may not be possible to address via studies of spoken languages alone. Many such studies, however, are inherently limited, because there exist hardly any norms for lexical variables that have appeared to play important roles in spoken language processing. Here, we present a set of norms for age of acquisition, familiarity, and iconicity for 300 British Sign Language (BSL) signs, as rated by deaf signers, in the hope that they may prove useful to other researchers studying BSL and other signed languages. These norms may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

Gendered Behavior in a Male Preserve: Role Playing at ESPN Zone Chicago

The consumption of spectacular experience is of increasing interest to consumer researchers. Much of this consumption occurs in themed environments. These environments arouse and motivate consumers in multifaceted ways. In this article, we explore the ways in which gendered behavior is elicited and enacted in a sports bar venue. Using ethnographic methods, we examine male role behavior as it is exhibited at ESPN Zone Chicago. We enfold our interpretation of this behavior in theorizing about sport, spectacle, and mass mediation     

A social-cognitive perspective on using family-friendly benefits

To help employees better manage competing life demands, many organizations offer family-friendly benefits to their workers, including flexible scheduling, day care assistance, and leave of absence. Although there is growing evidence of positive effects associated with these benefits, little is known about factors related to their use. Using survey responses from 188 parents employed in a variety of occupations, we examined the use of a broad array of family-friendly benefits from a social-cognitive perspective. More positive work outcome expectancies related to higher rates of benefit use, and more positive family outcome expectancies and higher work-family self-efficacy related to stronger intentions to use the benefits. In addition, gender moderated the relationship between work outcome expectancies and benefit use intentions, such that more positive work outcome expectancies were associated with stronger use intentions for women, but work outcome expectancies were not related to men’s use intentions.     

From thinking about what might have been to sharing what we know: The effects of counterfactual mind-sets on information sharing in groups

We hypothesized that the activation of a counterfactual mind-set minimizes group decision errors caused by the failure of groups to discuss unshared, uniquely held information. In two experiments, we manipulated the salience of counterfactual thoughts in a pre-task scenario and then had groups of three individuals discuss a murder mystery case. In both experiments, counterfactual mind-sets increased the discussion of unshared information and helped groups to identify the correct murder suspect. These results emerged regardless of whether the direction of the counterfactual thoughts was upward (Experiment 1) or downward (Experiment 2), suggesting that it is the process of thinking counterfactually, and not the content of the counterfactuals, that improves group decision making.