The moderating effect of perceived organizational support on the relationships between organizational justice and objective measures of cardiovascular health

This paper builds on a recent meta-analytic review on the relationships between organizational justice and health. Specifically, we examine the moderating role of perceived organizational support (POS) on the relationships between organizational justice and three objective cardiovascular health measures, namely, heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure, among a population of 290 public construction workers. The interaction between justice and POS was statistically significant using procedural justice, demonstrating that procedural justice is associated with improvements in the three health outcomes only when POS is relatively high. In other words, higher levels of both procedural justice and POS were needed for reduced heart rate and reduced systolic and diastolic blood pressure. However, the interaction between distributive justice and POS did not significantly relate to the health outcomes. This study makes a contribution to the field by focusing the effects of psychosocial workplace variables on measures of cardiovascular health, and demonstrating an important boundary condition of the relationships between procedural justice and cardiovascular risk factors.     

Joint attention and object learning in 5‐ and 7‐month‐old infants

We examined the effects of joint attention for object learning in 5‐ and 7‐month‐old infants. Infants interacted with an adult social partner who taught them about a novel toy in two conditions. In the Joint Attention condition, the adult spoke about the toy while alternating gaze between the infant and the toy, while in the Object Only condition, the adult looked to the toy and to a spot on the ceiling, but never at the infant. In the test trials following each social interaction, we presented infants with the ‘familiarization’ toy and a novel toy, and monitored looking times to each object. We found that 7‐month‐olds looked significantly longer to the novel toy following the Joint Attention relative to the Object Only condition, while 5‐month‐old infants did not show a significant difference across conditions. We interpret these results to suggest that joint attention facilitated 7‐month‐old infants' encoding of information about the familiarization object. Implications for the ontogeny of infant learning in joint attention contexts are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mantled howler monkey spatial foraging decisions reflect spatial and temporal knowledge of resource distributions

An animal’s ability to find and relocate food items is directly related to its survival and reproductive success. This study evaluates how mantled howler monkeys make spatial foraging decisions in the wild. Specifically, discrete choice models and agent-based simulations are used to test whether mantled howler monkeys on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, integrate spatial information in order to maximize new leaf flush and fruit gain while minimizing distance traveled. Several heuristic models of decision making are also tested as possible alternative strategies (movement to core home range areas instead of individual trees, travel along a sensory gradient, movement along arboreal pathway networks without a predetermined destination, straight-line travel in a randomly chosen direction, and random walks). Results indicate that although leaves are the single most abundant item in the mantled howler monkey diet, long-distance travel bouts target the areas with the highest concentrations of mature fruits. Observed travel patterns yielded larger estimated quantities of fruit in shorter distances traveled than all alternative foraging strategies. Thus, this study both provides novel information regarding how primates select travel paths and suggests that a highly folivorous primate integrates knowledge of spatiotemporal resource distributions in highly efficient foraging strategies.     

Self-Esteem, Teasing and Quality of Life: African American Adolescent Girls Participating in a Family-Based Pediatric Overweight Intervention

Two studies investigated overweight in African American girls. First, African American adolescent girls (BMI was ≥ 85th percentile) and their mothers participated in focus groups addressing weight and eating. Although mothers and daughters shared some similar views on these issues, there were important discrepancies, with mothers expressing greater doubt about the potential success of a healthy weight program. The second study evaluated baseline data from 39 African American girls participating in a weight management program; mothers' reports were also analyzed. In both studies, adolescents reported significant teasing, and in the second study, teasing was inversely associated with social quality of life (β=.55, t=3.01, p=.007). Motivation to participate was positively associated with teasing (r=.50, p < .01). Self-esteem was inversely related to positive health habits (all p < .05). Mothers who viewed their daughters as having higher self-esteem were less concerned about their daughters' weight. Differences in mothers' and daughters' perceptions highlight the importance of a family approach in pediatric overweight interventions. Results provide evidence that overweight African American girls face significant weight stigmatization and suggest areas to target regarding intervention implementation.

Minimal‐group membership influences children's responses to novel experience with group members

Children, like adults, tend to prefer ingroup over outgroup individuals, but how this group bias affects children's processing of information about social groups is not well understood. In this study, 5‐ and 6‐year‐old children were assigned to artificial groups. They observed instances of ingroup and outgroup members behaving in either a positive (egalitarian) or a negative (stingy) manner. Observations of positive ingroup and negative outgroup behaviors reliably reduced children's liking of novel outgroup members, while observations of negative ingroup and positive outgroup behaviors had little effect on liking ratings. In addition, children successfully identified the more generous group only when the ingroup was egalitarian and the outgroup stingy. These data provide compelling evidence that children treat knowledge of and experiences with ingroups and outgroups differently, and thereby differently interpret identical observations of ingroup versus outgroup members.