The impact of engineering identification and stereotypes on undergraduate women’s achievement and persistence in engineering

Women almost always comprise a minority in engineering programs and a smaller percentage of women pursue engineering than other science and technology majors. The culture of engineering departments and negative stereotypes of women’s engineering and mathematical ability have been identified as factors that inhibit women’s entry into engineering and cause them to leave the major. Even for women who stay, stereotype threat or the anxiety of confirming a negative stereotype can decrease academic performance. To more fully understand this dynamic, we examined four factors associated with stereotype threat (engineering identification, gender identification, gender stereotype endorsement, and engineering ability perceptions) to determine how they impacted women’s achievement and persistence in engineering at the end of their first year of an engineering program. Participants included 363 first-year general engineering students from a large public university. Students completed a questionnaire near the end of their first year. Results indicated that there were differences between men and women for gender stereotype endorsement and engineering ability perceptions, with men more likely to hold negative stereotypes of women’s engineering abilities and women more likely to report higher perceptions of their engineering abilities. Engineering identification was a significant predictor of persistence in engineering, and engineering ability perceptions were significant predictors of achievement; the relationships were stronger for women than men. The fact that neither gender identification nor gender stereotype endorsement were related to achievement or persistence in engineering indicated that they were less important factors for first-year women engineering students than engineering identification and engineering ability perceptions.     

Linguistic Styles of Eminent Writers Suffering From Unipolar and Bipolar Mood Disorder

Past research has shown that the styles of drawings by patients with unipolar and bipolar mood disorder differ, the latter expressing more positive and fewer negative emotions (Wadeson, 1980 Wadeson , H. ( 1980 ). Art psychotherapy . New York : Wiley . [Google Scholar]). In the first study presented here, it was expected that prose texts by eminent writers who suffered from unipolar versus bipolar mood disorder would show this same effect. One novel per writer was analyzed, using Pennebaker, Francis, and Booth's (2001 Pennebaker , J. W. , Francis , M. E. , & Booth , R. J. ( 2001 ). Linguistic inquiry and word count . Mahwah , NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc . [Google Scholar]) Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. Results disconfirmed the hypothesis, but indicated 3 other differences that were then replicated in Study 2, using a second set of novels by the same authors. Results indicated that: (a) Bipolar writers referred to death more than did unipolar writers; (b) unipolar writers referred to people other than themselves more than did control writers; (c) unipolar writers used more words describing cognitive mechanisms (e.g., understand, know) than did both other groups. The fact that the unipolar and bipolar groups did not differ from controls on measures related to emotions and feelings can be partially explained in terms of the therapeutic effect of writing (Pennebaker, 1997 Pennebaker , J. W. ( 1997 ). Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process . Psychological Science , 8 , 162 – 166 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The interest displayed by unipolar writers in cognitive mechanisms is consistent with Verhaeghen, Joorman, and Khan's (2005 Verhaeghen , P. , Joorman J. , Khan , R. ( 2005 ). Why we sing the blues: The relation between self-reflective rumination, mood and creativity . Emotion , 5 , 226 – 232 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) finding that rumination mediates the link between creativity and unipolar depression.     

Coaching preferences of adolescent youths and their parents

Abstract

This study compared preferred coaching styles of children and their parents using the Leadership Scale for Sport (LSS; Chelladurai & Saleh, 1980). The LSS preferred form was revised and then administered to children ranging from 10 to 18 years of age who competed in summer youth sport leagues and to one parent within each family unit (n = 239). A doubly multivariate repeated measure MANOVA revealed a significant multivariate difference for adolescent athletes and their parents on the five subscales of the LSS. Discriminant function and univariate analyses indicated that male and female children and their parents differed on autocratic and democratic behavior and children had a significantly higher score on democratic behavior and social support than did their parents. Parents, coaches, and researchers in youth sports could use the revised LSS to determine children-athletes’ preferences for coaching styles and for developing more effective programs.     

Ask,Answer, and Announce: Three stages in perceiving and responding to discrimination

Discrimination towards members of low-status groups takes a variety of forms, and results in a variety of negative consequences for its victims. Furthermore, discrimination may influence its targets either directly (for instance, when housing discrimination makes insurance, mortgage rates, or rents higher for African Americans than for whites) or indirectly, that is via perceptions on the part of the stigmatised. In the latter case the outcomes are caused or amplified by perceptions on the part of the victim that he or she is the target of discrimination. This chapter focuses on current research concerning factors that influence the perception of discrimination and its indirect influence on individuals. We review work from our own lab as well as from the field more broadly, focusing on research that attempts to explain contextual and individual variability in how events that are potentially due to discrimination are initially perceived, subsequently interpreted, and then publicly reported or withheld.     

Nonrelativist Ethical Standards for Goal Setting in Psychotherapy

A number of authors have commented on the topic of mandated reporting in cases of suspected child maltreatment and the application of this requirement to researchers. Most of these commentaries focus on the interpretation of current legal standards and offer opinions for or against the imposition of mandated reporting laws on research activities. Authors on both sides of the issue offer ethical arguments, although a direct comparison and analysis of these opposing arguments is rare. This article critically examines the ethical arguments made by authors on both sides of the debate. The conclusion is reached that researchers should be mandated reporters of child maltreatment because the current arguments do not justify their exclusion from current ethical and legal standards. The author makes recommendations for the ethically responsible conduct of research in regard to this topic and legal implications are discussed.     

Conscious thoughts from reflex-like processes: A new experimental paradigm for consciousness research

The contents of our conscious mind can seem unpredictable, whimsical, and free from external control. When instructed to attend to a stimulus in a work setting, for example, one might find oneself thinking about household chores. Conscious content thus appears different in nature from reflex action. Under the appropriate conditions, reflexes occur predictably, reliably, and via external control. Despite these intuitions, theorists have proposed that, under certain conditions, conscious content resembles reflexes and arises reliably via external control. We introduce the Reflexive Imagery Task, a paradigm in which, as a function of external control, conscious content is triggered reliably and unintentionally: When instructed to not subvocalize the name of a stimulus object, participants reliably failed to suppress the set-related imagery. This stimulus-elicited content is considered ‘high-level’ content and, in terms of stages of processing, occurs late in the processing stream. We discuss the implications of this paradigm for consciousness research.     

Action-control beliefs and behaviors as predictors of change in adjustment across the transition to middle school

Abstract

We examined longitudinal changes in young adolescents’ (N=368) action-control beliefs, coping behaviors, and adjustment (i.e., positive and negative affect, depression, aggression) across the transition from elementary school to middle school. Results indicated greater inter-individual instability in adjustment during this transition than during the previous school year. Using ordinary least-squares (OLS) growth models to extract intra-individual change scores for each variable (i.e., slopes and intercepts), we conducted a series of stepwise regressions to determine which features of control beliefs and coping behaviors best predicted changes in adjustment across the transition to middle school. We found that negative coping behaviors (i.e., antisocial coping) consistently predicted negative changes in the adjustment variables (e.g., greater depression, more aggression), whereas positive beliefs and behaviors did not consistently predict changes in the adjustment variables.     

Fostering Self-Determination and Resilience Through Sports Counselling: Psychosocial Development of Youth in Botswana

Sports can promote pro-social behaviors and confidence in physical abilities among participants. We conducted an extensive review of the literature on the ways in which youth in Southern African countries, severely affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic and other hardships may benefit from acquiring the pro-social skills often associated with athletics. This article reviews the current situation of sports in Botswana and offers recommendations for a culturally appropriate developmental sports counselling program in that country. The authors present arguments that support the development of psychosocial skills, self-determination, and resilience among Batswana Youth through sports counselling interventions.     

Experiences of Managers of Aggression in the Workplace

The study explored and described the experiences of workplace aggression by managers in a northern South African district. Participants were seven managers from two medium sized companies. One of the companies was from the dairy industry and the other from the auditors' industry. These participants held managerial positions over other workers for at least one year, were from the same district and could converse fluently in Afrikaans and English. Data were gathered using in-depth phenomenological interviews and analysed by means of open coding. Findings suggest that work place aggression could be confused with ambition, the quality of discipline and conflict, and power play. Managers also observed that while an aggressive management style was effective to get the job done, it could also hamper constructive communication and the quality of work life.