Gender Differences in Responding to Conflict in the Workplace: Evidence from a Large Sample of Working Adults

This investigation tested for gender effects in conflict behaviors by examining the ratings made by the bosses, peers, and subordinates of over 2,000 working adults participating in leadership development programs conducted in the U.S.; the effects of two confounding factors—age and organizational status—were controlled in all analyses. Consistent with predictions derived from a gender role analysis, women were rated as significantly more likely to engage in almost every constructive behavior. Also as predicted, men were rated as more likely to engage in active destructive behaviors. Rater gender had no effect for peers and subordinates, but female bosses made more positive ratings of targets than male bosses. In general, bosses rated targets somewhat higher on passive responses.     

Hand dominance influences the processing of observed bodies

In motor tasks, subgroups of lefthanders have been shown to differ in the distribution of attention about their own bodies. The present experiment examined whether similar attentional biases also apply when processing observed bodies. Sixteen right handers (RHs), 22 consistent left handers (CLHs) and 11 relatively ambidextrous inconsistent left handers (ILHs) performed an own body transformation task in which they were instructed to make speeded left–right judgements about a schematic human figure. Attentional biases associated with handedness were found to extend to observed bodies: CLHs’ judgements were faster to the figure’s left side, while ILHs, like RHs, showed facilitated performance to the figure’s right side. These results demonstrate a novel embodiment effect whereby the processing of a static schematic human figure is modulated by an individual’s personal motor capabilities. This finding suggests that motor simulation may contribute to whole body perception in the absence of actual or implied actions.     

Functional characterisation of the extrastriate body area based on the N1 ERP component

Electrophysiological and functional neuroimaging evidence points to the existence of neural populations that respond strongly and selectively to the appearance of the human body and its parts. However, the relationship between ERP and fMRI markers of these populations remains unclear. Here we used a previously identified functional dissociation between two body-selective regions identified with fMRI (extrastriate body area or EBA; fusiform body area or FBA) in order to better understand the source of a body-selective N1 ERP component. Specifically, we compared the magnitude of the N1 elicited by images of fingers, hands, arms and bodies to that obtained for hierarchically-matched control stimuli. We found close agreement between the pattern of body-part selectivity exhibited by N1, and the pattern of BOLD selectivity elicited in a previous study by the same type of stimuli in EBA (in contrast to FBA). We interpret these findings as evidence for EBA as the primary generator of the body-selective N1 component. Our results are an example of the use of functional criteria to distinguish among the possible neural sources of ERP markers.     

Relationship of Ethnic Identity,Acculturation, and Psychological Well‐Being Among Chinese,Japanese, and Korean Americans

The current investigation examined the relationship of ethnic identity, acculturation, and psychological functioning among 334 Chinese, Japanese, and Korean American participants. Multiple regression analyses revealed that ethnic identity and acculturation differentially predicted well‐being on the basis of ethnic group membership. Results also indicated that a bicultural worldview was positively associated with psychological well‐being. Implications for counseling and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

The influence of heightened body‐awareness on walking through apertures

The reported study measured the ratio between aperture‐width and hip‐width that marked the critical transition from frontal walking to body rotation for male and female participants. Half of the participants of each sex wore form‐fitting lycra clothes and half loose‐fitting jogging suits. Participants wearing the form‐fitting clothing reported heightened body awareness relative to those wearing the loose‐fitting clothing. For male participants this difference was reflected in a smaller aperture‐to‐hip ratio in the form‐fitting than loose‐fitting clothing condition. That is, males walked frontally through smaller apertures when wearing form‐fitting than when wearing loose‐fitting clothing. For females there was no difference in walking action as a function of clothing style. Results are discussed in terms of the perception of action opportunities in the environment, the influence of body awareness on such perception and sex differences. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measuring “intuition” in the SRT generation task

We address some concerns related to the use of post-trial attribution judgments, originally developed for artificial grammar learning (AGL), during the version of the serial reaction time (SRT) task used by Fu, Dienes, and Fu (2010). In particular, intuition attributions, which are central to Fu et al.’s arguments, seem problematic: This attribution is likely to be made when stimuli contain several competing sources of information to which subjective feelings could be attributed. The interpretation of intuition attributions in Fu et al.’s SRT generation task is problematic because the procedure involved a 2-element sequence where items varied only in position. In our view, responses categorised as intuitions might have been a variety of guess response where neither judgement knowledge nor structural knowledge were conscious. The results would then be compatible with previous findings showing that people can control the use of unconscious structural knowledge even when judgement knowledge is unconscious.     

The community substance use environment: The development and predictive ability of a multi‐method and multiple‐reporter measure

This study tested the feasibility and utility of developing a multiple‐method and multiple‐reporter measure that describes the community substance use environment. Data on community‐level norms and availability of substances were reported by 5261 students and 181 prevention‐focused community leaders (CL) involved in the 28 promoting school–university–community partnerships to enhance resilience (PROSPER) Project communities between 2002 and 2005. Additionally, locations of alcohol and tobacco outlets were geocoded. Initially, these four subscales were aggregated to measure the community substance use environment. Analyses demonstrated this measure was associated with community rates of adolescent reported cigarette use, but it was not associated with community rates of adolescent reported alcohol use. Further analyses tested the relative strength of the four different subscales in predicting rates of student use. Implications of these results for the field of community‐based prevention are discussed, as well as limitations and future directions. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Group Art Therapy With Incarcerated Women

Art therapy in groups with incarcerated individuals may be effective when participants are defensive and possess limited education. The authors provide procedures, techniques, and case examples from the New Beginnings program for working with women in a detention facility.     

Perceived Parenting,Self-Esteem,and General Self-Efficacy of Iranian American Adolescents

We examined whether Iranian American adolescents’ perceptions of parental support, parental knowledge, and parental psychological control relate to general self-efficacy directly, and indirectly through positive esteem and self-deprecation. To investigate this, self-report surveys were collected from 158 Iranian American adolescents attending Iranian American youth groups, Armenian private school, and one public school. Results indicated that positive esteem, self-deprecation, mother and father knowledge, and mother and father psychological control were directly related to general self-efficacy. Furthermore, the parenting variables were indirectly related to general self-efficacy through either positive esteem or self-deprecation.     

Effects of anesthetic agents on socially transmitted olfactory memories in mice

Mice can learn a food preference from odor cues transmitted on the breath of a conspecific, even if the “demonstrator” is anesthetized. To our knowledge there are no studies examining the effect of anesthetizing the “observer” on development of memory for socially transmitted food preferences (STFP). In Experiment 1 we found that 2–4 month-old F2 C57Bl/6x129sv male and female mice demonstrated a STFP after a 5 min exposure to an anesthetized demonstrator mouse when tested 24 h later. In Experiment 2, observer mice anesthetized with Sagatal (60 mg/kg) prior to the “social interaction” preferentially avoided the cued food when tested 24 h later. This aversion was not due to any overt aversive effects of this dose of Sagatal because mice that ate the food and were then anesthetized, or could only smell the food for 5 min while anesthetized, showed no preference or aversion. In a third experiment we found that the Sagatal-induced aversion was not a general property of anesthesia because there were varied results produced by observer mice treated with anesthetic drugs with different mechanisms of action. Vetalar (200 mg/kg) and Rompun (10 mg/kg) treated animals ate similar amounts of cued and non-cued food at test, indicating an absence of learning. Hypnorm (0.5 ml/kg) treated animals showed a preference for the cued food whereas those treated with Hypnovel (2.5 ml/kg) showed an aversion to the cued food. These results show that the food aversion observed with Sagatal is not a general property of anesthetic agents, but appears to be restricted to those acting primarily on the GABAergic system. Thus, we have shown that under certain conditions it is possible for an anesthetized observer mouse to learn a preference or aversion of a socially-linked olfactory cue.