The Effects of Procedures, Social Accounts, and Benefits Level on Victims' Layoff Reactions

Three hundred and fifty-three layoff victims responded to questions describing their reactions to layoffs. Victims also described management layoff practices. Two measures of procedural fairness in layoff practices (decision-making characteristics and social accounts) and one measure of layoff outcomes (benefits level) were included. Only decision-making characteristics predicted exemployee willingness to recruit for a former employer and desire for regulation of layoffs. These results provide further evidence of the importance of procedural justice in organizational decision-making.     

EFFECTS OF CONTEXTUAL COMPETENCE ON SOCIAL INITIATIONS

The frequency of social initiations and satisfaction with interactions in three dyads, each consisting of 1 student with disabilities and 1 nondisabled peer, were assessed under two alternating conditions: Condition 1 assessed the interactions around a set of four trained computer games, and Condition 2 assessed interactions when students were playing a set of four untrained computer games. Training was conducted with a multiple baseline design across participants and was followed by social interaction probes using an alternating treatments design. The results indicated greater frequencies of social initiations by 5 of 6 participants, higher degrees of game satisfaction by all participants, and equal or higher degrees of peer satisfaction by 5 of 6 participants when playing trained games in comparison to untrained games.     

Somatic complaints in anxious children

Although stomachaches and headaches are considered characteristic of children with anxiety disorders, there is converging evidence that a broader range of somatic symptoms may be associated with children's expressions of anxiety. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of somatic complaints in anxious children. The results indicated that children with anxiety disorders endorsed the presence of many different somatic complaints, and that contrary to clinical intuition, stomaches and headaches were not among the most commonly reported symptoms. In addition, the anxious children endorsed significantly more somatic complaints when compared to normal controls. Furthermore, the symptom pattern reported by anxious children indicated the presence of both the somatic and cognitive components usually associated with panic attacks, although none of the children met diagnostic criteria for panic disorder. The results are discussed in terms of the contribution of somatic symptoms to the understanding of anxiety disorders in children.     

Depression and processing information about others

We investigated differences between mildly depressed subjects and normal controls in their memory for, and judgments of, another person. All subjects read a story (containing either predominately positive or predominately negative items) under instructions to form an impression of the story target. Subjects later made several judgments about the target and attempted to recall the story. For both the positive and the negative story, depressed subjects produced significantly more negative intrusions (i.e., recalled nonpresented negative items) than did the normal subjects, but they did not recall more negative items correctly than did the normal subjects. Depressed subjects also perceived themselves as more similar to the negative story target than did the normal controls and indicated greater liking for the negative story target than did the normal controls.     

Attractiveness in young children: Sex-differentiated reactions of adults

Attractiveness ratings of 50 children aged 12–38 months were investigated in relation to adult socializing agents' behavior toward the children in their homes and play groups and their attitudes toward the children. Attractiveness scores were derived from 43 judges' ratings of facial photographs of the children. The same children were observed in play groups with female care givers; 40 of them were also observed in their homes with their parents. Play-group care givers rated the children for likability, tractability, and peer relations. Parents rated their attitudes toward giving routine care to their child. Attractiveness scores were not correlated with any adult attitude measures. Girls' attractiveness scores were positively correlated with their attempts to communicate in home and play group, and with mothers', fathers', and care givers' instructional responses, but negatively correlated with passive behavior in the home and with mothers' positive reactions. Boys' attractiveness scores were negatively correlated with passive behavior in the play group; no other significant correlations were found in the data for boys.     

Is there coherence among the cognitive components of gender acquisition?

This study examined the relationships among five measures that assess various cognitive components of the child's acquisition of gender. At around 2 years of age, children were given a task assessing their ability to accurately label as a boy or a girl some head-and-shoulders pictures of boys and girls. At 4 years of age, these children were given tasks measuring (1) the degree to which they found gender a salient parameter of categorization, (2) the amount of gender-related knowledge they could display (SERLI-SRD), (3) the degree to which their preferences were gender-typed (SERLI-SRP) and (4) the accuracy of their memory for gender-typed information. There was no consistent pattern of relationship among the children's scores on these five tools for measuring gender acquisition. Our findings suggest that gender is a multidimensional construct in children's development, and thus these results challenge the undimensional manner in which gender is repeatedly addressed in developmental theory and research.This research was funded in part by a federal biomedical research grant (No. 2507RR07080) awarded to the first author from the Department of Psychology at the University of Oregon, and by Grant No. RO1HD175751 from the National Institute of Child Development awarded to the third author.We wish to thank Margo Lane, Rachel Robertson, Jacqui Oucalt, Laura Baker, Dale Roberts, and the teachers, parents, and assistants of the Child Research Laboratory at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, for their invaluable contribution to this research.     

Child sexual abuse allegations during custody litigation: Conflicts between mental health expert witnesses and the law

This article describes (1) an intrafamilial child sexual abuse case and (2) the multidisciplinary research project which developed from its outcome. The research project., in existence since 1987, is a task force of the Committee an Children, Youth, and Families of the New Jersey Psychological Association and is co-sponsored by the Committee on Child Psychiatry of the New Jersey Psychiatric Association. The research aims at developing an objective behavioral assessment instrument to validate child sexual abuse allegations, and at achieving a clinical-legal consensus regarding the credibility of the instrument. Ranking, reliability, and validity studies are described.     

Integration of information from multiple element displays

This experiment examined the processing of information from multiple element visual displays, using techniques derived from the theory of signal detectability. The method allows one to specify how observers integrate information from individual elements of a display. The experiment tested numerical and graphical displays having different display sizes, durations, and arrangements of elements. Observer performance increased with the number, m, of display elements, but at less than the ideal √m rate. Observer performance was consistent with a model of information integration constrained by internal noise. Linear arrays of elements resulted in better performance than did square arrays. Graphically coded elements resulted in better performance than did numerical elements. Observer decision weighting of element information from graphical displays was approximately uniform across spatial position, but the weighting of information from numerical displays was concentrated on elements near the fixation point.