Pregnancy in the workplace: Does pregnancy affect performance appraisal ratings?

Archival data were collected to examine bias effects in performance evaluation related to employee pregnancy. Prior survey research has suggested that many supervisors and co-workers hold negative views of pregnant employees. Performance appraisal ratings were collected before, during, and after pregnancy for employees taking maternity leave over a four year time frame. In addition, data was also collected from randomly selected control subjects, which were matched on job title and observation period. Contrary to expectations, performance appraisal ratings were found to increase during pregnancy when compared to before ratings and control group ratings. Potential explanations as well as suggestions for further research are discussed.     

Weighing science and politics in local decision making about hazards

As a step towards understanding how local environemntal hazards policy is made, this article explores how Canadian local elected officials gained and assimilated scientific and technical information about the environmental hazards facing their communities. Consistent with previous work in the hazards field, three of Weiss’s (1979) meanings of research utilization were found to be directly applicable. The elected officials expressed the view that reconciling conflicting expert opinion and competing concerns was more difficult and more rightly their responsibility than gathering information. This research demonstrates the utility of focus groups for interviewing elite populations making community scale decisions. Her current research interest in knowledge utilization is the adoption of innovative approaches to environmental policy implementation among regional authorities.     

Individual differences and the use of nonspecifying variables in learning to perceive distance and size: comments on McConnell, Muchisky, and Bingham (1998).

McConnell, Muchisky, and Bingham (1998) showed that observers are able to judge the distance and size of falling, rolling, and swinging balls and that performance improves after practice with feedback. They concluded that observers use information that specifies the spatial scales of the different event types--namely, event duration in combination with event-specific constants. The improvement was interpreted as the calibration of the event-specific constants. We argue that their analyses should have considered the use of optical variables that do not specify the to-be-perceived metrics and individual differences in variable use. Furthermore, we propose convergence on the more useful variables as an alternative explanation for the observed improvement. The viability of these arguments is demonstrated with an experiment in which participants are trained with feedback to judge the distance and size of freely falling balls.     

Individual differences and the use of nonspecifying variables in learning to perceive distance and size: Comments on McConnell, Muchisky, and Bingham (1998)

McConnell, Muchisky, and Bingham (1998) showed that observers are able to judge the distance and size of falling, rolling, and swinging balls and that performance improves after practice with feedback. They concluded that observers use information that specifies the spatial scales of the different event types—namely, event duration in combination with event-specific constants. The improvement was interpreted as the calibration of the event-specific constants. We argue that their analyses should have considered the use of optical variables that do not specify the to-be-perceived metrics and individual differences in variable use. Furthermore, we propose convergence on the more useful variables as an alternative explanation for the observed improvement. The viability of these arguments is demonstrated with an experiment in which participants are trained with feedback to judge the distance and size of freely falling balls.     

Using vision and dynamic touch to perceive the affordances of tools

The information that people use to perceive whether a tool is suitable for a certain task depends on what is available at a given time. Visually scanning a tool and wielding it each provide information about the functional attributes of the tool. In experiment 1, we investigated the relative contributions of vision and dynamic touch to perceiving the suitability of various tools for various tasks. The results show that, when both vision and dynamic touch are available, the visual information dominates. When limited to dynamic touch, ratings of suitability are constrained by the inertial properties of the tool, and the inertial properties that are exploited depend on the task. In experiment 2, we asked whether the manner in which a tool is manipulated in exploration depends on the task for which it is being evaluated. The results suggest that tools are manipulated in ways that reflect intentions to perceive particular affordances. Exploratory movements sometimes mimic performatory movements.     

A Note on the Natural Basis of Action Categories

What is the basis for the categorical distinctions evident in action? For some visually-guided activities it can be shown that categories of action are specified by criterial values of optical properties. In the more general case, the criterial optical properties should be scaled relative to dimensions of the acting animal. The analysis of the prey-catching behavior of praying mantids is used to exemplify the strategy for determining naturally defined boundaries on actions.     

Deliberative Discourse Idealized and Realized: Accountable Talk in the Classroom and in Civic Life

Classroom discussion practices that can lead to reasoned participation by all students are presented and described by the authors. Their research emphasizes the careful orchestration of talk and tasks in academic learning. Parallels are drawn to the philosophical work on deliberative discourse and the fundamental goal of equipping all students to participate in academically productive talk. These practices, termed Accountable Talk^SM, emphasize the forms and norms of discourse that support and promote equity and access to rigorous academic learning. They have been shown to result in academic achievement for diverse populations of students. The authors outline Accountable Talk as encompassing three broad dimensions: one, accountability to the learning community, in which participants listen to and build their contributions in response to those of others; two, accountability to accepted standards of reasoning, talk that emphasizes logical connections and the drawing of reasonable conclusions; and, three, accountability to knowledge, talk that is based explicitly on facts, written texts, or other public information. With more than fifteen years research into Accountable Talk applications across a wide range of classrooms and grade levels, the authors detail the challenges and limitations of contexts in which discourse norms are not shared by all members of the classroom community.

Longitudinal Changes in Acculturation for Immigrant Women from the Former Soviet Union

Most research on immigrant acculturation has been conducted with cross-sectional samples, using statistical designs that may not capture different trajectories for the components that contribute to this complex concept. The purpose of this study was to examine change over time in acculturation for 226 women from the former Soviet Union who had lived in the US fewer than eight years when recruited. Using self-report data from four annual waves, growth trajectories were examined in four components of acculturation (American behavior, Russian behavior, English language proficiency, and cultural generativity). Results indicate that these components changed at varying rates. Acculturation is a process with multiple distinct components which should be measured separately to obtain a full profile of change over time.     

Parental interpersonal perceptual style,child adjustment,and parent—Child interactions

This research examined relationships between parental interpersonal perceptual style (IPS)—the extent to which they are biased in their perceptions of children's behaviors—and (a) the adjustment of their own children and (b) parent-child interactions. In two studies, groups of parents first viewed a videotape of a male or female target child interacting with an adult in a playroom and then completed a behavior checklist about the target child that measured their IPS. In Study 1, parents' (especially fathers') IPS was found to be related to interaction between them and their 5-to7-year-old child; for example, the less negatively biased the father was, the more likely the child was to openly display antagonistic behavior toward his or her parents. In Study 2, fathers' (but not mothers') IPS was found to be related to the teacher- and peer-assessed level of psychosocial adjustment of their own third-grade child; fathers of problem children tended to be more negatively biased in their perceptions than were fathers of either adequate or highly adjusted children. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the role that person perception processes play in family functioning and child development.This article is an adaptation of a paper presented as part of a symposium held during the 1977 meeting of the American Psychological Association. This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant No. 24250, Adult Perceptions and Child Behavior Dysfunctions.We wish to thank Linda Oiacomo and Phyllis Watts for their help. We also wish to thank the numerous students who provided invaluable assistance by collecting, coding, and scoring the data. The cooperation of the administration and staff of the Lansing, Michigan, School District, especially Eva Evans and Richard Benjamin, and the administration and staff of the East Lansing, Michigan, School District, especially Robert Docking and Warren Starr, is also very gratefully acknowledged.