Predicting job seeking for temporary employment using the theory of planned behaviour: The moderating role of individualism and collectivism

Using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), the role of behavioural, normative, and control beliefs and individualism/collectivism was examined in the context of job seeking for temporary employment. Data were collected in a two‐wave longitudinal design, using a culturally diverse sample of 138 temporary workers in The Netherlands. Results supported the TPB‐relationships, with the exception of the role of perceived behavioural control (PBC). Of the behavioural beliefs, sense of security, work–life balance, and status were most strongly related to intentions to seek temporary employment. Further, hypothesized moderating effects of collectivism were confirmed such that people low on collectivism were more strongly motivated by their personal attitudes about job seeking and less by perceptions of social pressure than people high on collectivism. Thus, the TPB was demonstrated to work somewhat differently depending on people's cultural value orientations.     

Introducing uninteresting tasks to children: a comparison of the effects of rewards and autonomy support

Two experiments compared rewards and autonomy support as methods to promote children's self-regulation for an uninteresting vigilance task. Dependent measures were ratings of positive affect, perception of the task's value, and free-choice engagement. ANOVA results revealed some positive effects associated with autonomy support, whereas no effect for rewards was found in either study. The outcomes of most interest were correlations between free-choice behavior and self-reported measures of affect and value, reflecting the level of integration in self-regulation. As predicted by self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 1991, 2000), rewards were associated with behaviors incongruent from affect and value, whereas autonomy support led to integrated self-regulation. This finding was first detected in Study 1 and later replicated in Study 2. Together, these results point to autonomy support as a beneficial alternative to the common use of rewards.     

A longitudinal study of the relationship of maternal autonomy support to children's adjustment and achievement in school

A longitudinal study examined the relations of maternal autonomy support to children's school adjustment. Autonomy support and other parenting dimensions were measured when children were 5 years old. School measures were teacher-rated academic and social adjustment and achievement in reading and math in grade 3. Regression analyses controlling for age 5 family and child factors (e.g., socioeconomic status [SES], kindergarten adjustment, IQ) revealed that autonomy support was positively related to grade 3 adjustment (social and academic) and reading achievement. Maternal emphasis on school performance was positively related to achievement measures but negatively related to social adjustment. Maternal use of rewards and praise was unrelated to grade 3 school measures. Finally, supplemental analyses revealed that autonomy support was associated with greater consistency in children's adjustment across social and academic domains as well as higher overall adjustment. These results highlight the developmental significance of parental autonomy support in early childhood.     

Masculinity, Femininity, and Marital Satisfaction: An Examination of Theoretical Models

ABSTRACT This study sought to investigate the relationship between masculinity, femininity, and marital satisfaction. A number of polynomial multiple regression analyses were performed in an effort to determine the validity of six theoretical models linking sex roles to marital satisfaction. These are the femininity model, masculinity model, sex-typed model, additive androgynous model, interactive androgynous model, and curvilinear model. The sample was composed of 117 couples who completed the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (Bem, 1974) and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976). For men, the results showed that marital satisfaction was related to (a) their self-described levels of femininity and masculinity, (b) the level of self-described femininity of their wives, and (c) the presence of feminine qualities as well as a limited optimal level of masculine qualities which they perceived in their wives. For women, marital satisfaction was associated with (a) the number of self-described feminine qualities and (b) the level of masculinity, as well as an optimal level of femininity, which they perceived in their husbands. Further-more, small actual-ideal discrepancies in levels of masculinity and femininity ascribed to partners constituted reliable predictors of marital satisfaction for both men and women.     

Children's strategies in computational estimation

We investigated strategies used to estimate answers to addition problems. Two hundred and sixteen participants (72 adults, 72 sixth graders, and 72 fourth graders) had to provide estimates of three-by-three digit addition problems (e.g., 249 + 743). The choice/no-choice method was used to obtain unbiased estimates of the performance characteristics of strategies. Results showed that (a) at all ages, the most common strategy was to round both operands down to the closest smaller decades, (b) strategy use and execution were influenced by participants' age, problem features, and relative strategy performance, and (c) age-related changes in computational estimation include changes in relative strategy use and execution, as well as in the relative influences of problem and strategy characteristics on strategy choices. Implications of these findings for understanding age-related differences in strategic aspects of computational estimation performance are discussed.     

Multi-family groups in the treatment of young adults with eating disorders

Multi-family group therapy is a variant of family therapy in which members are able to gain insight and learn from each other, provide support and encouragement, alleviate their sense of isolation and improve communication and social functioning. This study describes a series of multi-family groups conducted within the eating disorder service of a large London NHS Hospital. Ratings made by participants indicated that families viewed the treatment favourably.     

The benefits of autonomy support for adolescents with severe emotional and behavioral problems

The benefits of autonomy support in the domain of education have been well established within the general population, but have yet to be demonstrated within clinical populations. The present study investigated the benefits of an autonomy-supportive interpersonal style on teenage girls’ internalization of a tedious clinical workshop and their subjective experience during this task. Participants were female teenagers placed in a social rehabilitation center for their severe emotional and behavioral problems (n = 29). An experimental design allowed comparing the impact of learning a tedious, but important workshop with or without autonomy support on internalization and experiential outcomes. Results demonstrate that autonomy support leads to higher perceived task’s value, task liking as well as less negative affect compared to a condition without autonomy-support. Participants in the autonomy-supportive condition also perceived the instructor as more competent. By uncovering benefits of autonomy support to a clinical population of adolescents, the present study supports self-determination theory’s tenet that the benefits of autonomy support are universal.     

Songs as an aid for language acquisition

In previous research, Saffran and colleagues [Saffran, J. R., Aslin, R. N., & Newport, E. L. (1996). Statistical learning by 8-month-old infants. Science, 274, 1926-1928; Saffran, J. R., Newport, E. L., & Aslin, R. N. (1996). Word segmentation: The role of distributional cues. Journal of Memory and Language, 35, 606-621.] have shown that adults and infants can use the statistical properties of syllable sequences to extract words from continuous speech. They also showed that a similar learning mechanism operates with musical stimuli [Saffran, J. R., Johnson, R. E. K., Aslin, N., & Newport, E. L. (1999). Abstract Statistical learning of tone sequences by human infants and adults. Cognition, 70, 27-52.]. In this work we combined linguistic and musical information and we compared language learning based on speech sequences to language learning based on sung sequences. We hypothesized that, compared to speech sequences, a consistent mapping of linguistic and musical information would enhance learning. Results confirmed the hypothesis showing a strong learning facilitation of song compared to speech. Most importantly, the present results show that learning a new language, especially in the first learning phase wherein one needs to segment new words, may largely benefit of the motivational and structuring properties of music in song.