The connection between cognitive development and specific fears and worries in normal children and children with below-average intellectual abilities: a preliminary study.

The present study explored the relationship between cognitive development and anxiety phenomena in 4-12-year-old children. Fears and worries of normal children (n=176) were compared to those of children with below-average intellectual abilities (children with BAIA; n=105). We evaluated to what extent level of cognitive development as indexed by a Piagetian conservation task was associated with the presence of fears and worries. While normal children and children with BAIA did not differ with regard to the content of their fears and worries, normal children more frequently reported such anxiety phenomena during the semi-structured Anxiety Interview than did children with BAIA. Furthermore, in normal children, evidence was found to suggest that level of cognitive development contributes to the experience of fears and worries. That is, anxiety phenomena were more prevalent among those children who passed a Piagetian conservation task. However, when anxiety phenomena were assessed by means of the Koala Fear Questionnaire (KFQ), a different picture emerged. KFQ data suggested that fears were less frequent in normal children and those children with BAIA who had a higher level of cognitive functioning. Apparently, the Anxiety Interview and the KFQ tap quite different aspects of anxiety. The KFQ seems to measure primitive fears that are likely to be prevalent among children with limited cognitive capacity, whereas the Anxiety Interview assesses more sophisticated anxiety phenomena that probably depend on high levels of cognitive functioning.     

The Proportion of Women Managers: Where Is the Critical Mass?1

This study examined the impact of proportions of women in management on attitudes of coworkers from two theoretical perspectives. According to Kanter (1977), women's competence, contribution to organizational culture, and status would be better appreciated as their proportion increased. According to Blalock (1967), men would react adversely. Data were collected from 453 managers in Canadian federal departments where the proportions varied from 9%, 20%, 35%, to 45%. Findings did not support either theory. Men made significantly more positive evaluations of women's participation in the organization and of their status in conditions above 20% than in the token condition. In the 45% sample, they recognized women's managerial talents significantly better. Women displayed confidence in their talents, irrespective of proportions. Results are discussed in the light of the influence of individual factors taken into account.     

Alcohol-Involved Rapes: Are They More Violent?

Alcohol's psychological, cognitive, and motor effects contribute to rape. Based on theory and past research, we hypothesized that there would be a curvilinear relationship between the quantity of alcohol consumed by perpetrators and how aggressively they behaved. Moderate levels of intoxication encourage aggressiveness; however, extreme levels severely inhibit cognitive and motor capacity. We also hypothesized that victims' alcohol consumption would have a curvilinear relationship to their resistance. These hypotheses were examined with data from 132 college women who had been the victims of attempted or completed rape. Although there was a curvilinear result for perpetrators, the slope of the curve suggested that aggressiveness was worst when no alcohol or the highest levels of alcohol were consumed. There was a negative linear relationship between victims' alcohol consumption and resistance. Difficulties associated with accurately assessing degree of intoxication from survey data are discussed and suggestions are made for improving alcohol measurement in rape research.     

The Effectiveness of Parenting Programs for Incarcerated Mothers: A Systematic Review

There is evidence to suggest that maternal incarceration can have negative implications for children. Children in these families can be at greater risk for conduct problems and antisocial behavior, as well as school dropout and academic failure. Institution-based parenting programs represent one means of addressing the potential negative impacts of maternal incarceration on children’s wellbeing. Through parent training programs, mothers may develop skills and strategies to help their children cope with the challenges and stressors associated with incarceration. However, it is currently unclear whether parenting programs for mothers in these facilities have a positive effect on different parenting outcomes. We conducted a systematic search of several electronic databases using key search terms and identified sixteen treatment studies. The results suggest that in the short-term, corrections-based parenting programs are associated with positive effects on parenting behavior, parenting attitudes, and parenting knowledge. However, these programs appear to have no effect on parenting stress immediately post-treatment. Implications for practice and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

‘When Difference Gets in the Way’: Young People,Whiteness and Sexualisation

Scholars of young people and sexualisation have noted an omission of studies that attend to race and whiteness. In the main, a white-Anglo middle-class child is placed at the centre of media, policy and academic debates about the effects, production and consumption of sexualised media. In light of this, it is important to ask: how can research in this area disrupt the tendency to place normative white subjects at the centre of debates, and position ‘raced others’ at the sidelines? Drawing on postcolonial and critical race and whiteness theory, this paper presents the findings from a study undertaken in South Australia with young people and young adults from a broad variety of cultural backgrounds. Through a series of focus groups designed to explore participant views of sexualised media, a powerful set of resistant narratives emerged. Firstly, participants discussed how their views on sex and sexuality are often read ‘through difference’. They revealed how ‘difference gets in the way’, frustrating conversations they want to have about sexy media, along with moments when they felt stereo-typed and type-cased. Secondly, by presenting perspectives of sexualised media on their own terms, participant narratives were not constrained or bounded by fixed cultural viewpoints. Through a series of ‘transitional moves’, participants employed notions of freedom, individual choice and rights, expressing an urgent desire to speak ‘outside of difference’.     

Resentment of Advice and Norms of Advice

Advice-giving is an important means of supporting others to act well. It inspires gratitude, indifference and resentment in equal measure. Although we can often predict a resentful reception for advice, its normative implications may be unclear. Should advice that is likely to be resented be withheld or modified because of its resentability, or delivered despite it? The norms that underwrite advice-giving, and which inform justified resentment, have thus far evaded systematic philosophical analysis. Using a case proposed by Edward Hinchman, the first part of this paper develops three lines of reasoning that explain why advice might be resented. The second part explores three norms of advice suggested by the case. Together they cast light upon the role of advice in our moral and social lives, and offer a starting point for practical reasoning about when to give resentable advice, and how to be a good advisor.     

Innovativeness and the effects of urbanization on risk-taking behaviors in wild Barbados birds

The effects of urbanization on avian cognition remain poorly understood. Risk-taking behaviors like boldness, neophobia and flight distance are thought to affect opportunism and innovativeness, and should also vary with urbanization. Here, we investigate variation in risk-taking behaviors in the field in an avian assemblage of nine species that forage together in Barbados and for which innovation rate is known from previous work. We predicted that birds from highly urbanized areas would show more risk-taking behavior than conspecifics from less urbanized parts of the island and that the differences would be strongest in the most innovative of the species. Overall, we found that urban birds are bolder, less neophobic and have shorter flight distances than their less urbanized conspecifics. Additionally, we detected between-species differences in the effect of urbanization on flight distance, more innovative species showing smaller differences in flight distance between areas. Our results suggest that, within successful urban colonizers, species differences in innovativeness may affect the way species change their risk-taking behaviors in response to the urban environment.