Increasing differentiation of women and men: gender trait analysis 1974-1997

Analysis of the responses of some 4,000 college students showed increasing differentiation in the ratings of gender characteristics of typical women and men, especially with regard to feminine traits. Roughly similar patterns were observed in five other studies using the same gender traits. All studies showed continued or increased sex typing on affectionate and sympathetic. In the present study women became more feminine, and males became less, on all but one of the feminine traits. This increasing differentiation of women and men is not consistent with predictions from the sociocultural model; they are more consistent with those of the evolutionary model.     

Vicarious responses to pain in anterior cingulate cortex: Is empathy a multisensory issue?

Results obtained with functional magnetic resonance imaging show that both feeling a moderately painful pinprick stimulus to the fingertips and witnessing another person’s hand undergo similar stimulation are associated with common activity in a pain-related area in the right dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Common activity in response to noxious tactile and visual stimulation was restricted to the right inferior Brodmann’s area 24b. These results suggest a shared neural substrate for felt and seen pain for aversive ecological events happening to strangers and in the absence of overt symbolic cues. In contrast to ACC 24b, the primary somatosensory cortex showed significant activations in response to both noxious and innocuous tactile, but not visual, stimuli. The different response patterns in the two areas are consistent with the ACC’s role in coding the motivational-affective dimension of pain, which is associated with the preparation of behavioral responses to aversive events.     

Reexamining Bases of Power From an Attributional Perspective1

Four replications of Rodrigues' (1995) study on genotypical similarities of Raven's (1965) power taxonomy are reported. Rodrigues found that compliance induced by reward, informational, and referent power is perceived as more internal and controllable than compliant behavior induced by expert, legitimate, and coercive power. The replications included 4 new aspects: (a) subjects are highly ego-involved in the hypothetical situation presented; (b) subjects are actors rather than observers; (c) subjects are from another culture; and (d) subjects are asked to play the role of a supervisor and apply sanctions to the person who complied as a result of the influence attempt, thus affording an empirical testing of Weiner's (1995) thought-affect-action sequence when responsibility judgments are made. The results of all 5 studies, with a total of 570 subjects, support Rodrigues' (1995) findings and confirm Weiner's (1995) hypothesis     

Storage of verbal associations is sufficient to activate the left medial temporal lobe

Neuroimaging studies have shown that memory encoding activates the medial temporal lobe (MTL). Many believe that these activations are related to novelty but it remains unproven which is critical - novelty detection or the rich associative encoding it triggers. We examined MTL activation during verbal associative encoding using functional magnetic resonance imaging. First, associative encoding activated left posterior MTL more than single word encoding even though novelty detection was matched, indicating not only that associative encoding activates the MTL particularly strongly, but also that activation does not require novelty detection. Moreover, it remains to be convincingly shown that novelty detection alone does produce such activation. Second, repetitive associative encoding produced less MTL activation than initial associative encoding, indicating that priming of associative information reduces MTL activation. Third, re-encoding familiar associations in a well-established way had a minimal effect on both memory and MTL activation, indicating that MTL activation reflects storage of associations, not merely their initial representation.     

Spectral-motion aftereffects and the tritone paradox among Canadian subjects

The effect of spectral motion on the tritone paradox was investigated by pretesting subjects residing in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the tritone task, presenting them with a continuous ascending or descending chromatic scale created using Shepard tones, and then retesting them on the tritone task. Results indicated a negative-motion aftereffect that affected the orientation of the pitch class circle. Differential effects of perceived pitch height on the lower portion of the pitch class circle and of adaptation on the upper portion of the pitch class circle were found in the pre- and postadaptation data, respectively. The implications of this dissociation are discussed. In addition, since our subjects lived relatively close to the U.S. border, the experimental pretests allowed us to examine the hypothesis that a canonical American pitch template similar to that found among “Californian” subjects (Deutsch, 1991) is propagated by linguistic influences of media such as television and radio (Ragozzine & Deutsch, 1994). A survey of our subjects indicated that overall, the majority of time engaged in listening to the radio and watching television or movies was spent with American sources. Despite this, and despite the fact that subjects had widely varying language and cultural backgrounds, a tight distribution of peak-pitch classes was found that is indicative of a “British” pitch template (Deutsch, 1991) for every subject tested.     

Introduction to the self-management series: II

Journal of Behavioral Education -     

A note on the dynamics of work adjustment

The process of work adjustment, as derived from the Theory of Work Adjustment, is presented in a systems-type model. The model integrates the original propositions of the theory with the more recent work on personality-style dimensions. The mechanisms of adjustment to work are discussed to emphasize the dynamic nature of the complete work-adjustment process. The constructs of Work Behavior and Organizational Behavior are introduced as intervening variables in the adjustment process. It is also shown that the forecasting of work adjustment requires the addition of the constructs of Abilities and Ability Requirements.     

Perception of work reinforcer systems: Factor structure

The factor structure of 109 Occupational Reinforcer Patterns approximating the distribution of the employed labor force of the United States was investigated. These work-reinforcer systems, as perceived by almost 6000 raters, were found to be represented best by a three-factor solution. The factors were identified as a Self Reinforcement factor, an Environmental/Organizational reinforcement factor, and a Reinforcement via-Altruism factor. The factors were found to correspond to, respectively, the Achievement-Autonomy, Safety-Comfort, and Al-truism need factors of the Minnesota Importance Questionnaire. For these two measures utilized in the assessment of individual-environment correspondence, commensurate measurement—as required by person-environment fit theories—is possible.