Being excluded by one means being excluded by all: Perceiving exclusion from inclusive others during one-person social exclusion

Although research has shown that social exclusion undermines well-being, past work has focused primarily on complete and unambiguous social exclusion in which all people in a situation exclude one individual. Might the presence of an inclusive other buffer individuals against the deleterious consequences of social exclusion? The present research investigates a novel situation, one-person exclusion, in which one person includes while another excludes. Participants played a virtual ball-tossing game in which they experienced two-person exclusion, one-person exclusion, or inclusion. Inclusive others did not buffer against the consequences of exclusion; experiencing one-person exclusion (vs. inclusion) led to perceived exclusion and lessened belongingness, similar to two-person exclusion. Moreover, instead of perceiving includers as a form of support, paradoxically, participants inaccurately believed that inclusive others had engaged in exclusion. These findings suggest that one-person exclusion is sufficient to elicit negative outcomes and that inclusive bystanders may be perceived as part of the exclusion.     

‘It's a boy because he's painting a picture’: Age differences in children's conventional and unconventional gender schemas

Two studies investigated the development of children's gender knowledge using a procedure designed to tap into children's unconventional gender beliefs. Study 1 revealed a developmental progression with 34 3‐ to 4‐year‐old children providing more unconventional reasons than conventional reasons to explain the gender of a series of drawings. By contrast, 39 5‐ to 6‐year‐old and 42 7‐ to 8‐year‐old children provided more conventional than unconventional reasons. Study 2 found that a second sample of 42 3‐ to 4‐year‐old children mastered a close‐ended assessment of gender stereotyping, while they relied on unconventional and conventional reasoning equally when explaining the gender of a series of drawings displaying conventional cues only. This research supports the model that children's conventional gender schemas do not develop before their unconventional gender schemas.     

Applying signal-detection theory to the study of observer accuracy and bias in behavioral assessment

We evaluated the feasibility and utility of a laboratory model for examining observer accuracy within the framework of signal-detection theory (SDT). Sixty-one individuals collected data on aggression while viewing videotaped segments of simulated teacher-child interactions. The purpose of Experiment 1 was to determine if brief feedback and contingencies for scoring accurately would bias responding reliably. Experiment 2 focused on one variable (specificity of the operational definition) that we hypothesized might decrease the likelihood of bias. The effects of social consequences and information about expected behavior change were examined in Experiment 3. Results indicated that feedback and contingencies reliably biased responding and that the clarity of the definition only moderately affected this outcome.     

The Experiment of Foster Care

We sought to provide a new framework for understanding the training and ongoing support of foster parents. The experiences of authorized foster parents were viewed in the context of an experiment, whereby foster parents entered an out-of-home care placement with preconceived ideas and expectations of what the provision of care would be like. We have investigated the experience of foster care from the perspective of the foster parent who tests expectations of providing care as one might conduct any experiment. Focus group discussion yielded five global domains of foster care experience: birth family, motivation, agency influences, relationship impacts, and attachment. Foster carers commonly described these domains as central to the overall experience of providing foster care. Furthermore, specific experiences within each domain were seen to either encourage or discourage the further provision of foster care. Individual interviews regarding the practical experiences related to these domains uncovered struggles of foster parents who sought to understand their role identity as a “foster parent”, and their self identity as a “mother”. We discuss implications arising from the experience of these domains of care and their related struggles.     

Age-related quantitative and qualitative changes in decision making ability

The "frontal aging hypothesis" predicts that brain senescence affects predominantly the prefrontal regions. Preliminary evidence has recently been gathered in favour of an age-related change in a typically frontal process, i.e. decision making, using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), but overall findings have been conflicting. Following the traditional scoring method, coupled with a qualitative analysis, in the present study we compared IGT performance of 40 young (mean age: 27.9+/-4.7) and 40 old (mean age: 65.4+/-8.6) healthy adults and of 18 patients affected by frontal lobe dementia of mild severity (mean age: 65.1+/-7.4, mean MMSE score: 24.1+/-3.9). Quantitative findings support the notion that decision making ability declines with age; moreover, it approximates the impairment observed in executive dysfunction due to neurodegeneration. Results of the qualitative analysis did not reach statistical significance for the motivational and learning decision making components considered, but approached significance for the attentional component for elderly versus young normals, suggesting a possible decrease in the ability to maintain sustained attention during complex and prolonged tasks as the putative deficit underlying impaired decision making in normal aging.     

Location of a missing object and detection of its absence by infants: Contribution of an eye‐tracking system to the understanding of infants' strategies

Previous research has demonstrated infants' capacity to discriminate between situations in which all the objects successively hidden behind a screen are present, or not, after the removal of the screen. Two types of interpretation have been proposed: counting capacity or object memorization capacity. In the usual paradigm, the missing object in the impossible event is usually the last object which is placed behind the screen. Following this, a third interpretation can be offered: infants' exploration is first directed to this object's location, and its presence or absence is noticed. Two experiments using Wynn's (Nature 1992; 358 :749) paradigm were performed to test the third hypothesis. The first experiment involved four objects (teddy bears) placed in four squares. Infants looked longer at the impossible event (3 objects, the last one missing) than at the possible event (4 objects) when the impossible event was presented first. No difference in looking duration was observed for the opposite order. In the second experiment, the four objects were disposed in a line and an eye‐tracking system was used. No difference in the number of looks was observed between the impossible event (3 objects, the second one missing) and the possible event (4 objects). Therefore, it appears that at least in this complex situation (4 objects used instead of 2 usually), the location of the missing object is a key factor for event discrimination. Eye‐tracking also indicated in the second experiment that infants looked less at the second location during an impossible event (object missing) than during the possible event (object present), indicating that the impossibility of the event was not a determining factor for looking durations. Altogether, the data indicate the potential usefulness of eye‐tracking analysis in this type of situation. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Postpartum return to smoking: staging a "suspended" behavior.

Two hundred fifty-six pregnant women who had quit smoking were classified into the precontemplation (PC), contemplation (C), preparation (PA), or action (A) stages of change for postpartum smoking cessation based on a 3-item algorithm assessing personal goals, self-efficacy, and smoking behavior. Logistic regression and event history analyses indicated group differences in return to smoking at 6 weeks and 3, 6, and 12 months postpartum. The percentage of women who returned to postpartum smoking was highest in the precontemplation stage and decreased with each subsequent stage, that is, at 6 weeks 83% of PCs, 64% of Cs, 35% of PAs, and 24% of As had returned to smoking. Results lend support for the stages of change for postpartum smoking abstinence. Stage-based interventions may be developed to assist women in maintaining abstinence postpartum.     

Hemispheric specialization in learning disabled readers' recall as a function of age and level of processing

This study was designed to test the inadequacy of two theoretical accounts of learning disabled readers' memory deficiencies. Two age groups of learning disabled and nondisabled readers were compared on diotic and dichotic listening recall tasks for semantically organized, phonemically organized, and categorically unrelated word lists presented in either the left, right, or both ears. Dependent measures were free recall, serial recall, recall organization, and hierarchical organization. As expected, recall increases were a function of age, group, and level of word processing. However, the results clearly demonstrated that age and group recall differences were an interaction of both mode of presentation and level of processing. The recall differences between reading groups were attributed to word knowledge (superordinate categorization) rather than recall organization within cerebral hemispheres or differences in hemispheric capacity, per se.