Give Me a Hand: Adult Involvement During Object Exploration Affects Object Individuation in Infancy

The development of object individuation, a fundamental ability that supports identification and discrimination of objects across discrete encounters, has been examined extensively by researchers. There are significant advancements in infants' ability to individuate objects during the first year‐and‐a‐half. Experimental work has established a timeline of object individuation abilities and revealed some mechanisms underlying this ability. However, the influence of adult assistance during object exploration has not yet been explored. The current study investigates the effect of adult involvement during object exploration on infants' object individuation abilities. In Experiment 1a and 1b, we examined 9.5‐month‐old infants' colour‐based object individuation following adult‐assisted multisensory object exploration. Two components of adult interaction were of particular interest: facilitation of object manipulation (grasping, rotating, and attention‐getting behaviours) and social engagement (smiling, pointing, attention‐getting verbalizations, and object‐directed gaze). Experiment 2a and 2b assessed these components with 4.5‐month‐olds to examine their impact across development. The results showed that after adult‐guided object exploration, both 9.5‐ and 4.5‐month‐old infants successfully individuated previously undifferentiated objects. Results of Experiments 1b and 2b provide implications for the mechanisms underlying the scaffolding influence of adult interaction during infant behaviours. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“It's the Way That You Do It”: Developing an Ethical Framework for Community Psychology Research and Action

In the 50 years since the 1965 Swampscott conference, the field of community psychology has not yet developed a well‐articulated ethical framework to guide research and practice. This paper reviews what constitutes an “ethical framework”; considers where the field of community psychology is at in its development of a comprehensive ethical framework; examines sources for ethical guidance (i.e., ethical principles and standards) across multiple disciplines, including psychology, evaluation, sociology, and anthropology; and recommends strategies for developing a rich written discourse on how community psychology researchers and practitioners can address ethical conflicts in our work.     

The View from Inside the System: How Police Explain Their Response to Sexual Assault

Prior research has documented the problematic community response to sexual assault: the majority of sexual assaults reported to police are never prosecuted. Social dominance theory suggests that this response is a form of institutional discrimination, intended to maintain existing social structures, and that police personnel likely draw upon shared ideologies to justify their decision‐making in sexual assault case investigations. This study drew upon social dominance theory to examine how police justified their investigatory decisions to identify potential leverage points for change. The study revealed that the likelihood of a case referral to the prosecutor increased with each additional investigative step completed; of the different types of justifications provided by police for a less‐than‐thorough investigative response and stalled case, blaming the victim for the poor police investigation proved to be the most damaging to case progression; and the type of explanation provided by police was impacted by specific case variables. As suggested by social dominance theory, the study demonstrates that police rely on several different mechanisms to justify their response to sexual assault; implementing criminal justice system policies that target and interrupt these mechanisms has the potential to improve this response, regardless of specific case factors.     

Can Implicit Associations Distinguish True and False Eyewitness Memory? Development and Preliminary Testing of the IATe

Eyewitness identification has been shown to be fallible and prone to false memory. In this study we develop and test a new method to probe the mechanisms involved in the formation of false memories in this area, and determine whether a particular memory is likely to be true or false. We created a seven‐step procedure based on the Implicit Association Test to gauge implicit biases in eyewitness identification (the IATe). We show that identification errors may result from unconscious bias caused by implicit associations evoked by a given face. We also show that implicit associations between negative attributions such as guilt and eyewitnesses' final pick from a line‐up can help to distinguish between true and false memory (especially where the witness has been subject to the suggestive nature of a prior blank line‐up). Specifically, the more a witness implicitly associates an individual face with a particular crime, the more likely it is that a memory they have for that person committing the crime is false. These findings are consistent with existing findings in the memory and neuroscience literature showing that false memories can be caused by implicit associations that are outside conscious awareness. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An Examination of the Relationship Between the Work–School Interface,Job Satisfaction,and Job Performance

Purpose

This study provides a comprehensive examination of how the work–school interface relates to work outcomes such as task performance and job satisfaction. Additionally, this study builds upon past research by examining a range of work- and school-related resources and demands that collectively influence the work–school interface.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were obtained from 170 working undergraduate students at multiple time points over the course of a semester, as well as from participants’ supervisors at the organizations in which the students work.

Findings

The strongest antecedent of job satisfaction, interpersonal facilitation, and job performance was work–school facilitation. Demands in one role create pressures in the other. Contrary to expectations, job demands positively related to work–school facilitation, while school demands positively related to school–work facilitation.

Implications

For practitioners, this study highlights the need to better understand the interplay between school and work roles for employees at a time when continuing education is emphasized. Employers benefit from the performance gains and positive attitudinal shifts that stem from experiences of facilitation between roles. From a theoretical perspective, this study reveals a unique pattern of results that adds to our understanding of the dynamics involved in the integrated work–school routines of working students.

Originality/Value

This is one of the first studies to investigate the relationships between four bi-directional forms of the work–school interface and subsequent multi-source assessments of organizational outcomes. As such, it offers an examination of how conflict and facilitation from both the work and school domains relate to work outcomes.

     

The consequences of job crafting: a three-wave study

This longitudinal study examined the consequences of job crafting on two important employee outcomes: psychological capital (PsyCap) as a work-related personal resource and work engagement as an indicator of employee well-being. The study also tested the reverse causation effects of PsyCap and work engagement on job crafting. It used a three-wave, three-month panel design to survey 940 employees from three European countries working in a broad range of economic sectors and occupations. The results of the cross-lagged longitudinal structural equation modelling demonstrated that job crafting predicted PsyCap and work engagement over time. No reverse causation effects were found. Overall, this study shows that when individuals proactively build a resourceful and challenging work environment for themselves, it can lead to diverse positive outcomes that are crucial to employee health and well-being. Employees should therefore be encouraged and be given the opportunity to craft their own jobs.     

Lassoing Skill Through Learner Choice

The authors examined several issues related to the motor learning benefits resulting from giving learners choices. In 2 experiments, participants practiced a novel task, throwing a lasso. In Experiment 1, giving learners a choice ostensibly irrelevant to performance (color of mat under target) resulted in enhanced learning relative to a control group. The choice group also reported more positive affect. Experiment 2 compared the effectiveness of task-irrelevant (mat color) versus task-relevant (video demonstrations of the skill) choices. In both choice groups, each participant was yoked to a participant in the other group, and each received the same mat color or saw the video demonstration, respectively, as chosen by their counterpart in the other group. In the control group, participants were yoked to their respective counterparts in each of the choice groups. On a retention test, the 2 choice groups did not differ from each other, but both outperformed the control group. The affective and learning effects seen when learners are given choices, and the fact that task-relevant and task-irrelevant choices resulted in similar learning benefits, are consistent with a content-neutral mechanism for the effects of choice on learning, as described in the OPTIMAL theory of motor learning (Wulf &; Lewthwaite, 2016 Wulf, G., &; Lewthwaite, R. (2016). Optimizing performance through intrinsic motivation and attention for learning: The OPTIMAL theory of motor learning. Psychonomic Bulletin &; Review, 23, 1382–1414. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-015-0999-9.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).