Tolerance of Sexual Harassment: An Examination of Gender Differences,Ambivalent Sexism,Social Dominance,and Gender Roles

In this study we examined the effects of gender, gender roles (masculinity and femininity), ambivalent sexism, and social dominance orientation with regard to tolerance of sexual harassment. It was predicted that women would be less tolerant than men of sexual harassment, however, men and women who were tolerant of sexual harassment would share ambivalence and hostility toward women, and they would exhibit higher levels of social dominance and masculinity. Results partially supported the hypotheses. Women were significantly less tolerant of harassment than men were, however, regression analyses showed that ambivalent sexism and hostility toward women accounted for the majority of total variance (35%), followed by gender (5%), social dominance (1%), femininity (0.7%), and nonsexism (0.6%). Masculinity and benevolent sexism were not significant predictors. Results suggest that ambivalence and hostility toward women are much greater predictors of tolerance of sexual harassment than is gender alone.     

Are Doors Being Opened for the “Ladies’’ of College Sports? A Covariance Analysis

The purpose of this study was to examine sports symbols of colleges and universities for evidence of sexism and to identify factors that differentiated schools with andwithout sexist nicknames for their athletic teams. Data on team names and eight measures of women’s athleticism were collected from 112 colleges and universities for the 2000–2001 academic year. MANCOVA results revealed that women’s athleticism was stronger at schools with nonsexist nicknames for seven of the eight measures, although only one statistically significant difference was observed. Schools with nonsexist nicknames had a significantly higher percentage of assistant coaches who were women. Discussion focuses on why there may be more athletic opportunities and athletic resources for women at schools with nonsexist nicknames.     

On Versus Off the Pitch: The Transiency of Body Satisfaction Among Female Rugby Players, Cricketers, and Netballers

In this study I investigated the development of body satisfaction among women rugby players, cricketers, and netballers. I also sought to assess the impact of sport participation on both athletic and “feminin” identity. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 10 rugby players, 10 cricketers, and 10 netballers. The interviews focused on the experience of playing sport and the impact sport had made on respondents' perceptions of their bodies. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to explore the interview data it was found that, although sport participation did lead to positive perceptions of their bodies, this effect was transient. Once placed in a social environment body satisfaction decreased, and women's perceptions of their bodies changed because of a perceived demand to conform to socially accepted and expected norms of (heterosexual) physical attractiveness. Fear of being perceived as lesbian and the perceived naturalness of body concern were also identified.     

Counting your blessings: Positive memories among grateful persons

We conducted two studies investigating the relationship of gratitude to autobiographical memory of positive and negative life events. Gratitude was assessed with an attitudinal measure and college students were asked to recall both positive and negative events from their past. In both studies, a significant positive relationship was found between trait gratitude and a positive memory bias. In Study 2 it was found that gratitude still reliably predicted positive memory bias after controlling for depression. Further, it was found that a positive intrusive memory bias was associated with gratitude in both studies. Thus, an important component of gratitude may be an enhanced tendency to recall positive events from one's life.     

Putting motion in emotion: Do dynamic presentations increase preschooler's recognition of emotion?

In prior research, preschoolers were surprisingly poor at naming the emotion purportedly signaled by prototypical facial expressions—when shown as static images. To determine whether this poor performance is due to the use of static stimuli, rather than dynamic, we presented preschoolers (3-5 years) with facial expressions as either static images or dynamic audiovisual clips. Dynamic clips presented face alone (Study 1, N = 48) or face, body movement, and vocal intonation (Study 2, N = 72). Contrary to expectations, dynamic presentation did not increase children's naming of the emotion in either study and decreased it in Study 1.     

To Aggregate or Not to Aggregate: Steps for Developing and Validating Higher-Order Multidimensional Constructs

The use of higher-order multidimensional constructs (i.e., latent constructs comprised of standalone variables) in the organizational psychology and behavior literatures is becoming commonplace. Despite their advantages (e.g., greater parsimony and bandwidth), the development and validation of such constructs often unfolds in an indiscriminant fashion. It is not surprising, then, that much debate has arisen regarding the viability of many higher-order constructs. In this article, we outline ten recommendations for improving the construct- and criterion-related validity of higher-order constructs. Chief among these recommendations include the need for researchers to specify precise theoretical and empirical inclusion criteria, to rule out alternative explanations for the emergence of a higher-order factor and to assess incremental and relative importance. To illustrate how these recommendations play out, we apply them to core self-evaluation as an example. We believe that higher-order constructs may offer unique insight into work-relevant phenomena, provided they are established via rigorous means.     

Virginia Satir’s Family Camp Experiment: An Intentional Growth Community Still in Process

In 1976, Virginia Satir began Satir Family Camp (SFC) with therapists and their personal families. Initially, it was a context for the family to experience Satir’s concepts and techniques so that the family system would change along with the therapist. The training of therapists is no longer a significant part of camp; relationships with self, family, friends, and the community is now the main focal point. The process and governance of the camp is presented along with a lengthy anecdote of an experiential family session. These two features—community function and personal/familial growth—inextricably work together to provide a validating environment that supports desired changes.     

Dissociative tendencies and right-hemisphere processing load: effects on vigilance performance

The present study was designed to explore the relationship between self-reported dissociative experiences and performance in tasks eliciting right-hemisphere processing load. Thirty-four participants (10 men and 24 women) performed a vigilance task in two conditions: with task-irrelevant negative-arousing pictures and task-irrelevant neutral pictures. Dissociation was assessed with the Dissociative Experience Scale. Consistent with theories positing right-hemisphere deregulation in high non-clinical dissociators, dissociative experiences correlated with greater vigilance decrement only in the negative picture condition. As both the vigilance task and negative picture processing are right lateralized, this result provides support for a right-hemisphere dysfunction in high dissociators, at least in negative conditions.     

Mind the gap: bridging economic and naturalistic risk-taking with cognitive neuroscience

Economists define risk in terms of the variability of possible outcomes, whereas clinicians and laypeople generally view risk as exposure to possible loss or harm. Neuroeconomic studies using relatively simple behavioral tasks have identified a network of brain regions that respond to economic risk, but these studies have had limited success predicting naturalistic risk-taking. By contrast, more complex behavioral tasks developed by clinicians (e.g. Balloon Analogue Risk Task and Iowa Gambling Task) correlate with naturalistic risk-taking but resist decomposition into distinct cognitive constructs. We propose here that to bridge this gap and better understand neural substrates of naturalistic risk-taking, new tasks are needed that: are decomposable into basic cognitive and/or economic constructs; predict naturalistic risk-taking; and engender dynamic, affective engagement.     

We feel, therefore we are: emotion as a basis for self-categorization and social action

Building on intergroup emotion research, we test the idea that intergroup emotion influences self-categorization. We report two studies using minimal (Study 1) and natural (Study 2) groups in which we measured participants' emotional reactions to a group-relevant event before manipulating the emotional reactions of other ingroup members and outgroup members (anger vs. happiness in Study 1; anger vs. indifference in Study 2). Results supported the hypotheses that (a) the fit between participants' own emotional reactions and the reactions of ingroup members would influence self-categorization, and (b) the specific content of emotional reactions would shape participants' willingness to engage in collective action. This willingness was greater when emotional reactions were not only shared with other group members, but were of anger (consistent with group-based action) rather than happiness or indifference (inconsistent with group-based action). Implications for the relationship between emotion and social identities are discussed.