Is it disgusting to be reminded that you are an animal?

Six studies (Ns?=?65, 96, 120, 129, 40, 200) tested the hypothesis that being reminded of our animal nature makes us feel disgust. Participants from three cultural groups indicated the intensity of their disgust reactions to pleasant and unpleasant animal reminder stories and pictures as well as to a statement directly reminding them of their animal nature. Findings did not support the hypothesis: Pleasant animal reminders reminded respondents of their animal nature (even more powerfully than did unpleasant ones), but were not disgusting. The direct reminder of our animal nature was not disgusting. There was no significant correlation between disgust and being reminded of animal nature for disgusting (unpleasant) animal reminders. Thus, some disgusting events remind us of our animal nature, but they are not disgusting because they remind us of our animal nature. Animal reminders per se are not disgusting.     

Mother-Child Interactions and Preschoolers’ Emotion Regulation Outcomes: Nurturing Autonomous Emotion Regulation

Emotion regulation is a complex process that begins in infancy and continues through childhood with parents’ support. Early parent-child interactions shape the way children learn emotion management. We took a sociocultural and social learning approach to exploring the specific components of mother-child interactions that are related to mothers’ perceptions of her child’s regulatory ability and the child’s observed emotion regulation. Thirty mothers and their preschool children were recruited from two New England urban areas: one community sample and one head start sample. Dyads engaged in a free play session, children completed an observed compliance task, and mothers completed a set of questionnaires assessing their perceptions of their child’s regulation. Regression analyses revealed that maternal behaviors during free play predicted child’s observed hostility (F _(2,29)?=?3.137, p?<?.05) and mothers’ perceptions of her child’s regulatory ability predicted observed child compliance (F _{(2, 17)}?=?4.990, p?<?.05). Child behaviors during play significantly predicted child’s compliance (F _(3,20)?=?4.722, p?<?.05) and child’s hostility (F _{(1, 26)}?=?9.220, p?<?.001). Maternal modeling and intentional scaffolding as well as perceptions of her child’s regulatory capacity have a powerful impact on her child’s observed regulation. Results indicate that it is particularly important for mothers of preschoolers to support autonomy while guiding socially appropriate behavior. Interventions that target improving mothers’ negative perceptions of their children, educating on appropriate preschool expectations, and facilitating preschoolers’ mature play may help mothers interact with their children in the ways that foster children’s autonomous emotion regulation.     

New indirect measures of “inattentive” visual grouping in a change-detection task

It has often been suggested that Gestalt-like visual grouping processes may operate preattentively, but Mack and Rock (1998) suggested that no visual grouping takes place under “inattention.” We introduced a new method to assess this. While participants performed a demanding change-detection task on a small matrix at fixation, task-irrelevant background elements were arranged by color similarity into columns, rows, or pseudorandomly. Independent of any change in the target matrix, background grouping could also change or remain the same on each trial. This influenced accuracy of change judgments for the central task, even though background grouping or its change usually could not be explicitly reported when probed with surprise questions as in Mack and Rock. This suggests that visual grouping may arise implicitly under inattention and provides a new method for testing the boundaries of this processing. Here we extended the initial result to changes in background grouping remote from the target and to those occurring across an intervening saccade.     

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.