Teachers’ attitudes towards students with high- and low-educated parents

Educational inequalities may be derived from differential teacher expectations toward students from different backgrounds. Such expectations may be associated with stereotypical beliefs and attitudes, which guide behavior and judgments. Although ample research is available concerning differential teacher attitudes based on student ethnicity, few studies have considered the effect of the educational level of the parents. The aim of the current study was to investigate teachers’ implicit and explicit attitudes toward students with differentially educated parents. Implicit attitudes were measured using an implicit association task (IAT). The first name of the student was used as a proxy for the educational level of parents, whereby we created separate versions for boys and girls. Participants were randomly divided in two groups, whereby the first group completed the IAT-boys version and the other group the IAT-girls version. Explicit attitudes were measured using a questionnaire. Participants indicated positive implicit attitudes toward students with highly educated parents, independent of the gender of the student. Teachers did not express differential explicit beliefs regarding the learning and social behaviors of students based on the educational level of the parents, and their expectations concerning the motivation and ambitions or educational chances of these students were neutral. The dissociation between implicit and explicit attitudes may be an indication of the social sensitivity of the relationship between students’ social background and educational achievements and opportunities. Especially implicit attitudes may account for differences in teacher behaviors toward different groups of students and in turn their educational opportunities, and could therefore partly account for consistent findings of educational inequalities based on the social status of families.     

Does practice in category learning increase rule use or exemplar use—or both?

Categorization research has demonstrated the use of both rules and remembered exemplars in classification, although there is disagreement over whether learners shift from one to the other or use both strategies simultaneously. Theoretical arguments can motivate predictions for both rule use and exemplar use increasing with more practice. We describe a single large experiment (n = 190) that manipulated the number of training items (category size), the number of presentations of each training item, and the similarity between the training and the transfer stimuli in order to discover when rules and exemplars are most likely to be used. Results showed that rules and exemplars both influenced classification and that exemplars were used more often with smaller categories, with more training on items, and when test items were similar to training items. There was no consistent evidence of a shift from rule-based to exemplar-based categorization with more learning. Importantly, we found a number of conditions in which rules and exemplars were both used, even within individual participants. We discuss our results in terms of hybrid models of classification.     

Adolescents' relationships with mother and father and their links to the quality of romantic relationships: A classification approach

Adolescents' relationships with parents are considered to be a major learning source and emotional base for developing expectations and styles of behaviour in close relationships. Using a longitudinal sample of late adolescents from nuclear families drawn from the German Family Panel pairfam (N = 720; mean age: 18.6 years), we investigated how adolescents' relationships with both parents influenced their romantic relationship quality one year later. Bagged (Averaged) Binary Recursive Partitioning was used to compare features of adolescents' relationships with mother and father (relatedness, negative conflict, emotional insecurity, and parental dominance) in respect of their importance in predicting similar aspects of romantic relationship quality. Overall, our findings suggest some degree of domain-specific continuities in adolescents' relationships with parents and partner, particularly for negative conflict, as well as more global effects for most features of the parent–adolescent relationship. Emotional insecurity with mother was most broadly linked to all features of adolescents' romantic relationship. Overall, adolescents' relationship with mother was found to be more influential than their relationship with father. The findings are discussed with reference to a behavioural systems perspective and attachment theory.     

Influence of Social Support Received in Online and Offline Contexts on Satisfaction With Social Support and Satisfaction With Life: A Longitudinal Study

People around the globe now regularly interact with family and friends through social network sites (SNSs). In this article, we investigated the differences between social interactions in online and offline contexts as well as users' satisfaction with the social support received in these contexts. It was hypothesized that SNSs are better set up for the task of leveraging informational support but that they are inferior to offline contexts in terms of emotional or instrumental support. We further assumed that users might feel similarly satisfied with how support is rendered online and offline but that only social support transacted in offline contexts would contribute to overall life satisfaction. All hypotheses were supported by longitudinal data (N = 327) that were used to investigate social support over the course of 2 years with 4 points of measurement.     

Is the privacy paradox a relic of the past? An in‐depth analysis of privacy attitudes and privacy behaviors

The privacy paradox states that online privacy concerns do not sufficiently explain online privacy behaviors on social network sites (SNSs). In this study, it was first asked whether the privacy paradox would still exist when analyzed as in prior research. Second, it was hypothesized that the privacy paradox would disappear when analyzed in a new approach. The new approach featured a multidimensional operationalization of privacy by differentiating between informational, social, and psychological privacy. Next to privacy concerns, also, privacy attitudes and privacy intentions were analyzed. With the aim to improve methodological aspects, all items were designed on the basis of the theory of planned behavior. In an online questionnaire with N = 595 respondents, it was found that online privacy concerns were not significantly related to specific privacy behaviors, such as the frequency or content of disclosures on SNSs (e.g., name, cell‐phone number, or religious views). This demonstrated that the privacy paradox still exists when it is operationalized as in prior research. With regard to the new approach, all hypotheses were confirmed: Results showed both a direct relation and an indirect relation between privacy attitudes and privacy behaviors, the latter mediated by privacy intentions. In addition, also an indirect relation between privacy concerns and privacy behaviors was found, mediated by privacy attitudes and privacy intentions. Therefore, privacy behaviors can be explained sufficiently when using privacy attitudes, privacy concerns, and privacy intentions within the theory of planned behavior. The behaviors of SNS users are not as paradoxical as was once believed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Overgeneral memory extends to pictorial retrieval cues and correlates with cognitive features in posttraumatic stress disorder

Individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) show overgeneral memory (OGM) when retrieving autobiographical memories to word cues. We investigated whether OGM extends to picture cues and whether it is related to PTSD symptoms and cognitions. Trauma survivors with (n = 29) and without (n = 26) PTSD completed the standard Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) and a novel picture version. Compared to the no-PTSD group, the PTSD group showed OGM in both test versions. Pictures facilitated specific memory retrieval, but this effect was no longer significant when verbal intelligence or depressive symptoms were controlled. OGM correlated with PTSD symptoms and perceived self-change; with intrusive memories, their perceived "nowness," responses to intrusions (thought suppression, rumination, dissociation), and negative interpretations of symptoms.     

Associations between the developmental trajectories of visual scanning and disengagement of attention in infants

The relation between the developmental trajectories of visual scanning and disengagement of attention and gaze were examined throughout early infancy. A sample of 10 infants carried out a scanning and a disengagement task with the same visual stimuli six times between 6 and 26 weeks of age. Frequency and latency measures were analyzed using multivariate multilevel models and Monte Carlo analyses. The results suggest that the ability to scan a face or an abstract stimulus evolves slightly earlier than the ability to shift gaze to a newly appeared target in the periphery. This is consistent with the account that the parvocellular stream becomes functional slightly before the magnocellular stream. The study revealed no indications of a positive association between the development of scanning and disengagement on the level of the individual infant. Scanning and disengagement change scores contrasted more with one another than could be expected on the basis of chance. This implies that the magnocellular and the parvocellular stream develop rather independently up to the age of 26 weeks.     

Start-up Rhetoric in Eight Speeches of Barack Obama

Our purpose in the following was to investigate the start-up rhetoric employed by U.S. President Barack Obama in his speeches. The initial 5 min from eight of his speeches from May to September of 2009 were selected for their variety of setting, audience, theme, and purpose. It was generally hypothesized that Barack Obama, widely recognized for the excellence of his rhetorical performance, would pursue both constant and variable strategies in his effort to establish contact with his audience. More specifically, it was hypothesized that the make-up of the audience—primarily native or non-native speakers of English—would be a prominent independent variable. A number of temporal and verbal measures were used as dependent variables. Variations were evident in mean length in syllables and duration in seconds of utterances (articulatory phrases), articulation rate in syllables per second of ontime, mean duration of silent pauses in seconds, and frequency of fillers, hesitations, colloquial words and phrases, introductory phrases, and 1st person singular pronominals. Results indicated that formality versus informality of the setting and presence or absence of a teleprompter were more prominent than native versus non-native audiences. Our analyses confirm Obama’s skillfulness in challenging and variable settings and clearly detect orderliness and scientific generalizability in language use. The concept of orality/literacy provides a theoretical background and emphasizes dialogical interaction of audience and speaker.     

The Atonement of the Alleged Perpetrator's Daughter: Understanding of Model Scenes and Space Attachment in Analytical Dance Therapy

In this rich paper the analysand Annabelle is sent by her analyst to the dance therapist who reports in great detail how Annabelle manages to throw off and—to a certain extent—integrate not only her own life-long misunderstanding but also those of her parents. The reason for Annabelle's referral was straightforward: the analysis had ground to a halt. Words no longer reached her. The reader is reminded of the emotive-relational-motor clusters described in Chazan's and Shahar-Levy's papers. Body image distortions and space misperceptions curtailed this patient's ability to function. When she began to bring her distress to her analytic dance therapy sessions, she could not associate verbally but made use of props her therapist had in store. As she slowly progressed toward true symbolization and expression, her therapist found herself embroiled countertransferentially. The patient's long-suffering mother was remembered as someone who would, or could, only give partial information about the family's history. The father had been a Nazi and was now blamed for all the suffering the family had lo endure. This fact resonated both with Annabelle's analyst and the dance therapist who managed to take a long look at their own family's records during that troubled time.