Work-Related Impression Formation: Reviewing Parenthood Penalties and Investigating a “Fatherhood Penalty” for Single Fathers

Abstract

We review the evidence that mothers, compared to childless women or fathers, are discriminated at work (“motherhood penalty”) and that fathers may receive “caregiver penalties.” We conclude that (implicitly or explicitly) expected family roles appear to determine parenthood penalties. On this basis, we examined penalties for fathers who are only assumed to be primary caregivers. We found “fatherhood penalties” for single fathers compared to married fathers (Experiment 1, N?=?343) and compared to singles and single mothers (Experiment 2, N?=?142 professionals). We discuss the mixed evidence on work-related perceptions of parents.     

Facing threat: infants' and adults' visual scanning of faces with neutral, happy, sad, angry, and fearful emotional expressions

Human faces are among the most important visual stimuli that we encounter at all ages. This importance partly stems from the face as a conveyer of information on the emotional state of other individuals. Previous research has demonstrated specific scanning patterns in response to threat-related compared to non-threat-related emotional expressions. This study investigated how visual scanning patterns toward faces which display different emotional expressions develop during infancy. The visual scanning patterns of 4-month-old and 7-month-old infants and adults when looking at threat-related (i.e., angry and fearful) versus non-threat-related (i.e., happy, sad, and neutral) emotional faces were examined. We found that infants as well as adults displayed an avoidant looking pattern in response to threat-related emotional expressions with reduced dwell times and relatively less fixations to the inner features of the face. In addition, adults showed a pattern of eye contact avoidance when looking at threat-related emotional expressions that was not yet present in infants. Thus, whereas a general avoidant reaction to threat-related facial expressions appears to be present from very early in life, the avoidance of eye contact might be a learned response toward others' anger and fear that emerges later during development.     

Reality monitoring in patients with body dysmorphic disorder

Patients with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) typically have very poor insight into their disorder. Their conviction in their ugliness is often of delusional intensity. Reality monitoring is the ability to distinguish in memory between things that one has imagined and things that one has perceived. Deficits in reality monitoring have been associated with the development of other delusional beliefs. Therefore, in the present study we investigated whether individuals with BDD (n = 20) demonstrate impairments in reality monitoring relative to individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD; n = 20) and healthy controls (n = 20). This hypothesized impairment might predispose people with BDD to confuse memories of how they imagine themselves to appear (i.e., ugly) with memories of how they actually appear (i.e., normal). All participants completed a memory task assessing reality-monitoring ability for verbal stimuli. The BDD patients did not exhibit a reality-monitoring deficit despite elevated levels of focal delusionality. The results suggest that impairments in reality monitoring do not contribute to the development or maintenance of appearance-related beliefs in BDD.     

Bridging the gap between the other and me: the functional role of motor resonance and action effects in infants' imitation

This paper investigates a two-stage model of infants' imitative learning from observed actions and their effects. According to this model, the observation of another person's action activates the corresponding motor code in the infants' motor repertoire (i.e. leads to motor resonance). The second process guiding imitative behavior results from the observed action effects. If the modeled action is followed by a salient action effect, the representation of this effect (i.e. perceptual code) will be associated with the activated motor code. If the infant later aims to obtain the same effect, the corresponding motor program will be activated and the model's action will therefore be imitated. Accordingly, the model assumes that for the imitation of novel actions the modeled action needs to elicit sufficient motor resonance and must be followed by a salient action effect. Using the head touch imitation paradigm, we tested these two assumptions derived from the model. To this end, we manipulated whether the actions demonstrated to the infants were or were not in the motor repertoire, i.e. elicited stronger or less strong motor resonance, and whether they were followed by salient action effects or not. The results were in line with the proposed two-stage model of infants' imitative learning and suggest that motor resonance is necessary, but not sufficient for infants' imitative learning from others' actions and their effects.     

Walking through doorways causes forgetting: Further explorations

Previous research using virtual environments has revealed a location-updating effect in which there is a decline in memory when people move from one location to another. Here we assess whether this effect reflects the influence of the experienced context, in terms of the degree of immersion of a person in an environment, as suggested by some work in spatial cognition, or by a shift in context. In Experiment 1, the degree of immersion was reduced by using smaller displays. In comparison, in Experiment 2 an actual, rather than a virtual, environment was used, to maximize immersion. Location-updating effects were observed under both of these conditions. In Experiment 3, the original encoding context was reinstated by having a person return to the original room in which objects were first encoded. However, inconsistent with an encoding specificity account, memory did not improve by reinstating this context. Finally, we did a further analysis of the results of this and previous experiments to assess the differential influence of foregrounding and retrieval interference. Overall, these data are interpreted in terms of the event horizon model of event cognition and memory.     

The pleasures of success: game-related efficacy experiences as a mediator between player performance and game enjoyment

In the present study, the interplay of player performance, game-related self-efficacy experiences, and the resulting effects on game enjoyment are investigated. We hypothesized that a player's performance stimulates enjoyment via its potential to stimulate game-related self-efficacy experiences. In a laboratory setting, participants (N?=?213) played a jump 'n' run game. Their performance during game play was recorded by log-file software, and efficacy and enjoyment were assessed with questionnaires. As predicted, both player performance and game-related self-efficacy experience were significant predictors of enjoyment. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that game-related self-efficacy experience significantly mediates the relationship between player performance and game enjoyment.     

Walking through doorways causes forgetting: environmental integration

Memory for objects declines when people move from one location to another (the location updating effect). However, it is unclear whether this is attributable to event model updating or to task demands. The focus here was on the degree of integration for probed-for information with the experienced environment. In prior research, the probes were verbal labels of visual objects. Experiment 1 assessed whether this was a consequence of an item-probe mismatch, as with transfer-appropriate processing. Visual probes were used to better coordinate what was seen with the nature of the memory probe. In Experiment 2, people received additional word pairs to remember, which were less well integrated with the environment, to assess whether the probed-for information needed to be well integrated. The results showed location updating effects in both cases. These data are consistent with an event cognition view that mental updating of a dynamic event disrupts memory.     

Two- vs. three-dimensional presentation of mental rotation tasks: Sex differences and effects of training on performance and brain activation

The well-documented sex difference in mental rotation favoring males has been shown to emerge only for 2-dimensional presentations of 3-dimensional objects, but not with actual 3-dimensional objects or with virtual reality presentations of 3-dimensional objects. Training studies using computer games with mental rotation-related content have demonstrated training effects on mental rotation performance. Here, we studied the combined effect of a two-week mental rotation (MR) training on 2-dimensional vs. 3-dimensional presentations of a classic Shepard–Metzler task (presented in a pretest–training–posttest design) and their accompanying cortical activation patterns assessed via EEG in a sample of 38 male and 39 female adolescents of about 15 years of age. Analysis of one performance parameter (reaction times) displayed only main effects of dimensionality (with shorter RTs on the 3D vs. 2D version of the MR task) and of training (significant shortening of RTs), but no significant sex difference. Analysis of the other performance parameter (scores) in the MR task revealed a sex difference favoring males that first, appeared only in the 2D version, but not in the 3D version of the MR task and, secondly, diminished after training. Neurophysiologically we observed a complex sex × dimensionality × training × hemisphere interaction showing that the hypothesized decrease of brain activation (increase in neural efficiency) with training emerged for males in both 2D and 3D conditions, whereas for females this decrease was found only in the 3D but not with the 2D version of the MR task.