Strengths and weaknesses of McNamara's evolutionary psychological model of dreaming

This article includes a brief overview of McNamara's (2004) evolutionary model of dreaming. The strengths and weaknesses of this model are then evaluated in terms of its consonance with measurable neurological and biological properties of dreaming, its fit within the tenets of evolutionary theories of dreams, and its alignment with evolutionary concepts of cooperation and spirituality. McNamara's model focuses primarily on dreaming that occurs during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep; therefore this article also focuses on REM dreaming.     

A developmental shift from similar to language-specific strategies in verb acquisition: A comparison of English,Spanish, and Japanese

The world’s languages draw on a common set of event components for their verb systems. Yet, these components are differentially distributed across languages. At what age do children begin to use language-specific patterns to narrow possible verb meanings? English-, Japanese-, and Spanish-speaking adults, toddlers, and preschoolers were shown videos of an animated star performing a novel manner along a novel path paired with a language-appropriate nonsense verb. They were then asked to extend that verb to either the same manner or the same path as in training. Across languages, toddlers (2- and 2.5-year-olds) revealed a significant preference for interpreting the verb as a path verb. In preschool (3- and 5-year-olds) and adulthood, the participants displayed language-specific patterns of verb construal. These findings illuminate the way in which verb construal comes to reflect the properties of the input language.     

Can Research on Women Be More Effective in Shaping Policy?

The potential usefulness of research on women's issues to the policymaking process is discussed in the context of the arguments both for and against trying to increase the policy utility of social science research in general. J. Weiss's concepts of „intrinsic,”„intellectual,” and „political usefulness” are presented and applied to specific policy issues of importance to women. The paper examines ways in which researchers could enhance the policy relevance of their research and ways in which the psychology establishment could encourage the development of policy-relevant research. The middle section of the paper describes the large array of roles and settings for social scientists in the federal policy structure, treating the executive, legislative, and judicial branches in turn. The history of and dilemmas created by the „Brandeis brief” are presented. The last section of the paper presents some important policy issues affecting women in the next five years and illustrates how one particular area of research could be made more useful.     

Posture and Prediction on the Attitudes Toward Women Scale

A study was performed investigating the relationship between stated attitudes toward the feminist movement and willingness to help that movement. Results suggested that Attitudes Toward Women Scale (AWS) measures of feminist commitment may be limited by a social desirability variable and that high scores on the AWS do not correlate with a behavioral measure of commitment.     

The relationship between organizational trust,resistance to change and adaptive and proactive employees' agility in an unplanned and planned change context

Modern organizations need to adapt quickly to on-going changes. The present study sought to examine employees' agility during periods of sudden, unplanned, and during periods of planned change. It was investigated to what extent one's trust in the organization and resistance to change could predict proactive agility and adaptive agility. Data came from employees (N = 188) in two different organizations, one undergoing an unplanned change and one undergoing a planned change. In both contexts, organizational trust had a negative relationship with resistance to change. In an unplanned change context (organization one), trust of employees in the organization had a positive effect on the adaptive component of agility through the (negative) mediation by affective resistance to change. In this context, trust did not have any (mediated) effect on the proactive component of agility. In contrast, in a planned change context (organization two), trust had a positive effect on the proactive component of agility, partially through the (negative) mediation by resistance to change. In this context, trust also had a positive effect on the adaptive component of agility, partially through the (negative) mediation by resistance to change. These results imply that trust works in different ways depending on the type of change. More trust through less resistance implies better adaptation during unplanned organizational change. More trust works directly and partially through less resistance to change to enhance employee proactivity and adaptability during planned change.