Using an Embedding Strategy to Teach Preschoolers with Significant Disabilities

The purpose of this study was two-fold. First, this study analyzed the effects of using response prompting procedures within an embedded skill approach on skill acquisition by 4 preschoolers with significant disabilities. Two target skills were identified from each student's IEP and taught during three preschool activities. A multiple probe across subjects design assessed the effects of the intervention. All students made progress above baseline performance. More importantly, there was consistency in performance of the target skills across at least two of the three activities for all children. Second, the reliability with which paraprofessionals in the preschool setting implemented response prompting procedures was evaluated. Data indicated that the paraprofessionals implemented the procedures with a high degree of accuracy. The impact of embedded skill instruction is addressed, as well as the impact of using non-degreed personnel to teach students with significant disabilities within inclusive preschool programs.     

Reflections on Science and Technology

Science and technology are frequently confused. This essay points out thebases for this confusion and then focuses on a basic distinction, namely, that whereas science brings us information that we have little choice but to absorb and reflect upon, technology is something that humans elect to do and, hence, can also elect not to do. It is proposed that technological ethics are most cogently undertaken with scientific understanding as the linchpin and religious/artistic sensibilities as the muse.     

Correcting Misperceptions About Cognitive Processing Therapy to Treat Moral Injury: A Response to Gray and Colleagues (this issue)

We respond to the commentary by Gray, Nash, and Litz (this issue) regarding the use of cognitive processing therapy (CPT) to address moral injury as described in our previous publication (Wachen et al., 2016). In their commentary, Gray et al. posit that CPT is inappropriate when applied to the treatment of war-related traumas involving “real moral and ethical transgressions” (i.e., moral injuries). However, Gray and colleagues’ assertions are centered on a premise that is incorrect, namely that CPT is based on the idea that “self-blame and guilt are inherently illogical or inaccurate,” and that CPT assumes that all beliefs associated with moral injury are erroneous. On the contrary, we acknowledge that self-blame and guilt may be accurate responses to warzone trauma, yet disagree that CPT is not suitable in these situations. This response serves to clarify some of the inaccurate interpretations of the treatment as stated by Gray and colleagues, and reiterates the position of CPT on many of the issues that were raised. Specifically, we discuss the use of Socratic questioning within CPT to address the issue of moral injury. Furthermore, we highlight the strong evidence base for the use of CPT in treating veterans and active military. Until it has been determined through empirical study, it is premature to assert that CPT is insufficient in addressing moral injury in combat personnel.     

The impact of rewards on empathic accuracy and emotional mimicry

The notion that motivation influences empathic accuracy has been inferred from aspects of the task, the situation or the relationship between interaction partners or between groups. The present research assessed whether monetary reward influences cognitive and affective empathy. In Study 1, cognitive empathy was assessed for 42 participants who decoded briefly (33 ms) presented expressions of sadness and anger. For half the participants, correctly decoded expressions on male faces were rewarded, for the other half correctly decoded expressions on female faces were rewarded. The results showed that rewards increase empathic accuracy for both emotions equally. In Study 2, facial EMG was measured as well to assess emotional mimicry as an index of affective empathy. Study 2 replicated the findings from Study 1 and found a moderation of affective empathy as indexed through facial mimicry for sadness. Thus, simple monetary rewards affect both cognitive and affective empathy.     

Not Feeling Good in STEM: Effects of Stereotype Activation and Anticipated Affect on Women’s Career Aspirations

Despite great efforts to increase women’s participation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), relatively few women choose careers in these fields. We argue that women might expect to feel less good in contexts where unfavorable gender stereotypes are activated in their minds (e.g., by strong underrepresentation) and, consequently, are less likely to aspire to STEM careers. In two pilot studies (Ns?=?28/61), we confirmed that undergraduate women expect more negative and less positive affect (i.e., generally (un)pleasant emotions) and a heightened sense of threat in a stereotype-activating, compared to a not stereotype-activating, test scenario. In Study 1 (N?=?102), the scenario indirectly lowered college women’s STEM career aspiration (adjusted for preliminary domain identification) due to lower anticipated positive affect, but not to higher negative affect, in the stereotype-activating scenario. The scenario had no detrimental effect on college men’s anticipated affect or their career aspirations. In Study 2, 91 high school students reported anticipated affect and self-efficacy in different university majors and their intentions to choose the subject as a major. The more stereotypically male (in terms of gender distribution) the subject, the more negative and the less positive was young women’s, but not young men’s, anticipated affect. Only lower positive, but not higher negative, affect predicted low study intentions over and above self-efficacy. To increase women’s aspirations, their expected feelings in STEM deserve attention. One approach to foster positive affect might be to create less stereotypical STEM contexts.     

Boys Don’t Work? On the Psychological Benefits of Showing Low Effort in High School

Male students show less academic effort and lower academic achievement than do female students. The present study aimed to shed more light on the reasons for why male students show low academic effort despite the finding that this undermines their academic achievement. We explored whether students experience psychological benefits from showing low effort or “effortless” achievement in school and whether these benefits are greater for male than for female students. In two experimental vignette studies with independent samples of German ninth graders (N?=?210) and teachers (N?=?176), we systematically varied student targets’ gender, effort, and achievement and tested for effects on targets’ ascribed intelligence, popularity, likeability, masculinity, femininity, and gender-typicality. The “effortless” achiever was rated as more popular than students showing high effort. Teachers perceived the effortless achiever as the most intelligent target. Academic effort further increased students’ ratings of a low-achieving target’s likeability and students’ and teachers’ ratings of all targets’ femininity as well as decreased students’ ratings of all targets’ masculinity. Students and teachers perceived targets showing low (vs. high) effort as more similar to a typical boy, whereas teachers perceived targets showing high (vs. low) effort as more similar to a typical girl. Results indicate a need to understand the psychological benefits of low academic engagement, especially for male students, and to address the feminine stereotyping of (academic) effort.     

Obligatory and optional personal life investments in old and very old age: Validation and functional relations

Personal life investment (PLI) measures motivational energy invested in central life domains. We distinguished between obligatory PLIs, that is, required investments, and optional PLIs, that is, investments that are possible but not necessary. Data from the Berlin Aging Study (N = 516; 70–103 years) were employed to investigate the validity of this distinction. We further explored how both PLI types relate to aging satisfaction and whether associations with validation variables and satisfaction differed depending on resource limitations (poor health). As expected based on conceptual affinities between the distinctions of obligatory-optional PLI and approach-avoidance tendencies, both PLI types showed positive relations with extraversion (a correlate of approach), but only obligatory PLI was positively related to neuroticism (a correlate of avoidance). Optional PLI (not obligatory PLI) was related to higher aging satisfaction, but only in fairly healthy people. This underscores differential functional relations of optional PLI depending on resource availability.

When attitudes do not fit: discordance of acculturation attitudes as an antecedent of intergroup threat

Recent research has shown that the perspectives of both minorities and majorities should be taken into account to reach a deeper understanding of the acculturation process and its consequences for intergroup relations. The authors report two experiments that investigated the impact of discordant acculturation attitudes on perceived threat. In Study 1 (N=183), Germans were asked for their attitudes toward Turks and Italians. Different levels of concordance of acculturation attitudes were induced by presenting participants with newspaper articles describing the acculturation attitude of the respective out-group and perceived threat was measured. In Study 2 (N=100), two fictitious immigrant groups were used as target groups. Results in both studies showed that discordance of acculturation attitudes leads to higher perceptions of intergroup threat than concordance of acculturation attitudes. Furthermore, both studies supported the assumption that a similar out-group is perceived as less threatening than a dissimilar out-group.     

When does feedback about success at school hurt? The role of causal attributions

The present research provides evidence that attribution theory can serve as an explanatory framework not only to explain achievers’ reactions to their achievement based on their self generated understandings of what brought these achievements about but also when such information is provided by others. Thus, when we succeed at school, others may comment on the likely reasons for this success. The present research addressed the question what it is that makes certain types of feedback on the reasons for success at school hurtful. The results of two studies conducted in the context of a school setting demonstrated that the causal structure implied by an explanation for success explains why some explanations are perceived as hurtful and elicit anger, shame, and guilt rather than pleasure or pride. Interestingly, the perceived validity of the explanation is of relatively less importance for the elicitation of hurt feelings and anger than the content of the explanation. Overall, these results provide further evidence for the importance of attributional information for social emotions in educational settings.