Behavioural style and group cohesiveness as sources of minority influence

Behavioural style and group cohesiveness were tested as sources of minority influence under conditions in which rejection of the minority from the group was possible and under conditions in which it was not. Female subjects (N = 120) were led to believe that they were interacting as a group and that they held a majority position on a relevant issue. The influence agent, ostensibly one of the group members, advocated a minority position throughout their interaction. Three variables were manipulated: group cohesiveness (high or low), behavioural style of the deviate (high or low consistency) and opportunity for rejection of the deviate from the group (possible or not possible). It was predicted that the deviate would be more influential under high cohesive than under low cohesive conditions and that she would be most influential when she was highly consistent and there was no opportunity to reject her. Although both hypotheses were confirmed, unexpected minority influence effects were also found.     

The effects of choice and source of constraint on children's attributions of preference

One hundred and twenty female children (40 each from the first, third, and sixth grades) were presented with videotaped presentations of a female child choosing between two toys. Depending upon condition, subjects then viewed the actor either playing with her initially preferred toy (Unconstrained choice) or being forced to play with her initially non-preferred toy (Constrained choice). Additionally, the source of the actor's freedom or constraint was represented as either adult mediated or environmentally mediated. All subjects rated the actor's liking for each of the toys, how much the actor wanted to play with each toy, and which toy the actor would choose to take home with her. The two major findings which emerged were: (1) Contrary to prediction, children of all three age levels tended to use cues reflecting both the actor's choice and the actor's behavior in inferring her liking for each of the toys. (2) As predicted, the degree to which observers' attributions of toy liking corresponded to inferred attitude of the adult (who either approved or prohibited the actor's choice) was an inverse function of age. The similarities between the findings of this study and the data from studies of adult attitude attribution and children's moral attributions are considered in the discussion.     

Variation in Masculinities and Fathering Behaviors: A Cross-National Comparison of the United States and Canada

Sex Roles - Research continues to examine the barriers to and facilitators of positive fathering behaviors. One area recently addressed by researchers focuses on the relationship between masculine...     

Feasibility and acceptability of a brief suicide intervention for youth involved with the family court

As efforts to develop models for suicide prevention and intervention in the juvenile justice (JJ) system continue to grow, research to understand the feasibility and acceptability of implementing these models is critical. Examining organizational readiness for implementation, ensuring leadership and staff buy‐in for delivering the intervention, and planning for sustainability of staff participation in implementation efforts is essential. The current study involved semi‐structured formative evaluation interviews with key JJ stakeholders (n = 10) to determine perspectives on the acceptability (perceived need and fit of the intervention) and feasibility (organizational readiness for change) of a proposed brief safety planning intervention for youth with suicidal ideation delivered by nonclinical staff and integrated into the existing system. Qualitative data revealed stakeholders' perceived need for the intervention in the family court context and their agreement that the aims of the intervention were congruent with the goals of the family court. Some barriers to successful implementation were noted, which, addressed through selection of appropriate implementation strategies, can be overcome in a future test of the safety intervention.     

Education,Contact and the Vitality of Touch: Membranes,Morphologies, Movements

Studies in Philosophy and Education - This paper explores how touch is key to understanding education—not as an achievement or an instrument of acquisition, but as a process through which one...     

Empowering Leadership and Effective Collaboration in Geographically Dispersed Teams

Our research integrates theoretical perspectives related to distributed leadership in geographically dispersed teams with empowering leadership theory to build a multilevel model of virtual collaboration and performance in dispersed teams. We test the model with procurement teams in a major multinational corporation. Our results show a significant cross‐level effect of empowering team leadership, such that under conditions of high empowering team leadership, a team member's virtual teamwork situational judgment (VT‐SJ) is positively and significantly associated with his or her virtual collaboration behaviors and also indirectly with his or her individual performance in the team. At the team level, our findings also suggest that the impact of empowering leadership on team members’ aggregate virtual collaboration, and indirectly on team performance, increases at higher levels of team dispersion. These findings shed important light on the role of team leadership in fostering effective collaboration and performance of geographically dispersed virtual teams.     

Please be Honest and Provide Evidence: Deterrents of Deception in an Online Insurance Fraud Context

The present experiment examined whether people could be deterred from lying in an online insurance claim setting. A total of 96 participants were asked to submit a theft insurance claim. Reflecting real life, submitting a claim that went beyond the actual costs of the stolen items was associated with advantages and disadvantages. Two deterrence factors were introduced: asking claimants to provide evidence that they actually owned the stolen items (Evidence Instruction, often used by insurers) and asking participants to read out before starting to submit the claim that they will be truthful (Honesty Statement, not often used by insurers). We also examined at what stage of the interview claimants embedded their lies in their otherwise truthful stories. The honesty statement but not the evidence instruction made claimants more honest, and participants lied more as the interview progressed. © 2016 The Authors Applied Cognitive Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Using the Model Statement to Elicit Information and Cues to Deceit from Native Speakers,Non‐native Speakers and Those Talking Through an Interpreter

We examined how the presence of an interpreter during an interview affects eliciting information and cues to deceit, whilst using a method that encourages interviewees to provide more detail (model statement, MS). Sixty native English speakers were interviewed in English, and 186 non‐native English speakers were interviewed in English or through an interpreter. Interviewees either lied or told the truth about a mock security meeting, which they reported twice: in an initial free recall and after listening to the MS. The MS resulted in the native English speakers and those interviewed with an interpreter providing more reminiscences (additional detail) than the non‐native English speakers interviewed without an interpreter. As a result, those interviewed through an interpreter provided more detail than the non‐native English speakers, but only after the MS. Native English participants were most detailed in both recalls. No difference was found in the amount of reminiscences provided by liars and truth tellers. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Learning from Instructor‐managed and Self‐managed Split‐attention Materials

Instructor‐managed physical integration of mutually dependent, but spatially separated materials, is an effective way to overcome negative effects of split‐attention on learning. This study examined whether teaching students to self‐manage split‐attention materials would be effective for learning. Seventy‐eight primary‐school students learned about the water cycle, either by studying split‐attention examples, integrated examples or self‐managed split‐attention examples. It was hypothesised that students who study instructor‐integrated materials and students who study self‐integrated materials would outperform students who study split‐attention materials. The results showed that students learned more from instructor‐integrated materials than from split‐attention materials, thereby confirming the split‐attention effect. The implications for future research on self‐management are discussed.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.