Parenting typologies in Georgian and Belgian adolescents: Associations with self-esteem

The parenting context is of fundamental importance for the optimal development of adolescents. Making use of a person-centered approach, we derived parenting typologies from the perspective of Georgian and Belgian adolescents based on four dimensions of perceived parenting (responsiveness, structure, psychological control, and autonomy support). Further, we examined how perceived parenting typologies were associated with adolescents' self-esteem. The study sample included 511 Georgian and 830 Belgian adolescents (N = 1341; 48% female). A cluster-analytic procedure on the full sample was conducted separately for mothers and fathers. The analysis yielded five parenting typologies: Supportive—Highly structuring (high responsiveness and structure), Highly structuring—Moderately controlling (high structure and psychological control, moderate—responsiveness), Supportive—Low structuring/controlling (high responsiveness and autonomy support, low structure and psychological control), Highly controlling (very high psychological control, low responsiveness and autonomy support) and Uninvolved (low on all dimensions). Results indicated that the Highly structuring—Moderately controlling paternal cluster was more prevalent in the Belgian sample. A country-moderating effect was found with the paternal Uninvolved profile associated with low levels of self-esteem in Belgian adolescents, but with moderate levels of self-esteem in Georgian adolescents.     

Commentaries on “Beyond statistical significance: Five principles for the new era of data analysis and reporting”

Three commentaries below provide different perspectives on data analysis and reporting. They generally focus on how the quality of the measures and manipulations determines the value of the analysis. Norbert Schwarz and Fritz Strack's comment is less on the right statistic and more on “sloppy reasoning, gaps between theoretical concepts and their operationalizations, and blissful ignorance of the situated nature of human thinking, feeling, and doing contribute more to the limited reproducibility of empirical findings than the choice of a particular test statistic.” They propose that particular effects are contextual and inappropriately labeled as true or false. Instead, our job is to focus on general constructs that make sense of the diversity of human experience and psychological reactions. Too often studies replicating psychological effects in the noisy and confounded conditions of the marketplace result in statistical uncertainty of garbage in, garbage out. Researchers instead need to look toward tests of specific interactions, which can clarify the influencing factors based on theoretical considerations. The second comment is by Andrew Gelman, an outstanding psychological statistician. He proposes that “once the data have been collected, the most important decisions have already been done.” He then provides four recommendations that enable the statistics to work appropriately. The first requirement of an effective study is to be sure that the measures address the construct of interest. Similar to the position of Schwarz and Strack, it is important to articulate the relevance of a statistically significant finding. The second recommendation seeks to curb large number of studies with inflated effect sizes built from narrow studies and unwarranted optimism. The third recommendation is to simulate data from a model and consider the distribution of possible results. That is often done to test a new analysis method, but it can be even more important in marketplace studies where novel characteristics of the sample and experimental conditions are included in the analysis. Finally, he recommends that one consider likely analyses needed before getting the data. Such foresight would encourage, for example, thinking about the kind of data needed to defend the equality of the control demographics against the treatment. The final commentary is by Stijn van Osselaer. He agrees that p-values reflect the detailed methods from a given study but do not focus on the problem of generalizability. Like Gelman, he sees designs focused on effect sizes may have generated too many studies that do not replicate. He contrasts broad explorations with narrowly defined existence tests that provide evidence that an effect exists somewhere but are mute on other contexts where they may apply. For theoretical problems relevant to applications, it is important to identify moderators through broad sampling across population characteristics, stimuli, and situations. He proposes that consumer psychologists should not try to do everything in one paper, but to build practically relevant, applicable knowledge across multiple articles. Different articles, authors, and research methods play various roles, with each article focusing on important stages in the process from generating hypotheses, providing existence proofs, and exploring their broad applicability. That pragmatic approach can integrate theoretical silos that seek to resolve complex human problems and has promise as a criterion for relevant publications.     

Who distinguishes between sinners and sins at the implicit level of awareness?

Several researchers have investigated the possibility that people indeed can love individuals who are engaged in behaviors that are considered unacceptable. In the present research, the authors evaluated the possibility that people distinguish between presumably sinful persons and presumably sinful behaviors at a cognitive level that does not involve conscious intent and awareness: the implicit (nonconscious) level of awareness. Participants performed a speeded-response task, the Implicit Association Test. Results indicated that participants were able to make such a (person vs. behavior) distinction and that in doing so, they manifested positive implicit evaluations of sinful people relative to sinful actions.     

The effects of self-disclosure and non self-disclosure of stuttering on listeners' perceptions of a person who stutters

The aim of this study was to examine listener perceptions of an adult male person who stutters (PWS) who did or did not disclose his stuttering. Ninety adults who do not stutter individually viewed one of three videotaped monologues produced by a male speaker with severe stuttering. In one monologue, 30 listeners heard the speaker disclose stuttering at the beginning and in another monologue, 30 listeners heard the speaker disclose stuttering at the end. A third group of 30 listeners viewed a monologue where no disclosure of stuttering occurred. After listeners viewed a monologue, they were asked to rate a set of six Likert scale statements and answer three open-ended questions. The results showed that only one of six Likert statements was significantly different across the three conditions. The only statement that was different was that the speaker was perceived to be significantly more friendly when disclosing stuttering at the end of the monologue than when not disclosing stuttering. There were no significant differences between the percentage of positive and negative comments made by listeners across the three conditions. Listeners' comments to each open-ended question showed they were comfortable listening to stuttering with or without disclosure and slightly more than half of the listeners believed their perceptions of the speaker did not change when he disclosed stuttering. The results also showed that the speaker who disclosed stuttering at the beginning of the monologue received significantly more positive listener comments than when he disclosed stuttering at the end of the monologue. Results are discussed relative to comparisons with the study, the clinical relevance of acknowledging stuttering as a component of treatment, and future research on the self-disclosure of stuttering. Educational objectives: The reader will be able to: (1) describe how different groups of listeners perceive and respond to two conditions of self-disclosure of stuttering and one condition involving non self-disclosure of stuttering; (2) summarize the range of listener responses to and benefits of self-disclosure of stuttering; and (3) describe the value of self-disclosure of stuttering for the listener and the speaker.     

Liberals, moderates and jihadists: protesting Danish cartoons in Indonesia

Muslim liberals, moderates, and radical “jihadists,” together with the Indonesian government, condemned Danish caricatures of Prophet Muhammad as insulting and hateful. However, the form of protest of these diverse segments of Indonesian Muslims was shaped by their ideological frameworks and political agendas. The “mainstream” of Indonesia’s increasingly radical “moderate” Muslim community, as represented by Nahdlatul Ulama, Muhammadiyah, and the Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS), squarely condemned the images within their particular perspectives, while distancing themselves from the “anarchist” radical demonstrators. The Liberal Islam Network (JIL), dedicated to fighting against “fundamentalists,” pointed out the role of detrimental fundamentalisms around the world. Several small radical groups, MMI, FPI and HTI actively staged street demonstrations fitting this case into their ideological framework of jihad, defending Islam, and/or striving for an Islamic state. These varied responses are better understood as integral to ongoing processes of radicalization, liberalization, and cultural and politico-jural Islamization.

Transitive inference by pigeons: Does the geometric presentation of the stimuli make a difference?

In studies of transitive inference (TI), nonhuman animals are typically trained with the following 5-term task: A+B?, B+C?, C+D?, D+E? where the letters stand for arbitrary stimuli and [+] indicates that choice is reinforced and [?] indicates that choice is not reinforced. A TI effect is found when, given the untrained test pair BD, subjects choose B. TI effects have been found in many nonhuman species. Although reinforcement history has been posited as an account of the TI effect, it has failed to account for a variety of conditions under which TI effects have been found. A more cognitive account of TI is that organisms are able to form a representation of the series (A > B > C > D > E). In support of this hypothesis, Roberts and Phelps (Psychol Sci 5:368–374, 1994) found that presentation of the pairs of stimuli in a linear arrangement facilitated TI performance by rats, whereas presentation of the pairs of stimuli in a circular arrangement did not. Using methods adapted from Roberts and Phelps, we trained pigeons on either a linear or a circular arrangement of stimuli with the 5-term task. Results indicated that on the BD test pair, pigeons trained with a circular arrangement did not differ from those trained with a linear arrangement. Furthermore, we found that memory for training pairs was variable and was highly correlated with degree of TI. The results suggest that regardless of how pigeons are able to represent the stimuli, choice was not affected by the spatial arrangement of the stimuli during training.     

Investigating Perceptions of Students to a Peer-Based Academic Integrity Presentation Provided by Residence Dons

This study investigated students’ (n?=?819) perceptions following a prepared, common presentation regarding academic integrity provided by their residence dons. This peer instruction study utilized both quantitative and qualitative analyses of survey data within a pre-test post-test design. Overall, students reported gains in knowledge, as well as confidence in their knowledge of academic integrity. Notably, students reported increases in their personal value for academic integrity after participating in the presentations. Overall, the quality and content of the presentations were judged positively, and participants’ ratings of the presentation were predictive of increases in personal value of academic integrity, as well as self-reported knowledge and confidence gains. Qualitative analyses supported that the key ideas in the presentation served as the focal material for discussion, but also introduced specific topics that students wanted to explore in greater depth.