Public Attitudes about Transgender Participation in Sports: The Roles of Gender,Gender Identity Conformity,and Sports Fandom

Sex Roles - We examine the roles of gender, gender attitudes, and interest in sports on public attitudes about transgender people’s participation in athletics. Using a representative survey...     

Equity and derogation of those against whom we have aggressed

Casting the classic provocation-retaliation paradigm in an equity framework, we hypothesized that persons realizing their retribution was excessive would derogate their victim, but only when they did not anticipate an opportunity to compensate her. After retaliating against a peer who had harshly evaluated their essays, 40 female undergraduates were informed that either a serious or mild misfortune had recently been suffered by their partner, and were led to believe that at the outset of the experiment they had carelessly overlooked this “mitigating” information. Half the participants anticipated a later opportunity to do a favor for the other woman. Regardless of the severity of the mitigating information the women were more negative in their evaluation of the partner when they did not anticipate a subsequent opportunity to do the partner a favor. The results are discussed in terms of equity restoration in reactions to having aggressed. © 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

The effects of alcohol and persuasive social pressure on human physical aggression

Intoxicated and nonintoxicated subjects were given the opportunity to administer electric shocks to a nonprovocative opponent within the context of a competitive reaction time task. Social pressure was used to persuade subjects to administer a highly noxious electric shock to the passive opponent. The social pressure manipulation significantly increased the intoxicated subjects' use of the highly noxious shock. Non-intoxicated subjects did not evidence an appreciable increase in the use of the intense shock option.     

Distress, personality, and mammography utilization among women with a family history of breast cancer.

The authors examined the impact of psychological distress and the personality construct of conscientiousness (as measured by the Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness-Five Factor Inventory) on mammography utilization among women who were at increased risk for breast cancer. Participants were 200 women who had at least 1 first degree relative with breast cancer. Overall, 80% of the participants had obtained a mammogram in the previous year. Analyses controlling for potential confounders (perceived risk, decisional balance, and physician recommendation for mammography), revealed that distress was negatively associated with mammography utilization among participants who were low in conscientiousness. Distress was not significantly related to mammography utilization among highly conscientious women. The results are discussed in terms of their implications regarding interventions designed to increase mammography utilization in this population.     

The Personal Disturbance Scale (sAD): normative data and latent structure in a large non-clinical sample

The Personal Disturbance Scale [sAD; Bedford & Foulds (1978) Delusions–Symptoms–States Inventory State of Anxiety and Depression. Windsor: NFER-Nelson] is widely used in diverse settings and yet there are unresolved issues concerning its psychometric properties and normative data for the English speaking version are limited. The sAD was administered to a large sample of the general adult population (N=758). Demographic variables (gender, age, years of education and occupational status) had only very modest influences on sAD scores. Tables are presented for conversion of raw scores on the Anxiety, Depression and Total scales to percentiles. The sAD scales possessed adequate convergent and discriminant validity, as demonstrated by their pattern of correlations with two other measures of depression and anxiety (the DASS and the HADS). Ten competing models of the latent structure of the sAD were derived from theoretical and empirical sources. These models were evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis. The best fitting model (CFI=0.96) had a tripartite structure, and consisted of a general factor of psychological distress/negative affectivity (all items loaded on this factor) plus orthogonal specific factors of anxiety and depression. Correlated errors specified according to previous empirical findings were permitted. The theoretical and practical implications of this latent structure are discussed.     

Fear of Physical Harm: Factor Structure and Psychometric Properties of the Injury/Illness Sensitivity Index

Three fundamental fears—anxiety sensitivity, fear of negative evaluation, and injury/illness sensitivity—are believed integral components of anxiety-related psychopathologies. S. Taylor (1993) performed a cumulative factor analysis on measures of these and found them factorially distinct. Subsequently, separate factor analyses have been performed on measures of anxiety sensitivity and fear of negative evaluation. No such analysis exists for the Injury/Illness Sensitivity Index (ISI; S. Taylor, 1993). The ISI, an 11-item self-report questionnaire intended to measure fear of illness and injury, has the potential to inform the understanding of mechanisms underlying anxiety-associated chronic health conditions. The primary purpose of this study was to assess the factor structure and psychometric properties of the ISI. A principal components analysis with oblique rotation, conducted on data from 122 participants, suggests the ISI comprises two distinct lower order factors—Fear of Illness and Fear of Injury—that load onto a higher order factor of Fear of Physical Harm.     

Gender-typed play and amniotic testosterone

Sex differences in play are apparent in a number of mammalian species, including humans. Prenatal testosterone may contribute to these differences. The authors report the first attempt to correlate gender-typed play in a normative sample of humans with measurements of amniotic testosterone (aT). Testosterone was measured in the amniotic fluid of 53 children (31 boys and 22 girls). A strong sex difference was observed in aT and, at ages 4.75 to 5.8 years, on a modified version of the Child Game Participation Questionnaire. Hierarchical regression analyses on the entire group and within-sex correlations suggested that variations in aT did not contribute to individual differences in game participation as reported by the mother. A critique of explanations for this finding is presented.     

The Shelf Life of a Safety Climate Assessment: How Long Until the Relationship with Safety–Critical Incidents Expires?

Purpose

This study investigates safety climate as both a leading (climate → incident) and a lagging (incident → climate) indicator of safety–critical incidents. This study examines the “shelf life” of a safety climate assessment and its relationships with incidents, both past and future, by examining series of incident rates in order to determine when these predictive relationships expire.

Design/Methodology/Approach

A survey was conducted at a large, multinational chemical manufacturing company, with 7,467 responses at 42 worksites in 12 countries linked to over 14,000 incident records during the 2 years prior and 2 years following the survey period. Regressions revealed that safety climate predicts incidents of varying levels of severity, but it predicts the most severe incidents over the shortest period of time. The same is true for incidents predicting safety climate, with more severe incidents having a shorter predictive window. For the most critical relationship (climate predicting more severe incidents), the ability of a safety climate assessment to predict incidents expires after 3 months.

Implications

The choice of aggregation period in constructing incident rates is essential in understanding the safety climate–incident relationship. The common yearly count of incidents would make it seem that more severe incidents cannot be predicted by safety climate and also fails to show the strongest predictive effects of less severe incidents.

Originality/Value

This research is the first to examine assumptions regarding aggregation periods when constructing safety-related incident rates. Our work guides organizations in planning their survey program, recommending more frequent measurement of safety climate.