Can societal language amendments change gender representation? The case of Norway

This study investigates the influence of stereotypical information and the grammatical masculine on the representation of gender in Norwegian by applying a sentence evaluation paradigm. In this study participants had to decide whether a second sentence containing explicit information about the gender of one of more of the characters (e.g. . . . one of the women . . . ) was a sensible continuation of a first sentence introducing a role name (e.g. The spies came out . . . ). Participants' representations were biased by the stereotypicality of the role names when reading female (e.g. nurses) and male (e.g. pilots) stereotyped role names (replicating findings from the English sample in a previous publication), but male biased when reading neutral role names (replicating findings from the French and the German samples in a previous publication).     

Social support group attendance is related to blood pressure, health behaviours, and quality of life in the Multicenter Lifestyle Demonstration Project

Changes in coronary risk factors, health behaviours, and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) were examined by tertiles of social support group attendance in 440 patients (21% females) with coronary artery disease. All patients participated in the Multicenter Lifestyle Demonstration Project (MLDP; eight hospital sites in the USA), an insurance-covered multi-component cardiac prevention program including dietary changes, stress management, exercise and group support for 1 year. Significant improvements in coronary risk factors, health behaviours, and HRQOL were noted at 1 year. Several of these improvements (i.e. systolic blood pressure, health behaviours, HRQOL) were related to social support group attendance, favoring those who attended more sessions. The associations between support group attendance to systolic blood pressure and to four HRQOL subscales (bodily pain, social functioning, mental health, and the mental health summary score) remained significant when controlling for changes in health behaviours, but dropped to a non-significant level for the HRQOL subscales 'physical functioning', 'general health' and 'role-emotional'. These results suggest an independent relationship of social support group attendance to systolic blood pressure while improvements in quality of life may be in part due to improved health behaviours facilitated by increased social support group attendance.     

Kasuistik: Ein forensisch relevanter kollektiver affektiver Ausnahmezustand mit kulturell besonderem Hintergrund

Eine ursprünglich aus Freundschaft und kultureller N?he begonnene Zusammenarbeit endete in einer j?hen Eskalation mit lebensgef?hrlichen Verletzungen. Drei unmittelbar als Opfer und T?ter in die Tat verwickelte Beteiligte zeigten - neben ihrer Zugeh?rigkeit zur gleichen Volksgruppe - auch ?hnlichkeiten in ihren Biografien. Famili?rer Zusammenhalt und ein damit einhergehender enger Familienbund sowie typische Repressalien w?hrend des Aufwachsens werden in der Anamnese dieses spannenden Falles berücksichtig. Wie die Gutachten erstellt und das Gericht entschieden hat, lesen Sie hier.     

Au pairs are rarely male: Norms on the gender perception of role names across English,French, and German

A list of role names for future use in research on gender stereotyping was created and evaluated. In two studies, 126 role names were rated with reference to their gender stereotypicality by English-, French-, and German-speaking students of universities in Switzerland (French and German) and in the U.K. (English). Role names were either presented in specific feminine and masculine forms (Study 1) or in the masculine form (generic masculine) only (Study 2). The rankings of the stereotypicality ratings were highly reliable across languages and questionnaire versions, but the overall mean of the ratings was less strongly male if participants were also presented with the female versions of the role names and if the latter were presented on the left side of the questionnaires.     

Brief Experimental Analysis: A Decision Tool for Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice

This special issue illustrates how brief experimental analysis (BEA) is gaining recognition as a valuable tool for making treatment decisions about children who are unresponsive to regular classroom instruction. This commentary article provides evidence for why BEA has grown in popularity, briefly summarizes each of the studies included in the series, and discusses issues that are critical to conducting and interpreting data from a BEA. The articles in the issue exemplify how BEA is flexible enough to evaluate diverse intervention options, is time and cost efficient, and is uniquely suited for use in a problem-solving approach to school-based service delivery.     

Emotional Aging: Taking the Immediate Context Seriously

The authors provide a review of selected laboratory research on age differences in emotional functioning. The authors propose that this research area would benefit from an ecological approach in which the immediate context of emotional functioning is more explicitly considered. More specifically, to date many laboratory studies have used stimuli and tasks with little ecological validity and did not explicitly consider the possibility that the research setting and stimulus material might have age-differential effects on the outcome measures. This practice may have led to inconsistent findings across studies and narrow or incorrect conclusions in terms of older adults’ emotional functioning.     

Measuring alcohol-related protective behavioral strategies among college students: further examination of the Protective Behavioral Strategies Scale.

Heavy drinking among college students has been recognized as a public health problem on American college campuses (e.g., R. Hingson, T. Heeren, M. Winter, & H. Wechsler, 2005). Recently, protective behavioral strategies, or cognitive-behavioral strategies that can be implemented when using alcohol to reduce consumption and resulting negative consequences, have been shown to be associated with less alcohol use and fewer alcohol-related problems (e.g., S. L. Benton et al., 2004; M. P. Martens et al., 2005). The purpose of the present study was to conduct additional psychometric work on a measure designed to assess the use of such strategies: the Protective Behavioral Strategies Scale (PBSS; M. P. Martens et al., 2005). Data were collected on 505 undergraduate students from 2 universities who reported having consumed alcohol at least once in the past 30 days. Results of a confirmatory factor analysis supported the hypothesized 3-factor version of the PBSS, and scores on each subscale were correlated in the expected direction with both alcohol use and alcohol-related problems. Thus, the PBSS appears to be reliable and valid for use among college student drinkers.     

The Moderating Influence of Personality and Culture on Social Loafing in Typical versus Maximum Performance Situations

The current paper combines research from personality, cultural, social, and work‐ and organizational psychology. More precisely, it addresses the motivating effects of situations that either foster or inhibit social loafing under typical vs maximum performance conditions. It further tests how these effects are moderated by the three individual difference variables of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience, and the two cultural dimension variables of collectivism and power distance. Results reveal positive main effects for inherently motivating situations, maximum performance conditions, conscientiousness, agreeableness and collectivism, as well as a significant interaction between the degree to which the situation invites social loafing and the typical vs maximum performance condition. These findings thus confirm a possible overlap between the theories of social loafing and of typical vs maximum performance. Finally, power distance showed a number of surprising interactions that may, in part, account for cultural differences found in the social loafing literature. Implications for theory building, empirical research and practice are discussed.     

A comparison of performance feedback procedures on teachers' treatment implementation integrity and students' inappropriate behavior in special education classrooms

This study examined the extent to which treatment integrity of 4 special education teachers was affected by goal setting, performance feedback regarding student or teacher performance, and a meeting cancellation contingency. Teachers were trained to implement function-based treatment packages to address student problem behavior. In one condition, teachers set a goal for student behavior and received daily written feedback about student performance. In a second condition, teachers received daily written feedback about student performance as well as their own accuracy in implementing the intervention and would be able to avoid meeting with a consultant to practice missed steps by implementing the intervention with 100% integrity. This latter package increased treatment integrity the most above baseline levels. Higher levels of treatment integrity were significantly correlated with lower levels of student problem behavior for 3 of the 4 teacher-student dyads. Three of the 4 teachers also rated both feedback procedures as highly acceptable. Implications for increasing and maintaining treatment integrity by teachers via a consultation model are discussed.