Gender-Differentiated Associations among Objectified Body Consciousness, Self-Conceptions and Physical Activity

The nature of relationships among objectified body consciousness (OBC), a model of physical self-conceptions, and self-reported physical activity were examined in a cross-sectional study with U.S. undergraduate women (n?=?231) and men (n?=?163). As hypothesized, women reported significantly higher levels of OBC body surveillance and body shame than men with no significant difference in OBC appearance control beliefs levels between women and men. Canonical correlation analysis revealed significant and different relationships between the set of OBC variables and the set of physical self-concept variables for women and men. The strength of association between the two sets of variables accounted for 48% of the shared variance for women and 29% for men. The multivariate relationship between OBC and physical activity was non-significant.     

Moral disengagement in ethical decision making: a study of antecedents and outcomes

This article advances understanding of the antecedents and outcomes of moral disengagement by testing hypotheses with 3 waves of survey data from 307 business and education undergraduate students. The authors theorize that 6 individual differences will either increase or decrease moral disengagement, defined as a set of cognitive mechanisms that deactivate moral self-regulatory processes and thereby help to explain why individuals often make unethical decisions without apparent guilt or self-censure (Bandura, 1986). Results support 4 individual difference hypotheses, specifically, that empathy and moral identity are negatively related to moral disengagement, while trait cynicism and chance locus of control orientation are positively related to moral disengagement. Two additional locus of control orientations are not significantly related to moral disengagement. The authors also hypothesize and find that moral disengagement is positively related to unethical decision making. Finally, the authors hypothesize that moral disengagement plays a mediating role between the individual differences they studied and unethical decisions. Their results offer partial support for these mediating hypotheses. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for future research and for practice.     

Cross‐level,three‐way interactions among work‐group climate,gender, and frequency of harassment on morale and withdrawal outcomes of sexual harassment

We examined the effects of gender and work‐groups' perceptions of climate for sexual harassment on the relationship between individuals' sexual harassment experiences and job‐related outcomes (namely, job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, work withdrawal, and job withdrawal). Drawing from a variety of theories, we proposed that a beneficial climate would buffer men from negative outcomes, but would intensify negative outcomes for women. Significant three‐way interactions were found for job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, and job withdrawal. Results indicated that beneficial work‐group climate perceptions buffered men from decrements in job satisfaction and work withdrawal, but intensified decrements in all three outcomes for women. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Preference organization in anxiety/phobia counselling: Preserving social solidarity

In this study attention is focused on how participants construct their talk in ways which maintain social solidarity: thereby maximizing the likelihood of affiliative actions and minimizing the likelihood of disaffiliative actions in the context of anxiety/phobia counselling. The first part of the study considers previous work and concludes that although such analysis is important, relatively few studies have directed attention to the actual structure of counselling interactions. The study concludes by suggesting that analyses which begin with detailed attention to the intricacies of data and then broaden out to focus on wider issues can be both analytically and practically impressive.     

Predicting College Student Satisfaction, Commitment, and Attrition from Investment Model Constructs

In a medium-sized college, 174 undergraduates evaluated the rewards, costs, alternatives, and investments associated with their enrollment. These investment model variables (Rusbult, 1980a) were significantly related to the students'satisfaction with the college, their commitment to remain enrolled, and their subsequent enrollment behavior. Linear and logistic regression results supported many, but not all, investment model predictions concerning the relationships between model constructs. Investment model variables were found to have greater validity than integration model variables (Tinto, 1975) in predicting institutional commitment and enrollment behavior. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

The effects of perceptual condition on proofreading for misspellings

In two experiments, subjects proofread text in which misspelled words were created by replacing a single letter with another one. The following perceptual conditions were included: clear-cut photocopies of typewritten text, clear-cut text presented on a CRT screen, ditto copies that varied in legibility, and text that included extraneous noise characters superimposed on some letters. In all conditions, subjects adopted a hierarchical feature test that gave first priority to resolving letter envelope and second priority to discriminating other letter features. When clear-cut text with no extraneous noise was proofread, subjects used a sophisticated-guessing decision rule that tolerated misspellings involving missing letter features (as when c replaced e) but not added ones (as when e replaced c). This asymmetrical rule was modified, however, when subjects were exposed to text that included extraneous noise that was confusable with the letter features. In those circumstances, subjects adopted a decision rule that tolerated misspellings involving missing features or any added features that resembled the noise.     

The prototype effect in face recognition: Extension and limits

The prototype effect in face recognition refers to a tendency to recognize the face corresponding to the central value of a series of seen faces, even when this central value or prototype has not been seen. Five experiments investigated the extension and limits of this phenomenon. In all the experiments, participants saw a series of faces, each one in two or more different versions or exemplars, and then performed a recognition test, including seen and unseen exemplars and the unseen prototype face. In Experiment 1, a strong prototype effect for variations in feature location was demonstrated in oldness ratings and in a standard old/new recognition test. Experiments 2A and 2B compared the prototype effect for variations in feature location and variations in head angle and showed that, for the latter, the prototype effect was weaker and more dependent on similarity than for the former. These results suggest that recognition across feature variations is based on an averaging mechanism, whereas recognition across viewpoint variations is based on an approximation mechanism. Experiments 3A and 3B examined the limits of the prototype effect using a face morphing technique that allows a systematic manipulation of face similarity. The results indicated that, as the similarity between face exemplars decreases to the level of similarity between the faces of different individuals, the prototype effect starts to disappear. At the same time, the prototype effect may originate false memories of faces that were never seen.     

Picture-word differences and conceptual frequency judgments

Recent evidence suggests that while pictures are more easily recognized, discriminated, associated, and recalled than their corresponding verbal labels, this is not the case in concept acquisition/utilization tasks. If such evidence is interpreted in terms of a "frequency theory" perspective, one would expect the typically obtained frequency judgment differences between pictures and words to be reduced if "conceptual" frequency judgments are required. This expectation was confirmed in three experiments.