Crossing the Threshold: The Spillover of Community Racial Diversity and Diversity Climate to the Workplace

We examined the spillover of community diversity to the workplace using a sample of 2,045 professionals living in communities across the U.S. Spillover effects were examined using 2 measures of community diversity: the degree to which employees were racially or ethnically similar to others in their community and perceptions of their community's diversity climate. Aligned with theories of group threat and racial segregation, Whites who were racially dissimilar to their communities expressed stronger intentions to leave their communities, and ultimately their workplaces, than those living in primarily White communities. However, community diversity climate offset these relationships; Whites who lived in communities that were racially dissimilar to them, but experienced the climate as inclusive, had lower moving intentions than those in communities that were experienced as racially intolerant. In contrast, for people of color, community diversity climate, rather than racial similarity to the community, predicted moving intentions. For both groups, the diversity climate in the community predicted moving intentions, which in turn predicted work turnover intentions, job search behaviors, and physical symptoms of stress at work. These findings suggest that the intention to leave one's community, and ultimately one's workplace, is influenced by community experiences and the community's perceived diversity climate.     

Non-work Domain Control as an Additional Dimension of Psychological Empowerment of Women Teachers

This paper extends Work/Family Border Theory in the context of psychological empowerment. It describes the development, validation and application of an additional dimension of empowerment, termed as “non-work domain control”. This dimension incorporates an employee’s ability to take decisions at household and immediate community level, not related to formal workplace. The study has three parts involving women primary school teachers of India. It included development of a measure and examining the pattern of variation in non-work domain control (n=401) among primary school teachers. The results showed that age, educational qualification, salary, and class-size affect some scale items. The result of structural equation modeling confirmed that non-work domain control is an additional dimension of psychological empowerment.     

Microswitch technology and contingent stimulation to promote adaptive engagement in persons with minimally conscious state: a case evaluation

This study assessed whether a post-coma woman functioning at the lower end of the minimally conscious state would (a) develop adaptive responding through the use of microswitch technology and contingent stimulation, (b) consolidate and maintain her responding over time, and (c) show evidence of response-consequences awareness (learning and discrimination). The study involved an ABABB¹CB¹ sequence in which the A represented baseline phases, the B and B¹ intervention phases, and the C a control phase with continuous stimulation. Results indicated that the woman developed adaptive responding and consolidated it over the intervention phases of the study. The woman also showed evidence of being aware of response-consequences links. Potential implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.     

On the time course of exogenous cueing effects in bilinguals: higher proficiency in a second language is associated with more rapid endogenous disengagement

Previous investigations have demonstrated a bilingual advantage on various aspects of executive control. It remains unclear how the language proficiency of bilinguals might relate to the mechanisms involved in attentional disengagement. In the present investigation, we tested the hypothesis that high bilingual proficiency would lead to a more rapid endogenous disengagement of attention from task-irrelevant peripheral cues. We predicted that more rapid attentional disengagement would result in an earlier appearance of inhibition of return (IOR). In this study Hindi-English bilinguals who differed in their L2 (English) proficiency participated in a target detection task. Visual targets were preceded by uninformative peripheral cues at various stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) allowing for us to visualize the time course of cue-related facilitation and inhibition. High-proficient Hindi-English bilinguals showed an earlier appearance of IOR than did low-proficient bilinguals, suggesting increased efficiency in disengagement of attention from task-irrelevant inputs. Furthermore, consistent with the "global" advantage that characterizes bilinguals in many tasks, the high-proficient group outperformed low-proficient bilinguals in overall reaction time.     

Explaining the errors away: Young children forgive understandable semantic mistakes

Errors differ in degree of seriousness. We asked whether preschoolers would use the magnitude of an informant's errors to decide if that informant would be a good source of information later. Four- and 5-year-olds observed two informants incorrectly label familiar objects, but one informant's errors were closer to the correct answer than the other's (e.g., one referred to a comb as a brush and the other referred to the same comb as a thunderstorm). When informants had an unambiguous view of the objects, children could identify which informant was closer to being correct, but they did not favor novel labels the “closer” informant later provided. When the informants had an ambiguous view of the objects (e.g., only the handle of the comb was visible), children preferred the novel labels provided later by the “closer” informant. Preschoolers are willing to overlook semantic errors that are close to being correct, but only when there is an understandable reason for the speaker's errors.     

Blame Without Punishment for Addicts

Philosophia - On the moral model of addiction, addicts are morally responsible and blameworthy for their addictive behaviours. The model is sometimes resisted on the grounds that blaming addicts is...     

Socio-Demographic Variables Affecting Well-Being: A Study on Indian Rural Women

The women in Indian villages perform multiple roles that include looking after the various needs of the family members, participating in home bound income generating activities (e.g. animal husbandry, agricultural activities) and holding jobs outside the home. Against this backdrop this study addressed two related goals: (a) to understand the perception of the dual role by the rural women, their work status and preferences and the attitude of their families and society towards women and (b) to explore variation in their well-being as a function of chronological age, level of education and work status. A large sample of 221 rural women (age range 18 to 56 years) drawn from villages of Haryana participated in the study. The relevant data were obtained through interview and observation. The findings showed that family and society appreciated the efforts of the rural women. Age and level of education emerged as significant factors in determining the experience of well-being.     

Condoms,Sex, and Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Exploring Sexual Health Issues Among Asian-Indian College Students

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) continue to pose a serious risk to college students in the US. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the highest rates of STIs are among college students and adolescents. Specifically regarding Asian-Indian students, more research is needed to thoroughly understand the knowledge, attitudes and sexual behaviors of this population. A comprehensive review of the literature found a paucity of studies involving Asian-Indian involvement in sexual activity. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to fill gaps in the research. The present study examined Asian-Indian college students’ involvement in sexual behaviors, overall STI knowledge, condom use rate, perceived benefits and barriers to condom use, and history of STIs and STI testing. A five page survey was completed by 122 Asian-Indian college students. Results indicated that overall STI knowledge was low. Females, students who perceived fewer barriers to condom use and students who had lived in the US for at least 3 years held significantly higher STI knowledge levels than their counterparts. Such findings could be used by community and university-based health educators to more effectively serve the needs of Asian-Indian students.     

Effects of hearing and vision impairments on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment

Many standardized measures of cognition include items that must be seen or heard. Nevertheless, it is not uncommon to overlook the possible effects of sensory impairment(s) on test scores. In the current study, we investigated whether sensory impairments could affect performance on a widely used screening tool, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Three hundred and one older adults (mean age = 71 years) completed the MoCA and also hearing and vision tests. Half of the participants had normal hearing and vision, 38% impaired hearing, 5% impaired vision, and 7% had dual-sensory impairment. More participants with normal sensory acuity passed the MoCA compared to those with sensory loss, even after modifying scores to adjust for sensory factors. The results suggest that cognitive abilities may be underestimated if sensory problems are not considered and that people with sensory loss are at greater risk of cognitive decline.