The Intervention of Robot Caregivers and the Cultivation of Children’s Capability to Play

In this article, the authors examine whether and how robot caregivers can contribute to the welfare of children with various cognitive and physical impairments by expanding recreational opportunities for these children. The capabilities approach is used as a basis for informing the relevant discussion. Though important in its own right, having the opportunity to play is essential to the development of other capabilities central to human flourishing. Drawing from empirical studies, the authors show that the use of various types of robots has already helped some children with impairments. Recognizing the potential ethical pitfalls of robot caregiver intervention, however, the authors examine these concerns and conclude that an appropriately designed robot caregiver has the potential to contribute positively to the development of the capability to play while also enhancing the ability of human caregivers to understand and interact with care recipients.     

Gender and Race Representation in Casual Games

This paper examines gender and race representation in casual games through content analysis. Study 1 looks at gender and race representation in a random sample (N?=?200) of casual games retrieved from the websites of the largest five casual game distributors. Study 2 looks at the most popular games on websites of the same five multinational distributors (N?=?54) and analyzes how primary characters are portrayed in terms of appearance and personality. Females are overly represented as primary characters but chi-square analyses indicate no significant differences between sexes in terms of how they are portrayed: of note, neither males nor females are depicted in a sexual manner. These results conflict with previous studies of gender representation in game characters: this paper suggests that sampling methodology and the relatively new trend of casual games excluded this subset of games from prior research. Implications are discussed using a social cognitive framework.     

Putting the “We” Into Well‐being: Using Collectivism‐Themed Measures of Well‐Being Attenuates Well‐being's Association With Individualism

Studies repeatedly have documented that societal well‐being is associated with individualism. Most of these studies, however, have conceptualized/measured well‐being as individual life satisfaction—a type of well‐being that originates in Western research traditions. Drawing from the latest research on interdependent happiness and on family well‐being, we posit that people across cultures pursue different types of well‐being, and test whether more collectivism‐themed types of well‐being that originate in Confucian traditions also are associated with individualism. Based on data collected from 2,036 participants across 12 countries, we find support for the association between individual life satisfaction and individualism at the societal level, but show that well‐being's association with individualism is attenuated when some collectivism‐themed measures of well‐being are considered. Our article advances knowledge on the flourishing of societies by suggesting that individualism may not always be strongly linked with societal well‐being. Implications for public policies are signaled.     

How fair treatment affects saliva cortisol release in stressed low and high type-A behavior individuals

The effects of fair treatment on saliva cortisol release of low and high Type-A behavior participants in high or low stress conditions are studied. Based on the Injustice Stress Theory (Vermunt & Steensma, 2001), predictions were made about fair treatment as a stress reducing factor. The results support the expected effect of fair treatment in that high type-A behavior participants in the low stress conditions had lower saliva cortisol levels after fair treatment while this effect was absent in the neutral condition, while low type-A behavior participants showed lower saliva cortisol release in the high stress conditions after fair treatment while this effect was absent in the neutral condition. Moreover, saliva cortisol scores are correlated positively with negative affect scores and negatively with positive affect scores. The discussion focuses on theoretical implications and suggestions for future research.     

Extending the Nomological Network of Assessment Center Construct Validity: Prediction of Cross-Situationally Consistent and Specific Aspects of Assessment Center Performance

The purpose of this study was to expand the nomological validity of assessment centers (ACs) by investigating predictors of cross-situationally consistent versus specific aspects of AC performance. Consistent with hypotheses, (a) Big Five personality factors predicted AC performance as it related to a cross-situationally consistent general performance factor but not as it related to exercise (i.e., situationally specific) factors, and (b) job knowledge predicted performance as it related to both the general performance factor and exercise-specific factors. Results are interpreted as they relate to the growing literature on AC construct validity.     

Morpho-orthographic segmentation without semantics

Masked priming studies have repeatedly provided evidence for a form-based morpho-orthographic segmentation mechanism that blindly decomposes any word with the mere appearance of morphological complexity (e.g., corn + er). This account has been called into question by Baayen et al. Psychological Review, 118, 438–482 (2011), who pointed out that the prime words previously tested in the morpho-orthographic condition vary in the extent to which the suffix conveys regular meaning. In the present study, we investigated whether evidence for morpho-orthographic segmentation can be obtained with a set of tightly controlled prime words that are entirely semantically opaque. Using a visual lexical decision task, we compared priming from truly suffixed primes (hunter-HUNT), completely opaque pseudo-suffixed primes (corner-CORN), and non-suffixed primes (cashew-CASH). The results show comparable magnitudes of priming for the truly suffixed and pseudo-suffixed primes, and no priming from non-suffixed primes, and therefore provide further important evidence in support of morpho-orthographic segmentation processes operating in the absence of any possible role for semantics.