Dimensions of Support Among Abused Women in the Workplace

The authors draw on social support theory to examine supervisor support match (support wanted and received), support mismatch (support not wanted and received) and work outcomes for abused low‐wage working women, and to determine if supervisor support match and mismatch are more strongly associated with work outcomes than global supervisor support Face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with a community sample of abused, employed women who have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) in the past year (N = 163). Using hierarchical regression, we found, after accounting for global supervisor support; a higher level of supervisor support match was associated with greater job satisfaction, fewer job reprimands and less job termination. Findings from the study inform theories of social support and have practical implications for workplace interventions for IPV.     

How general is the “General Factor of Personality”? Evidence from the Texas Adoption Project

Using data from samples of 300 and 220 adoptive families from the Texas Adoption Project, aspects of generality of a “General Factor of Personality” (GFP) were examined: across different personality inventories, across different levels of analysis (items, scales) within an inventory, across self- and others’ judgments, and across sexes, ages, and generations. Considerable, though not complete, generality was found. The average correlation between GFPs from items and scales of a given inventory was .90; between GFPs from the scales of different inventories was .48. Also examined were the heritability of a GFP, its degree of correlation with a general cognitive factor, and its ability to predict real-life criteria such as educational level, marital stability, and substance abuse.     

The brain's hemispheres and controlled search of the lexicon: evidence from fixated words and pseudowords

Difference between the brain's hemispheres in efficiency of intentional search of the mental lexicon with phonological, orthographic, and semantic strategies was investigated. Letter strings for lexical decision were presented at fixation, with a lateralized distractor to the LVF or RVF. Word results revealed that both hemispheres were capable of using each of the three strategies, but the right hemisphere had better baseline processing of orthography and was better at processing semantics. Pseudoword results supported the right hemisphere advantage for orthography and showed a left hemisphere advantage for phonology and assessment of possible semantic relationships. Taken together, the data support the idea that the right hemisphere uses orthography to make efficient decisions about novelty of an item, while the left engages in grapheme-to-phoneme conversion to test hypotheses about unfamiliar items. The convergence of data with previous research reveals that the procedure, as well as analyses of pseudowords, inform laterality research.     

E pluribus unum: Dual identity and minority group members' motivation to engage in contact, as well as social change

Recent work on social change illustrates that disadvantaged-group members are sometimes less influenced by prejudice-reduction strategies than are advantaged-group members, and interventions to improve intergroup relations (e.g., commonality) can sometimes have the unintended consequence of reducing social-change motivations among members of disadvantaged groups. Focusing on disadvantaged groups' (i.e., racial/ethnic minorities) orientations toward advantaged groups, the present research experimentally investigated the potential of dual, relative to common, identity to produce greater willingness to engage in contact, while maintaining social change motivation. Relative to common identity, dual identity produced not only greater willingness to engage in contact, which was mediated by perceptions of shared values, but also greater social change motivation, mediated by decreased optimism about future relations. Thus, for dual identity, enhancing approach motivation (willingness for contact) does not necessarily undermine social change motivation. Implications for intergroup relations and more broadly social change are discussed.     

Hierarchical models of simple mechanisms underlying confidence in decision making

Choice confidence is a central measure in psychological decision research, often being reported on a probabilistic scale. Simple mechanisms that describe the psychological processes underlying choice confidence, including those based on error and confirmation biases, have typically received support via fits to data averaged over subjects. While averaged data ease model development, they can also destroy important aspects of the confidence data distribution. In this paper, we develop a hierarchical model of raw confidence judgments using the beta distribution, and we implement two simple confidence mechanisms within it. We use Bayesian methods to fit the hierarchical model to data from a two-alternative confidence experiment, and we use a variety of Bayesian tools to diagnose shortcomings of the simple mechanisms that are overlooked when applied to averaged data. Bugs code for estimating the models is also supplied.     

Deontic and epistemic reasoning in children

It is widely accepted that adults show an advantage for deontic over epistemic reasoning. Two published studies (Cummins, 1996b; Harris and Núñez, 1996, Experiment 4) found evidence of this “deontic advantage” in preschool-aged children and are frequently cited as evidence that preschoolers show the same deontic advantage as adults. However, neither study has been replicated, and it is not clear from either study that preschoolers were showing the deontic advantage under the same conditions as adults. The current research investigated these issues. Experiment 1 attempted to replicate both Cummins’s and Harris and Núñez’s studies with 3- and 4-year-olds (N = 56), replicating the former with 4-year-olds and the latter with both 3- and 4-year-olds. Experiment 2 modified Cummins’s task to remove the contextual differences between conditions, making it more similar to adult tasks, finding that 4-year-olds (n = 16) show no evidence of the deontic advantage when no authority figure is present in the deontic condition, whereas both 7-year-olds (n = 16) and adults (n = 28) do. Experiment 3 removed the authority figure from the deontic condition in Harris and Núñez’s task, again finding that 3- and 4-year-olds (N = 28) show no evidence of the deontic advantage under these conditions. These results suggest that for preschoolers, the deontic advantage is reliant on particular contextual cues such as the presence of an authority figure, in the deontic condition. By 7 years of age, however, children are reasoning like adults and show evidence of the advantage when no such contextual cues are present.     

Is the go/no-go lexical decision task preferable to the yes/no task with developing readers?

The lexical decision task is probably the most common laboratory visual word identification task together with the naming task. In the usual setup, participants need to press the “yes” button when the stimulus is a word and the “no” button when the stimulus is not a word. A number of studies have employed this task with developing readers; however, error rates and/or response times tend to be quite high. One way to make the task easier for young readers is by employing a go/no-go procedure: “If word, press ‘yes’; if not, refrain from responding.” Here we conducted a lexical decision experiment that systematically compared the yes/no and go/no-go variants of the lexical decision task with developing readers (second- and fourth-grade children). Results showed that (a) error rates for words and nonwords were much lower in the go/no-go task than in the yes/no task, (b) lexical decision times were substantially faster in the go/no-go task, and (c) there was less variability in the latency data of the go/no-go task for high-frequency words. Thus, the go/no-go lexical decision task is preferable to the “standard” yes/no task when conducting experiments with developing readers.     

The role of the executive functions in school achievement at the end of Grade 1

The aim of this study was to determine the role of executive functions (EFs) in early school achievement when a variety of potential confounding factors were controlled. Measures of EF (inhibition, flexibility, and working memory) and school readiness were administered to a sample of 85 kindergartners (39 boys and 46 girls, 5-6 years old). School achievement was then assessed at the end of Grade 1. Results show math and reading/writing skills at the end of Grade 1 to be associated with kindergarten EFs. Only working memory contributed uniquely to the variance in school achievement after all covariates (preacademic abilities, affective variables, and family variables) were controlled and, even then, only with respect to math skills. On the other hand, working memory and inhibition had an indirect effect on reading/writing skills via anger-aggression. EF implication in school achievement is discussed in terms of task demands and child age.     

Profiles of anger control in second-grade children: examination of self-report, observational, and physiological components

The current study used latent profile analysis (LPA) to examine anger control in 257 second-grade children (∼8 years of age). Anger was induced through losing a game and prize to a confederate who cheated. Three components of anger control were assessed: self-report of awareness of anger, observed intensity of angry facial expressions, and skin conductance reactivity. These components served as indicators in an LPA conducted to determine whether distinct groups of children who differed in anger control profiles would emerge. Five groups were found: (a) Physiology-and-Expression Controllers (high self-report, low expression, low physiological arousal), (b) Expression-Only Controllers (high self-report, low expression, high physiological arousal), (c) Non-controllers (high self-report, high expression, medium physiological arousal), (d) Non-reactive (low self-report, low expression, low physiological arousal), and (e) Non-reporters (low self-report, medium expression, medium physiological arousal). These findings are discussed in terms of implications for the assessment of children’s anger control skills and intervention programs for children’s anger management.     

A group construal account of drop-in-the-bucket thinking in policy preference and moral judgment

Decisions, both moral and mundane, about saving individuals or resources at risk are often influenced not only by numbers saved and lost, but also by proportions of groups saved and lost. Consider choosing between a program that saves 60 of 240 lives at risk and one that saves 50 of 100. The first option maximizes absolute number saved; the second, proportion saved. In two studies, we show that the influence of proportions on such decisions depends on how items at risk are mentally represented. In particular, we show that proportions have greater influence on people's decisions to the extent that the items at risk are construed as forming groups, as opposed to distinct individuals. Construal was manipulated by means of animated displays in which resources at risk moved either independently (promoting individual construal) or jointly (promoting group construal). Results support the hypothesis that (a) decision makers form mental representations which vary in the degree to which resources at risk are construed as groups versus individuals and (b) construal of resources as groups promotes the influence of proportions on decisions and moral judgments.