Beliefs About Gender Discrimination in the Workplace in the Context of Affirmative Action: Effects of Gender and Ambivalent Attitudes in an Australian Sample

This study investigated beliefs about gender discrimination in opportunities for promotion in organisations and their relation to gender and gender-focused ambivalent beliefs as measured, respectively, by the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI) and the Ambivalence toward Men Inventory (AMI) (Glick and Fiske, Ambivalent sexism. In M.P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, 33: pp. 115-188, San Diego, CA: Academic, 2001a). These two inventories were administered to 225 students at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia along with discrimination items concerning advantage, responsibility, guilt, and resentment about the advancement of men and women in the workplace. Results showed gender differences in discrimination beliefs and in the hostile and benevolent scales from the ASI and AMI. Gender differences and relations between these scales and the discrimination variables were interpreted in terms of system-justification, self and group interests, and the effects of values and beliefs about deservingness and entitlement. This study was supported by a grant from the Australian Research Council.     

The relationship between body weight and perceived weight-related employment discrimination: The role of sex and race

This study provides unique empirical evidence regarding a growing concern internationally: weight discrimination in the workplace. Using survey data from a national sample of 2838 American adults, it responds to Puhl and Brownell’s [Puhl, R., & Brownell, K. D. (2001). Bias, discrimination, and obesity. Obesity Research, 9, 788-805] call for additional research investigating the prevalence of discriminatory experience among overweight employees, and to their more specific call for research that takes sex and race into account when examining weight discrimination. The results indicate that women are over 16 times more likely than men to perceive employment related discrimination and identify weight as the basis for their discriminatory experience. In addition, overweight respondents were 12 times more likely than normal weight respondents to report weight-related employment discrimination, obese 37 times more likely, and severely obese more than 100 times more likely. The implications of the study’s findings for organizations, policy makers, overweight employees, and career counselors are discussed, and future research directions suggested.     

The development of intergroup bias in childhood: how social norms can shape children's racial behaviours

The present research examined the developmental course of racial behaviours in childhood. It tested the hypothesis that White children's expressions of racial prejudice do not necessarily decline in middle childhood due to the development of particular cognitive skills but that instead, as argued by the socio-normative approach, children older than seven will go on expressing prejudiced attitudes under appropriate conditions. This would be explained by the presence of an anti-racism norm, along with the existence of values promoting equal rights, which impede blatant expressions of racism. In the first study 283 White children aged 6-7 and 9-10 years performed a task of resource allocation to White and Black target children in conditions of high (White interviewer was present) or low (White interviewer was absent) salience of the anti-racist norm. The 6- to 7-year-old children discriminated against the Black target in both conditions whereas older children discriminated against the Black child only when the anti-racist norm was not salient. In Study 2, 187 White children aged 6-7 and 9-10 years performed the same resource allocation task in conditions of explicit activation of similarity vs dissimilarity or egalitarian vs merit-based norms regarding race relations. Supporting the hypothesis of the role of racist or anti-racist norms on the expression of intergroup discrimination, results have again shown that 6- to 7-year-old children discriminated against the Black target in both conditions while older children presented significantly different prejudiced/nonprejudiced behaviours consistent with the activated norms. These results were discussed in terms of the need for a reanalysis of the assumptions and research results of the cognitive-developmental theory and of further developments in the socio-normative approach regarding the development of prejudice in childhood.     

Individual attitudes and perceived social norms: Reports on HIV/AIDS‐related stigma among service providers in China

This study examined HIV/AIDS‐related stigma among Chinese service providers by comparing their personal attitudes toward people living with HIV/AIDS with their perception of social norms related to people living with HIV/AIDS. We randomly selected three provincial hospitals, four city/prefecture hospitals, 10 county hospitals, 18 township health clinics, and 54 village clinics from Yunnan, China. Doctors and nurses were randomly sampled proportionally to the doctor–nurse ratio of each hospital or clinic. Lab technicians were over‐sampled in order to include an adequate representation in the analysis. A total of 1,101 service providers participated in a voluntary, anonymous survey where demographic characteristics, individual attitude and perceived social norms toward people living with HIV/AIDS, discrimination intent at work, general prejudicial attitude and knowledge on HIV/AIDS were measured. A majority of the sample demonstrated a similarity between their personal views and what they thought most people in society believe. Multiple logistic regressions revealed that participants who were younger or reported personal contact with people living with HIV/AIDS were significantly more likely to report personal attitudes toward the population that were more liberal than their perceived social norms. Holding a more liberal personal attitude toward people living with HIV/AIDS than perceived social norms was significantly and negatively related to the level of discrimination intent at work, perceived discrimination at interpersonal level and the level of general prejudicial attitude toward people living with HIV/AIDS. Results underscored the importance of understanding social norms and personal attitudes in studying HIV‐related stigma and called for the incorporation of existing human capital into future HIV stigma reduction programs.     

The symmetry of visual fields in chromatic discrimination

Both classical and recent reports suggest a right-hemisphere superiority for color discrimination. Testing highly-trained normal subjects and taking care to eliminate asymmetries from the testing situation, we found no significant differences between left and right hemifields or between upper and lower hemifields. This was the case for both of the cardinal axes of color space. In addition, there was no difference according to whether the discriminanda were delivered to the same or to different hemispheres, and we note that the same number of synapses may lie between the retina and the site of comparison whether or not the stimuli are delivered to the same hemisphere.     

Environmental enrichment improves behavioral performance and auditory spatial representation of primary auditory cortical neurons in rat

Environmental enrichment (EE) has an important role in brain plasticity. Early research has shown that EE increases the response strength of neurons in the auditory cortex, but it remains unknown whether EE can influence the process of spatial localization in the auditory system. In this study, we raised rats in enriched and standard conditions from postnatal day 10 to day 56. By testing behavioral tasks via auditory cues, we have shown that EE improved the number of correct scores, but decreased the reaction time and azimuth deviation in behavioral performance of sound-azimuth discrimination. By in vivo extracellular recording, we have shown that EE enhanced the directional sensitivity of neurons in the primary auditory cortex. For example, EE rats had a smaller spatial receptive field, sharper frequency tuning curve and directional selective curve of auditory neurons compared with normal rats. Our findings indicate that early exposure to EE increases directional sensitivity. These results provide an insight into developmental plasticity in the auditory system.     

Racial Discrimination: A Continuum of Violence Exposure for Children of Color

This article reviews and examines findings on the impact of racial discrimination on the development and functioning of children of color in the US. Based on current definitions of violence and child maltreatment, exposure to racial discrimination should be considered as a form of violence that can significantly impact child outcomes and limit the ability of parents and communities to provide support that promotes resiliency and optimal child development. In this article, a conceptual model of the effects of racial discrimination in children of color is presented. The model posits that exposure to racial discrimination may be a chronic source of trauma in the lives of many children of color that negatively influences mental and physical outcomes as well as parent and community support and functioning. Concurrent exposure to other forms of violence, including domestic, interpersonal and/or community violence, may exacerbate these effects. The impact of a potential continuum of violence exposure for children of color in the US and the need for future research and theoretical models on children’s exposure to violence that attend to the impact of racial discrimination on child outcomes are discussed.     

光栅朝向分辨学习中存在关于45°对角线对称的镜像迁

采用光栅朝向分辨任务来探讨视知觉学习中是否存在关于45°对角线对称的镜像迁移现象。训练被试分辨15°或75°朝向3或5天,每天约1小时,训练前后测量15°、75°、45°朝向的分辨阈值。通过训练,训练朝向（15°或75°）的阈值下降,该学习效应没有迁移至45°朝向,但基本迁移到关于45°对称的朝向（75°或15°）上。这提示,视知觉学习可能发生在中间视皮层,该皮层同时具有一定的朝向特异性和关于45°对角线对称的镜像迁移性     

基于项目区分度的双目标CD-CAT选题策略

针对双目标CD-CAT,将六种项目区分度（鉴别力D、一般区分度GDI、优势比OR、2PL的区分度a、属性区分度ADI、认知诊断区分度CDI）分别与IPA方法结合,得到新的选题策略。模拟研究比较了它们的表现,还考察了区分度分层在控制项目曝光的表现。结果发现：新方法都能明显提高知识状态的判准率和能力估计精度;分层选题均能很好地提高题库利用率。总体上,OR加权能显著提高测量精度;OR分层选题在保证测量精度条件下显著提高项目曝光均匀性。