An Assessment of Ethnocultural Beliefs Regarding the Causes of Birth Defects and Genetic Disorders

With the expansion of genetic services to various cultural groups, genetic counselors encounter clients who hold diverse beliefs inscribed by their culture about health conditions. Thus, clients may attribute the cause of a birth defect or genetic condition to a culturally-based health belief. This present study was conducted as a pilot study in order to assess the beliefs about the causes of birth defects and genetic disorders held by women of different ethnocultural backgrounds. This study proposed that women who do not have a family history of a disorder will differ in their knowledge about the cause of a birth defect or genetic disorder compared to women who have an affected child. In addition, this study determined to what extent culturally-based health beliefs are attributed to being the cause of a birth defect or genetic disorder in the 1990s.     

Sexual differences in memory in shiny cowbirds

Avian brood parasites depend on other species, the hosts, to raise their offspring. During the breeding season, parasitic cowbirds (Molothrus sp.) search for potential host nests to which they return for laying a few days after first locating them. Parasitic cowbirds have a larger hippocampus/telencephalon volume than non-parasitic species; this volume is larger in the sex involved in nest searching (females) and it is also larger in the breeding than in the non-breeding season. In nature, female shiny cowbirds Molothrus bonariensis search for nests without the male’s assistance. Here we test whether, in association with these neuroanatomical and behavioural differences, shiny cowbirds display sexual differences in a memory task in the laboratory. We used a task consisting of finding food whose location was indicated either by the appearance or the location of a covering disk. Females learnt to retrieve food faster than males when food was associated with appearance cues, but we found no sexual differences when food was associated with a specific location. Our results are consistent with the view that parasitism and its neuroanatomical correlates affect performance in memory tasks, but the effects we found were not in the expected direction, emphasising that the nature of avian hippocampal function and its sexual differences are not yet understood. Received: 30 April 1998 / Accepted after revision: 5 September 1998     

The Relation of ERP Components to Complex Memory Processing

The relation between various ERP components generated during encoding of a word and its subsequent recall were investigated using a “rote” serial-order and an “elaborative” category memory task. Words (flashed separately) were time-locked to EEG recordings from 21 cortical sites. ERP components from the five subjects having the highest recall scores were compared to the five lowest scoring subjects. Results based on the P200 peak amplitude data as well as the N400 and late positive component peak amplitude and latency data suggest that anterior and posterior distributional differences are elicited during encoding of words for rote and elaborative memory tasks. Furthermore, strong individual differences in these patterns were found as a function of task. A tentative argument was made that the obtained anterior and posterior differences may index different word feature selection and encoding processes, which are differentially utilized by high and low recallers.     

Getting along or ahead: Effects of gender identity threat on communal and agentic self‐presentations

When faced with a threat to gender identity, people may try to restore their gender status by acting in a more gender‐typical manner. The present research investigated effects of gender identity threat on self‐presentations of agentic and communal traits in a Swedish and an Argentine sample (N = 242). Under threat (vs. affirmation), Swedish women deemphasized agentic traits (d [95% CI] = ?0.41 [?0.93, 0.11]), Argentine women increased their emphasis on communal traits (d = 0.44 [?0.08, 0.97]), and Argentine men increased their emphasis on agentic traits (d = 0.49 [?0.03, 1.01]). However, Swedish men did not appear to be affected by the threat regarding agentic (d = 0.04 [?0.47, 0.55]) or communal traits (d = 0.23 [?0.29, 0.74]). The findings are to be considered tentative. Implications for identity threat research are discussed.     

The association between stress,self‐esteem and depressive symptoms in adolescents

This cross‐sectional study investigated gender and age differences on domains of stress, self‐esteem and depressive symptoms, as well as the association between those domains using a sample of Norwegian adolescents (N = 1,239). The data was analysed using Pearson product moment correlation, t‐tests, and hierarchical multiple regression analyses. The results showed significant differences between genders. Girls scored higher on five of seven stressor domains comprising peer pressure, home life, school attendance, school/leisure conflict and school performance as well as depression, while boys scored significantly higher on self‐esteem. The hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that higher stress from school performance and school attendance related significantly to more depressive symptoms in both genders. Additionally, stress of home life significantly related to more depressive symptoms in girls, whereas stress of peer pressure was significant in association with depressive symptoms in boys. A strong, inverse association was found between self‐esteem and depression controlled for stress, especially in girls. Self‐esteem was not found to be a moderator of any stressor‐depression interactions. In conclusion, the results give support for the significant role of stress and self‐esteem on the experience of depressive symptoms in adolescents.     

Antecedent variables of innovation behaviors in organizations: Differences between men and women

IntroductionRelevance of innovation behaviors for organizational success led to study its main individual, job-related and organizational antecedents. Moreover, research on differences in innovation between men and women showed inconclusive results. Ambidexterity (Bledow, Frese, Anderson, Erez, & Farr, 2009) and Zhou and Hoever (2014) call for combining contextual and personal characteristics in innovation research suggest that pathways and variables leading to innovation between men and women could be different.Objective(s)This study aims to analyze if men and women differ in the main antecedents for innovative behaviors. Thus, a moderating effect of gender on the relationship between innovative behaviors and their main antecedent variables is hypothesized. Results are of interest for promoting innovation and empowering women at work context.MethodIn a sample of 458 employees from 16 Spanish companies, we carried out hierarchical regression analyses on innovation behaviors, including as main antecedents academic level, proactive personality, job demands, organizational commitment, HR practices addressed to participation, and transformational leadership. In addition, interaction terms between gender and such antecedents were entered in regression analysis.ResultsProactive personality, HR participation practices, inspirational motivation, job demands and academic level significantly predicted innovative behaviors at their different phases. Moreover, gender moderated the relationship between generation of new ideas with academic level and organizational commitment, and between promotion of ideas with job demands and idealized influence. Organizational commitment promoted generation of ideas among women but not among men, whereas idealized influence is detrimental for women. Reversely, higher job demands stimulate promotion of ideas among men but were detrimental for innovation among women.ConclusionOur results suggest that innovation among women seems to be more sensitive to the influence of leadership and require more social support, whereas higher job demands are detrimental. These results suggest that innovation is more related to intrinsic variables (as self-confidence, empowerment and social processes) among women, whereas for men, it seems to be more related to work demands. Results could help companies to stimulate innovation, between both men and women.     

Individual glance strategies and their effect on the NHTSA visual manual distraction test

The purpose of this paper was to investigate how individual differences in glance strategy could impact the glance performance test defined in the NHTSA visual manual distraction guidelines. Better understanding of the test procedure could help development of new technology for safe driving. A custom in-vehicle information system was developed and assessed in a driving simulator by eighteen participants. The interfaces were designed according to recommendations in the NHTSA guidelines and contained manual radio-tuning tasks, sound settings tasks and six letter spelling tasks. Two of the six tested interfaces fully complied with the test. In addition, clear individual differences in glance strategy were found among the participants. Four individual glance strategies were identified. Two of these, long glancers and frequent glancers, highly affected the outcome of the compliance test. Participants belonging to the long glancers and the frequent glancers categories were identified as statistical outliers in many test cases. For example, if the individual values of these participants were replaced with sample mean, the number of complying interfaces would increase to five out of six, which is more in line with expectations for these interfaces. The results of this study show that individual variations in glance strategy exist. Also, these individual variations seem to have a non- negligible influence on the result when performance-testing of in-vehicle interfaces is done according to the NTHSA guidelines.     

Do stigma and its psychosocial impact differ between Asian-born Chinese immigrants and Western-born Caucasians with head and neck cancer?

Stigma appears to influence emotional distress and well-being in cancer survivors, but cross-cultural differences have been ignored. Previous studies suggest that stigma may be especially relevant for survivors of Asian origin. However, their study designs (e.g. focused on female cancers, qualitative designs, and an absence of comparison groups) limit the strength of this conclusion. We hypothesized that (1) Asian-born Chinese immigrants (AI) would report more perceived cancer-related stigma than Western-born Caucasians (WBC); and (2) the impact of stigma on emotional distress and well-being would be greater in AI as compared to WBC. Head and neck cancer survivors (n = 118 AI and n = 404 WBC) completed measures of well-being, emotional distress, and a three-item indicator of stigma in structured interviews. The majority of respondents (59%) reported one or more indicators of stigma. Stigma correlated significantly with emotional distress (r = .13, p = .004) and well-being (r = ?.09, p = .032). Contrary to our hypotheses, WBCs and AIs did not differ in reported stigma nor did we detect differences in its psychosocial impact. Stigma exerts a deleterious psychosocial impact on head and neck cancer survivors. It did not differ significantly between AI and WBC survivors.