Sex-Typed Behavior in Preschoolers: Sex,Age, and Social Class Effects

Sex, age, and social class differences in the sex-role differentiation of preschoolers were investigated in the present study. Ss included 469 three-, four-, and five-year-old boys (N = 245) and girls (N = 224), sampled in approximately equal numbers from middle-and lower-income populations. Children were observed at three-week intervals in the naturalistic environment of their nursery school or daycare classrooms for occurrences of pcespecified aggressive, dependent, and cooperative (i.e., sex-typed) behaviors. A 2(Sex) x 3(Age) x 2(Social Class) ANOVA was performed on each behavior rate. Sex differences were found in the expected direction for aggression and dependency, but not cooperation. Age differences varied by sex, social class, and type of behavior. Social class effects were weakest, but significant for aggression and cooperation.     

Sex-Role Differentiation in Preschoolers: Effects of Maternal Employment

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether maternal employment affects sex-role differentiation in preschoolers, and whether this relationship varies as a function of the sex of the child, father's presence or absence, and/or the sex of the child's siblings (N = 398 boys and girls, mean age 51.2 months). The dependent measure consisted of a maximally reliable composite z score derived from five tests (Draw-A-Person, Occupational Preference, Nadleman Recall, Toy Preference, It Scale for Children). The fact of the mother working and the social status of her occupation were unrelated to sex-role differentiation, regardless of whether the child was a girl or a boy; had brothers, sisters, both, or was an only child; or came from an intact or nonintact family. However, the main effect for sex and the sex of child × sex of sibling interaction were significant.     

Adaptation and communicative design.

Two theoretical frameworks that examine the nature of adaptability and mutual influence in interaction, interpersonal deception theory and interaction adaptation theory, were used to derive hypotheses concerning patterns of interaction that occur across time in truthful and deceptive conversations. Two studies were conducted in which senders were either truthful or deceptive in their interactions with a partner who increased or decreased involvement during the latter half of the conversation. Results revealed that deceivers felt more anxious and were more concerned about self‐presentation than truthtellers prior to the interaction and displayed less initial involvement than truthtellers. Patterns of interaction were also moderated by deception. Deceivers increased involvement over time but also reciprocated increases or decreases in receiver involvement. However, deceivers were less responsive than truthtellers to changes in receiver behavior. Finally, partner involvement served as feedback to senders regarding their own performance.     

Prenatal Exposure of Mice to Tobacco Smoke and Ethanol: Preweaning Behavioral and Growth Effects

The Psychological Record - Pregnant Swiss-albino mice were treated with cigarette smoke by inhalation and/or ethanol orally from Days 6 through 17 of gestation. Smoke-, ethanol-, and non-treatment...     

Distinguishing thinking-feeling preferences through the content analysis of natural language

This article investigates the relationship between natural language and personality characteristics. In particular, an effort was made to determine whether "thinkers" and "feelers," as defined by Jung's typologies, differ in terms of the language they use to express themselves. First, a linguistic content analysis scale was developed. Next, 5-min verbal samples were obtained from subjects and content analyzed. Content analysis scores were correlated with subjects' self-evaluations and their scores on the Thinking-Feeling scale of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Gender differences relating to thinking-feeling preferences were also investigated. Significant correlations between content analysis and MBTI scores were obtained, suggesting that valid information regarding individual preferences for thinking versus feeling may be obtained through the analysis of natural language. Males and females differed significantly in terms of their MBTI scores and self-evaluations, but not in their content analysis scores.     

On Working Memory Capacity and Implicit Associations between Advanced Age and Dangerous Driving Stereotypes

Despite a large literature on implicit stereotypes, no one has scientifically documented the stereotype that older adults are dangerous drivers, even though its existence may impact older adults' driving performance through stereotype threat. The present studies are the first to use implicit tests to document the stereotype that older adult drivers are dangerous drivers. Experiment 1 (N = 159) documented a negative stereotype of older adult drivers in young and older adults by using a novel driving and age Implicit Association Test (IAT). Experiment 2 (N = 216) demonstrated that individual differences in working memory capacity moderate the degree to which young adults can willfully change this IAT score such that higher working memory capacity was associated with greater control of this negative stereotype of age and driving. This finding illustrates the potential utility of working memory capacity in interventions designed to reduce the impact of implicit stereotypes and negative attitudes. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of Age,Sex, and Income Level on Sex-Role Differentiation in Preschoolers

Sex-role differentiation in 337 three-, four-, and five-year-old girls and boys, approximately equally divided into lower-and middle-income groups, was measured by five sex-role tests. A composite z score was also used for increased reliability. The study was replicated in order to investigate the reliability of the measures. The results showed that sex and, to a partial degree, age, had significant effects, but income level had little effect on sex-role differentiation. A factor analysis of the sex-role tests is also discussed.     

The impact of violations on uncertainty and the consequences for attractiveness

This investigation aimed at extending past research on expectation violations by arguing that violations vary both in valance and in their influence on uncertainty and that the combination of valence and uncertainty states conjointly influences judgments of a violator's social attractiveness. In explaining the predicted variance in uncertainty following violations, a distinction is proposed between congruent violations (i.e., behaviors that are more intense instantiations of a previously displayed message) and incongruent violations (i.e., behaviors that are opposite in meaning from previously displayed messages). Five models for explaining violation effects are contrasted. Results (a) confirm that violations differ in their impact on uncertainty, (b) generally support the validity of the proposed distinction between congruent and incongruent violations, and show that the inclusion of uncertainty and valence in models of violation outcomes accounts for greater variance in social attraction than either one separately.     

Individual differences in susceptibility to inattentional blindness

Inattentional blindness refers to the finding that people do not always see what appears in their gaze. Though inattentional blindness affects large percentages of people, it is unclear if there are individual differences in susceptibility. The present study addressed whether individual differences in attentional control, as reflected by variability in working memory capacity, modulate susceptibility to inattentional blindness. Participants watched a classic inattentional blindness video (Simons & Chabris, 1999) and were instructed to count passes among basketball players, wherein 58% noticed the unexpected: a person wearing a gorilla suit. When participants were accurate with their pass counts, individuals with higher working memory capacity were more likely to report seeing the gorilla (67%) than those with lesser working memory capacity (36%). These results suggest that variability in attentional control is a potential mechanism underlying the apparent modulation of inattentional blindness across individuals.     

On the coding of spatial information

Two experiments studied recall of objects and their locations in an intentional-incidental learning paradigm. When studying spatial information, the usual incidental condition is not truly incidental, because subjects often deliberately use locations to help organize objects for recall. Therefore, a true incidental task was devised in which neither objects nor locations were expected to be recalled and for which explicit encoding of locations was irrelevant. There was only a small loss in recall of objects or their locations in a true incidental condition. It was concluded that a great deal of location information is automatically coded into long-term memory storage in the sense that active processing is not required. The data were contrasted with incidental processing of other attributes, such as color. Although adults performed better than children, there were no age-related interactions, indicating similarity of functioning at all ages studied.