This study uses cognitive interviewing to examine individuals’ interpretations of sexuality-related questions and meanings of sex and sexuality. The sample includes 20 adults (12 women and 8 men) who were randomly selected university staff in the Midwestern United States. Using a sexual script and symbolic interactionist framework, we identify two themes in individuals’ understandings of sex an...

The authors explored the emergence and antecedents of racial stereotyping in 89 children ages 3-10 years. Children completed a number of matching and sorting tasks, including a measure designed to assess their knowledge and application of both positive and negative in-group and out-group stereotypes. Results indicate that children start to apply stereotypes to the out-group starting around 6 ye...

Stereotype threat occurs when negative stereotypes about group performance on a particular task are made salient, thereby negatively affecting group member performance. Specifically, research has demonstrated that stereotype-threatened women underperform on tests of mathematical ability (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999). A possibility for reducing stereotype threat in women was explored by havin...

According to gender stereotypes, reading is for girls. In this study, we investigated the role of preschool teachers in transmitting such gendered expectations. We suggest that boys are less motivated to read in preschool, and less competent in reading 1 year later in primary school, if their preschool teacher holds a traditional gender role attitude than if the teacher has egalitarian beliefs....

329 © 2011 Guilford Publications, Inc. Guy A. Boysen, Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Fredonia; Mary Fisher, Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Fredonia; Michael DeJesus, Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Fredonia; David. L. Vogel, Department of Psychology, Iowa State University; Stephanie Madon, Department of Psychology, ...

OBJECTIVES Most studies of older adults' social networks focus on their access to dense networks that yield access to social support. This paper documents gender differences in the extent to which older adults maintain a related, but distinct, form of social capital-bridging potential, which involves serving as a tie between two unconnected parties and thus boosts independence and control of ev...

The activation of positive stereotypes has been shown to produce academic performance boosts. Evidence regarding the role of self-relevance in producing such effects has been mixed. The authors propose that the subtlety of stereotype activation plays a key role in creating performance boosts among targets and nontargets of stereotypes. Study 1 found that subtle stereotype activation boosted per...

Six maze-experienced hooded rats were timed during five trials on which they collected water from all arms of an eight-arm radial maze, then made five more choices. All subjects frequently exhibited a "task-completion pause:" The subjects rarely spent more than 1 sec in the center of the maze between choices until they had entered all eight arms, then stopped in the center of the maze. In contr...

Remarkably little is known about the acoustic features of laughter. Here, acoustic outcomes are reported for 1024 naturally produced laugh bouts recorded from 97 young adults as they watched funny video clips. Analyses focused on temporal features, production modes, source- and filter-related effects, and indexical cues to laugher sex and individual identity. Although a number of researchers ha...

The likelihood of resisting gender-stereotypic peer group norms, along with expectations about personal resistance, was investigated in 9- to 10-year-olds and 13- to 14-year-olds (N = 292). Participants were told about a stereotype conforming group (boys playing football; girls doing ballet) and a stereotype nonconforming group (boys doing ballet; girls playing football). Contrary to expectatio...