Similarities and differences between male and female novice designers on color‐concept associations for warnings,action required,and signs and equipment status messages

This research examined the male and female novice designers toward color associations for the concepts used for ‘warnings’, ‘action required’, and ‘signs and equipment status’ through a questionnaire‐based study. A total of 178 Hong Kong Chinese final year undergraduate design students (89 males and 89 females) participated in the study. The test used required the participants to indicate their choice of one of nine colors to associations with each of 38 concepts in a color‐concept table, so that any one color could be associated with any one of the concepts. For both male and female groups of novice designers, chi‐square tests revealed a strong color association for each concept tested in this study (P < .05). The results showed males and females agreed on some color‐concept association stereotypes which were therefore gender neutral. The male and female novice designers had the same color associations and similar levels of stereotype strengths for 21 concepts. The nine strongest and therefore most useful color‐concept association stereotypes for both male and female novice designers were: red‐danger, red‐fire, red‐hot, red‐stop, red‐emergency, red‐error, blue‐cold, blue‐male, and green‐exit. However, the male and female novice designers had different color association stereotypes for the standby (green vs. yellow), emergency exit (green vs. red), and toxic (purple vs. black) concepts, and the strengths of the 14 remaining associations for both groups were not at equivalent levels. Overall, it is anticipated that the findings of this study will act as a useful reference for novice designers and other design practitioners to optimize color coding in the design of ‘warnings’, ‘action required’, and ‘signs and equipment status’ messages.     

Sensitive Mother-to-Adolescent Disclosures After Divorce: Is the Experience of Sons Different From That of Daughters?

This study addressed two main questions: (a) Are adolescent sons and daughters exposed to sensitive maternal disclosures after divorce with similar frequency and in similar detail? and (b) Does gender act as a moderator in the association between maternal disclosures and adolescent adjustment difficulties? Forced-choice and open-ended data were collected from 194 adolescents within 2 years after their parents' divorce. Quantitative analyses revealed that although the majority of adolescents experience some level of maternal disclosure, neither frequency nor detail of maternal disclosure differed as a function of adolescent gender. Frequent and detailed maternal disclosures were associated with adolescent adjustment difficulties, primarily psychological distress. Gender did not moderate that significant association. Qualitative analysis shed light on the link between maternal disclosures and adolescent distress, suggested the importance of how disclosures are made, and revealed several gender differences in reactions to maternal disclosures. Implications of the findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measuring College Students' Motives for Playing Drinking Games.

Students may choose to play drinking games not only for reasons related to alcohol consumption but also because of incentives related to other aspects of play (competition, fun, interpersonal dominance, etc.). College students (120 men and 167 women) completed measures of motives for playing (based on T. J. Johnson, S. Hamilton, & V. L. Sheets, 1999) and consequences of playing drinking games. Exploratory principal-components analysis identified 8 reasons for playing. Men and women differed in their endorsement of the factors. Motives for play directly predicted consequences of play independently of alcohol consumption. Specific motives predicted specific types of consequences. In multiple regression analyses, Conformity motives were negatively related to consequences and may represent a form of protective motive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do High-Achieving Female Students Underperform in Private? The Implications of Threatening Environments on Intellectual Processing.

Stereotype threat research has demonstrated that stereotypes can harm student performance in the face of public evaluation by peers or an experimenter. The current study examined whether stereotypes can also threaten in private settings. Female students completed a math test in 3-person groups, which consisted of either 2 other women (same gender) or 2 men (minority). In addition, students either believed their performance would be broadcasted to their peers (public) or not (private). Results revealed that minority students performed worse than same-gender students in both public and private environments. This finding supports the concept of threatening intellectual environments and shows how far reaching the effects of stereotypes can be. The authors discuss these findings in relation to research on tokenism and to stereotype threat and its educational implications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age and gender differences in cardiac reactivity and subjective emotion responses to emotional autobiographical memories.

This research reports age and gender differences in cardiac reactivity and subjective responses to the induction of autobiographical memories related to anger, fear, sadness, and happiness. Heart rate (HR) and subjective state were assessed at baseline and after the induction of each emotion in 113 individuals (61 men, 52 women; 66% European American, 34% African American) ranging in age from 15 to 88 years (M = 50.0; SD = 20.2). Cardiac reactivity was lower in older individuals; however, for anger and fear, these age effects were significantly more pronounced for the women than the men. There were no gender differences in subjective responses, however, suggesting that the lower cardiac reactivity found among older people is dependent on gender and the specific emotion assessed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social environmental selection as a mediator of gender, ethnic, and personality effects on college student drinking.

Structural equation modeling was used to test the mediational role of social environmental selection on alcohol use in cross-sectional samples of 447 students from a rural state university and 421 students from an urban private university. Results showed that male gender, White ethnicity, and sensation seeking were uniquely associated with greater alcohol use. Mediational analyses indicated that socioenvironmental factors (i.e., Greek involvement, friends' approval of drinking/getting drunk) were positively associated with alcohol use and significantly accounted for parts of the effects of ethnicity and sensation seeking, but not gender, on alcohol use. Results suggest that White students and those high on sensation seeking may drink more heavily in college, in part because they select social environments in which alcohol use is encouraged. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

History of depression and smoking cessation outcome: A meta-analysis.

The authors conducted a meta-analysis of published studies to (a) evaluate the premise that a history of major depression is associated with failure to quit smoking and (b) identify factors that moderate the relationship between history of depression and cessation outcome. Fifteen studies met the selection requirements and were coded for various study methodology and treatment characteristics. DSTAT was used to calculate individual study effect sizes, determine the mean effect size across studies. and test for moderator effects. No differences in either short-term (≤ 3 months) or long-term abstinence rates (≥ 6 months) were observed between smokers positive versus negative for history of depression. Lifetime history of major depression does not appear to be an independent risk factor for cessation failure in smoking cessation treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sexual orientation-related differences in prepulse inhibition of the human startle response.

Prepulse inhibition (PPI) refers to a reduction in the startle response to a strong sensory stimulus when this stimulus is preceded by a weaker stimulus--the prepulse. PPI reflects a nonlearned sensorimotor gating mechanism and also shows a robust gender difference, with women exhibiting lower PPI than men. The present study examined the eyeblink startle responses to acoustic stimuli of 59 healthy heterosexual and homosexual men and women. Homosexual women showed significantly masculinized PPI compared with heterosexual women, whereas no difference was observed in PPI between homosexual and heterosexual men. These data provide the first evidence for within-gender differences in basic sensorimotor gating mechanisms and implicate the known neural substrates of PPI in human sexual orientation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does whom you work with matter? Effects of referent group gender and age composition on managers' compensation.

Much research has examined gender and age effects on compensation, concluding that a wage gap exists favoring men and negative stereotypes against older workers persist. Although the effect of an employee's gender or age has been widely studied, little work has examined the impact of the demographic characteristics of a focal employee's immediate referent groups (e.g., subordinates, peers, or supervisors) on pay. The effect of the gender and age composition of a focal manager's subordinates, peers, and supervisor on the manager's compensation levels was investigated in a sample of 2,178 managers across a wide range of organizations and functional areas. After controlling for a number of human capital variables, results indicated that not only does a wage gap favoring men exist, but also managerial pay is lower when managers' referent groups are largely female, when subordinates are outside the prime age group, and when peers and supervisors are younger. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phyllis A. Katz: Award for Distinguished Senior Career Contributions to the Public Interest.

Announces that Phyllis A. Katz has won the Award for Distinguished Senior Career Contributions to the Public Interest. The award is presented for the honoree's research on the origins and development of both racial and gender attitudes and her contributions to psychology in the public interest within the American Psychological Association. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)