The Positive Predictive Value (PPV) of the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT), a parent report autism screening tool, is higher for males than for females (Ludwig et al., IMFAR 2011). Given the long waitlists and high costs for ASD evaluations, there is a need to reduce the number of false positive females on the M-CHAT. The current study examined the sex specific clinical profiles of toddlers who received an ASD evaluation based on M-CHAT screen positive status in order to explore potential differences that may contribute to the differential PPV of the M-CHAT in boys and girls. The sample included 250 males and 106 females (mean age=25.3 months, SD=4.6) who were evaluated based on screen positive status on the M-CHAT. Although children with ASD demonstrated greater ASD symptoms, lower IQ and weaker language and motor skills, minimal sex differences were discovered.

Under de senaste decennierna har det ökat ett intresse för det så kallade psykologiska kontraktet. Det psykologiska kontraktet innehåller de förväntningar på skyldigheter som finns mellan arbetsgivare och arbetstagare. Även om forskning har ökat finns det fortfarande luckor i hur individuella aspekter påverkar. Syftet med den här studien är därför att undersöka om könstillhörighet har någon inverkan på upplevelsen av psykologiska kontraktet. Studien kommer undersöka om det finns några eventuella skillnader mellan könen samt om det finns några skillnader mellan könen i upplevelsen av att psykologiska kontraktet har uppfyllts. Studien har en kvantitativ ansats och besvaras med hjälp av enkäter. I studien deltog 78 deltagare varav 47 kvinnor och 31 män. Resultatet visar att könstillhörighet inte har någon signifikant inverkan på vare sig omfattningen av psykologiska kontraktet, olika delar av psykologiska kontraktet eller uppfyllandet av psykologiska kontraktet. Slutsatsen av studien är att könstillhörighet inte har någon inverkan på det psykologiska kontraktet.

Perceptual defense has been described as a process in which the perceptual recognition of threatening or unacceptable stimuli is inhibited as a function of the emotionality of the stimulus input. In the present study 15 male and 15 female undergraduate students were exposed tachistoscopically to neutral stimulus words and critical stimulus words related to, or associated with, aggression. A 2 x 2 analysis of variance revealed that all subjects required a significantly greater number of trials to correctly identify critical stimulus words as compared to neutral stimulus words. In addition, male subjects demonstrated significantly higher perceptual recognition thresholds than did female subjects. The results support the perceptual defense hypothesis that delayed perceptual recognition will occur as a function of exposure to threatening stimuli. The results do not support, and are antithetical to, the hypothesis that female subjects will demonstrate higher recognition thresholds, upon exposure to stimuli associated with aggression, than will male subjects. In interpreting this result, the effects of sex differences in visual-perceptual abilities, a decrease in socialization pressures towards females, and a convergence of sex based differences in child rearing patterns are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to determine the degree to which elementary school students label physical activities according to gender. Participants for this study were 202 students grades one through six from a Muncie Community School in Muncie, Indiana. Participants were divided by age and gender for the statistical analysis. The students were asked to respond to the Physical Activity Stereotyping Index (PASI), a Lickert-type instrument designed to assess the degree to which individuals label selected physical activities according to gender.Results of the study suggested that children's perceptions about the gender appropriateness of physical activities may be a function of age as evidenced by higher scores for the older children. It appeared also that boys gender-label physical activities to a greater extent than do girls. Those findings suggested that as children widen their experiences with social interactions, they adopt clearly-defined and gender-specific play patterns. / School of Physical Education

The purpose of this study was to investigate the combined effects of level of success and sex-typing on the attributional behavior of women. While several studies had previously investigated the effect of success level on attributional behavior, none had considered sex-type as a possible determinant. Subjects, whose sex typing was measured through use of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974), were assigned to a success or failure condition manipulated through utilization of anagrams of various difficulty. In a second analysis, the possible effects of locus of control on attributional behavior was also investigated. Canonical and multiple regression analyses demonstrated that women in the success condition made stronger attributions to ability than did women who failed. This finding was partially supportive of the hypotheses being tested, and was contrary to generally held models of female attributional behavior.

The purpose of this study was to determine if sex role stereotyping occurs in elementary school readers, and, if it does, to what extent. To achieve this purpose, the study examined and classified the roles, relationships, activities, attitudes, treatments, generalizations, future directions for life and work, and the relative importance assigned to male and female characters in elementary school readers. Data were generated from the application of a 48 item classification instrument which was developed by the researcher.The sampling for the study consisted of 280 stories in 56 elementary school readers, grades 1-6. Those stories were contained in the textbook series of the 7 publishing firms adopted by the state of Indiana for use during the 1973-78 school years.Data collected from the stories were viewed collectively for all series of elementary school readers. Findings and conclusions were based upon the total data compiled during the investigation of the problem.The data strongly indicated that sex role stereotyping consistently occurs in elementary school readers. Those data are presented in the following table:TABLE OF FINDINGSReported below are data collected from the 280 stories examined in 56 elementary school readers which present numerical comparisons between male and female roles.ItemNumber of timespresentedMaleFemaleMajor character21862In illustration (foreground)24581In front cover illustration12531Sex of names in story titles7117Biographies263In the business world (labor force)18943Active character29185Passive character36165Positive character statement25540Negative character statement3561Physical tasks accomplished24454Mental tasks accomplished18533One sex portrayed alone in groups16129Recreational activity107/111Working in the kitchen344Other domestic work1143Making an important decision21635Acquisition of skill or knowledge16324In a ridiculous or degrading situation2292Subservient to other sex074Dependent upon other sex280Based upon the findings of the study, it was concluded that females in elementary school readers were (1) less frequently represented than males in terms of numbers; (2) less frequently represented than males in titles, central roles, and stories; (3) represented in stereotyped roles such as wives, mothers, housekeepers, elementary teachers, and other service-oriented jobs; (4) represented in subordinate, home-related roles; (5) represented as being best fit to be helpmates to males and to depend on males for protection and support; (6) represented less frequently than males as intelligent, capable people with the ability to solve problems and get out of difficult situations; (7) frequently the recipients of derogatory comments; and (8) frequently represented in situations which reinforce culturally conditioned sexual characteristics illustrating as female such traits as dependency, passivity, emotionalism, and a non-competitive spirit.

This study explores for gender-based differences in the determinants of employee acceptance of organizational change among employees at the University of Botswana. Utilising a sample of 360 respondents drawn from academic and managerial staff the study sought to test for male-female differences in the acceptance of change, explore for male-female differences in the major factors that affect acceptance of change, and to test for male-female differences in the effects of the major determinants of acceptance of organizational change. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect the data required for the study. The bulk of the data were analysed using SPSS statistical package with the t-test and regression (beta) coefficients ~s the key test statistics. The study showed that the overall acceptance of organizational change among employees was moderate with male and female employees being equally likely to accept the changes taking place at the workplace. However, the sexes differed significantly in the levels of 10 of the 20 determinants of acceptance of change analysed with women, relative to men, being substantially lower in promotional opportunity, work overload, job-skill match, participative management, trust in leadership, receptivity, and in job satisfaction and higher in routinization, enthusiasm, and desire to leave. Results for regression analyses showed that eight (8) of 19 substantive variables were significant determinants of acceptance of change for all employees. However, separate regression models for men and women revealed that 11 of 19 substantive factors were significant determinants of acceptance of change for males compared to two factors for females. Although the level of acceptance of change does not differ by the sex, male and female employees have different orientations to the change processes taking place in the organization and warrant separate treatment by management if organizational change is to be successful and yield the desired results. / Thesis (M.Admin (Public admin)) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2003

Extensive reviews of phonetic and phonological investigations into sex-related differences reveal a mottled history. The investigations suffer from methodological and theoretical deficits: the most serious being the misrepresentation of the interaction between variables, a lack of homogeneous data and its misinterpretation, and the widespread neglect of women's speech. Existing phonetic databases are shown to be inadequate and poorly-controlled, admitting too many unwanted variables. A very tightly-controlled database, constructed for this research, contains data for eighty female and male speakers of two accents of British English. This contribution is regarded as important per se. Digital acoustic analysis of the data permits quantification of the phonetic divergence shown by the sexes in British English. Previous attempts to normalize the acoustic effects of speaker-sex on vowels have been largely unsuccessful. Here, the application of an innovative auditory normalization procedure reflects how perceptual normalization may be achieved. It further demonstrates that male/female phonetic differences remain after normalisation, which cannot be accounted for by anatomy, but are accountable by social-role conditioning (i.e. learned). These differences are statistically significant. Speaker-sex and gender are thus shown to interact at the phonetic level. Extending this technique to five other languages/dialects corroborates the central hypothesis that the degree to which the sexes diverge phonetically will vary from speech-community to speech-community. Exploration of the possibility that contoids will reveal similar systematicity shows this to be unlikely across languages. The examination of suprasegmental sex-associated differences, however, merits further pursuit. Implications of these experimental findings are discussed for 'inter alia' speech technology, language-planning and medical aids. Using sex-linked differential voice quality as a springboard, it is suggested that sex-appropriate norms are required in speech pathology. The need for socio- phonetics to be recognized as an important new discipline is thus underlined.

It was hypothesized that girls would feel more negatively than boys about inequality of achievement within friendships. Using a questionnaire, 123 boys and 138 girls, aged 13 to 17, imagined that two close friends had performed better or worse than them in five domains. They then rated how much they would care, feel and think about the unequal outcomes, that were of equal value to both genders. They were also asked to rate how they felt the friends would feel towards them. Overall, girls' reactions to the inequality were more negative than boys'. The difficulty females face in integrating friendship and personal achievement is explored.

The presence of a sex difference in mutual eye-to-eye contact in dyadic interaction is well documented from late infancy through adulthood with females making more mutual eye contact than males. Only one study (Hittelman & Dickes, 1979) found evidence for this behavior pattern in newborns, but no research has been done to follow-up these findings. Systematic examination of the development of sex differences in mutual gaze behavior can aid in unraveling the differential effects of biological and social influences on the development of gendered social behavior. / This project was a longitudinal, within participants replication and extension of Hittelman and Dickes study: Seventy neonates (32 female, 38 male) age 13--112 hours postpartum and their parents participated in the Time 1 data collection, and 23 (9 female, 14 male) infants and their parents were seen a second time at 13--18 weeks postpartum (Time 2). Mutual gaze between the infant and two interacters (1 female, 1 male) was measured, and parents completed the Parental Sex-Typing of Newborns (Paston) Rating Scale to measure their sex-typed perceptions of newborns and young infants. / Results indicated: (a) No empirical evidence for sex differences at Time 1; (b) Strong evidence for sex differences in mutual gaze behavior at Time 2 indicating development of this sex-typed pattern in early infancy; (c) The emergence of sex differences in mutual gaze behavior from Time 1 to Time 2 is entirely accounted for by a radical change in female infants' gaze behavior; and (d) Empirical evidence linking mothers' sex-typed beliefs about their infants and infants' sex-typed gaze behavior. / Results are discussed within the theoretical contexts of the social learning and biological perspectives. This study demonstrates that infants' sex-typed behavior and mothers' gender-typed perceptions begin early in life. It is concluded that sex differences in mutual gaze behavior are a complex interplay of biological or social forces acting in concert. Subsequent research in this area should focus on the specific forces involved in bringing sex differences in mutual gaze behavior to fruition.