Parentsâ emotion-related socialization behaviors are one component of the process through which children learn about the experience, expression and regulation of emotions and much research has examined these behaviors in relation to childrenâs outcomes (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998). Parentsâ behaviors are informed in part by their underlying beliefs about childrenâs emotions (Dunsmore & Halberstadt, 1997; Halberstadt, Thompson, Parker, & Dunsmore, 2008; Wong, McElwain, & Halberstadt, 2009). Much of the research on emotion socialization beliefs and behavior has combined negative emotions without examining whether there are unique socialization processes for distinct emotions. The goal of the current study was to explore the relationship between parentsâ beliefs about two distinct emotions, anger and sadness, and parentsâ socialization behaviors for these two emotions, as well as how parentsâ beliefs and behaviors relate to childrenâs affective social competence. In addition, the influence of parent gender, child gender, and ethnicity was assessed. A diverse sample of parents (African American, European American and Lumbee Native American) and their 8-12 year old children were recruited to explore the five major aims of the current study. The main findings supported the importance of distinguishing between parentsâ beliefs and behaviors for childrenâs anger and sadness. Parent gender and education group differences were also found in parentsâ beliefs about anger and sadness. This is an important contribution to the literature and future research should examine whether certain parental beliefs and behaviors are more beneficial for childrenâs outcomes than others.

Women remain disproportionately represented in certain science, technology, engineering, and math majors and occupations. Stereotypes of scientists may help expose the reasons for this phenomenon. However, this relationship has not yet been empirically examined. This is partly because of the dearth of literature addressing the stereotypes of scientists and the absence of measures aimed at capturing more current concepts of scientists. This research study investigates whether undergraduatesâ stereotypes of scientists predict their intentions to pursue a career in science. Further, this research examines whether or not science and engineering (S&E) academic majors are likely to have intentions of pursuing a science career and whether or not this relationship varies by gender. A sample of 1639 undergraduates, from diverse universities and academic majors, took a ten-minute online survey assessing their stereotypes of science, academic major, and intention of pursuing a career in a science field. Hierarchical and multiple regression analyses determined undergraduatesâ stereotypes of scientists and their academic major predict oneâs intentions of pursing a science career; however, results did not show that these relationships vary by gender. The strongest predictors of an undergraduateâs intentions of pursuing a science career were their academic major and their stereotypes of scientistsâ Interpersonal Competencies. A one-way ANOVA found undergraduatesâ with S&E majors agreed more than non-S&E majors that scientistsâ have Interpersonal Competencies. Although both males and females perceived scientists as having strong Professional Competencies, females had higher agreement scores for scientistsâ Professional Competencies than males.

Despite a growing movement toward accountability in the public sector, little research exists on factors affecting the use of accountability tools such as performance measurement. Many publications suggest how to use performance measures, but little is known about why some municipalities use performance measurement whereas others do not. This study examines performance measurement within economic development, an area of local government that attempts to create better jobs and wages for citizens, yet faces growing criticism over its cost and effectiveness. The analysis identifies factors that affect performance measurement in economic development and compares the impact of structural determinants such as demographic and socioeconomic factors to local community choices such as organizational, political, and community forces. Of the local choice variables, performance measurement was most influenced by organizational characteristics of the economic development agency: staff size, budget, plans, partnering, and number of business incentives offered. Structural determinants, which included city expenditures, labor and employer barriers, competition for investment, and region of US, exerted less influence on performance measurement, yet showed that socioeconomic and competitive forces do affect the use of accountability tools. Overall, the findings indicate that in municipal policymaking, both structural constraints and local choices matter, but local choices matter more.

This study examined the processes that moderate the effect of community structural factors on neighborhood child maltreatment rates. It is hypothesized that social capital (intergenerational closure, reciprocal exchange) and collective efficacy for children (child-centered social control) moderate the relationship between community structural factors and neighborhood child maltreatment rates. This hypothesis was tested utilizing survey data from Harvard University?s Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, the U.S. Census Bureau and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. A multiple regression was conducted indicating that community stability, the number of adults per child, concentrated disadvantage and child-centered social control predicted child maltreatment rates. Additional regression models indicate that intergenerational closure and reciprocal exchange help to buffer the effects of disadvantage on child maltreatment rates while increasing the rates in affluent communities. There was also indication that child-centered social control buffered the effect of concentrated disadvantage and density while increasing the effect of immigrant concentration on child maltreatment.

The purpose of this research was to provide further evidence for a social expertise view of adult age differences in social cognitive functioning. Of specific interest was the extent to which such a perspective can be used to explain the differential use of trait-diagnostic information by young and older adults in the construction of social judgments. The use of such information has been shown to increase with age (Hess & Auman, 2001), suggesting the presence of superior social expertise in older adults when compared to younger adults. In the current research, factors associated with accessibility to relevant knowledge?extremity of trait-relevant behaviors and the amount of diagnostic information?was manipulated to determine if the differences between presumed experts (i.e., older adults) and nonexperts (i.e., younger adults) were attenuated when the salience of trait-diagnostic information was increased. Young, middle-aged, and older adults studied a series of behavioral description describing fictitious target individuals. Study times for individual behaviors contained in these descriptions and impression ratings for each target person were examined. Results of this study replicate past research; specifically, diagnostic information was studied longer and had a stronger impact on impression ratings than did nondiagnostic information, and the impact of diagnosticity increased with age. Further, extreme cues served to enhance the already present diagnostic effects in study time, while also causing ratings of target individuals to be more negatively rated overall. The expected moderation of age differences in the use of diagnostic information based on the extremity of cues did not follow the expected direction. The relationship between age, extremity of cues, and the use of diagnostic information was not significant, suggesting that extremity did not serve to differentially enhance the accessibility of knowledge structures across age groups as originally expected. In addition, larger amounts of diagnostic information actually resulted in greater age differences in the impact of diagnostic information on impression ratings. This, along with the absence of age differences when minimal diagnostic information was available, may suggest that those with expert knowledge are only willing to use it when sufficient cues are presented. I additionally tested an alternative explanation for observed age differences in the use of diagnostic information. Specifically, I investigated whether age differences in implicit beliefs regarding the stability of traits might mediate age differences. No support was obtained for this hypothesis. In sum, although the results were not entirely consistent with expectations, they were generally supportive of an aging-related increase in social expertise as an explanation for age differences in social judgments.

Although widely used, there exists very little published research on the equivalence of web-based cognitive ability tests used for employee selection to their original paper-and-pencil versions. This issue is even further complicated by the limited research into the effects of proctoring on these types of tests. To investigate this issue, data was analyzed from the Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT) and the Wonderlic Personnel Test-Quicktest (WPT-Q). Using the Differential Functioning of Items and Test (DFIT) procedure, data from 325 paper-and-pencil WPT administrations were compared to 325 web-based proctored administrations of the test. To check for the effects of proctoring, 108 proctored administrations of the WPT-Q were compared to 104 unproctored administrations again using the DFIT procedure. The results indicate that although the differences in administration produced low levels of differential item functioning (DIF), there is enough DIF to warrant conducting new validation studies when the mode of administration is changed.

The social power typology originally identified by French and Raven (1959) and later modified by Raven (1965, 1992) was used to examine factors related to school psychological consultation. Specifically, this dissertation investigated whether the gender and amount of relevant professional experience of psychologists (i.e., consultants) and teachers (i.e., consultees) influenced how likely psychologists were to use soft power bases when consulting with teachers. In addition, this study examined whether consultants? use of soft power bases was related to their self-evaluations of effectiveness during consultation. Two instruments were employed: the Interpersonal Power Inventory (IPI), which was modified to examine school consultants? likelihood of use of social power bases when consulting with teachers; and the Consultant Evaluation Form (CEF), which was modified to assess psychologists? self-evaluations of effectiveness during teacher consultation. The IPI and CEF were mailed together to 1,000 Nationally Certified School Psychologists, and a total of 352 usable protocols were returned. Results indicated that when consulting with female teachers, female consultants were not more likely to use positive referent power than the other four soft power bases combined; however, male psychologists were more likely to use positive expert power than the other four soft power bases combined. Additional results indicated that consultants? likelihood of use of soft power bases was not related to their years of professional experience, although results of a secondary set of analyses using a slightly different constellation of soft power bases did yield a significant relationship between the two variables. Findings also revealed a significant relationship between consultees? years of experience and consultants? use of soft power bases, in that school consultants were less likely to use soft power with more experienced teachers. Finally, results indicated a significant, positive relationship between consultants? likelihood of use of soft power bases and their self-evaluations of effectiveness during consultation. Findings of this study suggest that the experience level of teachers plays a significant role in determining the influence strategies used by psychologists during consultation. Results also imply that consultants? use of soft power is related to perceptions of more effective school consultation.

This study identified a set of distinct implicit leadership theories (ILTs) within a sample of working adults and examined whether differences in followersâ ILTs versus actual leadership influenced ratings of charisma and performance. Results based on a sample of 718 employees indicated 11 distinct ILT profiles. Results also showed that the closer the perceived congruence between employeesâ ILTs (measuring their ideal leader) and their actual leader, the higher the ratings of charisma for that leader. There was no influence of ILT congruence on leader performance ratings. Some support was found for previous findings that country/location does have an influence on ILT profile, but no support was found for the influence of age, gender, ethnicity, or organizational tenure, suggesting that ILTs may be generalizable across many different populations. Further analysis of a sample for 182 leaders indicated that that leader ILTs do not appear to be exhibited through either personality traits, nor through employee perceptions of ILT-relevant behaviors.

The purpose of this study was to examine the hypothesized mediating role of social information processing on the relation between harsh parenting and childhood aggression. Specifically, this study sought to gain a better understanding of the association between parenting and children?s interpretations and mental representation of cues (intent attribution), their ability to generate solutions (response generation), and their solution selection process (response decision) and how these processes, in turn, relate to children?s propensity to behave aggressively. The sample consisted of 166 children and their parents. Approximately half of the children had a substantiated history of physical abuse. It was hypothesized that (a) higher levels of parental harshness would predict higher levels of aggression in children, (b) hostile intent attributions, fewer types of solutions generated, and a higher number of aggressive decisions would predict higher levels of child aggression, and (c) the relationship between parental harshness and aggressive behavior would be mediated by intent attributions, response generation, and response decision. Mediation was assessed using a series of regression analyses. Results revealed that harsh parenting did not significantly predict child aggression, response generation or response decision. Harsh parenting, did however, predict children?s intent attributions. Harsh parenting also predicted response decision when recoded as a dichotomous variable in a post-hoc analysis. Results further revealed that none of the social information processing operations investigated (intent attributions, response generation, and response decision) significantly predicted child aggression. Due to the lack of prediction among variables, mediation could not be assessed. Considerations for interpreting results, as well as directions for future research are discussed.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relation between family violence history and conflict resolution strategies among emerging adults (ages 18-19), a group largely overlooked in the research. Undergraduates (N = 249) completed self-report questionnaires regarding conflict strategies witnessed and experienced in the home during their adolescence and regarding the likelihood of using certain conflict resolution strategies with a romantic partner in response to hypothetical vignettes. Results indicated that family violence history did not predict conflict resolution strategies for the full sample. However, for a subsample of participants who had experienced physical aggression in the home, experiencing that aggression predicted later use of hostile strategies with a romantic partner. Witnessing aggression predicted later hostile strategy use for men, but not women. For both the full and subsamples, witnessing and experiencing reasoning in the home predicted later use of prosocial strategies.