Information technology and employment law: Challenges in an evolving workplace

Conclusion Clearly, all of these changes represent a significant change in the current context of employment law; however, in a work context in which traditional roles and working relationships have radically evolved, it is difficult to see the value of continuing to enforce an employment law policy on the basis of distinctions long-passed from the organizational landscape. Equally clearly, there will be a difference of opinion among the parties to employment law as to the imperative for change. Employers will generally see their interests in the perpetuation of the status quo; while it may not be optimal, it is predictable and they have learned to live with it. Employees on the other hand, should see a clear mandate for changes that would solidify the protections of employment law for them in a rapidly changing organizational context.     

Accelerated aging and male homosexuality: Australian evidence in a continuing debate

The evidence of research looking at accelerated aging among gay men is contradictory. In this study the issue of accelerated aging is addressed by accounting for the duality of the gay man's lifestyle as he interacts in both the homosexual community and the larger society where heterosexuality is the presumed norm. The onset of middle and old age as self-perceived by gay men and as perceived by other gay men in the homosexual subculture is contrasted. The results indicate that existing contradictions and debates about gay men and accelerated aging are largely a function of their referent perceptual worlds.     

Simplifying Second‐order Belief Attribution: What Facilitates Children’s Performance on Measures of Conceptual Understanding?

This study investigated how 4‐ to 7‐year‐old children’s second‐order belief attribution might be facilitated by either reducing information processing or varying the sequence of task questions. In Experiment 1, compared with Perner and Wimmer’s (1985 ) original second‐order false‐belief task, a new task with reduced information‐processing demands promoted better second‐order reasoning. In Experiment 2, half the stories included a second‐order ignorance question before a second‐order belief question. The ignorance question promoted second‐order belief understanding, superseding the improvement induced by lowered processing demands. Together, the findings suggest that second‐order belief performance can be facilitated if children focus on the concept of ignorance during the sequence of questioning.     

Emotional responses of men and women when labeled nonintelligent and unattractive by various reference groups

The study explored the emotional responses of men and women when labeled nonintelligent and unattractive by various reference groups—child(ren), spouse, father, mother and generalized others. Questionnaires were administered to 151 men and women. The findings indicated that (1) women were more likely than men to experience the label of being unattractive, (2) the label was differentially applied by various reference groups, and (3) women responded to being labeled unattractive with hurt, embarrassment and sadness.     

Factors Influencing the Break Even Probabilities of Agency Recruited Low Value Charity Donors

This study examined the considerations that may affect the likelihood of a charity donor, who was recruited face-to-face by a paid external agency and who gave through a low value monthly standing order, reaching the point of financial break even within a certain period of time; taking into account the person’s additional ad hoc contributions to the organisation. Break even was defined as the situation pertaining when a supporter’s total donations covered the external agency’s fee, induction costs, and annual donor maintenance expenses over an anticipated supporter lifetime of 5 years. A questionnaire was mailed or emailed to two thousand agency recruited donors to a UK healthcare charity, resulting in 669 replies. Each of the participants had initially signed standing orders for between £2 and £5 a month, and had been with the charity for at least 4 years. The questionnaire contained items concerning, inter alia, a donor’s sense of obligation, relationship proneness, level of involvement with the charity’s cause, personal inertia, emotional benefits obtained from giving, and satisfaction with the organisation’s work. A Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was completed to determine the main factors that influenced the probability that a person would break even within 4 years following recruitment. In addition, logistic and least squares regression analyses were undertaken to establish the variables that affected low value donors’ propensities to respond positively to requests to uplift the values of their standing orders.     

Associations between acoustic features of maternal speech and infants’ emotion regulation following a social stressor

Caregiver voices may provide cues to mobilize or calm infants. This study examined whether maternal prosody predicted changes in infants’ biobehavioral state after the still face, a stressor in which the mother withdraws and reinstates social engagement. Ninety-four dyads participated in the study (infant age 4–8 months). Infants’ heart rate and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (measuring cardiac vagal tone) were derived from an electrocardiogram (ECG). Infants’ behavioral distress was measured by negative vocalizations, facial expressions, and gaze aversion. Mothers’ vocalizations were measured via a composite of spectral analysis and spectro-temporal modulation using a two-dimensional fast Fourier transformation of the audio spectrogram. High values on the maternal prosody composite were associated with decreases in infants’ heart rate (β = ?.26, 95% CI: [?0.46, ?0.05]) and behavioral distress (β = ?.23, 95% CI: [?0.42, ?0.03]), and increases in cardiac vagal tone in infants whose vagal tone was low during the stressor (1 SD below mean β = .39, 95% CI: [0.06, 0.73]). High infant heart rate predicted increases in the maternal prosody composite (β = .18, 95% CI: [0.03, 0.33]). These results suggest specific vocal acoustic features of speech that are relevant for regulating infants’ biobehavioral state and demonstrate mother–infant bi-directional dynamics.