Fertility Preferences and Cognition: Religiosity and Experimental Effects of Decision Context on College Women

Better models of culture and cognition may help researchers understand fertility and family formation. The authors examine cognition about fertility using an experimental survey design to investigate how fertility preferences of college women are affected by two prompts that bring to mind fertility‐relevant factors: career aspirations and financial limitations. The authors test the effects of these prompts on fertility preferences and ask how effects vary with respondent religiosity, an aspect of social identity related to fertility preferences. The authors find significant effects of treatment on fertility preferences when accounting for religiosity: Less religious women who considered their career aspirations or financial limitations reported smaller desired family size, but this effect was attenuated for more religious women. This study demonstrates how fertility preferences are shaped by decision contexts for some sociodemographic groups. The authors discuss how the findings support a social–cognitive model of fertility.     

Servant leaders inspire servant followers: Antecedents and outcomes for employees and the organization

Despite widespread adoption of servant leadership, we are only beginning to understand its true utility across multiple organizational levels. Our purpose was to test the relationship between personality, servant leadership, and critical follower and organizational outcomes. Using a social influence framework, we proposed that leader agreeableness and extraversion affect follower perceptions of servant leadership. In turn, servant leaders ignite a cycle of service by role-modeling servant behavior that is then mirrored through coworker helping behavior and high-quality customer service, as well as reciprocated through decreased withdrawal. Using a multilevel, multi-source model, we surveyed 224 stores of a U.S. retail organization, including 425 followers, 110 store managers, and 40 regional managers. Leader agreeableness was positively and extraversion was negatively related to servant leadership, which was associated with decreased follower turnover intentions and disengagement. At the group-level, service climate mediated the effects of servant leadership on follower turnover intentions, helping and sales behavior.     

A Novel Approach to Chemical Mixture Risk Assessment—Linking Data from Population‐Based Epidemiology and Experimental Animal Tests

Humans are continuously exposed to chemicals with suspected or proven endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). Risk management of EDCs presents a major unmet challenge because the available data for adverse health effects are generated by examining one compound at a time, whereas real‐life exposures are to mixtures of chemicals. In this work, we integrate epidemiological and experimental evidence toward a whole mixture strategy for risk assessment. To illustrate, we conduct the following four steps in a case study: (1) identification of single EDCs (“bad actors”)—measured in prenatal blood/urine in the SELMA study—that are associated with a shorter anogenital distance (AGD) in baby boys; (2) definition and construction of a “typical” mixture consisting of the “bad actors” identified in Step 1; (3) experimentally testing this mixture in an in vivo animal model to estimate a dose–response relationship and determine a point of departure (i.e., reference dose [RfD]) associated with an adverse health outcome; and (4) use a statistical measure of “sufficient similarity” to compare the experimental RfD (from Step 3) to the exposure measured in the human population and generate a “similar mixture risk indicator” (SMRI). The objective of this exercise is to generate a proof of concept for the systematic integration of epidemiological and experimental evidence with mixture risk assessment strategies. Using a whole mixture approach, we could find a higher rate of pregnant women under risk (13%) when comparing with the data from more traditional models of additivity (3%), or a compound‐by‐compound strategy (1.6%).     

Old Paths and New Directions: Studying Emotions in the Workplace

The study of emotions in the workplace is a vibrant area of research that has grown considerably over the last 25 years. This research has traveled far, but it has not run its course. This article maps the different paths that have been explored, beginning with Hochschild's classic work on emotional labor in the form of surface and deep acting, and charts new directions for future research. We start by reviewing the literature on emotional labor and emotion management in the workplace. Next, we discuss new theoretical developments in the sociology of emotions – interaction ritual chain theory, theories of identity and affect control, and theories about power, status, and exchange – and their potential utility for understanding emotions at work. Finally, we discuss new methodological directions that can be pursued in future research on emotions in work and organizational settings.     

Parent–child joint media engagement in infancy

Early conversations are an important source in shaping children's cognitive and emotional development, and it is vital to understand how parents use media as a platform to engage in conversations with their young children and what might predict the quality of these interactions. Thus, in the current study we explored the nature of parent–child discourse while engaging in media (i.e., joint media engagement) with infants, and how parent (empathic concern and responsiveness) and child (negative emotionality and regulatory capacity) variables might be associated with the quality of engagement. The current study consisted of 269 infants (50% female, M_age = 17.09 months, SD = 3.93; 59% White) and their primary caregiver (98% mothers) who engaged in a variety of in‐home tasks and parental questionnaires. Results established three meaningful codes for both parent and child that assessed positive and negative joint media engagement. Further, results suggested that parental empathic concern was associated with positive parent and child media engagement, while child negative emotionality was associated with lower levels of distraction. Discussion focuses on the importance of studying parent–child discourse in the context of joint media engagement and recommends limiting media exposure before 18 months of age.     

Does Mate Scarcity Affect Marital Choice and Family Formation? The Evidence for New and Classic Formulations of Sex Ratio Theory

Guttentag and Secord pioneered research on the social consequences of imbalances in the numbers of men and women—the sex ratio. Since then, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and even biologists have investigated its effects on marriage and reproduction. I review the three prevailing theories to explain why sex ratio should affect marriage and reproduction, along with the evidence that it does. I also review the growing evidence that sex ratio imbalances are associated with mate choice. Sex ratio reveals contradictory relationships with mate preferences and actual partner choice, however, raising a conundrum for future research. Overall, there is strong experimental and correlational support for the patterns of marriage and reproduction associated with sex ratio. What emerges is the necessity for future research to distinguish among the perspectives to explain why.     

Gender and Material Transfers Between Older Parents and Children in Ismailia,Egypt

In Egypt, kin relations have been governed by a patriarchal contract, which defines expectations for intergenerational support along gendered lines. Social changes may be disrupting these customs and bringing attention to the ways gender may influence intergenerational support in rapidly changing contexts. Using data from 4,465 parent–child dyads in Ismailia, Egypt, we examined whether intergenerational material transfers favored women over men and whether gaps in needs and endowments accounted for gender differences in transfers. Fathers gave children money and goods more often than did mothers; mothers received material transfers from children more often than did fathers. Compared to sons, daughters made transfers to parents less often and received transfers from parents more often. We found residual advantages to mothers and daughters, even adjusting for differential needs and endowments. Findings corroborate persistent norms of gender complementarity, patrilocal endogamy, and reciprocation for women's caregiving, despite changes that have threatened patriarchal rules of exchange.     

Potential impacts of emerald ash borer invasion on biogeochemical and water cycling in residential landscapes across a metropolitan region

Trees provide important ecological services in cities, yet the vulnerability of the urban forest to massive tree losses from pest outbreaks could threaten those services, with unknown environmental consequences. The outbreak of emerald ash borer is an imminent threat to the ash population in North America. In the Minneapolis?CSaint Paul, Minnesota, metropolitan area, ash trees are present in 50?% of residential landscapes in Ramsey and Anoka Counties. We used a large survey of household activities, a tree inventory, a Household Flux Calculator accounting tool, and a set of annual evapotranspiration measurements, to quantify the current carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus storage in ash trees, the cycling of these elements, and the total evapotranspiration from ash trees in residential areas in the metropolitan region. Ash represented 6?% of the trees in residential areas and the removal of the entire ash population would correspondingly reduce net primary production and carbon sequestration by only a few percent and would have negligible effects on losses of nitrogen and phosphorus from residential landscapes. Similarly, the effects of ash loss on the hydrologic cycle would be minimal and would depend largely on management choices for the ground currently underneath ash tree canopies. Overall, the percentage change in biogeochemical and hydrological fluxes corresponded closely with the percent of the total urban tree population that was represented by ash, suggesting that areas with higher densities of ash would experience correspondingly larger effects. A hypothetical tree replacement scenario with similar broadleaf species was determined to be likely to re-establish the original biogeochemical and hydrological conditions once the replacement trees reach maturity.