Passing Encounters East and West: Comparing Japanese and American Pedestrian Interactions

This study examined the microinteractions of pedestrians in Japan and in the United States as they walked past a confederate. Specifically, the effects of culture, condition (avoid, look-only, and look plus smile) and sex of confederate on glances, smiles, nods, and greetings by passing pedestrians were examined in a field study on over 1000 participants. The hypotheses of (1) lower responsiveness in Japanese pedestrians than in American pedestrians and (2) increased responsiveness as a function of condition were supported in a series of log-linear analyses of pedestrian glances, smiles, nods, and greetings. Both of these main effects were, however, qualified by Culture X Condition interactions on smiles, nods, and greetings, with the large condition effects present in the American pedestrians, but absent in the Japanese pedestrians. The results are discussed in terms of the functions of glances, smiles, nods, and greetings in these brief encounters and how differing cultural norms affect Japanese and American responsiveness. Finally, the limitations of this study and the broader utility of this research paradigm are discussed.

Temporal Patterns of Accuracy Confidence in Social Judgments: A New Method and Initial Results

An integrated, computer-based system was developed to record participants’ continuous judgment changes on a revised form of the Interpersonal Perception Task (IPT-15). Consistent with the considerable research on “thin slice” judgments, the mean latency for greater than chance accuracy confidence was just 16 s (median = 10 s) for the ten one-part scenes on the IPT. There was also a clear and strong linear trend for increasing accuracy confidence across the first 25 s of the ten one-part scenes. For the five-two-part scenes, where comparative judgments were required (e.g., which statement is truthful, which is a lie?), no clear pattern of increasing accuracy confidence was found, with mean scores hovering near chance. The utility of the new system for analyzing the time course of social judgments is discussed and the potential reasons for the contrasting results for the one-part and two-part scenes were examined.     

Moments for a ratio of correlated gamma variates

This paper considers the finite integral moments for the ratio, R = X/Y, where X and Y re correlated gamma distributed variables. An analytical and numerical comparison is given for two classes of underlying bivariate gamma distributions. It is shown that the two bivariate gamma structures provide indentical experessions for the mth unadjussted moment, E(R^m), if and only if either of the following conditions hold : 1) X and Y are uncorrelated of 2) m=1. A numerical evaluation is performed to determine the extent that the two methods differ whenever the variables are correlated     

We care about care: advice by children in care for children in care,foster parents and child welfare workers about the transition into foster care

Twenty children in foster care, ages 8 to 15 years, provided advice to children in care, foster parents and child welfare workers about ways to assist service delivery during the transition into foster care. The children discussed the importance of tending to experiences such as foster home expectations, the importance of time and information, the new foster/parent–child relationship, coping with stress, the ability to be engaged in decision‐making, the benefits of foster care and the need to build a trusting and personal relationship between children in care and their caregivers. The importance of listening to children's experiences of the transition into foster care and incorporating their advice into future research, policy and practice will be discussed.     

Busy Signal: Effects of Mobile Device Usage on Pedestrian Encounters

Mobile communication technology plays an increasingly pervasive role in everyday life. This study examined one aspect of this role, specifically, the effects of mobile device use on the micro-interactions of pedestrians as they approached and passed a confederate. Over 400 participants were observed in a 2 (group: mobile device vs. control) × 3 [condition: look-only (L); look and smile (LS); look, smile, and greeting (LSG)] factorial design study measuring participants’ looks, smiles, nods, and greetings toward the confederates. Log-linear analyses of the dependent measures provided qualified support for the predicted decreased responsiveness from mobile device users. Specifically, a group by condition interaction on smiles showed that significantly fewer mobile device users than controls smiled at the confederates in the LSG condition. In addition, a group by sex of participant interaction on greetings indicated that significantly fewer female mobile device users offered greetings than males and females in the other conditions. The processes potentially mediating these effects are discussed and the broader influence of mobile devices on the micro-interactions of pedestrians is considered.     

Celebrity and politics: Effects of endorser credibility and sex on voter attitudes,perceptions, and behaviors

While much research examines the effects of celebrity endorsements in commercial advertising, scholars have only recently sought to investigate the effects of celebrity endorsements of politicians on voter perceptions and behavior. This study expands existing research on celebrity political endorsement effects via an experiment exploring effects of different versions of a news story describing a celebrity's endorsement of a political candidate on participants’ voting attitudes, perceptions of candidate credibility, and voting behavioral intent. Although participants perceive credibility differences between high- and low-credibility celebrities, neither endorser credibility nor endorser sex impact attitudes toward the endorsed candidate, perceptions of the candidate's credibility, or intended voting behavior. Conceptual relationships to other studies on celebrity endorsement effects are discussed, as are implications, limitations, and directions for future research.     

Howard Caygill on resistance: ecce homo

Howard Caygill’s On Resistance (2013) is changing the landscape of how the concept of resistance is understood. In his book, he theorises a concept of resistance rooted in the Kantian aporia of judgement, in the Hegelian notion of Force, in Clausewitz’s idea of resistance as a capacity and in the Nietzschean notion of affirmation. He employs these against philosophies of dialectic and resolution. I trace these themes back through some of his earlier work, to reveal the tensions that persist in his own thinking, and which underpin the puzzles, the aporias, that are central to his notion of resistance. I argue that in his earlier work a notion of (Hegelian) philosophical education receives more generous treatment. By retrieving this notion of learning and locating it within On Resistance, we can get closer not only to the relationship between actuality, possibility and necessity, that are so important to Caygill’s notion of resistance, but also to the philosophical character of the man Caygill: ecce homo.     

Microaggressions and Islamophobia: Experiences of Muslims Across the United States and Clinical Implications

This mixed methods exploratory study illustrates the influence of pervasive misconceptions about Islam on the experiences of 314 adult Muslims across the United States. Quantitative results suggest that Muslim stress levels are comparable to the stress levels of other marginalized groups in the United States. Qualitative analysis revealed four themes that highlight the challenges faced by Muslims as well as their resiliency in the face of microaggressions and marginalization. Family therapists may utilize these personal accounts to expand their understanding of Muslim experiences, and to reflect on their own implicit biases toward Muslims in order to reduce chances of premature termination. Clinical implications include using resiliency‐based models and creating collaborative partnerships with community leaders when working with this religious minority group.     

Feeding,growth, and trophic position of redbreast sunfish (Lepomis auritus) in watersheds of differing land cover in the lower Piedmont,USA

One pervasive outcome in the urbanization of an ecosystem is the proliferation and numerical dominance of select tolerant organisms that are often native to the system yet with reduced relative abundances in less-disturbed conditions. As a result of high variation in environmental conditions between urbanized and non-urbanized systems, it is possible that the functional role of a ubiquitous organism is context dependent. Such is the case for redbreast sunfish (Lepomis auritus) in small streams in many parts of the Piedmont of the southeastern USA. To investigate this hypothesis, we evaluated the feeding, growth, and trophic position of redbreast sunfish in 3 streams of increasing levels of watershed urbanization (forested, suburban, urban) in the Lower Piedmont of western Georgia, USA. Through gut contents analysis, we found that sunfish consumed primarily Chironomidae (Diptera) larvae across all streams. However, fish in the suburban stream consumed more terrestrial prey than fish in the forest and urban streams, which corresponded to lower aquatic prey abundances in the suburban stream. Although there was no difference in mean fish age among streams, otolith analysis revealed that fish in the urban stream were larger at age than those in the forest stream. Last, stable isotope analysis revealed that fish in the urban stream occupied a lower trophic position than the other 2 streams. These results suggest that despite the fact that the primary prey resource was similar for sunfish in each stream, their potential functional role, as evidenced by size at age and trophic position, is context dependent.

     

Varstab: a procedure for determining homoscedastic transformations of multivariate normal populations

Gnanadesikan 1977 illustrates the utility of the power transformations considered by Moore and Tukey (1954) Box and Cox (1964), and Andrews, Gnanadesikan, and Warner (1971). These transformations have been used to obtain and assess both the marginal and joint normality of the underlying distributions. This paper investigates the utility of this procedure in defining homoscedastic transformations in multivariate populations.