Who expects what from whom? : a gender based study on expectations and secondary school administration

This study is about expectations and aspirations of secondary school teachers. It is an investigation of why some teachers aspire to become administrators and why some teachers do not. My research compares expectations and existing attltudes regarding aspirations toward administration which are held by three distinct groups within the secondary school system: 1) principals/vice-principals, 2) aspiring teachers, and 3) non-aspiring teachers. This study questions why, in the late 60's, secondary school administration is still predominated by men. The conclusions and recommendations were based on interviews with thirty men and women in the Hamilton Secondary School System. In addltion, Mr. Keith Rielly, Superintendent of Operations, made valuable contributions to my work. The interviews revealed experiences and percept ions of men and women in di scourse about f amil y re lat i onshi ps, educational choices and perceived internal and external barriers which inhiblted or enhanced their decision to aspire to secondary school administration. Candidates spoke about their personal and professional Hves wlth respect to encouragement, perceived images of an administrator, netWOrking and the effect of marriage and children on their careers. Historically, women have not accepted the challenge of administration and It would appear as if this is still the case today. My research suggests that women are under-represented in secondary school administration because of internal and external barriers which discourage many women from aspiring. I conclude that many of women's internal barrlers are reinforced by external roadblocks which prevent women from aspiring to secondory school administration. Thus. many women who do not envision a future in educational administration establish priorities outside the general realm of education. I recommend that males and females recognize that women make valuable contributions to educational theory and design based on their experiences which may be "differene from mole experiences. but just as significant. Mole and female representation in secondary school administration represents a balance between attitudes and behaviours which can not be accomplished when an administrative offlce is dominated by on all ma1e or all female staff.

Family expectation, social adjustment and gender differences in a sample of schizophrenic patients

A case series to study factors related to family expectation regarding schizophrenic patients was conducted in an out-patient setting in the city of S. Paulo, Brazil. Patients diagnosed as presenting schizophrenia by the ICD 9th Edition and having had the disease for more than four years were included in the study. Family Expectation was measured by the difference between the Katz Adjustment Scale (R2 and R3) scores based on the relative's expectation and the socially expected activities of the patient (Discrepancy Score), and social adjustment was given by the DSM-III-R Global Assessment Scale (GAS) . Outcome assessments were made independently, and 44 patients comprised the sample (25 males and 19 females). The Discrepancy mean score was twice as high for males as for females (p < 0.02), and there was an inverse relationship between the discrepancy score and social adjustment (r =-0.46, p < 0.001). Moreover, sex and social adjustment exerted independent effects on the discrepancy score when age, age at onset and number of psychiatric admissions were controlled by means of a multiple regression technique. There was an interaction between sex and social adjustment, the inverse relationship between social adjustment and discrepancy score being more pronounced for males. These findings are discussed in the light of the potential association between the family environment, gender and social adjustment of schizophrenic patients, and the need for further research, i.e. ethnographic accounts of interactions between patient and relatives sharing households particularly in less developed countries.

Interpretation and expectation in childhood anxiety disorders: age effects and social specificity

Theory and treatment for childhood anxiety disorders typically implicates children’s negative cognitions, yet little is known about the characteristics of thinking styles of clinically anxious children. In particular, it is unclear whether differences in thinking styles between children with anxiety disorders and non-anxious children vary as a function of child age, whether particular cognitive distortions are associated with childhood anxiety disorders at different child ages, and whether cognitive content is disorder-specific. The current study addressed these questions among 120 7 - 12 year old children (53% female) who met diagnostic criteria for social anxiety disorder, other anxiety disorder, or who were not currently anxious. Contrary to expectations, threat interpretation was not inflated amongst anxious compared to non-anxious children at any age, although older (10 - 12 year old) anxious children did differ from non-anxious children on measures of perceived coping. The notion of cognitive-content specificity was not supported across the age-range. The findings challenge current treatment models of childhood anxiety, and suggest that a focus on changing anxious children’s cognitions is not warranted in mid-childhood, and in late childhood cognitive approaches may be better focussed on promoting children’s perceptions of control rather than challenging threat interpretations.

Group Stereotypes and The Self: How Social Status and Interaction Expectation Affect Self-Stereotyping

This study examined how ingroup status affects the tendency for people to internalize ingroup stereotypes (i.e. self-stereotype) when expecting to interact with another individual who holds stereotypic views of them. Past research has demonstrated that people self-stereotype when they want to affiliate with another individual who holds stereotypic views of them. By self-stereotyping, individuals create a common bond or shared set of beliefs with the other individual. This line of research has not yet examinedif there are any moderators in the relationship between affiliation motivation and self-stereotyping. However, there is reason to believe that members of lower-status groups are more likely to feel the need to create this common bond through self-stereotyping because 1) they identify more closely with their social group, 2) their group identity is more salient 3) they are more aware of the expectations of others, 4) and they care more about the quality of an interaction with a member from a higher-status group. For this experiment, I recruited twenty-seven members of Alpha Chi Omega andtwenty-eight members of Delta Gamma, two sororities that are perceived to be middle-ranked (as determined by a pre-test survey). Upon arriving to the study, half the participants were informed that they would be interacting with a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma, a higher-ranked sorority (as determined by a pre-test survey) and half the participants were informed that they would be interacting with a member of a Chi Omega, a lower-ranked sorority (as determined by a pre-test survey). Participants were also informed that this partner held stereotypic views of their (i.e. the participant’s)sorority. After, participants were given the Self-Stereotyping Measure in which they rated how well sixteen characteristics described themselves. The results of the series of analyses performed on participants’ ratings on the Self-Stereotyping Measure indicated that when expecting to interact with another individual, members of low-status groups self-stereotype more than members of high-statusgroups and those who do not expect to interact. Furthermore, unexpectedly, among members of high-status groups, those who expected to interact with a member of a low-status group self-stereotyped less than those who did not expect to interact. Thus, this research provides support for the hypothesis that group status is a moderator in the relationship between self-stereotyping and affiliation motivation.

Disentangling mental imagery and perceptual expectation

Mental imagery and perception are thought to rely on similar neural circuits, and many recent behavioral studies have attempted to demonstrate interactions between actual physical stimulation and sensory imagery in the corresponding sensory modality. However, there has been a lack of theoretical understanding of the nature of these interactions, and both interferential and facilitatory effects have been found. Facilitatory effects appear strikingly similar to those that arise due to experimental manipulations of expectation. Using a self-motion discrimination task, we try to disentangle the effects of mental imagery from those of expectation by using a hierarchical drift diffusion model to investigate both choice data and response times. Manipulations of expectation are reasonably well understood in terms of their selective influence on parameters of the drift diffusion model, and in this study, we make the first attempt to similarly characterize the effects of mental imagery. We investigate mental imagery within the computational framework of control theory and state estimation. • Mental imagery and perception are thought to rely on similar neural circuits; however, on more theoretical grounds, imagery seems to be closely related to the output of forward models (sensory predictions). • We reanalyzed data from a study of imagined self-motion. • Bayesian modeling of response times may allow us to disentangle the effects of mental imagery on behavior from other cognitive (top-down) effects, such as expectation.

Expectation Modulates Episodic Memory Formation via Dopaminergic Circuitry

Episodic memory formation is shaped by expectation. Events that generate expectations have the capacity to influence memory. Additionally, whether subsequent events meet or violate expectations has consequences for memory. However, clarification is still required to illuminate the circumstances and direction of memory modulation. In the brain, the mechanisms by which expectation modulates memory formation also require consideration. The dopamine system has been implicated in signaling events associated with different states of expectancy; it has also been shown to modulate episodic memory formation in the hippocampus. Thus, the studies included in this dissertation utilized both functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and behavioral testing to examine when and how the dopaminergic system supports the modulation of memory by expectation. The work aimed to characterize the activation of dopaminergic circuitry in response to cues that generate expectancy, during periods of anticipation, and in response to outcomes that resolve expectancy. The studies also examined how each of these event types influenced episodic memory formation. The present findings demonstrated that novelty and expectancy violation both drive dopaminergic circuitry capable of contributing to memory formation. Consistent with elevated dopaminergic midbrain and hippocampus activation for each, expected versus expectancy violating novelty did not differentially affect memory success. We also showed that high curiosity expectancy states drive memory formation. This was supported by activation in dopaminergic circuitry that was greater for subsequently remembered information only in the high curiosity state. Finally, we showed that cues that generate high expected reward value versus high reward uncertainty differentially modulate memory formation during reward anticipation. This behavioral result was consistent with distinct temporal profiles of dopaminergic action having differential downstream effects on episodic memory formation. Integrating the present studies with previous research suggests that dopaminergic circuitry signals events that are unpredicted, whether cuing or resolving expectations. It also suggests that contextual differences change the contribution of the dopaminergic system during anticipation, depending on the nature of the expectation. And finally, this work is consistent with a model in which dopamine elevation in response to expectancy events positively modulates episodic memory formation.

Emotion in organizations: A neglected topic in I/O psychology, But with a bright future

In this chapter we present a review of some of the main threads of research on the role played by emotion and affect in organizations. In this respect, we refute the notion that organizations are totally rational., where the role of emotion is something that can be discounted or 'managed' out of existence.