Objective: The objective was to evaluate the effect of wrist posture on incidence of wrist tendinosis in a prospective cohort of blue-collar workers. Background: Previous studies have identified awkward wrist posture as a risk factor for wrist tendinosis, though the magnitude of the relationship is unclear. Method: Workers (N = 413) at four industries were followed for up to 28 months with qu…
Objective: The aim of this study was to characterize associations between psychosocial and work organizational risk factors and upper-extremity musculoskeletal symptoms and disorders. Background: Methodological limitations of previous studies of psychosocial and work organizational risk factors and musculoskeletal outcomes have produced inconsistent associations. Method: In this prospective e…
Objective: To better characterize associations between physical risk factors and upper-extremity musculoskeletal symptoms and disorders, a prospective epidemiologic study of 386 manufacturing workers was performed. Background: Methodological limitations of previous studies have resulted in inconsistent associations. Method: An individual, task-based exposure assessment strategy was used to as…
Objective: The objective is to quantify differences in physical exposures for those who stayed on a job (survivor) versus those who left the job (turnover). Background: It has been suggested that high physical job demands lead to greater turnover and that turnover rates may supplement low-back disorder incidence rates in passive surveillance systems. Method: A prospective study with 811 parti…
Objective: We studied associations between jobtitle- based measures of force and repetition and incident carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). Background: Job exposure matrices (JEMs) are not commonly used in studies of work-related upperextremity disorders. Method: We enrolled newly hired workers in a prospective cohort study. We assigned a Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code to each job…
Objective: The aim of this study was to determine reference physical performance values in older aging workers. Background: Cross-sectional physical performance measures were collected for 736 manufacturing workers to assess effects of work and nonwork factors on agerelated changes in musculoskeletal function and health. Method: Participants underwent surveys and physical testing that includ…
Performance-based assessment clearly represents an indispensable approach for assessing gifted student learning. Challenging performance tasks allow gifted learners to reveal their considerable intellectual capacity and energy. Through performance tasks, teachers gain insights into a gifted student’s true level of capability in a domain of knowledge. As the majority of programs for the gif…
In the context of increasing interest and support for a developmental conception of giftedness, there is perhaps an ever-greater need for off-level testing for students with high potential. Off-level testing is no longer merely a single-use tool that helps administrators identify students for gifted programs, but provides essential information about where students’ various strengths are curr…
Identification of gifted and talented students presents a conceptual and practical challenge for educators. On the one hand, giftedness can be represented by potential, a difficult trait to measure reliably given the multifaceted approach supported by many gifted programs. On the other hand, some behaviors that are indicative of potential, especially in academic areas, may only develop if stude…
Flipping the classroom can be an effective instructional strategy for differentiating instruction for gifted and talented students. The author presents a rationale for using the strategy with gifted students, possible problems educators might encounter, and practical tips for beginning the process of flipping the classroom. Keywords: differentiation, technology
Using assessment data to determine student growth has become an integral part of the accountability movement, and researchers and educators are currently examining how new rules impact the academic assessment of gifted learners. In 2008, the Association for the Gifted’s Annual Symposium at the Council for Exceptional Children Convention focused on policy and legislative issues and their ef…
Gifted Black students experience many barriers that contribute to their under-representation in gifted and advanced programs. One of the greatest negative influences comes from peer accusations of acting White that undermine gifted and high-achieving Black students’ academic motivation and their interest in challenging courses and programs. While some teachers are unaware of the acting Whi…
The United States is considered the land of immigrants and cultural diversity, and our nation’s ever changing demographics attests to this. Yearly, our nation and schools become more racially and linguistically different. In what ways, we must ask, are schools welcoming and providing for students who come from different cultural backgrounds, especially Black and Hispanic students? The auth…
Research on bullying is an important avenue for understanding the social integration of students in special education. Focused on 3,305 students who self-reported victimization of two to three times per month or more, this study compared the pattern of verbal, relational, and physical bullying among students in general education and special education. Overall, students in special education repo…
This study investigated the role of strategy instruction on solution accuracy in children with and without serious math difficulties (MD) in problem solving. Children’s posttest solution accuracy was compared on standardized and experimental measures as a function of strategy conditions. Strategy conditions included curriculum materials that gradually increased the number of irrelevant propos…
The authors used data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2; SRI International, 2000) to examine the aspects of self-determination assessed in NLTS2 and measurement equivalence and latent differences across the 12 disability categories recognized in the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA; 2004). NLTS2 included a direct assessment with items representing 3 of th…
Low language proficiency and problem behavior often co-occur, yet language deficits are likely to be overlooked in children with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). Random effects meta-analyses were conducted to determine prevalence and severity of the problem. Across 22 studies, participants included 1,171 children ages 5-13 with formally identified EBD and no history of developmental, n…
Findings from a meta-analysis of 26 studies investigating the effects of either the Kids on the Block or Count Me In puppet shows on changes in elementary students’ attitudes toward and knowledge of individuals with disabilities are reported. The studies included 5,302 intervention group participants and 2,642 comparison group participants. Results indicated that the puppet shows had small to…
This article describes a follow-up analysis of findings from a randomized study that tested the efficacy of a blended version of Enhanced Anchored Instruction (EAI) designed to improve both the computation and problem-solving performances of middle school students with disabilities. The goals of the secondary analysis were to track overall error patterns of students in computing with fractions …
Among many benefits of facial attractiveness, there is evidence that more attractive politicians are more likely to be elected. Recent research found this effect to be most pronounced in congressional districts with high disease threat—a result attributed to an adaptive disease avoidance mechanism, whereby the association of low attractiveness with poor nhealth is particularly worrisome to vo…
Theoretical approaches to stigmatization have highlighted distinct psychological mechanisms underlying distinct instances of stigmatization. Some stigmas are based on inferences of substandard psychological character (e.g., individuals deemed untrustworthy), whereas others are based on perceptions of substandard physical appearance (e.g., individuals with physical deformities). These inferences…
We evaluate a sanctuary chimpanzee sample (N = 11) using two adapted human assessment instruments: the Five-Factor Model (FFM) and Eysenck’s Psychoticism-Extraversion-Neuroticism (PEN) model. The former has been widely used in studies of animal personality, whereas the latter has never been used to assess chimpanzees. We asked familiar keepers and scientists (N = 28) to rate 38 (FFM) and 12 (…
This study examined women’s and men’s preferences for humor production and humor receptivity in long-term and short-term relationships, and how these factors interact with physical attractiveness to influence desirability. Undergraduates viewed photographs of the opposite sex individuals who were high or low in physical attractiveness, along with vignettes varying in humor production and re…
Placebo research shows that the subjective quality of care and social support, as well as the patients’ expectations of treatment, influence therapeutic outcomes. However, this phenomenon, known as the placebo effect, does not usually cure the disease, but rather can provide symptomatic relief: It may soothe symptoms such as pain, swelling, or nausea that constitute part of an immune response…
Life history strategy (LHS) and life history contingencies (LHCs) should theoretically influence the use of exploitative and deceptive resource acquisition strategies. However, little research has been done in this area. The purpose of the present work was to create measures of exploitative strategies and test the predictions of life history theory. Pilot studies developed and validated a behav…
Ancestrally, relatively attractive individuals and relatively formidable males may have had reduced incentives to be egalitarian (i.e., to act in accordance with norms promoting social equality). If selection calibrated one’s egalitarianism to one’s attractiveness/formidability, then such people may exhibit reduced egalitarianism (“observed egalitarianism”) and be perceived by others a…
While smiling enhances women’s facial attractiveness, the findings are inconclusive for men. The present study investigated the effect of smiling on male facial attractiveness for short- and long-term prospective partners using East Asian and European samples. In Experiment 1 (N ¼ 218), where female participants rated male facial attractiveness, the facilitative effect of smiling was present…
Evidence shows that people tend to behave prosocially when they are in the presence of images depicting eyes. There are two proximate causes of the eyes effect. One involves positive motivation to gain future reward and the other involves negative motivation to avoid violating a norm. Although several studies have suggested that positive motivation is a strong candidate, these studies were unab…
Inequality has been associated with risk-taking at the societal level. However, this relationship has not been directly investigated at the individual level. Risk-sensitivity theory predicts that decision makers should increase risk-taking in situations of disparity between one’s present state and desired state. Economic inequality creates such a disparity. In two experiments, we examined whe…
Research suggests that women pretend orgasm with their partner as a mate retention strategy, but the cognitive reasons behind this deception are not well known. To explore women’s cognitive reasons for pretending orgasm, we first assembled a list of the reasons women report for pretending orgasm. We refined this list using independent data collected on performance frequencies for each item, f…
Although several studies have linked Life History Strategy (LHS) variation with variation in the Five Factor Model personality dimensions, no published research has explored the relationship of LHS to the HEXACO personality dimensions. The theoretically expected relationship of the HEXACO Emotionality factor to LHS is unclear. The results of two studies (N = 641) demonstrated that LHS indicator…
Information about prospective mates is typically acquired in a sequential and cumulative fashion. The aim of this study was to examine whether a reject-the-worst strategy is more efficient than an accept-the-best strategy for women in response to serial information and to identify the point at which a woman will terminate her assessment of a prospective mate’s attributes. A pilot survey was c…
In a previous study, we found that the shape of a bird, rather than its color, plays a major role in the determination of human preferences. Thus, in the present study, we asked whether the preferences of human respondents towards uniformly shaped, colorful birds are determined by pattern rather than color. The experimental stimuli were pictures of small passerine birds of the family Pittidae p…
Humans are equipped with a psychological system of followership that evolved to regulate choices of leaders based partly on would-be leaders’ physiological features. One such feature is voice pitch, which is determined by the physiology of the throat. Recent studies find that political candidates in modern elections with lower-pitched voices are generally more successful. As lower-pitched voi…
Evidence that facial width-to-height ratio (FWHR) is a sexually dimorphic morphological measure is mixed. Research has also linked FWHR with aggression and other behavioral tendencies, at least in men. Again, other research has found no such relationship. Here, I tested for both possible relationships using a sample of 2,075 male and 1,406 female athletes from the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Game…
This study was designed to investigate the impact of survival processing with a novel task for this paradigm: the Stroop colornaming task. As the literature is mixed with regard to task generalizability, with survival processing promoting better memory for words, but not better memory for faces or paired associates, these types of task investigations are important to a growing field of research…
The use of cosmetics by women seems to consistently increase their attractiveness. What factors of attractiveness do cosmetics alter to achieve this? Facial contrast is a known cue to sexual dimorphism and youth, and cosmetics exaggerate sexual dimorphisms in facial contrast. Here, we demonstrate that the luminance contrast pattern of the eyes and eyebrows is consistently sexually dimorphic acr…
Evolutionary-minded scientists have proposed that humor is a sexually selected trait in men that signals mate quality. Indeed, women tend to prefer men who make them laugh and men tend to prefer women who laugh at their jokes. However, it is unclear how robust this pattern is. Here we report a replication of one of the first studies (Bressler, Martin, and Balshine, 2006) to examine the sex diff…
Existing evidence suggests that the psychological design of romantic jealousy differs for men and women: Men are more likely than women to report greater upset in response to a partner’s sexual than emotional infidelity, whereas women are more likely than men to report greater upset in response to a partner’s emotional than sexual infidelity. However, the observed sex difference can be expl…
This investigation examines a sexual selection-based argument regarding humor’s role in courtship (i.e., humor production signals intelligence/creativity). Lens model (n ¼100) analyses suggest that humor production on Facebook profiles were self-reported and perceived to be associated with extroversion, not intelligence. Study 2 (n ¼ 289) found that extroversion was associated humor product…
Supernormal (SN) stimuli are artificial products that activate reward pathways and approach behavior more so than naturally occurring stimuli for which these systems were intended. Many modern consumer products (e.g., snack foods, alcohol, and pornography) appear to incorporate SN features, leading to excessive consumption, in preference to naturally occurring alternatives. No measure currently…
Through its monopoly on violence, the State tends to pacify social relations. Such pacification proceeded slowly in Western Europe between the 5th and 11th centuries, being hindered by the rudimentary nature of law enforcement, the belief in a man’s right to settle personal disputes as he saw fit, and the Church’s opposition to the death penalty. These hindrances began to dissolve in the 11…
People with traits that are attractive on the mating market are better able to pursue their preferred mating strategy. Men who are brelatively tall may be preferred by women because taller height is a cue to dominance, social status, access to resources, and heritable fitness, leading them to have more mating opportunities and sex partners. We examined height, education, age, ethnicity, and bod…
Copping, Campbell, and Muncer (2014) have recently published an article critical of the psychometric approach to the assessment of life history (LH) strategy. Their purported goal was testing for the convergent validation and examining the psychometric structure of the High-K Strategy Scale (HKSS). As much of the literature on the psychometrics of human LH during the past decade or so has emana…
In light of previous research showing that different types of relationships affect levels of testosterone in men, this study examined whether categorizing relationship types according to relationship length can shed further light on variations in levels of testosterone. Salivary testosterone samples were obtained from a sample of men and details about their relationship status, sociosexual orie…
This analysis of previously collected data examined four fitness-relevant issues for their possible role in marital conflict. These were sex, finances, division of labor, and raising children, selected in light of their pertinence to sex differences in reproductive strategies. Over 2,000 couples in five diverse cultures were studied. Marital conflict was assessed by the Problems with Partner sc…
Studies of humans and non-human animals indicate that females tend to change the likelihood of choosing a potential mate based on the decisions of other females; this is known as mate-choice copying. In a sample of both single and coupled women, we examined the influence of other women’s (model) mate-choice decisions, including mate acceptance and mate rejection, on participants’ attractive…
One individual’s actions may affect the evolutionary fitness of another individual. Sexually antagonistic coevolution occurs when one partner’s behavior decreases the fitness of the other partner (Rice, 1996). This conflict pressures the other partner to counter these disadvantageous actions. Mate guarding is a mate retention tactic aimed at keeping a partner from cheating. Mate guarding ma…
In three studies, we tested the hypothesis that men respond to intersexual and intrasexual selection by facultatively choosing between weapon-like and ornament-like behaviors. In the first two studies, we manipulated intersexual and intrasexual selection by having male participants take part in a simulated dating game (Study 1) or imagine having a date (Study 2). In both studies, participants w…
If a woman overestimates her romantic partner’s commitment, the cost to her fitness—reproduction without an investing partner—can be considerable. Error Management Theory predicts that women have an evolved bias to be skeptical of men’s commitment in a relationship, which reduces the likelihood of making a costly false positive error. However, because error probabilities are inversely r…