Self-control interventions for children under age 10 for improving self-control and delinquency and problem behaviors

Self-control improvement programs are intended to serve many purposes, most notably improving self-control. Yet, interventions such as these often aim to reduce delinquency and problem behaviors. However, there is currently no summary statement available regarding whether or not these programs are effective in improving self-control and reducing delinquency and problem behaviors. The main objective of this review is to assess the available research evidence on the effect of self-control improvement programs on self-control and delinquency and problem behaviors. In addition to investigating the overall effect of early selfcontrol improvement programs, this review will examine, to the extent possible, the context in which these programs may be most successful. The studies included in this systematic review indicate that self-control improvement programs are an effective intervention for improving self-control and reducing delinquency and problem behaviors, and that the effect of these programs appears to be rather robust across various weighting procedures, and across context, outcome source, and based on both published and unpublished data

Choosing the best robot for the job : affinity bias in human-robot interaction

Humans subconsciously judge others as being either similar or dissimilar to themselves, manifesting as an unconscious preference, or affinity bias, for those who are perceived to be similar. In human-to-human interaction, affinity bias can significantly influence trust formation and lead to discrimination, for example, in decisions related to recruitment and team selection. We investigate whether affinity bias is observed in human-robot interaction during team formation with social agents that differ in gender and skin tone. In this study, we asked 61 participants to order the resumés of 24 different avatars that varied in gender, skin tone, and competency under the pretext of choosing the “best” avatars to be the participant’s teammate. Then, using a wizard-of-oz style experiment, participants performed a task with two avatar teammates (one most preferred and one least preferred) to measure trust. Results showed that while avatars were predominantly chosen based upon competency, avatar appearance generated an affinity bias in resumé sorting, and participants were more likely to trust their preferred teammate

Undoing androcentric explanations of gender differences: Explaining 'the effect to be predicted'

Even if a social category contain women and men, men are often considered the default category members. Such androcentric thinking leads people to explain gender differences in such categories as being 'about women' rather than being 'about men.' In two experiments (N=102) this bias was reversed within the category 'voters.' Participants generalized data about women voters to men and data about men voters to women, and explained the resulting gender differences. Explanations always focused on the group whose attributes were predicted, whether such predictions were unconstrained (Experiment 1) or constrained by forced-choice items (Experiment 2). People can reason about gender differences by taking women as the default gender, even within categories that are traditionally normed on men. Implications for the communication of gender differences and the bases of androcentric thinking are discussed