Gender-Based Stereotype Threat and Competitive Interactive Games

Stereotype threat has been examined in numerous areas of performance, including entrepreneurial intentions, negotiation, math, and chess (Gupta, Turban, & Bhawe, 2008; Kray, Thompson, & Galinsky, 2001; Maass, D’Ettole, & Cadinu, 2008; Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999). Women who identify more strongly with their gender are also more vulnerable to stereotype threat (Schmader, 2002). The masculine stereotype includes such qualities as aggressiveness and risk-taking, and the feminine stereotype includes qualities such as cooperating and nurturing (Best, Williams, & Briggs, 1980; Gupta et al., 2008; Kray et al., 2001). Men tend to play competitive interactive games, particularly complex board games and table-top games, more often than women and are believed to be superior players, possibly because the feminine stereotype excludes qualities that are considered essential for gameplay. Nevertheless, in some games (particularly video game role playing games), women have been found to be superior players to men by many measures (Williams, Consalvo, Caplan, & Yee, 2009). Studies of social games show that women are more cooperative than men in mixed-sex groups, but less in same-sex groups (Balliet, Li, Macfarlan, & Van Vugt, 2011). In the present study, women were expected to manifest stereotypical gender qualities with higher frequency during a complex board game played with both men and women than during a game played with only members of their own gender, and to do so to a greater extent the more they self-identified as feminine according to the PAQ. Women in mixed-sex groups were actually found to perform less feminine actions and more masculine actions relative to women who played in all-female groups. A significant correlation was found between PAQ femininity and the relative number of feminine-typed actions taken during the game. No evidence of stereotype threat was found, but there were signs that some type of gender-based interference occurred during the games, causing women to behave differently according to their group type

Temporal evolution of tritium-³He age in the North Atlantic : implications for thermocline ventilation

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 1997This thesis is a study of the physical mechanisms that ventilate the subtropical thermocline of the eastern North Atlantic. The starting point is an analysis of the existent historical database of natural and anthropogenic tracers, with special emphasis on 3He and tritium, that can be used to infer rates of ventilation. If the flow is predominantly advective, the temporal evolution of coupled transient tracers can be used to define a tracer age which measures the elapsed time since a water parcel was resident in the surface mixed layer. A principle finding is that the observed tracer age shows a large and systematic change over time. Tritium-3He age in the eastern Atlantic thermocline is seen to increase over time; the magnitude of the change is greatest for the deeper, more slowly ventilated layers of the thermocline. The first hypothesis examined is that the observed shift in the tracer age field is the manifestation of a slackening of the physical ventilation. A time series of the meridional geostrophic velocity shear in the eastern Atlantic shows no indication of a change in the strength of the large-scale circulation. Uncertainty of the geostrophic calculation due to data sparsity and mesoscale eddy contamination prevents conclusive rejection of the hypothesis of a changing circulation. There are other tracers which offer useful clues: comparison of the tritium-3He age field with dissolved oxygen reveals a temporal trend in the property-property correlation. The spatial structure of the oxygen field, however, shows no long-term evolution over time. From this line of evidence it is concluded that the physical ventilation of the thermocline has not altered over time and, therefore, the temporal change in the tritium-3He age field must be the signal of the tritium invasion itself. A second hypothesis, which analysis shows is more consistent with the observations, is that the changing tracer age is a consequence of mixing effects in the ventilation of 3He and tritium. Numerical simulations of the thermocline ventilation of 3H and 3He are performed to examine the steadiness of the tracer age field under different advective-diffusive regimes. A one-dimensional model is constructed based on the assumption that the totality of the fluid in the thermocline derives from subduction out of the surface mixed layer. The temporal behavior of the tracer age field is found to be dependent on the radiotracer Peclet number, which measures the ratio of the diffusive and advective time scales. In a model with steady circulation, the observed temporal behavior of the tracer age field can be reproduced only when the effects of lateral mixing play a significant role in the process of ventilation. The vertical structure and magnitude of the implied lateral diffusivity are, however, inconsistent with other observations. The numerical simulations are next extended to two-dimensions to allow for the presence of a pool of unventilated, re-circulated water within the anti-cyclonic, subtropical gyre. Comparison of the model with the observed transient tracer field in the lower thermocline shows consistency with conventional estimates of lateral mixing rates only when the diffusively ventilated "pool" region extends across the entire zonal domain of the gyre. In contrast, the transient tracer fields in the upper portion of the thermocline are best reproduced when the isopycnal surfaces are ventilated by advection directly from the surface mixed layer. The results obtained here are consistent with numerical simulations which reveal a prominent role for mesoscale eddies in the ventilation of the thermocline.This research was supported by Office of Naval Research AASERT contract number N00014-95-l-0824

Clergy work-related psychological health : listening to the Ministers of Word and Sacrament within the United Reformed Church in England

Drawing on the classic model of balanced affect proposed by Bradburn (The structure of psychological well-being, Aldine, Chicago, IL, 1969), this study conceptualised poor work-related psychological health in terms of high levels of negative affect in the absence of acceptable levels of positive affect. In order to illuminate self-perceptions of work-related psychological health among a well-defined group of clergy, a random sample of 58 ministers of word and sacrament serving within the west midlands synod of the United Reformed Church in England completed an open-ended questionnaire concerned with the following six guiding questions. Do you enjoy your work? How would you define stress? How would you define burnout? What stresses are there in your ministry? What do you do to keep healthy? What can the church do to enhance the work-related psychological health of ministers? Content analysis highlighted the main themes recurring through these open-ended responses. The conclusion is drawn that ministers of word and sacrament within the United Reformed Church in England are exposed to a number of recurrent recognisable sources of stress. Suggestions are advanced regarding the need for future more detailed research and for the development of more effective pastoral strategies

Infinite products involving binary digit sums

Let $(u_n)_{n\ge 0}$ denote the Thue-Morse sequence with values $\pm 1$. The Woods-Robbins identity below and several of its generalisations are well-known in the literature \begin{equation*}\label{WR}\prod_{n=0}^\infty\left(\frac{2n+1}{2n+2}\right)^{u_n}=\frac{1}{\sqrt 2}.\end{equation*} No other such product involving a rational function in $n$ and the sequence $u_n$ seems to be known in closed form. To understand these products in detail we study the function \begin{equation*}f(b,c)=\prod_{n=1}^\infty\left(\frac{n+b}{n+c}\right)^{u_n}.\end{equation*} We prove some analytical properties of $f$. We also obtain some new identities similar to the Woods-Robbins product.Comment: Accepted in Proc. AMMCS 2017, updated according to the referees' comment

The Roles of Tumor-Derived Exosomes in Cancer Pathogenesis

Exosomes are endosome-derived, 30–100 nm small membrane vesicles released by most cell types including tumor cells. They are enriched in a selective repertoire of proteins and nucleic acids from parental cells and are thought to be actively involved in conferring intercellular signals. Tumor-derived exosomes have been viewed as a source of tumor antigens that can be used to induce antitumor immune responses. However, tumor-derived exosomes also have been found to possess immunosuppressive properties and are able to facilitate tumor growth, metastasis, and the development of drug resistance. These different effects of tumor-derived exosomes contribute to the pathogenesis of cancer. This review will discuss the roles of tumor-derived exosomes in cancer pathogenesis, therapy, and diagnostics

Immunosuppressive Exosomes: A New Approach for Treating Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease and one of the leading causes of disability in the USA. Although certain biological therapies, including protein and antibodies targeting inflammatory factors such as the tumor necrosis factor, are effective in reducing symptoms of RA, these treatments do not reverse disease. Also, although novel gene therapy approaches have shown promise in preclinical and clinical studies to treat RA, it is still unclear whether gene therapy can be readily and safely applied to treat the large number of RA patients. Recently, nanosized, endocytic-derived membrane vesicles “exosomes” were demonstrated to function in cell-to-cell communication and to possess potent immunoregulatory properties. In particular, immunosuppressive DC-derived exosomes and blood plasma- or serum-derived exosomes have shown potent therapeutic effects in animal models of inflammatory and autoimmune disease including RA. This paper discusses the current knowledge on the production, efficacy, mechanism of action, and potential therapeutic use of immunosuppressive exosomes for arthritis therapy

Revisiting and revitalizing political ecology in the American West

Political ecology, initially conceived to better understand the power relations implicit in management and distribution of natural resources in the developing world, came “home” to the American West in the 1990s and 2000s. This groundswell of research did much to problematize socio-environmental conflicts in the region, long typified by tensions over land and resources, identity and belonging, autonomy and authority. Since first touching down in the West, however, the “big tent” of political ecology has only grown bigger, incorporating new perspectives, epistemologies, and ontologies. At the same time, the nexus of environment and society is perhaps even more salient today, amid a regional conjuncture of populist revolt, climate change, and rapid political economic transformation. Here we reflect on three longstanding regional concerns – energy development, wolf reintroduction, and participatory governance – leveraging the pluralism of contemporary political ecology to better understand their contemporary incarnations. In so doing, we highlight the need to bring together insights from both “traditional” approaches and newer directions to better understand and engage contemporary challenges, with their heightened stakes and complexity. Such an approach demonstrates what we might learn about global processes in this place, as well as what insights regional praxis (often woefully provincial) might gain from elsewhere – new ways of seeing and doing political ecology. Our goal is to generate discussion among and between political ecologists and regional critical scholars, initiating new collaborative engagements that might serve the next wave of political ecology in the 21st century American West

Crime, Punishment, and Causation: The Effect of Etiological Information on the Perception of Moral Agency

Moral judgments about a situation are profoundly shaped by the perception of individuals in that situation as either moral agents or moral patients (Gray & Wegner, 2009; Gray, Young, & Waytz, 2012), Specifically, the more we see someone as a moral agent, the less we see them as a moral patient, and vice versa. As a result, casting the perpetrator of a transgression as a victim tends to have the effect of making them seem less blameworthy (Gray & Wegner, 201 1). Based on this theoretical framework, we predicted that criminal offenders with a mental disorder that predisposes them to antisocial behavior would be judged more negatively when the disorder is described as having a genetic origin than when it is described as environmentally caused, as in the case of childhood abuse or accident. Further, we predicted that some environmental explanations would mitigate attributions of blame more than others, namely, that offenders whose disorder was caused by childhood abuse (intentional harm) would be seen as less blameworthy than offenders whose disorder is caused by an unfortunate accident (unintentional harm). Results from two vignette-based studies designed to test these predictions, conducted with participants recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk (N = 244 and N = 387, respectively), confirmed the first prediction but not the second. Implications of this research for three areas-the psychology of moral judgment, philosophical debates about moral responsibility and determinism, and the practice of the law are discussed in the sequel