Kenneth E. Sumner

Understanding Sexual Aggression Against Women: An Examination of the Role of Men's Athletic Participation and Related Variables

Data from 139 college men who participated in and viewed contact (e.g., ice hockey) and noncontact (e.g., tennis) sports at different rates of frequency were examined to determine if there was a relationship between these variables and level of sexual aggression against women. The authors also examined whether attitudes toward women, fraternity membership, and sports ideology were related to sexual aggression against women. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that attitudes toward women, fraternity membership, and viewing contact sports were significant predictors of sexual aggression against women, with high scores on these variables forecasting higher levels of sexual aggression against women. In addition, low scores on mens contact sports participation significantly forecasted higher levels of sexual aggression against women. Suggestions for future research in this area are discussed and implications of the results for the socialization of fraternity members and other males are considered

Implicit Measurement of Attitudes, Stereotypes, and Self-Concepts in Organizations Teaching Old Dogmas New Tricks

Implicit measurement using latencies is proposed as a complement to conventional measurement to assess organizational constructs (e.g., job satisfaction), to assist in personnel decisions (e.g., selection), and to assess outcomes (e.g., diversity training). Latency-based measurements (i.e., the Implicit Association Test) use categorization tasks to measure attitudes, stereotypes, and self-concepts. Its routine inclusion in organizational research can address measurement limitations, enrich theoretical understanding of organizational phenomena, and inform practice by better predicting behavior.

Giving Nonselective Downsizing a Performance Review

The failures of performance management (PM) systems are well known, as is the popularity of downsizing as a corporate strategy. We suggest that the factors integral to the success of PM, such as employee–organization trust, manager–employee communication, goal setting, and reinforcement contingencies, are undermined by organizational downsizing. Broken PM systems increase the likelihood of future downsizing, yet make it difficult to conduct performance-based downsizing. With proper encouragement by HRD professionals and the correct use of employee-centered PM, which may include performance-based downsizing, organizations may break this cycle. Suggested practical implementations include the use of Daniels’s (1985) concept of Performance Management and of Pfeffer and Sutton’s (2006) concept of evidence-based management to (a) implement alternative cost reduction techniques (b) implement contingent PM, that may integrate performance-based downsizing (c) develop HRD specialists and managers to develop and evaluate these integrated systems and (d) reevaluate PM competencies and processes after downsizing has occurred.

Parents’ intentions to allow youth football participation: Perceived concussion risk and the theory of planned behavior.

Despite many benefits, participation in youth football has declined, with many blaming concussion risk. While there is risk, not participating in youth football leads to missing out on the sport’s physical, social, and psychological benefits. Understanding the reasons behind the decline in football participation is important to reversing the trend. The goals of this study were to understand parents’ intentions to allow their children to participate in organized football and to create a theoretical platform from which interventions may be implemented to promote participation. Based on research in related areas, we proposed and tested an augmented Theory of Planned Behavior with parents of youth-football-age children (n = 497). We found the hypothesized model accounted for over half the variance in intention to allow football participation (R2 = .58), and that four factors predict a parent’s intention to let his or her child play football: social norms, attitudes toward youth football participation, behavioral control, and the perceived risk of concussion. This study helps better explain parents’ decisions regarding youth football participation. These findings provide a promising theoretical platform for new interventions that can promote continued youth football participation.

Findings of an effect of gender, but not handedness, on self-reported motion sickness propensity

Discrepant input from vestibular and visual systems may be involved in motion sickness; individual differences in the organization of these systems may therefore give rise to individual differences in propensity to motion sickness. Non-right-handedness has been associated with altered cortical lateralization of vestibular function, such that non-right-handedness is associated with left hemisphere, and right-handedness with right hemisphere, lateralized, vestibular system. Interestingly, magnocellular visual processing, responsible for motion detection and ostensibly involved in motion sickness, has been shown to be decreased in non-right-handers. It is not known if the anomalous organization of the vestibular or magnocellular systems in non-right-handers might alter susceptibility to motion sickness. Undergraduate college students completed online versions of the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (Oldfield, Neuropsychologia 9:97–113, 1971) and Motion Sickness Susceptibility Questionnaire – Short Form (Golding, Personality and Individual Differences 41:237–48, 2006). Data from 664 undergraduate men and women revealed no support for individual differences in handedness effects on self-reported propensity to experience motion sickness in either childhood or adulthood. Findings replicate previous work of increased motion sickness in women, compared with men. Men reported being less motion sick in adulthood compared to childhood, while women reported no differences in motion sickness between childhood and adulthood. Handedness results are discussed in the context of reported individual differences in handedness effects on memory, and gender effects in terms of social desirability. Given that the handedness groups demonstrate differences in brain organization, the null effects here may shed light on the neural mechanisms that are involved in motion sickness.