Naomi G. Rotter

Sex differences in the encoding and decoding of negative facial emotions

To study the effects of gender on ability to recognize facial expressions of emotion, two separate samples of male and female undergraduates (727 in Study 1, 399 in Study 2) judged 120 color photographs of people posing one of four negative emotions: anger, disgust, fear, and sadness. Overall, females exceeded males in their ability to recognize emotions whether expressed by males or by females. As an exception, males were superior to females in recognizing male anger. The findings are discussed in terms of social sex-roles.

Becoming a virtual professor: pedagogical roles and ALN

This paper presents a qualitative study of role changes that occur when faculty becomes virtual professors. In 20 semi-structured interviews of faculty, coded with pattern analysis software, the authors captured role changes enacted by instructors in asynchronous learning network (ALN) settings-cognitive roles, affective roles, and managerial roles. The cognitive role, which relates to mental processes of learning, learning, information storage, and thinking, shifts to one of deeper cognitive complexity. The affective role, which relates to influencing the relationships between students, the instructor, and the classroom atmosphere, required faculty to find new tools to express emotion, yet they found the relationship with students more intimate. The managerial role, which deals with class and course management, requires greater attention to detail, more structure, and additional student monitoring. Overall, facility reported a change in their teaching persona, towards more precision in their presentation of materials and instructions, combined with a shift to a more Socratic pedagogy, emphasizing multilogues with students.

The Relationships among Sex-Role Orientation, Cognitive Complexity, and Tolerance for Ambiguity.

Two hundred and four female and eighty-seven male college students completed the Schroder and Streufert measure of cognitive complexity, Budners Intolerance for Ambiguity Scale, and Bems Sex Role Inventory (BSRI). It was hypothesized that subjects classified as androgynous and as cross-sexed would be more cognitively complex and more tolerant of ambiguity than sex-typed or undifferentiated subjects; and cognitive complexity and intolerance for ambiguity would be negatively correlated. The data indicated that male and female androgynous and cross-sexed subjects were more tolerant of ambiguity than sex-typed subjects and cognitively more complex than undifferentiated subjects. Cross-sexed subjects were more cognitively complex than sex-typed subjects. Cognitive complexity and intolerance for ambiguity were negatively correlated. The BSRI had differential power to predict cognitive complexity depending upon sex of subject.

Images of engineering and liberal arts majors

Abstract In an attempt to gain insight into social-psychological barriers that inhibit women from entering engineering, 110 male and 84 female undergraduate students completed a variant of the Semantic Differential questionnaire. Subjects evaluated either male or female liberal arts and engineering majors. While female engineering majors were judged similar to male engineers on work-related traits, they were evaluated as less attractive than their female liberal arts counterparts. In particular, the data revealed reciprocal negative social images held by male engineering students for female engineers and by female engineering students for male engineers.

Building trust in virtual teams

This paper presents a study of trust development in online courses. It reviews the concept of swift trust and examines changes in faculty roles as professors go online. An exploratory content analysis looks at indicators of the development of swift trust in the highest rated of a large number of online courses studied over a three year period, and contrasts these results with one of the poorest rated online courses. Establishing swift trust at the beginning of an online course appears to be related to subsequent course success. Strategies for trust formation are also suggested.This paper presents a multidisciplinary study of trust development in virtual learning communities for anyone interested in improving virtual-presence interactions. First, qualitative analyses of faculty interviews are presented, showing online faculty role changes in cognitive, affective, and managerial activities. Then, faculty perceptions of online community building are correlated to theories of swift trust with a coding system and pattern analysis software. Finally, strategies for trust formation are suggested.

On the evaluation of a problem solving and program development environment

When learning problem solving and program development, understanding programming (i.e. the syntax of a programming language) and implementation is only part of the picture. Developing the cognitive skills to comprehend and abstract the problem and its requirements, explore and transform the problem into a coherent form, design, develop and test the solution to the problem is the other part. To expect effective and efficient solutions to be produced, a considerable amount of important and creative work must be done before the program can be written. Students learning programming, using current tools, are accustomed to the entry point in any programming language environment being through the compilers editor. As a result, when presented with a problem, students tend to reach for the keyboard and start the coding. This creates the impression that the formulation of the solution to the problem starts by writing the code, a habit that must be altered.

PERCEIVED COMMITMENT, SALARY RECOMMENDATION, AND EMPLOYEES' SEX

It was hypothesized that for equally qualified workers, female bookkeepers, as compared to male bookkeepers, would be perceived to have weaker job commitment and would be assigned lower salaries. Using hypothetical case histories of bookkeepers, 79 male and 83 female subjects did assign higher salaries to the men. Unexpectedly, however, they perceived higher commitment by the female bookkeepers. It now appears sex can affect the perceived status importance of the position in much the way a job can define a workers status. In general, simple length of service appears to be the most critical factor influencing workers perceived commitment.