Wendelyn J. Shore

Context‐specific effects on reciprocity in mentoring relationships: ethical implications

Reciprocity is fundamental to effective mentoring relationships. However, we argue that it is inappropriate, and perhaps unethical, to expect comparable levels of reciprocity in all mentoring relationships. Instead, contextual factors influence optimal levels of reciprocity. Foremost is the developmental stage of the protégé, with less mature, relatively inexperienced protégés generally less capable of forming and maintaining a reciprocal relationship with their mentors than are more mature, relatively experienced protégés. We discuss three examples of contextual variables that can affect appropriate levels of reciprocity—the academic research apprenticeship, gender, and culture—and argue that mentors’ expectations of reciprocity necessarily must be adjusted in order to achieve ethical mentoring within these contexts.

Learning about the Means to the End: What US Introductory Psychology Students Report about Experimental Participation

Previous research has shown that when asked to rate their agreement with statements regarding their attitudes towards participation in psychological experiments, students reported that their participation was of educational value (e.g., Bowman and Waite, 2003; Landrum and Chastain, 1995). We investigated what kinds of learning experiences students would report when prompted with open ended questions regarding their participation. Four open ended questions asked how seriously participants took the research experience, what participants gained from studies, what were commonalties among the studies and how their classroom experience helped with understanding the experiments. In addition to reporting that they took their participation seriously, students reported that they learned not only about psychological content but also about the process of conducting psychological research.

What do we know when we claim to know nothing? Partial knowledge of word meanings may be ontological, but not hierarchical

Abstract Two studies investigated whether knowledge about ontological category membership exists early in the word learning process—specifically, when words are partially known—and if so, how such knowledge is represented. Participants made decisions about the ontological category membership of words at three levels of knowledge: words they correctly defined (known), words recognized as familiar (frontier), and words mistakenly identified as nonwords (unknown). Accuracy on this task improved as a function of word level. Participants were able to identify the broad ontological categories to which words at all three levels of knowledge belonged, as well as the more specific ontological categories to which the words belonged. Overall, results indicated that knowledge about ontological category membership is available for words at very low levels of knowledge, and that this knowledge does not necessarily follow the strict hierarchical organization some ontological systems are thought to embody (e.g. Keil 1979). Implications for the acquisition and representation of word meanings are discussed.

Infants' responses to objects representing levels of word knowledge and categorical information

Abstract The effects of differing levels of word knowledge on infants’ sequential touching behaviors were investigated in two studies. In both, parent report was used to assess three levels of word knowledge: known, frontier, and unknown. In the first study, 14-month-old infants sequentially touched objects consistent with parents’ reports of their word knowledge. In the second study, 20-month-old infants sequentially touched objects by both conceptual category and reported level of word knowledge. It appears that even infants, like adults, can make distinctions among objects on the basis of their knowledge about the objects’ labels.