Gender identity, attitudes, and bystander intervention
Gender prejudice Feminist identity Feminist theory three partite model of violence.
Identifying as a feminist and demonstrating a commitment to feminist activism has suggested an increased likelihood of engaging in bystander interventions in sexist situations in women university students (Brinkman et al., 2015), and awareness about gender prejudices as a result of undertaking women studies and/or diversity courses seems to relate to an increased involvement in feminist activity (Stake & Hoffmann, 2001). Together with this, confrontational responses to prejudicial attitudes can be perceived as a means for decreasing stereotypic responding (Mallett, Ford & Woodzicka, 2016;; Czopp, & Monteith, 2003). For this research levels of exposure to feminist research and self- identification as feminist were examined to determine its effect on sexism levels, and the ability to identify sexism on given hostile and benevolent sexist scenarios. Likewise, the responses participants have given in the past when witnessing sexism was also recorded, and then analyzed to determine correlations between a confrontational response, exposure to feminism, and the strength of feminist identity participants self-identify with. Gender differences were also analysed. Results revealed that participants with high levels of exposure to feminist had significant lower levels of only benevolent sexism. Further analysis also suggests that those with exposure to feminist theory are significantly more likely to identify sexism in hostile sexist scenarios than are those with no exposure. Exposure to feminist theory also increases the likelihood to have a stronger feminist identity. Significant gender differences were also found. Application of these findings and recommendations for future research is further discussed.
Measurements Vignettes Exercise. The vignettes exercise presented participants with 15 scenarios, of which 5 were hostile sexism scenarios, 5 were benevolent sexism scenarios, and 5 were neutral scenarios. The participants were asked 3 questions after reading each vignette. First, they were asked if the scenario presented involved sexism, which was evaluated with a 5 point Likert scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly disagree”. Secondly, the participants were asked to rate the seriousness of the event, with a 6 point Likert scale which rated from “not applicable”, “not at all serious” to “very serious”. The third question asked participants to pick the type of phenomena that best described the scenario from 8 different choices, which included “hostile or negative comments about women”, “reproduction of the idea that women are not complete without a significant other”, and “the scenario does not describe a situation that involves sexism”, among others that derived from Glick and Fiske ́s (1996) definitions of sexism. Examples for the vignettes (see Appendix A) were taken from Mallett, Ford, and Woodzicka (2016), McCarty, and Kelly (2015), Durán, Moya, & Megías, (2011), Kato et al. (2011), Expósito, Herrera, Moya, and Glick (2010), and Sibley and Wilson (2004). Experiences of Gender Prejudices Instrument. Past experiences of gender prejudice were measured using Brinkman et al’s (2015) Experience of Gender Prejudices Instrument. Participants were asked to identify the last time they were in a situation in which they witnessed a woman being the target of sexism (see Appendix B). They were asked to pick which scenario best described the type of sexism witnessed from 7 options that included “hostile or negative comments about women” and “reproduction of the idea that women are not complete without a significant other”. They were then asked how they reacted to the situation, and if they intervened what their motivation had been. The participant ́s reactions to the sexism situation were coded as either ́confrontational ́ or ́non-confrontational ́, and as ́not applicable ́ in two occasions. Responses “tried to help the victim”, “ignored the person/people”, “left the situation”, “responded indirectly, but in a way I hoped would end the situation”, “used a nonverbal gesture to express that I was offended (ex. rolled my eyes, gave them a dirty look, etc.)”, “said something to the instigator(s) to express my thoughts/feelings”, and “used a physical response to express my thoughts/feelings (ex. slap the instigator)” were classified as confrontational. Responses “ignored the person/people”, “left the situation”, and “nothing” were coded as non-confrontational. Where participants reported a confrontational response, their motivations to intervene were again sought. Participants were presented with a list of 8 options which included “wanted to do my duty as a man by being chivalrous / wanted to do my duty as a woman by being nice”, “wanted to help a person in distress”, “wanted to stop the sexist behaviour because is wrong”, and “other”. Their motivations were then coded as “feminist goal”, “non-feminist goal”, “neutral” and “other”. The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI). The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (ASI; Glick & Fiske, 1996) is a measure of modern sexism in participants. It comprises 22 statements, such as “men are incomplete without women” and “women exaggerate problems they have at work”, which participants evaluate on a 5 point Linkert scale, from “disagree strongly” to “agree strongly” (see Appendix C). The mean of all 22 items was obtained, closer means to 5 equals higher levels of sexism. The ASI also measures two sub-scales, the mean of 11 items was used to generate a hostile sexism score and the mean the other 11 items generated a benevolent sexism score. Demographic Information. Demographic information was collected relating to each participant ́s gender, age, and year in University (see Appendix D). Participants were also asked to quantify the hours of exposure to teaching on gender-related topics during their undergraduate and/or postgraduate studies on the following scale, from 0 hours, to 1-10, 10-20, 20-40, 40-60 or 60(+). Participants were also asked if they self-identified as feminist or not, and the strength of their identification as feminist was measured on a 5 point Likert scale, from “I strongly identify as a feminist” to “I strongly do not identify as a feminist”. The Demographic Information Questionnaire also measured, on a 5 point Likert scale, the degree to which participants identified with feminist goals and the degree to which they agree that the transformation of gender relations is needed in order to achieve gender equality. Design The study adopted a survey design and the variables measured are as follow: Independent and participant variables: Gender, age, feminist identity, strength of feminist identity, feminist goal, sexism and exposure to feminist theory. Dependent variables: Bystander intervention, identification, and evaluation of different forms of sexism, ambivalent sexism scale. Procedures Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Psychology department research ethics committee at Lancaster University on May 26th 2017. Once ethical approval was gained, the participants’ recruitment stage began. Participants answered an invitation to complete an online survey which was hosted on the Qualtrics platform (2017). First, participants read the Participant Information Sheet (see Appendix E), and then completed the consent form (Appendix F). Then, participants answered the Vignettes exercise, followed by the “Experiences of Gender Prejudice Instrument” (Brinkman et al., 2015), then they were asked to fill “The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory” (Glick & Fiske, 1996), to finish with the Demographic Information Questionnaire. After answering the participants were debriefed (Appendix G) through the same platform. Completion of the survey typically took 20-30 minutes. Results Section: Demographic information Table 1 shows the demographic data relating to the gender of the participants and identification as feminist; the category “rather not say” was excluded from all the analysis of the gender variable owing to nil response. From the total of participants, 56 self-identified as feminist (68.3%) and 26 said they did not self-identify as feminist (31.7%). Chi-square analysis revealed significant gender differences in self-identification as feminist X2(1,81)=4.858, p<.05, significantly more female 77.4% participants reported being feminist than did male 53.6% participants. Effect of exposure to feminist theory, effect of gender, and interactions The purpose of this study was to look the effect of exposure to feminist theory, the effect of gender, and the effect of the interaction between gender and exposure to feminist theory on the sexism levels of the participants, on recognition of sexist scenarios and on their responses to witnessing sexism in their lives. The effect of exposure to feminist theory to the strength of self-identification as feminist was also measured. Effect of exposure to feminist theory, effect of gender, and interactions on sexism levels Participants were asked to quantify in hours their exposure to feminist research/teaching, then their answers were coded as “exposure” and “no exposure” and results were compared. Sexism was measured with the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (Glick & Fiske, 1996), which provides three measures; the ambivalent (or overall) sexism levels, benevolent sexism levels and the hostile sexism levels. The levels of sexism were calculated for each participant, higher numbers indicating higher levels of sexism.
The Effects of Schema-typical and Atypical Contexts on Memory for Brand Names of Products
Distinctiveness effects Schema Memory Product recall Product recognition Brand recall Brand recognition Product-brand binding
The memory for an advertisement can be affected by the way it is constructed. In general, the more distinctiveness, the better memory performance. Traditionally, it has been assumed that the whole memory episode will be better remembered if it is featured by any odd element(s) because it is more attention-demanding and creates stronger memory traces. However, recent evidence suggests that the distinctiveness effect might not spread to everything; it might only affect those distinctive elements without necessarily affecting their linkages with other elements. Accordingly, regarding the advertisements, the memory for each element can be diverse. We manipulated the distinctiveness effect by composing products with schema-typical contexts (undistinctive condition) and schema-atypical contexts (distinctive condition). Participants observed 20 advertisements; 10 were schema-typical and another 10 were schema-atypical. They then completed recall and recognition tests which allowed us to explore how far the distinctiveness effect could extend. We found that only product recall and recognition in the schema-atypical condition were robustly enhanced, other variables were not significantly affected. These findings went against the traditional view and conform with the recent research. We discussed that, in the schema-atypical condition, the products and their contexts made each other distinctive, hence, they were better remembered. In contrast, the brand names and product-brand bindings were schema-neutral, thus, they did not receive more attention and not better remembered. The results were further interpreted to form some practical implications that improve advertising effectiveness.
The stimuli were 40 newly constructed print advertisements (in digital format). Print advertisements were employed because they allow the better experimental control (Keller, 1987). A half of these advertisements belonged to toiletries category (i.e. shampoo. sunscreen, and toothpaste), whereas another half belonged to foods category (i.e. pizza, sandwiches, and fried chicken). For each category, there were 10 types of products. For each product, there were two versions of its advertisement; schema-typical and schema-atypical (but only one of which was viewed by each participant). The schema-typical advertisements referred to the ones in which the product was bound with an expected context (i.e. a toothpaste appearing a bathroom scene), while the schema-atypical advertisements referred to the ones in which the product was bound with an unexpected context (i.e. a toothpaste appearing in a bedroom scene). In terms of the stimuli construction, there were three key elements for all advertisements, the first of which was the product, the second was the background or the scene illustration which was considered as the context of that advertisement, and the last element was the brand name. The first two elements were to form advertising pictures, and all together with the third one were to form complete advertisements. The researchers purchased stock images from Shutterstock website (https://www.shutterstock.com). The images purchased (product shots, backgrounds, and decorative elements) were then retouched and composted into the print advertising pictures using Adobe Photoshop (Adobe Photoshop CC 2015). All the advertising pictures were controlled not to include any text so that the only copy presented in each advertisement was its brand name. In respect of brand names, we invented new brand names for all 20 products. Each brand name was controlled to be easily pronounceable. They were names of between one to three syllables i.e. Hans, Raven, and Moana. The brand names, texts in Candara 48-point type, were placed on top of every advertising picture. Figure 1 shows examples of stimuli. Table 1 shows the List of products, brand names, their schema-typical contexts, and their schema-atypical contexts. The illustrations of all 40 advertisements can be found in Appendix A. Figure 1. Examples of stimuli Table 1 List of products, brand names, their schema-typical contexts, and their schema-atypical contexts Product Brand name Schema-typical context Schema-atypical context Toiletries Category 1 Soap Flounder Bathroom Garden 2 Shower gel Naveen Bathroom In the bus 3 Deodorant Megara Bathroom Library 4 Perfume Attina Bedroom Street 5 Sunscreen Moana Beach Kitchen 6 Shaving cream Hans Bathroom Office 7 Toothpaste Pongo Bathroom Bedroom 8 Talcum powder Fauna Bathroom Beach 9 Shampoo Rolfe Salon Forest 10 Lipstick Armoire Office Cooking table Food Category 11 Sandwich Duchess Kitchen On the stairs 12 Fried chicken O’Malley Kitchen Yoga room 13 Yogurt Rialey Kitchen In the bus 14 Energy bar Gaston Sport field Bedroom 15 Pizza Linguini Restaurant Bathroom 16 Pasta Tony Kitchen On the bed 17 Soup Perdita Kitchen Gym 18 Raw burger Gus Kitchen Study room 19 Ice-cream Bo Bo Street Library 20 Fresh fruit Raven Garden Bathroom In addition, there was an effort to provide the variability of context for both schema-typical and schema-atypical advertisements. To illustrate, for the schema-typical advertisements, regarding the advertisements of toiletries category, from the total of 10 products, six of them were bound with a bathroom scene as their schema-typical context, while another four products were bound with other different schema-typical contexts (i.e. a beach scene for sunscreen). Similarly, for foods category, six products were bound with a kitchen scene as their schema-typical context, while another four products were bound with other different schema-typical contexts (i.e. a restaurant scene for pizza). Furthermore, for the schema-atypical advertisements, all 20 products had their own different schema-atypical contexts. For example, a forest scene was for shampoo, while a Yoga room was for fried chicken. Consequently, despite the effort to make the context of schema-typical advertisements more varied, there was probably more variability for the schema-atypical ones. Moreover, regarding the judgement of schema typical or atypical context, it was initially set up based on researchers’ perspective. Then, a pilot study was conducted on five participants where they were asked to judge whether the contexts were schema-typical or atypical for a particular product. All five participants judged each context to be typical and atypical as judged by the researchers, for all products listed. Furthermore, we constructed some additional materials to be used in the recognition test which were 20 foils of similar product images and 20 foils of similar brand names. As for the foil product images, we purchased another set of stock images (product shots and decorative elements) to be retouched and composted into another 20 product images as icons in isolation. Each foil was designed after one of the target product images, for example, we constructed the foil image of a toothpaste tube to be paired with the target image of a toothpaste tube. These two images were controlled to look similar in terms of product type and size, but different regarding the product design (packaging and colour scheme). As for the foil brand names, we further invented 20 similar brand names, 10 for toiletries category and another 10 for foods category. All foil brand names were controlled to have the same characteristics as the target brand names; names of between one to three syllables which were easily pronounceable. Design and data analysis strategy The overall design and the variables. A repeated measures design was employed in this study. The within-subjects independent variable was the advertising context which consisted of two levels; schema-typical and schema-atypical. There were six dependent variables examined in separate analyses. The first three variables were from the recall test including the percentage of correctly recalled products (product recall), the percentage of correctly recalled brand names (brand name recall), and the percentage of correctly recalled product-brand bindings (product-brand binding recall). The first two variables were simply calculated from the number of correct answers divided by the total number of advertisements of each level. These variables were to answer whether the performance of products and brand names recall would be better if the advertising contexts were different from their typical schemas. For the third variable, the product-brand bindings recall, it was calculated based on the number of correctly recalled sets (which were counted when the products were written together with their matching brand names) divided by the number of correctly recalled products. Hence, this third variable was to explore that when people recall the products, how much would they extend their memory to the brand names. Likewise, the other three dependent variables were from the recognition test including the percentage of correctly recognized products (product recognition), the percentage of correctly recognized brand names (brand name recognition), and the percentage of correctly recognized product-brand bindings (product-brand binding recognition). Similarly, the fourth and fifth variables were calculated by dividing the correct answers by the total number of advertisements of each level. These variables were to answer whether the performance of products and brand names recognition would be better if the advertising contexts were different from their typical schemas. Also, for the sixth variable, the product-brand bindings recognition, it was calculated based on the number of correctly recognized sets (which were counted when participants picked the right choices of product images and their matching brand names concurrently) divided by the number of correctly recognized products. Hence, this last variable was to explore that when people recognize the products, how much would they extend their memory to the brand names. Presentation phase. In terms of experimental design, firstly, 20 advertisements were presented to participants. For counterbalancing purpose, 32 participants were equally divided into four groups (eight participants in each). Each group was bound with a different set of advertisements. Each set consisted of 20 advertisements, 10 from toiletries category and another 10 from foods category. From 10 toiletries advertisements, half of them were the schema-typical advertisements and another half were schema-atypical. From five schema-typical advertisements, three of them had a bathroom as their context, and another two had other typical contexts. The arrangement mentioned above was also applied to the foods category advertisements; three schema-typical advertisements were bound with a kitchen scene, another two schema-typical advertisements were bound with other schema-typical contexts, and five different schema-atypical advertisements. Appendix B shows four different sets of stimulus. However, the actual orders of advertisements presented to participants were not the same as shown in the Appendix B, as all 20 advertisements in each set were then randomly mixed. Hence, the positions of advertisements were different in each set to minimize the order effect. Additionally, all the advertisements were presented on a laptop screen (13-inch MacBook Air) and each of them was shown for 10 seconds, using a timed PowerPoint display. After the presentation of stimuli, there was a distractor task for two minutes. Immediately after the two-minute interval, participants were administered a free recall test followed by a recognition test. In addition, to achieve the most appropriate study design, prior to the establishment of the final experiment procedure, we ran a small pilot study to determine a suitable memory interval (the duration of the distractor task). We had two participants (two females, mean age = 25 years) do the pilot study which 10-minute interval was employed, and we found that it led to a ceiling effect for product recognition but a floor effect for brand name recall and recognition. Therefore, we decided to cut down this interval to only two minutes. Test phase. For the free recall test, participants were asked to write down every product and brand name which they could remember in the answer sheet. Figure 2 shows the presented slide for the recall test. For the recognition test, we separated it into two subsections; the toiletries subsection and the foods subsection. In each subsection, there were 10 questions referring to all 10 products in that category. Thus, there were the total of 20 main questions in this recognition test. The questions were also presented on the same laptop screen (13-inch MacBook Air). The toiletries-category questions were presented first, followed by the foods-category questions. Figure 2. The PowerPoint slide used in the recall test In respect of recognition test construction, for each question, there were two sub-questions; product question and brand name question. For each product question, there were two choices (A and B) which included the target image of product and the foil of similar product. The right answers were randomly varied between A and B throughout the test. Besides, for each brand name question, there were 20 choices (1 to 20) which include 10 target brand names and 10 foils of similar brand names. For each category, the right answers were different for every brand name question and randomly varied between odd (1, 3, 5, etc.) and even (2, 4, 6, etc.) choices throughout the test. Figure 3 shows examples of recognition-test questions. All the questions can be found in the Appendix C. Figure 3. Examples of PowerPoint slides used in the recognition test
An investigation into the effect of climatic, ambient temperature on societal-level income inequality
Previous research has revealed contradictory findings concerning the relationship between temperature and behaviour. Some studies have found a warmer-is-better effect; warmer temperatures are associated with enhanced interpersonal interactions, including pro-social behaviours. Whereas other studies have found a warmer-is-worse effect; warmer temperatures are associated with negative social behaviours such as conflict, societal instability, crime and aggressive behaviours. The present study investigated the relationship between climatic, ambient temperature and societal income inequality. Climatic temperatures and Gini ratios (a measure of income inequality) were sourced from online databases for 29 countries across a range of time periods that fell between 1961 and 2015. A panel linear model analysis revealed that climatic temperature had no direct effect, nor lagged effect on income inequality. Therefore, the findings are not congruent with the warmer-is-better literature or the warmer-is-worse literature. Despite the null effect, the present study provides a further data point towards the debate concerning the effect of temperature on behaviour.
Firstly, the study required Gini ratios of disposable, equivilsed income. The Gini ratio is a measure of income inequality whereby a ratio of 1 reflects perfect inequality (i.e. one household receives all of the income) and a ratio of 0 is indicative of perfect equality (i.e. income is equally shared across households). The ratio was calculated from disposable income, which is income after the deduction of taxes and social security charges. Additionally the ratio was equivilised which means that the ratio was adjusted to account for different sizes and compositions of households. Secondly, the study required mean climatic temperatures in degrees celsius. Procedure Gini ratios for 29 countries belonging to the organisation for economic co-operation and development (OECD) were sourced from several online databases that had calculated the ratios. The countries and years used in the present analysis were somewhat dictated by the availability of Gini ratios online and as a result the OECD countries Australia, Chile, Israel, Japan, Korea and Mexico could not be included in the present analysis and the year ranges included fell between 1961-2015. See table 1 for the sources of Gini ratios, and the countries and years for which Gini ratios were available. It is important to note that the surveys from which the Gini ratios were calculated were slightly different, for example, some had different definitions of a ‘household’. Additionally, not all of the sources provided the exact Gini ratio calculation used. Table 1: Online sources from which Gini ratios were obtained from several countries across several, differing, time periods Country Time period Source of Gini ratios Austria (AUT) 1995-2001, 2003-2015 Eurostat, European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (2017). Belgium (BEL) 1995-2001, 2003-2015 See Austria. Canada (CAN) 1976-2015 Statistics Canada (2017). Czechoslovakia (CZE) 2001, 2005-2015 See Austria. Denmark (DEN) 1987-2015 Statistics Denmark (2017). Estonia (EST) 2000-2002, 2004-2015 See Austria. Finland (FIN) 1987-2014 OECD Data (2017) France (FRA) 1995-2002, 2004-2015 See Austria. Germany (GER) 1984-2013 German Socio-economic Panel Study (2015) Greece (GRE) 1995-2001, 2003-2015 See Austria. Hungary (HUN) 2000-2002, 2005-2015 See Austria. Iceland (ISL) 2004-2015 See Austria. Ireland (IRL) 1995-2001, 2003-2015 See Austria. Italy (ITA) 1995-2001, 2004-2015 See Austria. Latvia (LVA) 2000, 2005-2015 See Austria. Luxembourg (LUX) 1995-2001, 2003-2015 See Austria. Netherlands (NED) 2000-2014 Netherlands Central Bureau of Statistics (2017) New Zealand (NZL) 1984, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2009-2014 Perry (2016) Norway (NOR) 1986-2015 Statistics Norway (2017). Poland (POL) 2001, 2005-2015 See Austria. Portugal (POR) 1995-2001, 2004-2015 See Austria. Slovakia (SVK) 2005-2015 See Austria. Slovenia (SVN) 2000-2002, 2005-2015 See Austria. Spain (ESP) 1995-2002, 2004-2015 See Austria. Sweden (SWE) 1975, 1978-2013 Statistics Sweden (2017). Switzerland (SWI) 2007-2015 See Austria. Turkey (TUR) 2002, 2006-2013 See Austria. United Kingdom (UK) 1961-2014 Institute for fiscal studies (2016) United States (USA) 1967-2013 Proctor, Semega & Kollar, M. A. (2016). Temperatures were sourced from the Climate Change and Knowledge Portal (2017) which contained the mean temperatures in degrees celsius for every country that was included in the present analysis for each month from years 1901-2015. Because we obtained mean Gini ratios for each year, we calculated mean climatic temperatures by calculating the average of the 12 months for each year, and country, that a Gini ratio was obtained. All Gini ratios and temperatures were accessed on 28th June 2017. Design and analysis In the present study the predictor variable was temperature and the outcome variable was Gini ratios. Data was collected for 29 countries across differing time periods ranging from 8-53 years resulting in a dataset with 594 observations. The dataset was a panel dataset whereby the data was cross-sectional (i.e. across countries) and longitudinal (i.e. across time periods) and unbalanced because of the differing time periods for each country. Therefore, to analyse the effect of temperature on Gini ratios, the plm package (Croissant & Millo, 2008) in R (R development core team, 2012) was used because this analysis has been designed to account for panel, unbalanced datasets. Additionally this package could determine whether country and time had an effect on Gini ratios and how these effects should be accounted for. The general linear model for the data set was (Croissant & Millo, 2008): yit = α + Txit + µi + t + it i = country t = time yit = Gini ratios α = intercept Txit the coefficient of the effect of temperature on Gini ratios µi = the unobserved error as a result of the effect of country on Gini ratios t = the unobserved error as a result of the effect of time on Gini ratios it = residual/idiosyncratic error, independent of the predictor and individual error components The specific model that was used in the present analysis was dependent on the existence of country effects (i.e. µi) and time effects (i.e.t) and the nature of these effects. There are three potential ways to model the panel datasets when estimating the effect of temperature on Gini ratios (Croissant & Millo, 2008): 1 – Pooled model; where time and country have no effect on Gini ratios (i.e. µi =0, t =0). Thus, the pooled models estimation is consistent and efficient, and applies across countries and time. 2 – Fixed effects model; where there are effects of country and/or time on Gini ratios and these effect(s) are correlated with the predictor variable, temperature. These correlated effect(s) result in the pooled models’ estimation being inconsistent because the estimates differ across countries and/or across time. Therefore, the fixed effects model accounts for the heterogeneity between countries and/or time by treating country and/or time as parameters to be estimated in the model and consequently the model gives consistent estimates of the effect of temperature on Gini ratios. This model can be one-way (i.e. the effect of country or time are taken into account) or two-way (i.e. the effects of country and time are taken into account). 3 – Random effects model; where there are effects of country and/or time on Gini ratios and these effect(s) are uncorrelated with the predictor variable, temperature. As a consequence of these uncorrelated effects, although the pooled models estimation is consistent, this estimation is inefficient. Thus, the random effects model accounts for the heterogeneity between countries and/or time by treating country and/or time as a separate error component(s) in the model and consequently the model gives consistent and efficient estimates of the effect of temperature on Gini ratios. Similar to the fixed effects model, the random effects model can be one-way or two-way. To determine which model was appropriate for the dataset, and thus to determine the nature of the effects of country and time, we performed exploratory (i.e. graphical representations) and confirmatory (i.e. hypothesis testing) analyses. Firstly, we used graphs to visualise whether the intercepts were heterogeneous across countries and time as heterogeneity would suggest that the pooled model (i.e. model 1) was not appropriate. Following this, to determine whether the pooled model was appropriate for the dataset, we used the F test of stability, which by default tests whether the same coefficients applied to each country. Following this F test there were two potential routes. (i) If the analysis revealed that the same coefficients applied across countries, we would then implement an F test of stability to test whether the same coefficients applied across time. If the second F test revealed that the same coefficients applied across time, a pooled model (i.e. model 1) would be used as this would provide a consistent and efficient estimation. Whereas if the second F test revealed that the coefficients did not apply across time, this would suggest that the pooled model was not appropriate and thus a Hausman test would be required to determine whether time should be modelled as a fixed effect (i.e. one-way fixed effects model; model 2) or random effect (i.e. a one-way random effects model; model 3). (ii) If the analysis revealed that coefficients did not apply across countries this would suggest that a pooled model (i.e. model 1) was inappropriate for the dataset. Consequently a langrage multiplier test would be required to determine whether a one-way or two-way effects model should be used i.e. whether country alone had an effect on Gini ratios (i.e. one-way) or whether country and time had independent significant effects on Gini ratios (i.e. two-way). Secondly, a Hausman test would be necessary to determine whether the effect(s) should be modelled as fixed (i.e. fixed effects model; model 2) or random (i.e. random effects model; model 3). Once a model had been specified, we estimated the direct and lagged effect of temperature on Gini ratios. Finally, we carried out diagnostic testing to analyse whether there was serial correlation or cross-sectional independence in the idiosyncratic errors of the model that would need to be dealt with.
Competence and Warmth: How Gender Impacts Perceptions of Male and Female Speakers.
gender stereotypes competence, warmth stereotype content model
Using the stereotype content model as a theoretical background, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between gender stereotypes and judgements of warmth and competence. Visual appearance has long been used to research these judgements while auditory cues have often been overlooked. This study therefore focused on judgements made about voice and subsequently did not influence participants with predetermined gender labels. 61 participants – aged 19 to 60 – listened to either 2 male or 2 female speakers talk about domestic violence and cancer research. Domestic violence is here defined as a women-centric topic, while cancer research is considered gender neutral. Participants completed person perception inventories of each speaker, rating them on 7-point Likert scales in terms of 10 competence and 10 warmth items. They also completed a sexism inventory to determine whether sexism predicted a more favourable attitude toward male speakers. A 2 between gender (male vs female) by 2 within topic (domestic violence vs cancer research) ANOVA was conducted, and female speakers were judged as more competent than males when speaking on domestic violence but not cancer research. They were considered warmer than men in both cases. This indicates that women are seen as competent when speaking on issues that directly affect them, suggesting that they should be taken more seriously when speaking out about their own rights. However, traditional warmth stereotypes regarding women were upheld. This, along with further implications, are discussed.
Items. 10 competence items and 10 warmth items were selected to compile a 20-item list of characteristics for participants to judge speakers on. Of these items, 11 were taken from Rudman & Glick (1999) and the remaining 9 were considered in the original SCM. Items used in the competence and warmth scales were found to be reliable across speech topics, namely cancer research (CR) and domestic violence (DV) (competenceCR α = .893, competenceDV α = .931). This indicates that the scales used were highly reliable. Similarly, for the warmth dimensions, Cronbach's Alpha was suitably high (WarmthCR α = .918, WarmthDV α = .944). The reliability for the sexism inventory was also acceptable, with an α value of .826. An example of several competence and warmth dimensions can be seen below, while a full list can be found in Appendix A. Competence: confident, ambitious, intelligent.. Warmth: trustworthy, likeable, supportive. Speeches. Two speeches were recorded for the purpose of the experiment, one focused on domestic violence and the other on cancer research. The speeches were written to closely match each other in terms of wording and the information being presented. For instance, the opening and closing sentences of each speech were similarly structured, as seen below. Table 1. Examples of speech text. Domestic Violence Cancer Research Opening sentence Domestic Violence. A topic that is often glossed over as something that effects other people - not me; not you. Cancer. A topic we don't often like to think about – something that effects other people, but not me: not you. Closing sentence By going to our website www.dvrefuges.co.uk you can find out more information about the great work women's refuges around the country do, and help them continue to change women's lives by donating to our cause. By going to our website www.ukcancer.co.uk you can find out more information about the great work that we do, and by donating to our cause, help us continue to help people diagnosed with cancer live a normal life. The details of the speeches differed, and the content was varied enough so as not to be obviously the same to participants, but the speeches were largely similar, as can be seen in Appendix B. Four speakers were responsible for recording the two speeches, a male and female speaker for each topic. This allowed participants to hear both speeches either spoken by two male or two female speakers. All four speakers were from the same region and had northern accents, however, two speakers' accents differed slightly from the remaining two, which may have been particularly noticeable to northern participants. To account for this, one speaker with each accent was assigned to each topic condition and so any accent effects were counterbalanced and can be assumed to not have influenced judgements. Speeches were recorded using an iPhone 6 microphone and edited using Audacity in order to eliminate background noise and static. Recordings were then given a plain video image of a black background with text reading either 'Recording One' or 'Recording Two' respectively. Due to the fact that recordings were counterbalanced across conditions, all four recordings were presented either as first or second in at least one condition, so in total 8 versions of the recordings were made and embedded into Qualtrics, where the body of the survey was hosted. Participants listened to recordings using Sony headphones during the experiment. Procedure Participants were assigned to one of four conditions. In each condition they were asked to listen to the first speech, either domestic violence or cancer research, spoken by either a male or female speaker. After listening to the speech, they proceeded to the next online page and completed the speaker evaluation, rating the speaker on the 20 warmth and competence dimensions. This was indicated by how well they believed each item fit the speaker by choosing a point on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = completely disagree, 7 = completely agree). Following this they listened to the second speech spoken by a different speaker of the same gender. They then completed the same speaker evaluation for the second speaker. Finally, they completed the sexism inventory (The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, Glick & Fiske, 1996) which measured the participants' explicit sexist attitudes on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly agree, 5 = strongly disagree). A copy of the items in this inventory can be found in Appendix C. As this was a 2 (gender: female vs. male) x 2 (topic: domestic violence vs. cancer research) experimental design with repeated measures on the second factor, the difference between each condition was purely the order in which the speeches were presented (domestic violence first or second) and the gender of speaker that each participant heard (male or female) for the purpose of counterbalancing. So as not to influence participants to respond in a set way, the experiment was presented as regarding the evaluation of speakers and not as explicitly about gender. Following the main section of the experiment, participants were asked a number of questions regarding how they experienced the recording, the first of which was answered on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly agree, 5 = strongly disagree). The question was: 'how likely are you to visit the website mentioned in this speech.' This was relevant in order to measure whether the competence of the speaker affected the likelihood of the participant to engage with the issue. Importantly, participants were also asked whether they considered each topic to be masculine or feminine, again measured on a 7-point scale (1 = feminine, 4 = neither feminine nor masculine, 7 = masculine). This was included in order to provide validity to the assumption that the domestic violence topic would indeed be judged as more women-centric, and the cancer research topic would be neutral. It is therefore of note that over 50% of participants considered domestic violence to be a feminine topic, others considered it gender neutral, but very few considered it a masculine topic. The majority of participants judged cancer research as gender neutral, as was intended. Finally, participants were asked whether or not they had any experience of the topic at hand, either personally or from a friend or family member, as this may have caused them to make more favourable judgements towards the topic they were more invested in. Participants also gave their gender, nationality and age. Gender and nationality were exploratory variables of particular interest due to the belief that other women may be more likely than men to evaluate women as competent. Nationality was of interest due to the fact that people from other cultures, particularly Eastern cultures, have different gender roles than we do in the UK, and so their responses during the experiment may have reflected this. Once the experiment was complete participants were fully debriefed and had the chance to enter a competition to win a prize in return for their participation.
Pitch-Brightness Correspondence in Four-month-old Infants
Adults, children, and infants as young as 10-months have been shown to appreciate a correspondence between auditory pitch and visual brightness, with most participants associating high-pitch with brighter stimuli and low-pitch with darker stimuli. Research across ages is vital for understanding more about the developmental trajectory of crossmodal correspondences. The present study used preferential looking to examine the sensitivity of 4-month-old infants to the pitch-brightness correspondence. Following Mondloch and Maurer (2004), infants were presented with a display of two balls bouncing simultaneously. One ball had a dark surface-brightness, whilst the other had a brighter surface. A single, high or low-pitch sound accompanied the bounce of both balls onto the surface. The research examined whether infants looked differentially to the ball which adults would generally classify as matching. Infants did not look significantly longer to the ball with the congruent pitch-brightness matching. Infants did however look preferentially towards the black ball across trials. It is proposed that this could be the result of the brightness-weight correspondence, whereby darker objects are thought of as heavier than brighter objects. It is therefore possible that infants look longer towards the black ball as it is the heavier ball which should produce the sound, regardless of pitch.
Animations were displayed on a 49cm x 39cm screen, surrounded by black card and screens to block-out excess light and other distractions. Initially, infants were seated (legs stretched forwards) on their caregiver’s lap for the experiment. In this position infants tended to lean forwards, looking towards the floor, meaning that the amount of codeable looking-time was very limited; this procedure was therefore abandoned after four infants had been tested and these infants were excluded from the sample. To increase looking towards the display new approaches were taken. Nine infants were seated 80cm from the screen in a supportive, from-birth highchair. Fourteen infants were seated in an alternative position on the caregiver/researcher’s lap. Infants were now held in a relatively upright position to reduce the likelihood that infants would look towards the floor or their feet. How infants were seated was decided by considering: infants’ head-support, familiarity with high-chair, and infant reactions. It was not thought that being in the high-chair or on the lap would significantly affect looking behaviour. All animations involved variants of balls bouncing on a horizontal surface. All balls had a diameter of 4cm and were identical to one another aside from their surface brightness. The brightness of balls was measured in candela per square meter (cd/m²) using a lux-meter. A higher cd/m² reading equates to a higher degree of luminosity/brightness. The balls appeared to bounce on a medium brightness (39.52cd/m²), green surface, which had a 49cm diameter. The background of displays was a diffused cloud image which was also medium brightness (57.06cd/m²). The image was blurred slightly to reduce contrast and make the background less visually interesting. It was important that the surface and background had a medium brightness and were not distracting, so as not to alter the effect of ball brightness. Previously, white dots on a black background have been used to portray depth; alternatively this experiment used the clouds and converging-line surface to depict 3-Dimensions. In the familiarization phase there was one ball of standard-brightness (53.86cd/m²) with a diameter of 4cm. This ball moved up and down along a 25cm vertical axis, stopping for 0.05s at the bottom and 0.1s at the top. The up-down motion of the ball gave the impression that it was bouncing on the surface. The bounce was accompanied by a sound of standard-pitch (782Hz) which lasted for 0.25s. The familiarization trial was presented to indicate to infants that a single ball produces a single noise when it hits a surface. This was important for the test trials as we did not want infants to perceive that the balls in unity were producing the sound. The standard-brightness and standard-pitch of this ball could also be used as reference-points for the brightness and pitch in test trials. The test animations consisted of three balls, each with a diameter of 4cm. The standard-brightness ball (53.86cd/m²) from the familiarization phase remained stationary at the centre of the surface as a reference point. Alongside the standard ball there were two test balls. Both balls differed only in terms of their surface-brightness. One of the balls had a duller, black surface-brightness (6.3cd/m²) and the other had a brighter, white surface-brightness (144.25cd/m²). Two, independent, vertical trajectories of 25cm formed the path of movement for each ball. Similar to the standard animation, the balls bounced on the surface in synchrony, to either side of the stationary ball (see Figure 1); stopping for 0.05s at the bottom and 0.1s at the top. As the balls hit the surface, a higher-pitch (2096Hz) or a lower-pitch (228Hz) sound was produced which lasted for 0.25s. Figure 1. These figures are screenshots of the animations seen by infants. The two shots display how the two balls moved in synchrony along vertical trajectories. The pitch of a sound can affect its perceived loudness. Controlling for sound loudness was crucial because of the correspondence between loudness and brightness (Marks, 1989). To ensure that loudness was not responsible for the effect, the perceived loudness of sounds were equalized. dBA (A-weighted decibels) is a measure of relative intensity perceived by the human ear, weighted for frequency (Plack, 2013). To ensure that perceived loudness did not vary, it was important that sound dBA was approximately the same. A sound-level meter (placed where the infant would sit) was used to measure the dBA of each sound. When sounds were created in Audacity, they were produced with equivalent amplitude. However when the sounds were played, the medium-pitch (782Hz) sound produced a higher 77.2dBA , compared to 72dBA and 71.3dBA for the high (2096Hz) and low-pitch (228Hz) sounds respectively. This meant that the medium-pitch sound would be perceived louder. To compensate for this, a 6dB gain was added to the high and low-pitch sounds. Therefore the relative loudness of the sounds had a much smaller range of values: 76dBA (high-pitch), 76.6dBA (low-pitch), and 77.2dBA (medium-pitch). Although the dB of two sounds needed to be increased, the frequencies of all sounds are within the normal hearing range of 20Hz to 20kHz (Plack, 2013). To confirm that these tones sounded psychologically equivalent, four adults listened to the sounds and were asked ‘Does any tone sound louder than any other tone?’ All participants reported that sounds had equivalent volumes. Design The dependent variables in this study were looking-time and number of fixations to the white and black balls. These variables were measured to examine whether infants look preferentially to congruent/incongruent pitch-brightness displays to determine whether they appreciate the pitch-brightness correspondence. To examine this, a 4 (trial) x 2 (pitch: low vs. high) x 2 (brightness: black vs. white) x 4 (condition) mixed ANOVA design was used with 3 within factors (trial, pitch, brightness) and 1 between factor (condition). There were four distinct trials that were all seen twice by each infant, producing eight test trials. In one trial the black ball was on the left of the screen and a high-pitch sound was heard. In another high-pitch trial, the black ball was on the right. In one trial the black ball was on the left and a low-pitch sound was heard. In another low-pitch trial, the black ball was on the right. It was important that infants saw an equal number of trials with each ball on each side as this ensured that preference for looking towards one side did not affect the results. Each infant was randomly allocated to one of four conditions. All conditions contained the same displays, the conditions varied only in terms of order. Procedure The parent and infant were greeted by the experimenter, told the aims of the study and given the opportunity to ask any questions. Parents were instructed not to point towards the screen to avoid influencing looking. Informed consent was then obtained from all parents. Once the introduction was complete, the infant was seated and the study began. Firstly, infants were shown the standard animation which consisted of a single, standard-brightness ball bouncing with a standard-pitch tone. This display lasted for a maximum duration of 120s, however the trial ended once 20s of looking towards the screen had been accumulated. This time was pre-defined to ensure that all infants saw the initial display for the same duration. Once the accumulated looking-time was reached, an attention getter (auditory and visual rattle) was presented to re-direct the infants’ attention towards the screen. The test trials begun when the observer used a computer key-press to indicate that the infants attention had been retrieved. The two balls of the test trials were accompanied by a high or low-pitch sound upon bounce. Each display was presented for a maximum duration of 60s, however the trial ended if the infant looked away from the screen for 2s or longer. After each test trial, an attention getter was presented until the infant looked again. The next test trial was presented when the observer indicated that the infant regained attention. Eight test trials were presented meaning the test trials lasted a maximum of 8 minutes. Looking-times were coded live using the updated version of Habit2000 software (Cohen, Atkinson & Chaput, 2000). Each session was recorded on camera so that a proportion of infant data could be re-coded by a second observer. This allowed measurement of inter-rater reliability. Once the infant had completed the experiment, the parent was thanked for their time and given a book for their infant. They were also given a debrief and reminded of their right to withdraw their infant’s data.
Training Transfer Between False-belief, Card Sorting and Counterfactual Reasoning in Children with ASD.
ASD, Training study Domain general Theory of Mind Counterfactual reasoning Executive Functions
Previous training studies for typically developed (TD) children and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) show that theory of mind and executive functions are two interrelated domains, and that training in one task could lead to improvement on the other. This training study aimed to examine the developmental relationship between three domains (Theory of Mind (ToM), Executive Functions (EF) and Counterfactual Reasoning (CR)) in children with ASD. A group of 30 children diagnosed with ASD were randomly allocated to one of three training groups, each group received training in one of the three domains stated. After training, the entire sample was tested to measure for improvements. Results indicate that ToM training leads to improvement on the EF and CR tasks, while EF training did not lead to ToM improvement and CR training did not lead to EF improvement. Findings are discussed and a novel cognitive model is proposed to account for the observed outcomes.
Following the design of Kloo and Perner (2003), first children were pretested. The pretest involved measures of verbal and nonverbal ability, two false-belief tasks followed by a card sorting task and two counter-factual reasoning tasks. The pretest was scored to create a baseline for the participants' abilities in each of the areas assigned to the training groups. Children were then randomly assigned to one of three experimental training groups. Each group was given two sessions of training (approximately 1 week apart) on one of the three areas; false belief, counterfactual reasoning or DCCS. A posttest was given a week after the second training session, it was similar to the pretest in design but different materials were used. The posttest was given to the children to measure any improvements in performance after training and examine any crossover effects between the different training groups. Finally, the children were given a follow-up test (approximately 6 weeks after the posttest) to investigate if the effects of training are lasting. All of the sessions took place in a quiet room in the child's school. Procedure and Materials Pretest and posttest. Both sessions that preceded and followed the training sessions involved tasks measuring performance in false belief, counter-factual reasoning and card sorting. False-belief. One of two traditional unexpected transfer tasks was administered on the pretest based on Wimmer and Perner (1983), modeled after Baron-Cohen et al.’s Sally-Anne task (1985). A scene was enacted to the child using wooden toy figures and a kitchen model in which an item is unexpectedly transferred during the protagonist's absence. The stories where altered slightly to be more fitting to the knowledge of a Bahraini child by changing character names and making other alternations where appropriate. However, the main consciences of the stories remained very similar to the original stories. After the story is told, the character returns to the scene and the child is then asked a false-belief test question such as 'where do you think Ahmed will look for his teddy bear now?' followed by two control questions (memory and reality). One of the two stories was administered in the pre-test and the other in the post-test. The false-belief pretest and posttest also included an unexpected content task, another task modeled by Wimmer and Perner (1983) as a measure of false-belief. In this task the child was presented with a closed familiar container (such as a Band-Aid box) and then the child was asked to guess the content of the box. The item in the box was then revealed to the child (a coin, for example). Next the item was placed in the closed box again and the child was asked 'what did you think was in the box before I opened it?' The correct answer should be Band-Aids, but most children with ASD find difficulty in suppressing the reality of what they know to be in the box so the answer they give is ‘a coin’. The child was then asked about another person’s state of mind 'what will (name another child) think is inside the box?’ Finally, the child was asked a memory control question 'what is really in the box?' Card Sorting. Following the false-belief task, the child was presented with a dimensional change card sorting task (DCCS; Frye et al., 1995). One set of cards (5cm x 10cm) was used as well as two target cards (a blue house and an orange car) to be placed on two sorting boxes (12cm x 16cm). The card set had 12 testing cards (6 orange houses and 6 blue cars). The task involved two phases, in the pre-switch phase the participant was asked to sort the cards according to shape. After completing six trails successfully, the examiner explained to the child that now the rules of the game will change and the child was asked to sort the cards according to colour rather than shape in the post-switch phase. Counterfactual Reasoning. Lastly, the pretest and posttest sessions included two counterfactual thinking tasks based on Beck et al. (2011). One of the tasks in each session was enacted using wooden figures and materials such as doll sized bed, cabin, teddy bears or pets. The second task was presented using a picture story consisting of three panels illustrating the events of the story. In these stories, both enacted and illustrated, a series of events lead to a specific end state. For example, the character picks flowers from the garden and places them in a vase on the table. Then the child is asked 'if Zainab had not picked the flowers where would they be’? Two control questions (memory and reality) followed. Similarly to the false-belief task, some alterations where made to the stories where appropriate to accommodate the child's environment and imagination. The use of two different methods of delivery for the counter-factuality task was introduced to create more variation in the understanding of counterfactual reasoning and to distinguish this task from the false-belief task. Training Following the pretest, the participants were assigned to three experimental groups each receiving two training sessions in one of the three areas; false-belief, counterfactual reasoning and DCCS. The aim of the training is to provide the children with explanations and feedback based on performance. False-belief training group. In each of the training sessions, the false belief group received two of four Ernie-says-something-wrong tasks (renamed to Ali-says-something-wrong) (Hale & Tager-Flusberg, 2003), one unexpected transfer task different from the tasks administered during the pre and post-test sessions, and finally one unexpected content task. Ali-says-something-wrong. As in the original Kloo and Perner (2003), the task was presented with the aid of three puppets. In each of the stories Ali carried an action towards one of the puppets but then stated that he did it to another puppet. In each training session the child received two of the four original stories followed by a question about the content of Ali's statement and about the conflicting reality. The other two stories where then administered in the following session. Unexpected transfer. The training sessions also included one story about an item being unexpectedly transferred in the protagonist's absence following Baron-cohen et al. (1985). The stories was enacted using wooden dolls and doll house furniture. This training task aimed to teach children about the main aspects of an unexpected transfer and to gradually guide them towards considering the character's false belief (Kloo and Perner, 2003). Unexpected content. This task is presented using a different box and content for each test and training session. Examples of the materials used are a smarties tube, a pringles box, a crayons card box. The training of this task aimed to help the child understand his own false-belief as well as others’ state of mind. DCCS training group. The card sorting group was given training in two DCCS tasks in each of the training sessions. Both tasks involved sorting according to colour and number, and the switch was always from colour to number. The two tasks administered were the three dimension switch and the transfer sorting task. Three dimension switch. In this card sorting task, the participant was presented with two target cards (one yellow house and two green houses) placed on a sorting box. The test cards were similar to the target cards on one dimension; either colour or number (two yellow houses, one green house). The child had to sort by colour, then number, then by colour again and finally by number one last time. Two sets of cards were used, one for each training session. The experimenter helped the child identify each dimension after each switch was made and the rules of the game were covered again. Each switch involved six trials. Transfer sorting task. Here, the target cards remained the same as the previous task (one yellow house and two green houses) but a new test card that is only similar to the target cards on one dimension (two yellow cars) was introduced. The test cards was supposed to be sorted according to the dimension stated by the experimenter, starting with colour then switching to number. Counterfactual reasoning training group. Counter-factual reasoning tasks and false-belief tasks are interchangeable in some studies by asking questions testing both skills following a single story. However, in this study, the training groups had to receive different stories, followed by questions that only tap on counterfactual thinking in order to distinguish it from false-belief training. The purpose of this divide in training is to ensure that each experimental group receives training that does not overlap with the other groups' as the study aims to ultimately measure the crossover effects. The CR group received two tasks in each training session. Like the pretest and posttest, one of the tasks was enacted using figures and the other was presented as a picture story. The stories are based on Beck et al. (2011) and Guajardo and Turley-Ames (2004). Figure stories. Following Guajardo and Turley-Ames' (2004) counterfactual thinking tasks, the children were shown a story, presented using wooden dolls, in which an event occurs (usually as a consequence of an action taken by the protagonist) and the child was asked to generate alternative scenarios that would have prevented the occurrence of that event. For example, the character is drawing a picture using pencil colours when the colour breaks and a result he cannot finish his drawing. The question following this story is 'what could the character have done so that he would have drawn the rest of the picture?' and the child is to give as many responses as he/she can generate. Other scenarios include avoiding breaking a glass, keeping their clothes clean, taking a nap leading them to miss their favorite show, and someone eating the character's last chocolate bar. In the training sessions, the examiner walks the child through the logic of having different actions leading to alternative endings. Picture stories. The second task in the counter-factual training involved a single picture story based on Beck et al (2011). The images were digitally drawen using Adobe Illustrator and the stories showed a sequence of three square panels. However, the question format following the stories differed from the task given using figures. In the picture stories task, the child is presented with a simple story of consequential events followed by a question about where someone or something would have been if a certain event had not occurred. For example, one of the stories showed a cat napping on top of a car, the cat then spies a bird flying by and chases the bird all the way to the traffic light. The question associated with this story is 'if the cat had not spied the bird, where would the cat be?' Similar illustrations include a man receiving a call to meet a friend, a girl picking flowers, a drawing flying out of an open window and a man who gets sand on his shoes. The training aims to allow the child some insight on how an occurrence could alter the course of events resulting in certain outcomes, and thus if the occurrence had not taken place we would be presented with a counterfactual state. Follow-up test. The follow up test was added to the experiment to measure whether children with ASD maintained any effects gained from the training past the posttest. Therefore, this test was similar to the pretest and posttest in design; it included a false belief task, a card sorting task and two counter-factuality tasks. However, the materials and stories used were all different from those used previously in the tests and training. The follow-up test took place 6 weeks after the post-test session.
Typeface and taste: The bittersweet effect of typeface on the perception of taste
This article aims to explore how the visual features of typeface on a product’s packaging, are capable of altering one’s taste experience with the product within through cross-sensory correspondences. A total of ninety-two participants from a selection of university graduates were selected to take part in one of three studies rating yogurts, typefaces and the interaction between the two. While visual features of the typeface like thickness and heaviness did not directly affect the rating of a products perceived thickness and weight, the typefaces were able to trigger different experiences of bitterness. When presented on the yogurt container, the more angular, thin typeface Palatino Italic caused the yogurt to be rated as significantly more bitter than the rounder, thicker font Cooper Black. Secondary tests found that the two typefaces rated alone, without the yogurt, did not possess the same significant differences in bitterness. However, they were rated as significantly different on the other scales measured, thus raising the question of exactly how the fonts were capable of manipulating participant’s taste experience. The study addresses this question and looks further into how typefaces perceptual qualities change once the letters presenting it are capitalised.
Rating Chart A rating chart (found in Appendix 4) was designed to allow participants to select the most neutral yogurt by ordering them in terms of the adjectives rated in the main study. These were thick to thin, heavy to light, dull to sharp, sweet to bitter and slow to quick. The chart contained a three point scale with related variables anchored at each end. Participants were then able to fill in which yogurt (A, B or C) they believed possessed the extremities of each variable pair (i.e. the thickest and the thinnest) leaving the most neutral yogurt being rated as somewhere between the two. Products As natural yogurt appeared to be the plainest yogurt in terms of flavour, colour and texture, three natural yogurts were selected for the pre-test. The first yogurt ‘A’ was the cheapest home-brand yogurt from Morrisons. Yogurt B was slightly more expensive (Yeo Natural), and the third (yogurt C) was the most expensive plain natural yogurt available (Onken). All yogurts were purchased from Morrisons Supermarket and cost between £1.00 and £2.00. Packaging Because all three products contained packaging with commercial labels which used a combination of various typefaces, colours and shapes, the yogurt had to be removed from the containers. The yogurts were then placed in three identical bowls and set on a table. A piece of paper in front of each informed the participant which was yogurt A, B and C. Procedure In turn participants were brought into an empty room and asked to sit at a desk in front of the three yogurts. They were presented with an information sheet, consent form and the rating sheet (Appendix 1, 2 and 4) and asked to sample each yogurt as many times as they felt necessary to rate which of the three was the least extreme in regards to the variables rated. They were each given a plastic spoon to test the yogurt and asked not to touch the bowl in case its weight affected their perception of the product. They then used the pen provided to rate which yogurt (A,B or C) possessed the least extreme qualities. Once the twenty participants had completed the test they were given the opportunity to ask any questions and presented with the debrief sheet in Appendix 3. Their results were then correlated and ‘Yogurt A’ was clearly found to be the most neutral yogurt of the three in terms of the variables rated. Main Study Participants Between June 2014 and July 2014 forty-eight students and recent graduates (Male= 36, Female= 12) aged between eighteen and fifty-four years old (M= 23.25, SD=4.86) from Lancaster University were recruited as part of a volunteer sample to take part in this study. They were informed of the study through a monthly newsletter emailed to their University email address by a University Administrator. The students came from a variety of academic years and subject areas. All participants confirmed that they had no deficits regarding their ability to smell or taste, nor any allergy to dairy. Materials Rating Chart The rating chart was designed to allow participants to quantify their perception of the product. Each quality was presented on a scale with one extreme anchored horizontally to the other (See Appendix 5). So for the adjective pair thick-thin participants would state if the product was ‘Very Thick, Quite Thick, Slightly Thick, Neither Thick nor Thin, Slightly Thin, Quite Thin or Very Thin’. This produced a seven-point scale for each variable rated. Several qualities that had previously been identified as sharing cross-modular correspondences linked to shape, and influencing aspects of flavour were implanted within the rating chart. In addition to being held by one or several modalities, they were a sample of adjectives both able and unable to be conveyed directly by visual qualities of the typeface to the yogurt (for example a thick font may lead to the yogurt being rated as thick but a typeface is unable to directly convey bitterness through its visual features). The adjectives rated were thick-thin, heavy-light, sharp-dull, bitter-sweet, quick-slow. The order by which these variables were rated was swapped between participants in order to reduce order effects. It was predicted that the adjectives thick, heavy, dull, sweet and slow would be aligned, while thin, light, sharp, bitter and fast would share conative meaning. Products Following the preliminary test yogurt A (Morrison’s own Natural Yogurt) was selected as the most neutral yogurt in terms of the variables rated and yogurt tested. In effect the yogurt was most frequently rated as neither the thickest, nor thinnest yogurt of the three tested, as so on across the variables rated. As a result yogurt A was chosen for the study. Regardless of the label on the pot, the contents within were always yogurt A, leading to participants rating the same yogurt twice without their knowledge. Packaging There were four parts to the packaging: the typeface used; the brand name in which the typeface was printed; the label displaying the brand name; and the pot containing the yogurt. Each element of the packaging aimed to trigger as few cross-sensory perceptions as possible, with the exception of the typeface being tested. After a great deal of consideration, the two typefaces chosen were Cooper Black and Palatino Italic. Walker et al had noted that these typefaces possessed a variety of qualities capable of triggering cross-modular correspondences strong enough to induce a congruency effect between word meaning and typeface characteristic (Lewis and Walker, 1989). As a result they seemed the most likely typefaces to induce cross-modular correspondences relating to taste. Additionally they were particularly representative of typefaces as a whole possessing characteristics such as italics, roman and bold. Visually Cooper Black is much thicker and rounder than Palatino Italic. Palatino Italic also appears to convey speed and sharpness, pointing forward at an angle. Existing brand names and real words could not be used to display the typeface due to the potential confounding connotations they may carry. Additionally if both typefaces were presented in the same brand name participants would be more likely to realise that both yogurts were indeed the same. Therefore two non-words had to be selected as product brand names. Sound symbolism is known to have an effect on the perceptions activated by a word, in particular Klink noted that brand names containing front vowels were associated with more angular brand marks than back vowels (Klink, 2003). To avoid this effect confounding the ratings, a combination of front and back vowels were present in each brand name. Moreover, because the positioning of back and front vowels has been highlighted as a factor influencing perception, the order of the front and back vowels were changed between the two non-words. This process was inspired by a similar method by Klink and Wu, where brand names were built using vowels and letters conveying different meanings (Klink and Wu, 2013). The two non-words generated from this procedure were ‘Bemdom’ (front/closed vowel ‘bem’, back/open vowel ‘dom’) and ‘Nordin’ (back/open vowel ‘nor’, front/closed vowel ‘din’). As seen in Figure 1, these names were printed in black on white rectangular sticker paper creating the label. Printed in font size 14, their first letters were capitalised to appear more like a product name. Four versions of the label were created: one with the curved typeface (Cooper Black) stating Bemdom; one with the curved typeface stating Nordin; one with the angular typeface (Palatino Italic) stating Bemdom and one with the angular typeface presenting Nordin. Figure 1: Examples of the four yogurt pots presented to participants. Presented first is Bemdom in Palatino Italic, followed by Nordin the same type, Nordin in Cooper Black and Bemdom in Cooper Black. The labels were attached to the circular lids of ninety-six clear 60ml plastic sample pots displayed in Figure 2. In an attempt to counter-balance the effect of a circular shaped lid on the rating of the yogurt, the sticker containing the brand name was cut into the more angular shape of a rectangle. The pot was also clear allowing visibility of the white yogurt contained within it, rather than being coloured packaging that may have its own connotations. Figure 2: The pots used to present participants with the yogurt and the typeface. With the type of spoon used to consume yogurt being found to affect one’s perception of yogurt, all participants consumed the yogurt with the same type of white plastic spoon displayed in Figure 3 (Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2011). As the testing pot was already plastic and the yogurt white, a plastic white spoon seemed the best option for reducing the number of new extraneous variables introduced into the study. Figure 3: The plastic spoon used for sampling the yogurt. Research Design The study involved a 2 (type of typeface) x 2 (non-word used) x2 (order in which the font was presented) design. It was conducted using a repeated measures design with each participant rating each typeface and non-word although in different combinations. The order of both the typeface and non-word used was counterbalanced throughout the study leading to the creation of four participant groups. Procedure Participants were randomly split into four conditions; two of whom rated ‘Bemdom’ in Cooper Black and ‘Nordin’ in Palatino Italic but in contrasting orders, and two of whom rated ‘Bemdom’ in Palatino Italic and ‘Nordin’ in Cooper Black, again in contrasting orders. All groups received exactly the same experimental procedure and exactly the same yogurt in each pot. The only differences were the order each typeface and non-word were presented, and which non-word was allocated which type. Participants were not informed that the samples of yogurts were identical, and were encouraged to believe they were two different yogurts through use of different brand names. Once the participant was seated they were randomly assigned to a research group, then asked to read the participant information sheet (Appendix 1) and complete the consent form shown in Appendix 2. Once they had had the opportunity to ask any questions that came to mind, two boxes were placed on the table in front of the participant. Each had ‘Nordin’ or ‘Bemdom’ printed on it in either Cooper Black or Palatino Italic depending on the group they were assigned to. In order to provide a contrast effect highlighting the package’s typeface, the two pots of yogurt were taken from larger boxes sharing their name and label, which were present on the table throughout the study. This again aimed to reduce participant’s likelihood of identifying the yogurts as the same. The participant was then presented with a yogurt pot from one of the boxes and asked to write the product’s name on the rating sheet (Appendix 5) ensuring that they had paid some attention to the name and in doing so, the typeface. To ensure that the weight of the yogurt didn’t confound participant’s perception of the product, the pot of yogurt was placed in a tube securing it in place on the table while the participant sampled it. Participants were given a plastic spoon to consume it with and still water was provided for the participants to cleanse their mouth with between tastings. The participant was welcome to eat as much or as little of the produce as required to rate it on the several variables. Once they had finished rating the first yogurt it was removed from the tube and replaced by the second. The original pot was left on the table in order to allow contrast between the names and more importantly typeface. When the rating was complete participants were given the debrief sheet (Appendix 3) and the opportunity to ask any questions before being thanked for their time. Ethics An ethics review rated the study as low risk to participants. As the main risk was that of an allergy to the yogurt, all participants were asked twice if they were allergic to dairy products- once through the consent form and once verbally. Informed consent was collected from all participants. Participants were also asked if they were happy to participate in the experiment and told they had the right to withdraw at any point without facing any negative consequences. The participants were debriefed after, being informed of the reasoning behind the study. All interviews followed the BPA code of conduct. While a small amount of deception was used to imply that the two pots of yogurt were different, participants were never explicitly lied to. During debriefing, not one participant stated that they had had a problem with the small lack of full disclosure.
The use of iPad technology in comparison to picture books as an aid to symbolic understanding of word – picture-object relations in typically developing preschool children, with iconicity as a mediating factor.
This study investigated how the Apple iPad in comparison to a traditional picture book may facilitate symbolic understanding of word –picture-object relations in both preschool children and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. In addition the iconicity of the pictures presented was manipulated, with both highly iconic colour photographs and line drawings presented to children within a word learning sequence on the Apple iPad and within a picture book. Children were repeatedly taught a novel label paired with a novel image and in a series of tasks which followed, asked to both map this novel label to a previously unseen 3 dimensional target object and to generalise this label to a novel exemplar of the target object. It was found that the majority of typically developing children were able to respond symbolically across the conditions, that is select the target object at the mapping stage and novel object at the generalisation stage. However, iconicity was found to be a mediating factor within the picture book modality, with more children responding symbolically within the Colour Book condition than in the Line Book condition. Robust symbolic responses in both the iPad conditions were at a level comparable with the Line Book condition. Therefore, the picture book appears to be of more benefit in terms of facilitating symbolic understanding of pictures in typically developing preschool children than the Apple iPad. Implications of these findings are considered with regards to the educational use of the iPad within preschool settings.
Picture book. The picture book stimuli were pictures of both familiar and unfamiliar objects presented within a picture book format, each presented singularly on a separate page, opposite a blank page. Pictures were either colour photographs or line drawings of objects. Colour photographs were high resolution images 15cm by 20cm in size. Line drawings were the same size and created by using an application on the iPad called ‘Camera FX’ which transformed the colour photographs into line drawings (Appendix B). Within each book, there were eight pictures of two unfamiliar objects (Appendix C and D) and there were five pictures of familiar objects (Appendix E) and. Each unfamiliar object was depicted four times. The test pictures used in the word learning task were presented within each book at the end of the sequence of pictures described (Appendix F). The test pictures were presented together on opposite pages and were smaller in size (15cm by 10 cm). There were four picture books created each containing different stimuli; two containing colour images and two containing line drawings. IPad. For each of the iPad conditions, an Apple iPad 2 covered by a protective case was used. Using an application called “SeeTouchLearn” on the iPad, four lessons were created (Appendix G). This application was chosen in order to replicate the picture sequences presented within the book format. Each lesson was identical to the picture book sequences in that it used the same images presented singularly in the same order of both familiar and unfamiliar objects. The pictures presented were 15cm by 11cm. The word learning task, as in the picture book stimuli was presented at the end of the training sequence. This consisted of pictures of both the unfamiliar objects presented side by side, 9cm by 7cm in size. Using the iPad’ built in microphone audio stimuli was integrated into the lesson. This was different from the book conditions in which images were named or highlighted by the researcher. Tasks. The stimuli for the subsequent tasks consisted of four laminated pictures of the target objects (either colour or line drawing dependent upon the condition), 18cm by 13cm in size and sixteen 3 dimensional objects. Of these 3 dimensional objects, four were the target objects that had been depicted in the training picture sequences, four were previously unseen familiar objects (cup, horse, book, phone), four were the distractor objects that had been depicted in the picture sequences and four were novel exemplars of the target objects (different colour). For each condition different stimuli were used in the tasks that followed the training sequence and word learning task. These consisted of one target object, one familiar object, one distractor object and one novel object alongside the target picture for that condition. Each session for which additional consent had been obtained by parents was video and audio recorded using a video camera and tripod. Procedure Participants were tested individually and took part in all four conditions within one session, counterbalanced for order. Two of the children shown signs of not wishing to continue at that time and so completed the remaining condition/s at a different time. Each participant was asked if they would like to “look at some pictures” with the researcher. Upon agreeing to this request, the child was shown to a quiet room within the setting where a small table was placed in the middle of the room with two chairs at right angles to one another. The camera and tripod was set up in the corner of the room to record those children for whom additional consent had been obtained. The participant was informed that they would were going to look at some pictures and if they still wished to take part then the testing session began. Each condition was presented to the child within the same session due to time constraints. If the child began to lose interest or appeared not to want to take part then the session was stopped immediately and the child went back into the setting to play. Training stage. The child was shown a series of pictures within the picture book iPad consisting of five familiar items as well as two unfamiliar items (distractor/ target picture). The familiar items were named once (“look it’s a dog”). The unfamiliar target object was named twice (“look it’s a dax/ged/yat/wug. See the dax/ged/yat/wug!”). The unfamiliar distractor object was highlighted to the participant but not named (“Look at this!”). At the end of the series of pictures, the participant was presented with two pictures (target/distractor) within the book /application and asked to identify the target picture (“show me a Dax/Ged/Yat/Wug”) in order to confirm the child’s ability to map the novel label to the novel picture. If the child had successfully mapped the novel label to the target picture and pointed to the target picture then the researcher moved onto the subsequent tasks. If the child pointed to the distracter picture and therefore had not successfully mapped the novel label to the target picture, then the researcher highlighted the correct picture to the child (“actually this is dax/ged/yat/wug. Can you touch the dax/ged/yat/wug? Let’s play again”) and the sequence was repeated again until the child was successful in identifying the target picture. The number of training stage repetitions was recorded. The procedure was identical for the iPad conditions except that the labelling of the target and familiar objects and the question asked at the word learning task had been previously recorded onto the lessons within the application. Mapping task. The child was presented with the target picture and the target object (3D object) and asked “show me a dax/ged/yat/wug.” The task sought to establish if the child was able to extend the novel label they had learned through the previous associative pairing of the picture and a novel label to a real world exemplar of the picture. If the child selected the target picture then this should be taken as indicative of associative learning. However, if the child selected either the target object alone or the picture and object then this would indicate a symbolic understanding of the word – picture – object relationship. Perservation Control Task. The child was presented with the target picture and a familiar object (book/horse/phone/cup) and asked to show the researcher the familiar object. The task sought to establish if the child was able to switch task demands and identify a different object to the one that had previously been reinforced. Object bias Control Task. The child was presented with the target picture and the distractor object (3D) and asked to identify the dax/ged/yat/wug. This control task sought to establish if the child was able to override the salience of the 3 dimensional object and successfully choose the target picture. A response which included the distractor object in this task as well as the 3D objects in the three other tasks would be indicative that the child had a bias for selecting objects rather than fully comprehending the word –picture – object relationship. Generalisation task. The child was presented with the target picture and a different coloured exemplar of the target object and asked to identify the dax/ged/yat/wug. The task sought to establish if the child was able to extend the novel label they had previously learnt and generalise it to a different coloured exemplar of the target object. Selecting the novel object in this task would be indicative of a robust understanding that pictures serve as referents for categories of real world objects. Coding Only intentional responses were coded. This were categorised as such if the child intentionally pointed to or handed or slid the picture / object to the researcher. If a child merely played with the object then their attention was redirected to both objects and the question was asked again. If the child continued to play with the object without intending to respond to the question asked, then this was recorded as a non-response and not included in the final analyses. Responses were coded as picture only, object only or both picture and objects. Audio and video recordings for those children who gave additional consent were used to clarify any ambiguous responses.
Effects of service brands’ current marketing strategies on customer attitude and behaviour
This project investigated current marketing strategies used by service brands, including car insurance and household energy companies, on customer’s attitudes and behaviours. The investigation involved a nationally representative sample of 1,977 participants completing an online survey, along with 30 participants taking part in a supporting qualitative online community panel exploring customers’ attitudes in more depth. Descriptive analysis showed that although participants’ loyalty reasons and bad provider experiences were predominantly determined by price, service quality was also an important factor. When choosing service providers, participants showed no preference between price and service, however slightly preferred price over reputation. Furthermore, significant correlations were found for the majority of provider switching attitudes and switching behaviours. Segmentation analysis identified four types of customers based on awareness of offers and convenience to switch: ‘Passive Loyals’, ‘Sceptical Loyals’, ‘Loyal Opportunity Switchers’ and ‘Conditioned Switchers’. A pattern was found amongst age groups – the older the participant, the more likely they preferred new customer deals over loyalty offers, were more interested in price over service quality and brand reputation, and had more expertise in the service industry. Due to the importance of customer retention (Berry, 1983), results implied brands should focus on loyalty rewards, along with gaining customers’ trust in their service quality and reliability.
Materials and procedure The online survey included both closed and open questions, thus a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods. Participants were asked a few demographic questions: their gender, age, employment status, type of residence, location, and how long they had been a UK resident. Those who had not been screened were quizzed on their switching and service provider behaviours and attitudes. The questions were repeated for each service type, depending on whether participants had confirmed to paying for, or making decisions on electricity, gas or car insurance, and whether they’re household energy was on a dual fuel package or organised separately. The questions that were repeated were a select few, which required separate data for each service type. These included inquiries into people’s prior switching behaviour, reasons for maintaining a relationship with their current provider, and any ‘bad’ experiences they had encountered with a service provider. This was then followed by general attitudinal scales concerned with loyalty and switching amongst service providers. The data was collected in Confirmit, a software used to create, monitor and analyse online surveys (http://www.confirmit.com/). The quantitative information was analysed in Reportal, Confirmit’s analysis feature. The qualitative answers were transferred into Microsoft Excel, and examined through the CIT (Flanagan, 1954). Stage 2: Method The second stage of the project involved segmenting participants into different groups, in order to identify different people’s needs and desires in regard to switching and loyalty, and how brands should consider different types of individuals in their marketing and advertising. First, segmentation dimensions were established, and every participants was assigned to a particular segmentation cluster. Secondly, the different segments were profiled to make each group as distinct as possible. Segmentation Identifying the segments was explorative, thus there were no set guidelines as to which dimensions to use. However, segmentation was based around the idea of switching and loyalty, and whether participants were able to be classed as different types of customers according to this. Attitudinal scales used in the online survey in stage 1 were either negatively or positively related to switching. Using k cluster means analysis on SPSS, the following variables were used as dimensions for the segmentation (along with the statements used in the online survey): Convenience of switching: I find that switching service providers is inconvenient Awareness of other deals: I’m not aware of offers available from other providers other than my current one The first variable determined how constrained individuals were from switching brands. This gave an idea of whether participants felt dedicated or constrained by service brands (constrained by brands: Stanley & Markman, 1992). If a person found switching convenient, they were not held by constraints to stay within the company, thus were more likely to remain with the provider due to their brand dedication. The second variable determined participants’ characteristics, whether they actively sought to evaluate other providers’ offers (awareness of other offers: Zeithaml, 1981). According to the research, if someone showed both awareness of other offers and convenience to switch, the individual felt they were more able to switch and were presumably more likely to switch. Both statements were answered on a 10 point scale in the online survey, thus when segmentation divisions were made according to these dimensions, the following cluster centres for each segment were identified: segments I find that switching service providers is inconvenient I’m not aware of offers available from other providers other than my current one 1 8 8 2 8 3 3 5 6 4 3 2 Table 4. Typical scores observed for each statement across the 4 segments identified Each participant who took part in the survey was assigned to one of the four segments according to their scores on the two dimensions. Whichever segment cluster centres were closest to their scores determined their segment group. The next phase of the segmentation process was profiling each group in order to make them as identifiable and different to the other groups as possible. This was carried out by comparing answers from the online survey by producing crosstabs across the four clusters. Once the variation of answers were cross tabbed, comparisons were able to be carried out. This gave an insight into how many people in a particular segment gave a certain answer to the questions. In order to find any significant differences from the overall mean, answers were indexed. Indexing Indexing was used to look at how over-represented or under-represented certain characteristics were for the four segments, relative to the base sample (1,977 participants). This was carried out by calculating an index score: Percentage incidence of the variable for the target group x 100 Percentage incidence of the variable for the base group The index score indicated whether the variables for the two groups were showing significant differences. Comparing them gave an idea of which variable was over indexing the most or least, giving a picture of what ‘ingredients’ may be making up the main differences between segments. Generally an index of less than 80 or greater than 120 was considered significantly statistically different. Supporting qualitative attitudes This was supported by a of the project involved an in-depth qualitative investigation, exploring participants’ attitudes on brand loyalty and switching, past experiences with household energy and car insurance providers, and attitudes on current loyalty and switching strategies. Participants were identified into 1 of the four segments and analysed through noting important themes and patterns of people’s attitudes in the data.
analogical transfer insight problem solving extra constraints developmental differences maximization of progress
Analogical problem solving involves transferring the method used to solve the base analog onto the target analog based on the structural similarity they share. Studies have found that Experts have no difficulty in solving domain specific analogical problems. While, novice problem solvers fail to solve such problems due to their difficulty in retrieving the base analog. Failure to recollect the correct base analog forces the problem solver to solve the problem in an act first think later manner. They use number of maximizing moves within the problem space to reach the goal state quickly. Use of such maximizing moves in solving analogical problems leads to an impasse, while alternative moves must be sought out. The current study tries to overcome the problem of retrieval of the correct base analog, by implementing an additional factor termed as extra constraint in solving analogical problem. These extra constraint acts in a manner which inhibit the problem solver from choosing problem moves that aim to maximizing their progress to reach the goal state which must essentially be avoided in analogical problem solving tasks. A secondary aim focuses on examining if there exists’ any difference between an adolescent problem solver and adult problem solver. Method: A total of 64 Participants within the age group of, 12-15 and 18-21 years were administered three problems (2 analogical and 1 non analogical). Results: Results demonstrate that the predictor variables (age or money) were not able to predict that participants from the older age category would perform better than the younger age group on any of the problems. Based on second aim, results showed that the older age group able to solve more problems successfully than the younger age group.
The test materials consisted of paper and pencil tasks (see appended booklet). Each Participant was provided with a booklet which consisted of a set of 5 problems, comprising three experimental tasks and two filler tasks. The first problem was the analogical source problem (sheep dog problem), followed by a filler task (anagram solution). The second problem was the transfer problem (9 ball problem), followed by a second filler task (algebra solution). The last problem was the non-analog problem (cheap necklace problem). There was space provided under each of the problems to allow the participant to work out the solution to each problem. Solutions to each of the problems were also given for the participants. Design and Procedure The study design comprised of a two between-subjects factors. The first factor is Age (12-15; 18-21 years). The second factor is Resource (£8 vs. £12). The dependent variable was the number of correct solutions. The aim of the research was to assess whether to two predictor variables, age and money would predict whether the participant would solve the problem correctly or incorrectly. As per the BPS rules, confidentiality and anonymity of participants were strictly maintained. The study was conducted in a classroom setting with 16 participants being administered the problems at a time. Each participant from each age group was first assigned to low or high resource conditions. 50 % of the participants from older and younger age group received low resource condition (8 pounds) and other 50% high resource condition (12 pounds). Participants received the booklet containing the 3 problems and 2 filler tasks. Each participant was given 5 minutes to attempt each problem. After five minutes, the solution to each problem is shown. The problems contained in the booklet are as follows: ¥ Source problem (killer dog) ¥ Filler task(anagrams) ¥ Transfer problem (ball problem- £8 or £12 versions); ¥ Filler task(algebra) ¥ Non-analogical problem (cheap necklace).