Children’s Appraisals of Gender Nonconformity: Developmental Pattern and Intervention

Gender-nonconforming (GN) children are often perceived less positively, which may harm their well-being. We examined the development of such perceptions and an intervention to modify them. Chinese children’s appraisals were assessed using multiple measures (verbal responses, sharing, and rank order task) after viewing vignettes of gender-conforming (GC) and GN hypothetical peers. In Study 1, children (N = 210; 4-, 5-, 8-, and 9-year-olds) were less positive toward GN than GC peers, especially if they were older or if the peers were boys. In Study 2 (N = 211, 8- and 9-year-olds), showing children exemplars of GN peers who displayed positive and GC characteristics subsequently reduced bias against gender nonconformity. These findings inform strategies aimed at reducing bias against gender nonconformity.     

Development and validation of a method to directly measure the cable force during the hammer throw

The development of cable force during hammer-throw turns is crucial to the throw distance. In this paper, we present a method that is capable of measuring cable force in real time and, as it does not interfere with technique, it is capable of providing immediate feedback to coaches and athletes during training. A strain gauge was mounted on the wires of three hammers to measure the tension in the wire and an elite male hammer thrower executed three throws with each hammer. The output from the gauges was recorded by a data logger positioned on the lower back of the thrower. The throws were captured by three high-speed video cameras and the three-dimensional position of the hammer's head was determined by digitizing the images manually. The five best throws were analysed. The force acting on the hammer's head was calculated from Newton's second law of motion and this was compared with the force measured via the strain gauge. Qualitatively the time dependence of the two forces was essentially the same, although the measured force showed more detail in the troughs of the force-time curves. Quantitatively the average difference between the measured and calculated forces over the five throws was 76 N, which corresponds to a difference of 3.8% for a cable force of 2000 N.