When Helping Hurts: Children Think Groups That Receive Help Are Less Smart

Helping has many positive consequences for both helpers and recipients. However, in the present research, we considered a possible downside to receiving help: that it signals a deficiency. We investigated whether young children make inferences about intelligence from observing some groups of people receive help and other groups not. In a novel group paradigm, we show that children (4–6 years) think groups that receive help are less smart (n = 44) but not less nice (n = 45). Children also generalized their inferences about relative intelligence to new group members (n = 55; forced-choice-method). These results have implications for understanding how children develop stereotypes about intelligence as well as for educational practices that group children according to their ability.     

Library Student Employee Expertise: Strategies for Maximizing Your Student Employee Contributions to the Library

The University of Baltimore Library was recently renovated. Part of the design in the newly renovated space was having one single service point, that we call the Information Desk. This desk serves as the public facing portal for what was previously three public facing service points to services by three separate departments, Academic Success, Access Services and Reference & Instruction.

This article describes in depth how our Information Desk Leadership Team encouraged and used our library student employees’ expertise and knowledge in the formation of policy and procedure manual, training documents, reference tools and resume lines for use at a single service point.     

Engaging White parents to address their White children's racial biases in the Black-White context

Multiple studies (n = 1065 parents, 625 females, 437 males, 3 nonbinary, 99.06% White; n = 80, 5 to 7-year-old children, 35 girls, 45 boys, 87.50% White; data collection September 2017–January 2021) investigated White U.S. parents' thinking about White children's Black-White racial biases. In Studies 1–3, parents reported that their own and other children would not express racial biases. When predicting children's social preferences for Black and White children (Study 2), parents underestimated their own and other children's racial biases. Reading an article about the nature, prevalence, and consequences of White children's racial biases (Study 3) increased parents' awareness of, concern about, and motivation to address children's biases (relative to a control condition). The findings have implications for engaging White parents to address their children's racial biases.     

Children's Judgments About Prosocial Decisions and Emotions: Gender of the Helper and Recipient Matters

Children ages 5–13 years (N = 82) responded to prosocial and prohibitive moral dilemmas featuring characters whose desires conflicted with another person's need for help or ownership rights. The gender of the characters matched for half the trials (in‐group version) and mismatched for the other half (out‐group version). Both boys and girls judged that people would more likely help and not harm the gender in‐group versus out‐group. Only girls exhibited gender bias in emotion attributions, expecting girls to feel happier helping girls and better ignoring the needs of boys. With increasing age, children exhibited greater awareness of the emotional benefits of prosocial sacrifice and made stronger distinctions by need level when evaluating prosocial decisions, obligations, and permissibility.     

Motivation Terminology in Reading Research: A Conceptual Review

Despite the importance of motivation in understanding the development and practices of reading, problems persist in how motivation-related constructs are defined and investigated. This article reports a concept analysis of how 12 terms have been used in current reading research. Selection criteria resulted in the identification of 92 data-based articles published in 28 peer-reviewed journals from 2003 to 2013. Over the period examined, there was a steady increase in the number of studies reported. Most were conducted in North America and Europe. Only 17 % of the studies offered explicit definitions of the target constructs they examined. Another 64 % relied on various forms of implicit definitions, and 19 % provided no definitions of any kind. Usage problems frequently occurred as well. These included instances of vague associations among terms, occurring in 20 % of the studies, synonymous reference to distinctly different constructs in 32 %, and inaccurate statements made about constructs in 20 %. Although a variety of motivation theories were used to ground the investigations, some 22 % were essentially atheoretical. These difficulties were unrelated to the impact factor of the journals in which they appeared. Possible causes are discussed, together with suggestions for improvement.     

Analysis of the 5 iron golf swing when hitting for maximum distance

Most previous research on golf swing mechanics has focused on the driver club. The aim of this study was to identify the kinematic factors that contribute to greater hitting distance when using the 5 iron club. Three-dimensional marker coordinate data were collected (250 Hz) to calculate joint kinematics at eight key swing events, while a swing analyser measured club swing and ball launch characteristics. Thirty male participants were assigned to one of two groups, based on their ball launch speed (high: 52.9 ± 2.1 m · s(-1); low: 39.9 ± 5.2 m · s(-1)). Statistical analyses were used to identify variables that differed significantly between the two groups. Results showed significant differences were evident between the two groups for club face impact point and a number of joint angles and angular velocities, with greater shoulder flexion and less left shoulder internal rotation in the backswing, greater extension angular velocity in both shoulders at early downswing, greater left shoulder adduction angular velocity at ball contact, greater hip joint movement and X Factor angle during the downswing, and greater left elbow extension early in the downswing appearing to contribute to greater hitting distance with the 5 iron club.     

Books on Lotion Pictures

L. Bernard Happe's Basic Lotion Picture Technology (Hastings House, $10.30)

Thomas Fensch's Films on the Campus (A.S. Barnes, $15.00)

Linda B. Greensfelder, The American Film Institute's Guide to College Film Courses: 1970-71 (American Library Association, 50 'East Huron St., Chicago, Ill. 60611, $2.50 paperback)

Neil P. Hurley's Theology Through Film (Harper & Row, $5.95)

Lex Reed's Big Screen, Little Screen (MacMillan, $7.95)

The New York TimesFilm Reviews: 1913-1968 (Library and Information Services Division, New York Times, 229 West 43rd St., New York, N.Y. 10036, $395 for set of six volume)