Learning to be prejudiced: A test of unidirectional and bidirectional models of parent–offspring socialization

According to Allport's (1954) model of socialization of prejudice the level of prejudice of parents and their offspring should co-vary due to the offspring's adaptation to the parents’ attitudes. Available empirical studies and literature reviews support Allport's assumption. Modern models of socialization give reason to extend Allport's unidirectional influence model to a bidirectional perspective which assumes that parents influence their offspring's attitudes and are simultaneously influenced by them. In a cross-sectional study, 408 parent–offspring dyads (64% female parents, 55% female offspring, mean age of children = 16.47 years, SD 1.87, parents = 42.08 years, SD 7.08) from the ethnic majority population in Costa Rica were asked about their prejudice towards immigrants and ethnic minorities in Costa Rica. Using structural equation modelling, unidirectional and bidirectional models of prejudice determination were tested. The data clearly support the unidirectional model of prejudice transmission from parents to offspring, even if moderator effects of sex, age, and importance of contact are taken into account.     

Keep calm and carry on: moral panic,predatory publishers,peer review,and the emperor's new clothes

The moral panic over the impact of so-called predatory publishers continues unabated. It is important, however, to resist the urge to simply join in this crusade without pausing to examine the assumptions upon which such concerns are based. It is often assumed that established journals are almost sacrosanct, and that their quality, secured by peer review, is established. It is also routinely presumed that such journals are immune to the lure of easy money in return for publication. Rather than looking at the deficits that may be apparent in the practices and products of predatory publishers, this commentary invites you to explore the weaknesses that have been exposed in traditional academic journals but are seldom discussed in the context of predatory publishing. The inherent message for health and medical services staff, researchers, academics, and students is, as always, to critically evaluate all sources of information, whatever their provenance.     

Measurement and analysis of soil nitrogen and organic matter content using near-infrared spectroscopy techniques

Near infrared reflectance （N1R） spectroscopy is as a rapid, convenient and simple nondestructive technique useful for quantifying several soil properties. This method was used to estimate nitrogen （N） and organic matter （OM） content in a soil of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou County. A total of 125 soil samples were taken from the field. Ninety-five samples spectra were used during the calibration and cross validation stage. Thirty samples spectra were used to predict N and OM concentration. NIR spectra of these samples were correlated using partial least square regression. The regression coefficients between measured and predicted values of N and OM was 0.92 and 0.93, and SEP （standard error of prediction） were 3.28 and 0.06, respectively, which showed that NIR method had potential to accurately predict these constituents in this soil. The results showed that NIR spectroscopy could be a good tool for precision farming application.     

Impact in the school system of a strategy for identifying and selecting academically talented students: the experience of Program PENTA‐UC

The study explores the consequences, for participating schools, of the implementation of a system for the identification and selection of academically talented students, in the context of an extracurricular enrichment program operating at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. The participants were 73 students, 50 teachers, and seven members of the school administration, in seven schools. Data were collected through interviews and focus groups. The results indicated that the identification and selection processes have mostly positive effects on teachers and students. Some potentially negative effects were also detected for the classmates of the talented students, which relate mainly to the manner in which information was handled. Possible implications of these findings for this program for talented children and other similar programs are discussed.     

The Impact of an Erasmus Placement in Students’ Perception of their Intercultural Communicative Competence

Pre- and post-questionnaires answered by UK Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and Spain’s University of Salamanca (USAL) students on their placement abroad support a comparative analysis of its impact on their intercultural communicative competence, comprising the awareness, attitude, skills and knowledge dimensions. NTU students started their placements with better results in them all. Yet, while both groups completed their stay with a similarly increased awareness, the knowledge and skills of the USAL group matched the results of NTU students and, whereas the scores of the attitude dimension towards the host country of NTU students did not increase significantly, those of USAL students decreased.     

Effects of a motivational climate inntervention for coaches on young athletes' sport performance anxiety

The mastery approach to coaching is a cognitive-behavioral intervention designed to promote a mastery-involving motivational climate, shown in previous research to be related to lower anxiety in athletes. We tested the effects of this intervention on motivational climate and on changes in male and female athletes'cognitive and somatic performance anxiety over the course of a basketball season. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses revealed that the athletes in the intervention condition perceived their coaches as being more mastery-involving on the Motivational Climate Scale for Youth Sports when compared to athletes in an untreated control condition. Relative to athletes who played for untrained coaches, those who played for the trained coaches exhibited decreases on all subscales of the Sport Anxiety Scale-2 and on total anxiety score from preseason to late season. Control group athletes reported increases in anxiety over the season. The intervention had equally positive effects on boys and girls teams.     

Helsen, Gilis and Weston (2006) err in testing the optical error hypothesis

In this commentary, we react to the recent study by Helsen, Gilis and Weston (2006) on judging offside in football. Helsen et al. claim that their data falsify the optical error hypothesis presented by Oudejans et al. (2000). However, as we will elucidate here, they misinterpret this hypothesis and present a data set that is seriously flawed, and hence not suited to test it. Therefore, their conclusions regarding the optical error hypothesis are in error.