SAGE Journal Articles

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Shook, N. J., & Fazio, R. H. (2008). Interracial roommate relationships: An experimental field test of the contact hypothesis. Psychological Science, 19, 717-723. 

This study investigated how automatically activated racial attitudes are affected by relatively long-term interracial relationships. A natural field experiment was conducted in a college dormitory system. Participants were White freshmen who had been randomly assigned to either a White or an African American roommate. Students participated in two sessions during the first 2 and last 2 weeks of their first quarter on campus. During these sessions, they answered questions about their satisfaction and involvement with their roommates and completed an inventory of intergroup anxiety and an implicit measure of racial attitudes. Participants in interracial rooms reported less satisfaction and less involvement with their roommates than did participants in same-race rooms. However, automatically activated racial attitudes and intergroup anxiety improved over time among students in interracial rooms, but not among students in same-race rooms. Thus, the results suggest that interracial roommate relationships, although generally less satisfying and involving than same-race roommate relationships, do produce benefits.

Kirsch, S. J., Mounts, J. R. W., & Olczak, P. V. (2006). Violent media consumption and the recognition of dynamic facial expressions. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 21, 571-584.  

This study assessed the speed of recognition of facial emotional expressions (happy and angry) as a function of violent media consumption. Color photos of calm facial expressions morphed to either an angry or a happy facial expression. Participants were asked to make a speeded identification of the emotion (happiness or anger) during the morph. Results indicated that, independent of trait aggressiveness, participants high in violent media consumption responded slower to depictions of happiness and faster to depictions of anger than participants low in violent media consumption. Implications of these findings are discussed with respect to current models of aggressive behavior.

Graves Jr., S. L., Blake, J., & Sook Kim, E. (2012). Differences in parent and teacher ratings of preschool problem behavior in a national sample: The significance of gender and SES. Journal of Early Intervention, 34, 151-165.  

Previous research has demonstrated that informant disagreement is common with the use of rating scales to assess problem behavior in school-age populations. However, much less is known about this phenomenon in preschool populations. This is important because the accurate assessment of problem behavior in preschool is complex due to the rapid developmental shifts during this period. As such, the purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of students at risk of behavior problems and to see whether these problems varied as a function of informant and ecological characteristics. Using the Behavior Assessment System for Children–Second Edition, we analyzed parent and teacher ratings for 320 preschool children. Results indicated that parent and teacher ratings were very similar, with males being rated as more at risk of having attention problems and social skill deficits in comparison with females. No differences were noted in at-risk status by ethnic group membership. Conversely, significant and consistent parent and teacher ratings were noted by socioeconomic status (e.g., parent education level). Implications are discussed for the prevention of problem behavior in preschool.