Achtziger, Anja
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Self-control mediates the link between gender and academic achievement in sex-stereotyped school subjects in elementary and in higher secondary schools
We tested whether self-control, previous grades, IQ, and gender can predict performance in German, English (as a foreign language), and in math after six months. These subjects are often considered as feminine (German, English) or masculine (math). Data was collected from the third and fourth grades (N = 299) in elementary schools and in fifth and sixth grades in higher secondary schools (N = 420). Self-control predicted grades in all subjects (but best in English) and in both types of school six months later, independent of previous grades and IQ. Previous grades strongly predicted performance in all subjects. Females were higher in self-control and earned better grades in feminine subjects than males. Self-control mediated the link between gender and grades in languages in females.
The neural basis of belief updating and rational decision making
Rational decision making under uncertainty requires forming beliefs that integrate prior and new information through Bayes’ rule. Human decision makers typically deviate from Bayesian updating by either overweighting the prior (conservatism) or overweighting new information (e.g. the representativeness heuristic). We investigated these deviations through measurements of electrocortical activity in the human brain during incentivized probability-updating tasks and found evidence of extremely early commitment to boundedly rational heuristics. Participants who overweight new information display a lower sensibility to conflict detection, captured by an event-related potential (the N2) observed around 260 ms after the presentation of new information. Conservative decision makers (who overweight prior probabilities) make up their mind before new information is presented, as indicated by the lateralized readiness potential in the brain. That is, they do not inhibit the processing of new information but rather immediately rely on the prior for making a decision.
Self-control mediates the link between perfectionism and stress
The relationship between perfectionism and stress is well-established. Recent research has focused on identifying the mediators of this link. Starting from a multidimensional perspective on perfectionism, we investigated the role of self-control and found it to be a mediator between perfectionism and stress in a sample of university freshmen. Further, perfectionistic concerns (i.e., discrepancy; Slaney et al. 2001) were positively correlated with stress, whereas perfectionistic strivings (i.e., high standards; Slaney et al. 2001) were negatively correlated with stress. Practical implications regarding overcoming maladaptive perfectionism are discussed.