Wittenberg University

About: Wittenberg University is a education organization based out in Springfield, Ohio, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Alkyl. The organization has 1795 authors who have published 1764 publications receiving 32098 citations. The organization is also known as: Wittenberg College.

Ecological and evolutionary processes at expanding range margins

Abstract: Many animals are regarded as relatively sedentary and specialized in marginal parts of their geographical distributions. They are expected to be slow at colonizing new habitats. Despite this, the cool margins of many species' distributions have expanded rapidly in association with recent climate warming. We examined four insect species that have expanded their geographical ranges in Britain over the past 20 years. Here we report that two butterfly species have increased the variety of habitat types that they can colonize, and that two bush cricket species show increased fractions of longer-winged (dispersive) individuals in recently founded populations. Both ecological and evolutionary processes are probably responsible for these changes. Increased habitat breadth and dispersal tendencies have resulted in about 3- to 15-fold increases in expansion rates, allowing these insects to cross habitat disjunctions that would have represented major or complete barriers to dispersal before the expansions started. The emergence of dispersive phenotypes will increase the speed at which species invade new environments, and probably underlies the responses of many species to both past and future climate change.

The Social Desirability Scale-17 (SDS-17): Convergent validity, discriminant validity, and relationship with age.

Abstract: Summary: Four studies are presented investigating the convergent validity, discriminant validity, and relationship with age of the Social Desirability Scale-17 (SDS-17). As to convergent validity, SDS-17 scores showed correlations between .52 and .85 with other measures of social desirability (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Lie Scale, Sets of Four Scale, Marlowe-Crowne Scale). Moreover, scores were highly sensitive to social-desirability-provoking instructions (job-application instruction). Finally, with respect to the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding, SDS-17 scores showed a unique correlation with impression management, but not with self-deception. As to discriminant validity, SDS-17 scores showed nonsignificant correlations with neuroticism, extraversion, psychoticism, and openness to experience, whereas there was some overlap with agreeableness and conscientiousness. With respect to relationship with age, the SDS-17 was administered in a sample stratified for age, with age ranging from 18 ...

Antisocial behavior, academic failure, and school climate: A critical review.

Abstract: Researchers have demonstrated a strong correlation between antisocial behavior and academic failure among students.Yet current educational programs designed to modify one or both of these patterns of conduct tend to be limited in at least two fundamental ways. First, they tend to treat conditions associated with academic achievement as separate from those associated with violent or other antisocial behavior. Second, they often focus narrowly on modifying selected cognitions or personality characteristics of the individual (e.g., changing attitudes and beliefs).Yet both antisocial behavior and academic failure are context specific; each occurs within a climate in which conditions can be identified that reasonably predict problematic behavior and can be modified to reduce such behavior.The success of prevention and intervention programs, therefore, hinges on their ability to identify and modify climates in which academic failure and antisocial behavior emerge. In this article we examine the role of school c...

Many Labs 2: Investigating Variation in Replicability Across Samples and Settings

Abstract: We conducted preregistered replications of 28 classic and contemporary published findings, with protocols that were peer reviewed in advance, to examine variation in effect magnitudes across samples and settings. Each protocol was administered to approximately half of 125 samples that comprised 15,305 participants from 36 countries and territories. Using the conventional criterion of statistical significance (p < .05), we found that 15 (54%) of the replications provided evidence of a statistically significant effect in the same direction as the original finding. With a strict significance criterion (p < .0001), 14 (50%) of the replications still provided such evidence, a reflection of the extremely high-powered design. Seven (25%) of the replications yielded effect sizes larger than the original ones, and 21 (75%) yielded effect sizes smaller than the original ones. The median comparable Cohen’s ds were 0.60 for the original findings and 0.15 for the replications. The effect sizes were small (< 0.20) in 16 of the replications (57%), and 9 effects (32%) were in the direction opposite the direction of the original effect. Across settings, the Q statistic indicated significant heterogeneity in 11 (39%) of the replication effects, and most of those were among the findings with the largest overall effect sizes; only 1 effect that was near zero in the aggregate showed significant heterogeneity according to this measure. Only 1 effect had a tau value greater than .20, an indication of moderate heterogeneity. Eight others had tau values near or slightly above .10, an indication of slight heterogeneity. Moderation tests indicated that very little heterogeneity was attributable to the order in which the tasks were performed or whether the tasks were administered in lab versus online. Exploratory comparisons revealed little heterogeneity between Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) cultures and less WEIRD cultures (i.e., cultures with relatively high and low WEIRDness scores, respectively). Cumulatively, variability in the observed effect sizes was attributable more to the effect being studied than to the sample or setting in which it was studied.

Relative importance of applicant sex, attractiveness, and scholastic standing in evaluation of job applicant resumes.

Abstract: College students (« = 30) and professional interviewers (n ~ 30) rated and ranked bogus resumes on suitability for a managerial position. Applicant sex, physical attractiveness, and scholastic standing were systematically varied in the resumes. A 2 X 2 X 2 X 3 repeated measures analysis of variance on the ratings yielded four significant main effects (p < .OS), while the same analysis on the rankings yielded three significant main effects (p<.Q\). Students rated applicants more favorably than professionals. Both groups preferred males to females, attractive applicants to unattractive applicants, and applicants of high scholastic standing. The latter variable accounted for the greatest proportion of variance. However, internal analyses of the rankings revealed sex and physical attractiveness were more important than indicated by the analysis of variance.