The Influence of the Gender Asterisk ("Gendersternchen") on Comprehensibility and Interest.

Recently, the gender asterisk ("Gendersternchen") has become more widespread in grammatical gender languages in order to represent all genders. Such gender-fair language is intended to help better address women and other genders and make their interests and achievements more visible. Critics often argue this would make the language less comprehensible and less aesthetically appealing. Two experiments examined the effects of the gender asterisk on text comprehensibility, aesthetic perception, and interest. N = 159 and N = 127 participants were randomly provided with a text in either masculine-only form or alternatively in gender-fair language with the gender asterisk. The results of the first experiment showed no impairment of comprehensibility and aesthetic evaluation of the texts by the gender asterisk and no effect on interest in the game, while the second experiment showed significant impairments of comprehensibility, aesthetic evaluation, and interest in the game by the gender asterisk. The proportion of singular forms is discussed as a possible explanation for the different results. Experiment 1 predominantly used plural forms like die Spieler*innen (∼"the fe*male players") and did not include forms such as der*die Spieler*in (∼"the*the fe*male player"), whereas Experiment 2 included many such more complex singular forms. We argue that this issue might be crucial, and that it deserves full attention in future studies.

Teaching Happiness to Teachers - Development and Evaluation of a Training in Subjective Well-Being.

Teachers' health is a persistent challenge for educational systems all over the world. Moreover, research results - especially in the domain of positive psychology - indicate that high levels of well-being are associated with additional benefits improving teachers' professional performance. Therefore, a training to foster subjective well-being with one training day, two booster sessions, and exercises before, during, and after the meetings was developed. It consisted of about 10 h of face-to-face time and about 3 h for the exercises in total over a 5-week training period. Main contents were conditions and consequences of positive and negative emotions and well-being, emotion regulation, time management, savoring and gratitude and the application of positive psychological interventions (like Three Good Things). Analyses of planned contrasts by means of a waiting control group design with three measurement points (pre, post, and follow-up) showed a significantly higher increase for the training group (n = 42) than for the control group (n = 47) in the frequency of positive emotions, life satisfaction, and flourishing (interaction effects d = 0.44, d = 0.31, and d = 0.32) and a significantly stronger decrease in the frequency of negative emotions, perceived stress, and experiencing emotional exhaustion (interaction effects d = 0.69, d = 0.51, and d = 0.47) from pre to 1-month follow-up. Training effects were also visible up to 5 months, although no control group could be realized for this period due to the field approach.

Measuring the frequency of emotions-validation of the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE) in Germany.

The Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE) measures the frequency of positive and negative affect. It consists of two subscales, one for positive and one for negative affect with six adjectives each and assesses a broad range of emotions. In this study, the psychometric properties of the German version of the scale were explored with reliability and confirmatory factorial analysis by using a German sample of N = 498. To examine the convergent validity of the SPANE we correlated its subscales with other well-being and happiness measures. Retest-reliabilities were tested after four weeks, taking into account the occurrence of emotionally significant life events. The scale was also applied to evaluate a training of subjective well-being and in a study on text comprehensibility. The results confirmed the postulated two-factor structure of the SPANE and showed good psychometric properties and convergent validity. In conclusion, the German version of the scale behaves in accordance with the original scale and may be used in future studies of well-being.

A Multilab Preregistered Replication of the Ego-Depletion Effect.

Good self-control has been linked to adaptive outcomes such as better health, cohesive personal relationships, success in the workplace and at school, and less susceptibility to crime and addictions. In contrast, self-control failure is linked to maladaptive outcomes. Understanding the mechanisms by which self-control predicts behavior may assist in promoting better regulation and outcomes. A popular approach to understanding self-control is the strength or resource depletion model. Self-control is conceptualized as a limited resource that becomes depleted after a period of exertion resulting in self-control failure. The model has typically been tested using a sequential-task experimental paradigm, in which people completing an initial self-control task have reduced self-control capacity and poorer performance on a subsequent task, a state known as ego depletion Although a meta-analysis of ego-depletion experiments found a medium-sized effect, subsequent meta-analyses have questioned the size and existence of the effect and identified instances of possible bias. The analyses served as a catalyst for the current Registered Replication Report of the ego-depletion effect. Multiple laboratories (k = 23, total N = 2,141) conducted replications of a standardized ego-depletion protocol based on a sequential-task paradigm by Sripada et al. Meta-analysis of the studies revealed that the size of the ego-depletion effect was small with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) that encompassed zero (d = 0.04, 95% CI [-0.07, 0.15]. We discuss implications of the findings for the ego-depletion effect and the resource depletion model of self-control.

Distraction during learning with hypermedia: difficult tasks help to keep task goals on track.

In educational hypermedia environments, students are often confronted with potential sources of distraction arising from additional information that, albeit interesting, is unrelated to their current task goal. The paper investigates the conditions under which distraction occurs and hampers performance. Based on theories of volitional action control it was hypothesized that interesting information, especially if related to a pending goal, would interfere with task performance only when working on easy, but not on difficult tasks. In Experiment 1, 66 students learned about probability theory using worked examples and solved corresponding test problems, whose task difficulty was manipulated. As a second factor, the presence of interesting information unrelated to the primary task was varied. Results showed that students solved more easy than difficult probability problems correctly. However, the presence of interesting, but task-irrelevant information did not interfere with performance. In Experiment 2, 68 students again engaged in example-based learning and problem solving in the presence of task-irrelevant information. Problem-solving difficulty was varied as a first factor. Additionally, the presence of a pending goal related to the task-irrelevant information was manipulated. As expected, problem-solving performance declined when a pending goal was present during working on easy problems, whereas no interference was observed for difficult problems. Moreover, the presence of a pending goal reduced the time on task-relevant information and increased the time on task-irrelevant information while working on easy tasks. However, as revealed by mediation analyses these changes in overt information processing behavior did not explain the decline in problem-solving performance. As an alternative explanation it is suggested that goal conflicts resulting from pending goals claim cognitive resources, which are then no longer available for learning and problem solving.