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The desire to change roommates served as a model of nonromantic relationship dissolution within 115 college roommate dyads. We measured personality, mental health, social/communication patterns, and academic achievement attitudes over the course of a semester, and we used multilevel modeling to estimate individual-level and relationship-level predictors of dissolution. Self-characteristics (e.g., one's own depression), roommate characteristics (e.g., roommate's poor communication), and relationship characteristics (e.g., similarity in attitudes toward competition) each increased desire to end the roommate relationship. In these data, unique contributions from one's own psychological health, one's own and one's roommate's social/communication style, and roommates' attitude similarity predicted relationship dissolution.

This study examined college students' cheating in a controlled laboratory setting in which a peer confederate invited participants to cheat on an academic test. Consistent with past findings, male students cheated more than female students. Moreover, predictors of cheating interacted with gender. For men, basing self-worth on competition and having performance-avoidance goals predicted more cheating, whereas basing self-worth on virtue predicted less cheating. For women, none of the contingencies and goals predicted cheating. In its utilization of a realistic, controlled laboratory setting, the study accounted for problems inherent in observational and self-report techniques.

Despite the increasing participation of women in the work force, they are still underrepresented in higher-level management positions. As a result, executive women may often be the only female in their work group. A solo woman executive within a group of men may, because of the phenomenon of perceptual distinctiveness, be subject to attributional distortion regarding her competence. Stereotypic assumptions about her may be further exaggerated depending on the level of her physical attractiveness. The present study examined the effects of gender, attractiveness, and group sex composition within a business setting. Subjects saw a male or a female executive in a brain-storming session with other executives who were either all male or all female. The target person was either low, moderate, or high in physical attractiveness. Effects of these variables on ratings of professional competence and social skills were assessed. Analyses revealed attractive targets were rated as more socially skilled but less compete...