Dialect and authography: some differences between American and British spellers

Two experiments examined whether American and British university students make different kinds of spelling errors as a function of the differences between their dialects. The American students spoke a rhotic dialect, pronouncing an /r/ in such words as leper, hermit, horde, and gnarl. The British students, with their nonrhotic dialect, did not include an /r/ in such words. The dialect differences led to different spelling errors in the 2 groups. For example, the British students sometimes misspelled horde as "haud" because its vowel has the alternative spelling au in their dialect. They sometimes spelled polka as "polker" because its final vowel is often spelled as er in other words. The U.S. students were much less likely to make such errors, although they did make other errors that reflected aspects of their dialect. Phonology, far from being superseded by other strategies in the development of spelling, continues to be important for adults.     

Accent modulates access to word meaning: Evidence for a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition

Speech carries accent information relevant to determining the speaker’s linguistic and social background. A series of web-based experiments demonstrate that accent cues can modulate access to word meaning. In Experiments 1–3, British participants were more likely to retrieve the American dominant meaning (e.g., hat meaning of “bonnet”) in a word association task if they heard the words in an American than a British accent. In addition, results from a speeded semantic decision task (Experiment 4) and sentence comprehension task (Experiment 5) confirm that accent modulates on-line meaning retrieval such that comprehension of ambiguous words is easier when the relevant word meaning is dominant in the speaker’s dialect. Critically, neutral-accent speech items, created by morphing British- and American-accented recordings, were interpreted in a similar way to accented words when embedded in a context of accented words (Experiment 2). This finding indicates that listeners do not use accent to guide meaning retrieval on a word-by-word basis; instead they use accent information to determine the dialectic identity of a speaker and then use their experience of that dialect to guide meaning access for all words spoken by that person. These results motivate a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition in which comprehenders determine key characteristics of their interlocutor and use this knowledge to guide word meaning access.     

Body Size Beliefs and Weight Concerns Among Mothers and Their Adolescent Children

African American and White mother/adolescent pairs were examined for familial associations in body size and weight concerns. Mothers' and adolescents' estimates of adolescents' body mass index (BMI) were significantly correlated. Compared to boys, girls had greater body dissatisfaction, higher weight concerns, and perceived higher family/friend weight concerns. By race, White adolescents had more body dissatisfaction and greater concern about weight than African American adolescents. Four items explained 70.4% of the variance in adolescents' weight concern scores: adolescents' weight management practices, mothers' reports of adolescents' saying they were too fat, adolescents' perceptions of family/friends' weight concerns, and adolescents' body dissatisfaction. Our study suggests White girls are more concerned about their weight and perceive greater weight and dieting concerns among family/friends than African American girls.     

Show and prove: investigating differences in the self-beliefs of Black and White honor students

While there is great deal of research that tracks self-regulatory academic beliefs and behaviors of students, relatively few efforts examine the specific self-beliefs of high achieving African American students. This study compared the intelligence-related beliefs, efficacy beliefs and academic goal orientations of 257 African American (N = 196) and White (N = 61) sophomore and senior students from among honors-level language arts classes in three large midwestern high schools. The results of this study suggest that while African American students and their White peers do not significantly differ with respect to efficacy beliefs or goal orientation, African American students expressed more strongly-held beliefs that were consistent with an entity view of intelligence than did White students. The implications of these results are discussed, as well as a practical means of application for academic settings.     

Effects of Morphology on Children's Spelling of Final Consonant Clusters

Most research on children's spelling has emphasized the role of phonological or sound-based processes. We asked whether morphology plays a part in early spelling by examining how children write words with final consonant clusters. In three experiments, children made different patterns of omission errors on the last two consonants of words such astunedandbars,in which the consonants belong to different morphemes, and words such asbrandandMars,in which the consonants belong to the same morpheme. These differences emerged even among children reading at the first-grade level. Effects of morphology appeared whether children spelled single words to dictation (Experiments 1 and 3), finished partially completed spellings (Experiment 2), or wrote sentences containing specified words (Experiment 3). Children did not use morphological relations among words as much as they could have, given their knowledge of the stems, but they did use them to some extent. Although phonology plays an important role in early spelling, young children can also use other sources of information, including certain morphological relationships among words.     

Perfectionism and Depression Among Low-Income Chronically Ill African American and White Adolescents and Their Maternal Parent

Most research on perfectionism is based on convenience samples of university students or clinically distressed samples, and therefore relatively less is known about the development and implications of perfectionism for other groups. In this study, we examined perfectionism and depression in low-income African American (n = 39) and White (n = 55) adolescents with chronic illnesses (most with diabetes, asthma, and/or hypertension) and their primary parents. We specifically examined the association between parent and child perfectionism, and the link between perfectionism and depression in both groups. The African American adolescents reported significantly more maladaptive perfectionism than did the White adolescents, and the African American parents reported significantly higher scores on depression than did the White parents. Correlations and regression analyses revealed similarities and differences in perfectionism-depression associations that might be explained in light of cultural differences and the unique physical and emotional challenges faced by youth with chronic illnesses. The word “parent” in this study is used to represent a parent or other adult who was identified as a primary caregiver for the adolescent.     

Effects of exposure to alcohol‐related cues on racial discrimination

Prior research has shown that exposure to alcohol‐related images exacerbates expression of implicit racial biases, and that brief exposure to alcohol‐related words increases aggressive responses. However, the potential for alcohol cue exposure to elicit differential aggression against a Black (outgroup) relative to a White (ingroup) target—that is, racial discrimination—has never been investigated. Here, we found that White participants (N = 92) exposed to alcohol‐related words made harsher judgments of a Black experimenter who had frustrated them than participants who were exposed to nonalcohol words. These findings suggest that exposure to alcohol cues increases discriminatory behaviors toward Blacks.     

This turnip's not for turning: Children's morphological awareness and their use of root morphemes in spelling

We report on a study designed to examine children's understanding of (1) the connection between root morphemes and the spelling of inflected words and (2) the role of morphological awareness in this understanding. Seven‐ to 9‐year‐old children were given clues (e.g. turn) to the spelling of inflected and control words (e.g. turning and turnip). While the use of the clue was not specific to inflected words, spelling was better of the first segments (e.g. turn) of the inflected than of the control words. This difference suggests that children appreciate the role of root morphemes in spelling of inflected words. Further, it seems that morphological awareness is employed in the spelling of a wide range of words. These results are placed in context of current theories of spelling development.     

Talker adaptation in speech perception: adjusting the signal or the representations?

Past research has established that listeners can accommodate a wide range of talkers in understanding language. How this adjustment operates, however, is a matter of debate. Here, listeners were exposed to spoken words from a speaker of an American English dialect in which the vowel /ae/ is raised before /g/, but not before /k/. Results from two experiments showed that listeners' identification of /k/-final words like back (which are unaffected by the dialect) was facilitated by prior exposure to their dialect-affected /g/-final counterparts, e.g., bag. This facilitation occurred because the competition between interpretations, e.g., bag or back, while hearing the initial portion of the input [bae], was mitigated by the reduced probability for the input to correspond to bag as produced by this talker. Thus, adaptation to an accent is not just a matter of adjusting the speech signal as it is being heard; adaptation involves dynamic adjustment of the representations stored in the lexicon, according to the characteristics of the speaker or the context.     

African American and White Women’s Experience of Sexual Assault and Services for Sexual Assault

This article presents the results of a study assessing the needs and experiences of African American and White female survivors of sexual assault in the state of Maryland. Eight specific hypotheses regarding differences in the needs and experiences of African American as compared to White women receiving partial or no support through analyses of interview data drawn from 213 survivors (African American survivors, n = 133; White survivors, n = 80) were explored. No differences were reported in medical care received; however, in comparison to their White counterparts, African American women reported decreased use of sexual assault crisis centers and mental health services, and postassault help-seeking through use of sexual assault hotlines. Barriers and facilitators associated with treatment experiences differed by ethnicity. Findings are discussed in relation to future directions for research, and service and policy improvement for survivors of sexual assault.     

Ethnicity and gender in late childhood and early adolescence: group identity and awareness of bias

The current study examined awareness of gender and ethnic bias and gender and ethnic identity in 350 African American, White/European American, and Latino/Hispanic students (Mage = 11.21 years, SD = 1.59) from the 4th, 6th, and 8th grades of diverse middle and elementary schools. The study collected (a) qualitative data to best capture the types of bias that were most salient to children and (b) daily diaries and individual measures to examine the multiple components of children's gender and ethnic identities. Results revealed ethnic, gender, and grade-level differences in awareness of ethnic and gender bias. Overall, more children were aware of gender bias than ethnic bias. This effect was most pronounced among White/European American youths. Among those in 4th grade, African American and Latino youths were more likely to be aware of ethnic bias than were White/European American youths. Analyses also examined how awareness of bias was related to gender and ethnic identity. For example, children who had a salient and important gender identity, and a devalued ethnic identity, were less likely than other children to be aware of ethnic bias.     

Ethnic Consciousness and Its Relationship to Conservatism and Blame Among African Americans1

Ethnic consciousness is “a set of political beliefs and action orientations arising out of the awareness of similarity” (Gurin, Miller, & Gurin, 1980, p. 30). We suggest that these beliefs relate to political values and views among African Americans. Correlational data revealed that ethnic consciousness is negatively correlated with conservative values. Experimental data revealed that students high in ethnic consciousness blamed a White firm for the termination of an African American employee more than a Black firm for terminating a European American employee. Those low in ethnic consciousness did not discriminate between the Black firm versus the White firm. Consciousness may operate as a means of connecting ethnic identity and political views.     

Critical words and the locus of stuttering in speech

The locus of stuttering in the communicative speech of 26 stutterers was studied in situations where subjects received and conveyed specific information. It was hypothesized that a larger proportion of critical rather than noncritical words would be stuttered. Critical words were those which necessarily had to be pronounced if a listener should be able to understand and act according to the messages given. The critical words were selected by the experimenter before the experiment started. The results showed that 35.8% of the critical and 8.4% of the noncritical words were stuttered. There was also significantly more stuttering on critical words than on long noncritical words. The largest proportion of critical words appeared in the final position of sentences, which was also where most stuttering was located. Whole-word repetitions, an instance of normal nonfluency, were associated with noncritical words. No correlation between frequency of stuttering and whole-word repetitions was found.     

Beliefs About the Disconfirmability of Stereotypes: The Stereotype Disconfirmability Effect1

Two studies examined people's beliefs about the relative disconfirmability of out‐group and in‐group stereotypes. In Study 1 (n= 56), Hispanics and White non‐Hispanics judged the in‐group and out‐group stereotypes in terms of the ease with which they could be dis‐confirmed. The results indicated that strongly, ethnically identified participants believed the out‐group stereotype to be more difficult to disconfirm than the in‐group stereotype. The second study with 73 White participants examined their beliefs about the disconfirmability of the White and African American stereotypes. The results indicated that participants higher in prejudice believed the African American stereotype is more difficult to disconfirm than the White stereotype to a greater degree than participants lower in prejudice. The results suggest that disconfirmability beliefs comprise a distinct construct thai may contribute to the difficulty of changing out‐group stereotypes.     

Identifiability of vowels and speakers from whispered syllables

In the present experiments, the effect of whisper register on speech perception was measured. We assessed listeners' abilities to identify 10 vowels in [hVd] context pronounced by 3 male and 3 female speakers in normal and whisper registers. Results showed 82% average identification accuracy in whisper mode, approximately a 10% falloff in identification accuracy from normally phonated speech. In both modes, significant confusions of [o] for [a] occurred, with some additional significant confusions occurring in whisper mode among vowels adjacent in F1/F2 space. We also assessed listeners' abilities to match whispered syllables with normally phonated ones by the same speaker. Each trial contained the matching syllable and two foils whispered by speakers of the same sex as the speaker of the target. Identification performance was significantly better than chance across subjects, speakers, and vowels, with no listener achieving better than 96% performance. Acoustic analyses measured potential cues to speaker identity independent of register.     

Ego Development at the Crossroads: Identity and Intimacy Among Black Men and White Women in Cross-Racial Relationships

This study addressed the ego development of White women and Black men who were in cross-racial relationships. Twenty-one participants completed in-depth, individual interviews, focus group inquiries, and the Sentence Completion Test (SCT). The results indicate that a majority of the participants scored at the higher levels of ego development: 50% of the Black males and 67% of the White females were at the conscientious stage of ego development, 25% of the Black males and 22% of the White females were at the individuated stage. The results from the interviews and the focus groups substantiated the participants' scores on the SCT, exemplifying the complexity in which Black men and White women perceive themselves as individuals and others in relationships. Loevinger (1976, Ego development: Conceptions and theories. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.) contends that these higher stages represent a complex means of understanding oneself and of interacting in intimate relationships. The terms of African American heritage, African American, and Black are used synonymously and interchangeably, as are the terms of European American heritage, European American, and White.     

In Defense of a Disputed Study of Construct Validity from South Africa

This analysis of a critique finds that the original study accurately showed that the items found easy or difficult by Black South African undergraduates were those found easy or difficult by their White and South Asian counterparts (r's=.90). There was no evidence of any culture‐specific effect. Instead, African/non‐African differences were found to be most pronounced on g. This was shown by item‐total correlations (estimates of the item's g loading), which predicted the magnitude of African/non‐African differences on those same items, and by a confirmatory factor analysis. The tests were equally predictive for Blacks and non‐Blacks on external criteria such as course grades. The results indicate the remarkable cross‐cultural generalizability of item properties across sub‐Saharan Africans, South Asians, and Europeans and that these reflect g more than culturally specific ways of thinking.     

Racial Colorblindness and Confidence in and Likelihood of Action to Address Prejudice

In this study, we examined the association between racial colorblindness and inaction to address prejudice. Conceptualized as a type of legitimizing ideology that maintains societal inequality, we hypothesized that colorblindness would be associated with less confidence in and lower likelihood of engaging in action to address prejudice. Our study examined the role of affective variables in explaining the link between colorblindness and inaction, as well as explored potential racial group differences. We used multigroup structural equation modeling analysis to test for measurement and structural invariance of our hypothesized model across White, Asian American, and Underrepresented racial minority (i.e., African American, Latinx American, Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Native American, and Multiracial students from Underrepresented groups) college students. In Study 1 (n = 1,125), we found that greater colorblindness was indirectly associated with less confidence in action through affective variables (e.g., intergroup empathy, and positive and negative emotions during intergroup interactions). In Study 2 (n = 1,356), we found that greater colorblindness was indirectly related to less likelihood of action through intergroup empathy. In both studies, we demonstrated measurement and structural invariance across racial groups, indicating that our hypothesized model functioned similarly across White, Underrepresented, and Asian American students. Our findings have implications for future research and practice to challenge colorblindness and to promote engagement in actions to reduce prejudice.     

Diverging Paths: Understanding Racial Differences in Civic Engagement Among White,African American,and Latina/o Adolescents Using Structural Equation Modeling

There is increasing concern about the large civic engagement gap between Whites and Latina/o and African American youth. Some suggest this may be because traditional models and measures of civic engagement may not be as applicable for youth from historically marginalized groups. With an urban sample of middle and high school‐age youth (n = 903, 52% female), we used structural equation modeling to identify differences in civic pathways between youth from different racial/ethnic backgrounds. We found significant differences between groups including much stronger relationships between exposure to democratic practices and civic self‐efficacy and knowledge for African American and Latina/o youth than for White youth and a stronger relationship between civic knowledge and future civic engagement for Whites and Latina/os than for African Americans. These findings suggest that educators and researchers interested need to take into account the diversity of youths' racial experiences when examining youth civic development.