ACHIEVEMENT VALUES,COGNITIVE STYLE AND SOCIAL CLASS

L'?uvre de McClelland et les recherches interculturelles rapportées par Witkin permettent de supposer que les aspirations à la réussite personnelle, d'une part, et le style cognitif, d'autre part, sont liés au niveau d'industrialisation. Dans cette étude, on a comparé les valeurs de réalisation de soi et le style cognitif d'étudiants américains et péruviens de même niveau social et de même origine urbaine. Les résultats ne soutiennent pas l'hypothèse de différence entre les deux échantillons et attirent l'attention sur la nécessité de contrôler, dans ce type de recherches, des variables telles que le niveau social, le degré d'instruction ou l'origine urbaine des sujets.     

SOCIAL CLASS PERCEPTION AND SOCIAL STATUS AMONG SWEDISH YOUTH

Social class perception (identification) was studied as a function of ‘objective’ status (socioeconomic level) and class (occupational class) using a sample of Swedish high school students. Confirming the two minor hypotheses, the results disclosed that class perception was affected by both the ‘objective’ class and status of the subject: the manual occupational class, and those with low socioeconomic status, had in general a higher proportion of working-class identification than the nonmanual class, and those with low socioeconomic status, respectively. However, the major hypothesis, an interaction hypothesis stating that manuals are not affected by status in their class perceptions, was not confirmed. The results are discussed in the context of social psychological theory and earlier empirical research.     

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING RACE, CLASS, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY

Since the mid-1980s, scholarship and college courses that address multiple dimensions of inequality under the rubric of race, class, gender, and (recently) sexuality studies have grown rapidly. Most courses now employ a set of readings, many of which are drawn from a growing number of anthologies. A strength of this approach is its presentation of the diversity of human experiences and the multiplicity of critical perspectives. A weakness is its failure to convey the commonalities in race, class, gender, and sexuality analyses of social reality. To aid in teaching and research on race, class, gender, and sexuality, this article presents six common themes that characterize this scholarship. Race, class, gender, and sexuality are historically and globally specific, socially constructed power relations that simultaneously operate at both the macro (societal) and micro (individual) levels of society. Scholarship in this tradition emphasizes the interdependence of knowledge and activism.     

POWER, SOCIAL CHANGE, AND THE PROCESS OF FEMINIST RESEARCH

The dismantling of a male-dominated power-over social structure and its manifestations in human activities and relationships lies at the center of feminist thought. For many feminist psychologists, this has meant challenging the privileged, all-knowing, objective position of the researcher; viewing the naive subject of study as a participant in the process of creating knowledge; and using research methods aimed at transforming an oppressive culture (Burman, 1992; Crawford & Marecek, 1989; Hollway, 1989). These goals are at the center of the Community Education Team's (this issue) article: Fostering Relationality When Implementing and Evaluating a Collective Drama Approach to Preventing Violence Against Women. The authors use the concept of relationality to describe the process of developing interdependence and an egalitarian, democratic research relationship among those involved in the study. Although sharing power is a goal of feminist research and pedagogy, detailed accounts of the process of incorporating feminist ideas regarding power relations in U.S. psychological research are rare. The Community Education Team reminds us that those ideas most central to feminist thought—power, process, and social change—are often the very ideas that still elude U.S. feminist psychological research.     

SOCIAL INFORMATION AND EMPLOYEE ANXIETY ABOUT ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

Studies of job attitudes have traditionally been conducted on the correspondence between individual needs and objective job characteristics. A recently developed theory, however, suggests that job attitudes may be a function of social information received (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978). This investigation used social information processing theory as the basis for a study of antecedents to employee anxiety about a move to an open office environment. The structural equation model developed from social information processing theory proved to be a good fit to the data, and a revised version of the model provided an even belter accounting for the variance in the data. Anxiety about organizational change was determined by social information, individual needs, and job characteristics, with need for privacy having the largest impact on anxiety. The model is discussed in terms of its support for information processing theory, its individual significant linkages, and the implications for need satisfaction models of job attitudes and other research on outcomes in organizations.     

CONSIDERING THE SOCIAL CONTEXT IN GENDER RESEARCH

Although a large body of research has investigated the possibility of motivational or attitudinal differences in women and men that would explain observable differences in levels of achievement, much of this research has failed to produce the expected results. It is proposed that the failure of researchers to consider the personal and contextual characteristics of their college student samples may have contributed to this lack of results. Some of the relevant variables include those provided by the (lack of) context of the typical laboratory experiment. Other context cues emerge from an analysis of the life stage of the typical research study participant. Predictions about achievement differences across the early adult years are outlined. This same life stage analysis is also briefly applied to other areas of gender research.     

THE INFLUENCE OF AGE AND SOCIAL CLASS ON AUTHORITARIAN FAMILY IDEOLOGY

The Authoritarian Family Ideology Scale (AFI,,) was administered to four hundred and thirty eight mothers towards the end of their confinement. Raw scores were analyzed by means of multiple linear regression. Chrono- logical age and social class scores were found to give substantial accounts of criterion variance. AFI,, scores tended to drop as age and social class rose. Interaction and curvilinearity did not increase R2 values to a substantial degree.     

GENDER, JEALOUSY, AND REASON

Abstract— Research has suggested that men are especially bothered by evidence of their partner's sexual infidelity, whereas women are troubled more by evidence of emotional infidelity. One evolutionary account (Buss, Larsen, Westen, & Semmelroth, 1992) argues that this is an innate difference, arising from men's need for paternity certainty and women's need for male investment in their offspring. We suggest that the difference may instead be based on reasonable differences between the sexes in how they interpret evidence of infidelity. A man, thinking that women have sex only when in love, has reason to believe that if his mate has sex with another man, she is in love with that other. A woman, thinking that men can have sex without love, should still be bothered by sexual infidelity, but less so because it does not imply that her mate has fallen in love as well. A survey of 137 subjects confirmed that men and women do differ in the predicted direction in how much they think each form of infidelity implies the other, proposing innate emotional differences may, therefore, be gratuitous.     

PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH ON SOCIAL CHANGE

L'étude psychologique des changements sociaux. ‘Problémes scientifiques et éthiques. — Les recherches psycho-sociologiques peuvent aider à comprendre comment faciliter des changements sociaux constructifs. Pour des raisons à la fois scientifiques et sociales, L'étude du changement social présente un intérêt commun pour les psychologues des pays avancés et de ceux qui le sont moins. De plus, elle requiert, pour être efficace, un haut degré de coopération internationale. s'engager dans de telles études soulève des problèmes fondamentaux tant du point de vue scientifique que du point de vue moral. Les problèmes scientifiques sont relatifs aux implications de telles recherches pour le développement de la discipline et le maintien de L'objectivité scientifique: les études du changement social dans les pays en voie de développement peuvent réellement contribuer, et d'une manière irremplaçable, aux progrès de la psychologie sociale; L'objectivité scientifique dépend, non de L'absence de valeurs préférentielles, mais de la manière dont le chercheur tient compte de ces valeurs. Les problèmes éthiques concernent essentiellement les relations du chercheur qui vient d'une société industrielle pour faire des études dans un pays en voie de développement, avec les membres de la société d'accueil, et particulièrement, avec ses collègues locaux. Quels sont les problèmes moraux qui risquent de se poser? Imposer des valeurs étrangères, envahir des domaines privés, utiliser la recherche à des fins d'espionnage et d'intervention, exploiter le pays d'accueil, détourner à son profit les chercheurs locaux de valeur. Il est essentiel que s'établissent des relations fondées sur la participation et la réciprocité, pour que les recherches interculturelles soient conduites de façon morale et pour que se développe une mutuelle confiance.     

THE MIDDLE AGES: CHANGE IN WOMEN'S PERSONALITIES AND SOCIAL ROLES

It has been argued that the predominant focus of midlife personality development is generativity; other research has found that social roles influence both its onset and its expression. In this article, we examine women's midlife personality development and its relationship to career and family commitments. Results for a sample of 90 women indicated that commitment to particular social projects in early midlife was associated with different patterns of identity, intimacy, and generativity levels at age 62. In addition, women who added social projects to existing projects during adulthood expressed similar levels of identity, intimacy, and generativity at age 62 as women whose social project commitments had stayed the same. For smaller subsamples of women in the study, longitudinal analyses assessed changes in personality development within middle age as well as the relationship between personality and the maintenance or addition of social projects. These results highlight important variation among women who followed different adult life paths.     

INTERPRETING COPING STYLES ACROSS NATIONS FROM SEX AND SOCIAL CLASS DIFFERENCES1

Un questionnaire qui mesure l'orientation active ou passive dans l'aptitude à faire face à une situation a été appliqué à 3200 enfants de quatorze ans appartenant aux septs pays suivants: Japon, Italie, Mexique, Brésil, Yougoslavie, Angleterre, U.S.A. (2 échantillons: Austin et Chicago). Les résultats sont étudiés et interprétés en fonction des variables de sexe, de classe sociale et de groupe national. Ils sont également mis en relation avec un index de développement économique.     

A LABORATORY INVESTIGATION OF SOCIAL CLASS AND NATIONAL DIFFERENCES IN HELPING BEHAVIOR

Etude au laboratoire des différences dans le comportement d'entraide selon la nationalité et la classe sociale. —Le même plan d'expérience a été réalisé à Madison (Wisconsin) et à Oxford (Angleterre) pour déterminer si les adolescents appartenant à différentes classes sociales obéissent aux mêmes principes dans l'aide qu'ils apportent aux camarades qui dépendent d'eux. Les adolescents de Madison appartiennent à des families de la classe moyenne ((I) petits industriels, commerçants, artisans, (2) employés de bureau) ou de la classe ouvrière. Les adolescents d'Oxford proviennent seulement de la classe moyenne des employés ou de la classe ouvrière. Dans les deux échantillons, le sujet est d'abord amené à croire qu'un camarade lui a apporté beaucoup ou peu d'aide quand lui-même en avait besoin pour gagner un concours. Dans la phase suivante qui est supposée impliquer un concours sans rapport avec le premier, le sujet a l'occasion d'aider la personne qui a été son partenaire ou une tout autre personne. Les résultats de Madison montrent, conformément à l'hypothèse, que les sujets appartenant à la classe des petits industriels, commerçants et artisans ont plus tendance à agir selon une conception de simple échange. Plus que les adolescents de la classe des employés ou de la classe ouvrière, ils croient que les gens s'attendent à ce qu'ils travaillent dur pour une autre personne seulement dans la mesure où ils ont eux-mêmes bénéficié d'une telle situation et ils font des efforts au profit du camarade qui dépend d'eux, dans l'attente d'une réciprocité de type « donner et recevoir ». A Oxford, les sujets de la classe ouvrière sont plus orientés vers la réciprocité que les fils d'employés. Quelques difficultés d'ordre méthodologique sont discutées, mais l'A. pense que les tentatives actuelles pour analyser l'interaction sociale en termes d'échange économique ne peuvent être également appliquées à toutes les classes sociales.