A comparison of two measures of egocentrism

This study examined the relationship between two prominent measures of egocentrism, Enright's Adolescent Egocentrism Scale (AES) and Elkind's Imaginary Audience Scale (IAS), in a sample of 458 adolescents, between 10 and 15 years old. Both correlational and factor analyses indicated that the two measures assess distinctly different phenomena. As predicted, IAS scores were correlated with self-reported levels of shyness, nervousness, and social skills. These results provide partial evidence for the validity of the IAS as a measure of self-consciousness, though not necessarily egocentrism per se. The validity of the AES was not examined.     

A short-term longitudinal study of the early development of self-regulation

A short-term longitudinal study was conducted to determine whether self-regulation at 4 years could be predicted from child and maternal measures obtained when the children were age 24 months. The subjects were 69 children and their mothers drawn from the general community. Criterion behaviors assessed at 4 years were those suggestive of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Of the 24-month child measures, maternal ratings of the child's impulsivity and attention span, plus an objective measure of delay ability, were the most effective predictors. Maternal negativity, as assessed in mother-child interaction, predicted the criterion behaviors, even after the child's behavior as an elicitor of maternal behavior was controlled. Maternal child-rearing attitudes on the dimensions of warmth and aggravation were also effective predictors, even after controlling for the child's emotionality as a possible determinant of maternal attitudes. It is argued that the results with the maternal attitude measures provide support for the hypothesis that maternal behavior is a contributor to the development of self-regulation.This research was supported by a State of Ohio Academic Challenge Grant to the Bowling Green State University Clinical Psychology Program, and by a Basic Grant awarded to the first author by the Bowling Green State University Faculty Research Committee. The authors are grateful to Eric Dubow, Douglas Ullman, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and criticisms on previous versions of this article.     

Perceptions of maternal and paternal solicitude by birth children and adoptees: Relevance for maternal bonding theory

This study emanated from the long-standing question of whether a maternal bonding process similar to other mammalian species occurs in humans. The perceptions of adult adoptees and a matched sample of non-adoptees about their parents' behaviours towards them were compared on an original Parental Solicitude Scale. As hypothesized, birth children perceived their mothers as the more solicitous parent, but ratings of adoptive mothers showed a unilateral decline. Further, the differential ratings for birth and adoptive mothers occurred mostly for the factors labelled benignity vs abuse and tolerance vs control, rather than caretaking vs neglect, which was congruent to reported effects in prior studies of lack of mother-infant contact during the sensitive period for bonding. An alternative explanation of the data was also tested but not substantiated.     

Decision strategies and visual-field asymmetries in same-different judgments of word meaning

The accuracy with which observers judged whether two words belonged to the same semantic category was determined from a detection-theoretic analysis ofsame-different judgments. In Experiment 1, one word was presented centrally and the other word in either the left visual field (LVF) or the right visual field (RVF); in Experiment 2, both words were presented to either the LVF or the RVF. In order to obtain receiver-operating characteristics (ROCs) of performance, observers were asked to rate their confidence that the two words belonged to the same semantic category. Two models of the decision strategy were fitted to the obtained characteristics: a differencing model, in which the decision variable was the difference between the two observations; and an optimal model, in which each observation was judged in relation to a criterion. In both experiments, the optimal model provided a better fit than the differencing model to the obtained characteristics. Maximum-likelihood estimates of both the criterion-free parameter,d′, and the area under the operating characteristic,p(A), were greater for words presented in the RVF than for those presented in the LVF.     

Uncertainty in estimating distances from memory

Magnitude estimations involving spatial characteristics, such as distance, typically show a compressive function when estimates are made from memory. In particular, as the magnitude of a property grows larger and larger, estimates become more and more inaccurate, with increasing underestimates of the actual magnitude. Previous theories have attempted to explain this difference by supposing that magnitude estimation was accomplished through a reperceptual process, in which the errors of perception are magnified, or a transformation process, in which the memory trace undergoes a consistent alteration toward a more schematic form. The present experiments present evidence in support of an uncertainty hypothesis. When subjects are uncertain of the actual value of a distance, they are forced to guess on the basis of the mean distance they encountered, because they are unable to retrieve the information accurately. When they can retrieve the information, they are more certain and their estimates are more accurate. This hypothesis was also extended to integrative conditions in which the subjects were presented with the stimulus display in a piecemeal fashion. In these cases, distance estimates were derived by combining spatial representations. This method of presentation caused distance estimates to become less accurate.