The indirect impact of child-oriented advertisements : On mother-child interactions

The Federal Trade Commission (1978) has expressed concern about the direct and indirect effects that commercial food advertisements have on children and families. Based on these concerns, they suggested banning all advertising aimed at young children. The present experiment was designed within the context of concern about the influence of television food advertising on parent-child interactions. It was predicted that mothers whose children viewed a television program with embedded food advertisements would display more control strategies and more power assertion while grocery shopping than mothers of children who were not exposed to advertisements. The results corroborated this hypothesis and, in addition, revealed that children who viewed the food advertisements attempted to influence their mothers' consumerism more than children who did not view the food advertisements. These results were discussed in terms of the importance of considering how television-viewing indirectly influences the quality of parent-child interactions.     

An in-home investigation of maternal teaching strategies during Sesame Street and a popular situation comedy

A naturalistic in-home investigation of maternal teaching strategies while viewing an educational program (Sesame-Street) and an entertainment program (a situation comedy) was conducted. Fourteen mothers and their pre-school children tape-recorded their coversations while jointly viewing the two television programs. Mothers tooks the role of teacher during both types of programs, but they talked more and asked proportionally more questions about the content of Sesame Street than they did about the content of the situation comedy. Likewise, during Sesame Street, mothers talked more about educationally relevant concepts such as size, color, and number. Children, while watching Sesame Street, engaged in ore labeling of educationally relevant concepts than they did while viewing the situation comedy. During the situation comedy, mothers explained why television characters performed particular behaviors and assigned traits and emotions to characters more frequently than they did during Sesame Street. The findings suggest that the parent may play an important role in helping children maximally utilize television as a teacher.     

The Heuristic Power Of Oppositionality In An Incidental-Memory Task: In Support Of The Construing Process

From a personal construct view, construing is a top-down process in which wider meanings predicate narrower, targeted meanings. Predicate contexts are invariably oppositional, as Kelly's (1955) theory reflects. Two memory experiments using college subjects are presented. Subjects were asked to focus on a series of 30 target words to determine if they were similar in meaning to a predicating word (e.g., friendly). Ten of these target words were relevant (e.g., congenial), 10 were opposite (e.g., impolite), and 10 were irrelevant (e.g., abstract) in meaning to the predicating word. Subjects were then (unexpectedly) asked to recall as many words as possible. In line with experimental instructions, the majority of these recalled words were relevant to the predicating word. However, as predicted, in both experiments significantly more opposite than irrelevant words were recalled (p < .001). The results are in support of a personal construct view of human cognition.     

Same-sex and cross-sex siblings: Activity choices,roles, behavior,and gender stereotypes

Forty same-sex and cross-sex school-aged sibling pairs were observed in their homes during self-selected activities. The sex role learning index (SERLI) and a sex-typing room analysis were administered for the younger siblings, and maternal questionnaire information was obtained. Sibling gender constellation was associated with reliable differences in activity choices during the unstructured observations. Male dyads interacted less than other sibling groups, while older sisters in female dyads engaged in the most teaching. Older female siblings, regardless of the gender of the younger sibling, assumed the manager role frequently. Dyads containing an older girl also exhibited the greatest role asymmetrics. Affective differences related to gender constellation were also noted. Younger girls with older brothers and younger boys with older sisters evidenced the least gender stereotyping.     

The association between play materials and social behavior in a mainstreamed preschool: A naturalistic investigation

Social interaction during play with various types of materials was observed during free play in a DARCEE model mainstreamed preschool classroom. Results indicated that the use of play materials by mildly handicapped and nonhandicapped children was quite similar. Blocks and vehicles and water play materials were associated with handicapped/nonhandicapped interactions. Library, fine motor, and art materials were associated with solitary activity; blocks and vehicles, water play, housekeeping and music with cooperative interaction; and blocks and vehicles with conflict. Adult-child interaction was associated with children not engaged with any play materials. Implications for mainstreamed preschool settings are discussed.     

Assessing Individual Differences: Effects of Responding to Prior Questionnaires on the Substantive and Psychometric Properties of Self-Esteem and Depression Assessments

It has become a common practice among psychological researchers to administer batteries of individual difference assessments to research participants, although little is known about whether the substantive and psychometric integrity of the questionnaires are maintained when they are administered after the subject has completed other instruments. The studies presented here consider these issues in relation to the assessment of self-esteem and depression. In the first study, college students responsed to a self-esteem inventory (a) by itself (control group), (b) after one prior questionnaire, (c) after three prior questionnaires, or (d) after five prior questionnaires. Results indicated that filling out one or more questionnaires before an assessment of self-esteem resulted in repots of lower self-esteem relative to the control condition. Additional analyses revealed that filling out three or five prior questionnaires created lower reliabilities of subscale scores and lower estimates of concurrent validity between self-esteem and depression. When the effect of prior questionnaires on the General Self-Esteem subscale was examined, the aforementioned results were replicated, and the prior questionnaire treatment created heterogeneous variances across the experimental groups. The second study was designed as a replication of the first study, using an assessment of depression as the target questionnaire. These results revealed that reports of depressive symptomatology increased as the number of prior questionnaires increased. Again, the prior or questionnaire treatment created heterogeneity of variance between the groups, but did not adversely affect its internal consistency.     

Assessing individual differences: effects of responding to prior questionnaires on the substantive and psychometric properties of self-esteem and depression assessments

It has become a common practice among psychological researchers to administer batteries of individual difference assessments to research participants, although little is known about whether the substantive and psychometric integrity of the questionnaires are maintained when they are administered after the subject has completed other instruments. The studies presented here consider these issues in relation to the assessment of self-esteem and depression. In the first study, college students responded to a self-esteem inventory (a) by itself (control group), (b) after one prior questionnaire, (c) after three prior questionnaires, or (d) after five prior questionnaires. Results indicated that filling out one or more questionnaires before an assessment of self-esteem resulted in reports of lower self-esteem relative to the control condition. Additional analyses revealed that filling out three or five prior questionnaires created lower reliabilities of subscale scores and lower estimates of concurrent validity between self-esteem and depression. When the effect of prior questionnaires on the General Self-Esteem subscale was examined, the aforementioned results were replicated, and the prior questionnaire treatment created heterogeneous variances across the experimental groups. The second study was designed as a replication of the first study, using an assessment of depression as the target questionnaire. These results revealed that reports of depressive symptomatology increased as the number of prior questionnaires increased. Again, the prior questionnaire treatment created heterogeneity of variance between the groups, but did not adversely affect its internal consistency.