Pregnancy: A social stigma?

Experimental evidence is presented which explores the social stimulus value of pregnancy. It was found that, for men especially, the pregnant woman elicits avoidance and staring and that these responses occur primarily because pregnancy is a novel visual stimulus. For women, avoidance seems to be tied less to the stimulus aspects of the pregnant woman than to role expectations about her behavior. The pregnant woman is expected to be passive, but is simultaneously rejected for being so. It is argued that this constellation of responses may produce discomfort and withdrawal in the pregnant woman herself, since avoidance and staring are easily interpreted as negative reactions. How these reactions fit into the cultural response to pregnancy is discussed.     

Training strategic study time apportionment in educable retarded children

Two groups of educable retarded children differing in functioning level served as subjects. One group, the High group, consisted of 31 children drawn from the upper two classes of a five-class stream. The Low group consisted of 39 children drawn from the lowest two classes. During pretesting, on each trial but the first of a multitrial free recall procedure, subjects were allowed to select half of the to-be-remembered items to see if they would strategically select missed items for extra study. Following pretesting, subjects were divided for training into three groups for which the experimenter selected items for study: in the Standard group, missed items; in the Creeping group, recalled items plus one missed item; and in the Random group, half missed and half recalled items. Children in the High group improved in the Standard condition, and those in the Low group benefited from Creeping training. There was no evidence of maintenance of training in the Low group, but children in the High group given training in the standard strategy selected missed items for recall on the posttests. The results are discussed in terms of the stability of trained strategies in retardates, and the question of what constitutes an optimal strategy is considered.     

Dimensional interactions in vibrotactile information processing

The effect of irrelevant dimensional variation on the processing of vibrotactile stimuli was measured. Six observers performed a speeded classification task with stimuli varying along the dimensions of pitch and loudness. Choice reaction times were obtained for stimuli differing on one dimension alone, on two correlated dimensions, or on two orthogonally varied dimensions. Compared to one-dimension performance, reaction times were faster in the correlated condition and slower in the orthogonal condition. In general, these findings agreed with similar experiments in other modalities, with the exception that the effects in this study tended to be stronger for cases in which loudness, rather than pitch, was the relevant dimension. The results are explained in terms of the integrality of pitch and loudness and of the relative discriminability of dimensions.     

Isolating visual units in the perception of words and nonwords

In three experiments, reaction times for same-different judgments were obtained for pairs of words, pronounceable nonwords (pseudowords), and unpronounceable nonwords. The stimulus strings were printed either in a single letter case or in one of several mixtures of upper- and lowercase letters. In Experiment 1, the stimuli were common one- and two-syllable words; in Experiment 2, the stimuli included both words and pseudowords; and in Experiment 3, words, pseudowords, and nonwords were used. The functional visual units for each string type were inferred from the effects that the number and placement of letter case transitions had onsame reaction time judgments. The evidence indicated a preference to encode strings in terms of multiletter perceptual units if they are present in the string. The data .also suggested that whole words can be used as functional visual units, although the extent of their use depends on contextual parameters such as knowledge that a word will be presented.     

Position uncertainty and the perception of apparent movement

Two experiments compared the perception of apparent movement when the second of two successive stimuli always appeared in the same position and when it varied randomly between two spatial positions. The results of both experiments showed that foreknowledge of the position of the second stimulus does not facilitate the perception of apparent movement. Experiment 2 also clearly showed that the space-time relationships of Korte’s third law of apparent movement does not depend on foreknowledge of the position of the second stimulus. These findings imply that apparent movement in real time occurs after the second stimulus has been registered by the visual system. It suggests that apparent movement involves a delayed decision mechanism that stores the first stimulus, the interstimulus temporal interval, and the second stimulus, and then impletes a motion compatible with the stimulus information.     

Racial Mistrust and Deviant Behaviors Among Ethnically Diverse Black Adolescent Boys1

While it has been suggested that mistrust of the dominant White society may be an important protective factor for some members of racial minorities, the question of whether mistrust may also be related to nonnormative behaviors among minority members has not been explored. Using survey data from Miami, Florida, this study empirically tests this hypothesis among a sample of African American, Haitian, and other Caribbean island Black adolescent boys. Bivariate analyses suggest a strong relationship between racial mistrust and conventional forms of delinquency for all three ethnic groups. These findings also held in multivariate analyses in which six traditional predictors of deviance were statistically controlled. The authors conclude that racial mistrust adds a new dimension to empirical prediction models. In addition, they conclude that issues associated with racial mistrust should be considered when developing and implementing prevention strategies.     

AIDS Knowledge,Attitudes, Beliefs,and Practices (KABP) in Two Caribbean Countries: A Comparative Analysis1

The present paper presents the results of AIDS Knowledge, Attitudes, Beliefs, and Practices (KABP) surveys conducted in two Caribbean countries: St. Vincent and St. Lucia. Despite religious, socioeconomic, and literacy differences between the two countries, their citizens are remarkably similar with respect to AIDS knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and practices. The major differences between the two countries concern the perception of AIDS risk and the relative position of AIDS as a serious problem facing the country. These differences, however, appear unrelated to AIDS knowledge, sexual practices, or the likelihood of engaging in AIDS-protective behaviors. These findings question the role of perceived risk of AIDS as a determinant of AIDS-protective behaviors, and, more important, they question the utility of increasing perceived risk as a strategy in AIDS prevention programs.     

The Effects of Names on Perception of Intelligence, Popularity, and Competence

Three experiments were conducted to explore the effects of first names on judgments of intelligence, popularity, and competence. In Experiment 1, first names that were used more often in the past than they are now (called Older Generation names) were rated by a sample of college-aged judges as less popular and less intelligent than were first names that are used more often now than in the past (called Younger Generation names). In addition, male first names tended to have higher ratings of these same qualities than did female first names. In Experiments 2 and 3, either resumes or personal ads were used to provide additional information to the raters. Results similar to those found in Experiment 1 were obtained. In general the present experiment used groups of names rather than individual names so as to control for possible irrelevant and idiosyncratic differences that might be found among individual names. Relevance to research in which men and women are compared was discussed.     

A validational note on the revised Socialization Scale of the California Psychological Inventory

The revised (1987) Socialization Scale of the California Psychological Inventory was studied in a sample of 121 delinquent and nondelinquent males to determine if the revised scale, compared to the original version of the scale (1957), could differentiate among a group of nonoffenders and a comprehensive typology of offenders. Results of an ANOVA and product-moment correlations provided significant and considerable support for the discriminability of the revised So Scale. Obtained results indicate that the revised instrument can differentiate offenders from nonoffenders to about the same, or a greater, degree than the original scale.     

Factorial validity of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale

The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) was developed in previous research to measure a general dimension of alexithymia with three inter correlated factors. These three factors reflect distinct facets of the alexithymia construct: (1) difficulty identifying feelings and distinguishing them from the bodily sensations of emotion, (2) difficulty describing feelings to others, and (3) an externally orientated style of thinking. This study tested the three-factor model for the TAS-20, using confirmatory factor analysis, in separate samples of young adults from Germany, Canada, and the United States. The previously established three-factor model was found to be replicable in all three samples. In addition, the full TAS-20 and its three factors demonstrated adequate internal reliability in all three samples. Although evaluation of the convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity of the TAS-20 is required in diverse cultural groups, the present results provide evidence for the factorial validity and internal reliability of the TAS-20.