Selective looking by infants

Previous studies of selective looking have shown that adults and young children can easily follow one visually specified event while ignoring another on which it is optically superimposed. The present experiments show that 4-month-old infants have the same ability. Two films were shown superimposed on the same screen, while one soundtrack was played in an attempt to influence the subjects' perceptual selection. When the films were separated during test periods, the infants looked mostly at the previously silent film, suggesting that it was novel for them. Control experiments showed that completely unfamiliar films elicited comparable novelty preferences in the same situation, that the soundtrack could also influence perceptual selection during side-by-side presentation of the same films, and that cross-modal habituation to the soundtrack alone could not account for the results. Perception is inherently selective, even in the first months of life.     

The relationship of marital status,spouse’s career status,and gender to salary level

The relationship of marital status, spouse’s career status, and gender to salary was examined from five different theoretical perspectives for a sample of managers and professionals in one large organization. Results showed that married individuals whose spouses did not have careers earned more than anyone except those who were divorced, controlling for age, education, type of position, job location, organizational tenure, and job tenure. Results also showed that individuals who had never been married earned the least, women earned less than men, and men with children at home earned more than men with no children at home. These findings are discussed in terms of the different theoretical perspectives, within a changing social content.     

Systemic therapy and attachment narratives

In this paper we describe how we bring together three major systems of thought: attachment theory; family systems theories; and theories of narrative development, in an integrated approach to systemic practice that we call attachment narrative therapy (ANT). ANT provides a four‐stage framework for practice: creating a secure base; exploring narratives and attachment experiences within a systemic framework; considering alternatives and taking action; and the future and maintenance of the therapeutic base. Formulation, especially regarding the role of emotions and attachments in family dynamics and narratives, is at the heart of our approach and helps us hold ourselves accountable for our particular weave of theory and practice.     

Eliminating the memory blocking effect

Six experiments investigated the memory blocking effect (MBE) in which exposure to orthographically similar words (e.g., BALLOON) impairs one's ability to complete a similar fragment (e.g., BAL_ON_, solution is BALCONY). Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that blocking is not observed after a 72-hour delay; however, repetition priming was observed after the same delay. Experiments 3 and 4 showed that presenting unrelated semantic information during the fragment completion test eliminates blocking. Experiment 5 demonstrated that the MBE persists despite directed-forgetting instructions, and Experiments 5 and 6 demonstrated that activating both the solutions and blocking words for a particular fragment at study eliminates blocking. Collectively, the data demonstrate that reading orthographically similar primes automatically triggers retrieval of the blocking word and an executive control process works to manage this interference. A working framework that describes how an executive control mechanism could govern memory retrieval in the memory-blocking paradigm is presented to stimulate development of more advanced theoretical models that can explain blocking.     

The protective identity: Evidence that mortality salience heightens the clarity and coherence of the self-concept

Research guided by terror management theory has shown that self-esteem provides a buffer against mortality concerns. The current research extends the theory to examine whether clarity and coherence in the structure of the self-concept serve a terror management function independent of enhancing self-esteem. Specifically, five studies tested whether mortality salience (MS) heightens diverse tendencies to clarify and integrate self-relevant knowledge, especially in individuals predisposed to seek structured knowledge. MS led high, but not low, structure-seeking participants to prefer coherent (Study 1) clearly-defined (Study 2), and simply organized (Study 3) conceptions of their personal characteristics. Also, MS led high structure-seeking participants to prefer causal coherence in recent experience (Study 4) and meaningful connections between past events and their current self (Study 5). Supporting the specificity of these effects on self-concept structuring, MS increased self-enhancement in Studies 1, 4, and 5 but these effects were not moderated by preference for structured knowledge.     

American Indian Youth: Personal,Familial, and Environmental Strengths

We present data from interviews with 401 youths on the relationship of personal, familial, and environmental strengths to the outcomes of urban and reservation American Indian youths. Urban youths consistently nominated more strengths than tribal youths, except in the area of tribal strengths. Quantitative data show how those strengths relate to their school success, daily functioning, mental health, and ethnic identity. Personal and familial strengths are related to positive school success and functioning. Environmental strengths demonstrate complex relationships in which tribal strengths are related to increased mental health problems and school strengths are related to fewer problems. The results of our study speak to the need to include multiple categories of different strengths in research and to focus on strengths as well as problems in clinical interventions.     

Adult attunement and child availability: Interaction of mother and caregiver with three‐year‐old kibbutz children

Relationships of mother and nonmaternal caregiver with 33 three‐year‐old kibbutz toddlers were investigated. Attunement and intrusiveness of these caregivers in their contact with children were determined by analysis of discrete child–adult interactions rather than by a global assessment of their relationships. The validity of these adult attunement scores was examined first by comparison of the attunement and intrusiveness scores of mother and of caregiver, and second by determining their association with independent scores of child availability to each of these caregiving adults. Results tended to support the validity of the present measures of adult attunement to the child. They indicated that in cases of disagreement mothers were more attuned than nonmaternal caregivers to the signals of the child, and the level of adult attuned agreement to the child was positively associated with cooperative attempts of children to involve caregivers in their activities © 2000 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Stress factors,social support,and violence in Israeli society: A quantitative analysis

In the present study violence in Israel for a period of 32 years (1950-1981) was analyzed, within a stress model according to which the probability of violence and agression as a reaction to stress will increase when social support systems fail or malfunction. Following this model, three types of variables were identified: 1. Measures of stress and social change: to the regular social stressors (i.e., inflation and unemployment), we added two measures of affluence (income per capita and rates of cars) as well as population density. 2. Measures of social support: rates of birth to unmarried mothers and marriage and divorce rates served as measures of the strength of the family. Another measure in this category was rates of psychiatric hospitalization. 3. Measures of violence: in addition to rates of homicide, robbery, and all offenses, inward directed aggression (suicide) was included in this category. At the first stage of the data analysis, Guttman's Smallest Space Analysis (SSA-1) was applied, providing a two-dimensional space diagram of the correlations between the variables. At the second stage, a multiple regression analysis was introduced. The findings indicate that the theoretical model received substantial support mainly from four stress measures (inflation, income per capita, cars, and population density) and one measure of social support (divorce). Unemployment contributed significantly (in the expected direction) only to homicide. Some theoretical implications of the findings, as well as their relevance to some developments in Israeli society are discussed, and suggestions are made for future research.