Word shape's in poor shape for the race to the lexicon

Current models of fluent reading often assume that fast and automatic word recognition involves the use of a supraletter feature corresponding to the envelope or shape of the word when it is printed in lowercase. The advantages of mixed case over pure case and of pure lowercase over pure uppercase have often been taken as evidence favoring the word-shape hypothesis. Alternative explanations for these phenomena are offered. Experiment 1 shows that previous demonstrations of word-shape effects during proofreading are better described as individual letter effects. Experiments 2-4 explore the possibility that word shape facilitates lexical access through uncertainty reduction. In all three experiments performance on words with rare shapes is compared to those with common shapes. There were no effects of shape frequency in either tachistoscopic recognition or lexical-decision tasks. This was true regardless of the degree to which the visual shape cue was supplemented by the nonvisual factors of familiarity and expectancy. Possible reasons why fluent readers ignore word shape are discussed within the framework of a model that assumes that automatic word recognition is mediated by the activation of abstract letter identities.     

Racial differences in intelligence: The importance of the executive system

The race-IQ controversy arose at a time when psychometric views of intelligence dominated. Little attention was paid to more process-oriented models in spite of the fact they provide alternative perspectives on the causes of individual differences in problem-solving. We hypothesized that much of the IQ spread commonly observed between black and white children can be attributed to differences in components of their executive systems, including the knowledge base, control processes, and metacognitive states. To test this possibility, black and white children who differed significantly on fluid and crystallized intelligence were tested on multiple tasks reflecting components of the executive systems as well as on perceptual efficiency tasks. Striking group differences were observed in metamemory, stragegy use, and general knowledge, but few reliable differences were found in perceptual efficiency. Regression analyses showed that different factors predicted fluid and crystallized intelligence, with metamemory predicting the latter but not the former. An implication of these findings has potential educational significance: training directed at executive skills, introduce at an early age, might elevate learning and problem-solving skills in black children, thereby reducing racial differences in crystallized intelligence.     

Testing Theoretical Explanations of Intention to Seek Care for a Breast Cancer Symptom1

The purpose of this research was to test theoretical explanations of intention to seek care promptly for a breast cancer symptom. Psychosocial variables (affect, expectations, values, and norms), habit, and facilitating conditions (e.g., insurance) regarding care seeking were proposed to influence intention to seek care promptly. Whether psychosocial variables and habit influenced intention directly or in interaction with facilitating conditions remained unclear. Other variables (i.e., clinical and demographic) were proposed to influence intention by mediation through the theoretical variables. Community-dwelling women without history of breast cancer (N= 99) responded to a questionnaire to assess study variables. In a hierarchical set regression, intention was first regressed on psychosocial variables, habit, and full insurance coverage for care, then on terms representing interactions of insurance coverage with psychosocial variables and habit, and lastly on clinical and demographic variables. Findings revealed that (a) anxiety (measure of affect), utility, (the product of expectations and values), and habit were related to intention, (b) having full insurance coverage did not moderate these relationships, and (c) after controlling for theoretical variables, family history of breast cancer was related inversely to intention. Implications for theory, research, and practice are delineated.     

Sexual assault history and use of health and mental health services

A history of sexual assault may be associated with increased current use of mental health and medical services because of the psychologically and physically disruptive consequences of assault. To test this hypothesis, we estimated rates of mental health and medical services use among 2560 randomly selected community residents, 343 of whom had been sexually assaulted. Sexual assault was associated with seeking both forms of care. Controls for demographic variables, psychiatric diagnosis, health status, and insurance suggested that assault increases use indirectly, through poor mental and physical health. Uninsured, assaulted respondents were especially likely to consult medical providers. Respondents assaulted during childhood were particularly likely to seek mental health care. Assault was more common among mental health service users than nonusers, and among women using medical services compared to female nonpatients. The high prevalence of assault among service users underscores the need for providers to recognize and treat sexual assault-related problems.     

Sex differences in dominance behavior

The effect of the status characteristic of sex on dominance behavior was investigated as a function of a challenger's sex and in relation to one's sex-role orientation. Dyads composed of a student and a confederate recorded individual preferences, then joint decisions, for the more attractive picture of 20 pairs of pictures. The number of challenges a student sustained each time a disagreement occurred regarding the more attractive picture of a pair was recorded. Males withstood significantly more challenges against their preferences than females did (p<.006). However, no differences were found as a function of the sex of one's partner; nor did the Attitudes toward Women Scale (AWS) prove to be a good predictor of dominance. Results were discussed in terms of predictions made by the theory of status characteristics.This report is based on a master's thesis written by the first author under the sponsorship of the second and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the MA degree at the Graduate School of the University of Alabama. Portions were presented as part of of the paper session Compliance-Conformity/Altruism-Helping Behavior at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, New Orleans, March 1976.The authors would like to express their appreciation those who served as confederates in this study: Jim Dodds, Rochelle Hanan, Eunice Fogarty, and Rex Hall.     

Introduction: Constructivism and social constructionism in the career field

The impact of constructivism and social constructionism upon vocational psychology has often been through the use of the more generic “constructivism.” In this article constructivism is distinguished by its focus on how the individual cognitively engages in the construction of knowledge from social construction which claims that knowledge and meaning are historically and culturally constructed through social processes and action. The considerable ambiguity in the use of these terms is also discussed. Their contributions, challenges, and opportunities to the career field’s dominant discourses are examined: the dispositions discourse, the contextualizing discourse, the subjectivity and narrative discourse, and the process discourse. Broader challenges and opportunities for the field are also noted. The historical construction of knowledge, concern with language, action, and process problematize traditional understandings of career. They raise opportunities to question fundamental assumptions, focus on context, culture, the person-environment interaction, and practice.     

Gender differences in early risk factors for adolescent depression among low-income urban children

One component of a model by Nolen-Hoeksema and Girgus, who propose that risk factors for adolescent depression are more common in girls than in boys during childhood, was tested with 85 low-income, urban, African American and Latino kindergarten through fourth grade children who completed inventories of depression, stress, attributional style, gender role, and body image. Endorsing two of three predicted risk factors, girls reported slightly poorer body image and identified more strongly with a feminine gender role. Boys, however, reported a more negative attributional style. Feminine gender role was not associated with body image or negative attributional style. The applicability of the proposed model to a low-income, ethnic minority, urban population is discussed.     

Gender similarities and differences in children's social behavior: finding personality in contextualized patterns of adaptation

This research examined how a contextualist approach to personality can reveal social interactional patterns that are obscured by gender comparisons of overall behavior rates. For some behaviors (verbal aggression), girls and boys differed both in their responses to social events and in how often they encountered them, yet they did not differ in overall behavior rates. For other behaviors (prosocial), gender differences in overall rates were observed, yet girls and boys differed more in their social environments than in their responses to events. The results question the assumption that meaningful personality differences must be manifested in overall act trends and illustrate how gender differences in personality can be conceptualized as patterns of social adaptation that are complex and context specific.     

Recommended housing conditions and test procedures can interact to obscure a significant experimental effect

Routine animal husbandry variables, such as group housing of mice and the order of testing of cagemates, are currently viewed to be essentially neutral with respect to the outcome of most, if not all, animal-based experiments, including those that utilize behavioral measurements. During the course of experiments that have utilized the elevated plus-maze to examine the ability of a bacterial challenge of mice to induce anxiety-like behavior, due to the activation of various cytokine pathways, we followed the recommendation of laboratory animal care staff to house the mice in pairs. When we tested the members of the pairs successively, it was found, for the first experimental set, that the behavior that reflects anxiety (time in closed arms) of the first-tested animal differed from that of the second-tested animal for both the experimental and the control animals and, critically, that these changes were in the opposite directions for the controls and the experimental animals, thus obscuring the effect of the experimental manipulation. A second, independent experimental set also obtained a significant effect for the order of testing effect in the bacterial-challenged group, but not in the saline control group, although a similar trend was evident in this group as well. These results indicate that special care should to be taken in implementing housing recommendations and that preliminary tests may be necessary to ensure that housing conditions do not interact with tests of the phenomenon under experimental investigation.