Reviews

B irkhäuser -O eri , S. The Mother: Archetypal Image in Fairy Tales
H ubback , J. People who Do Things to Each Other; Essays in Analytical Psychology.
K ast , V erena . Märchen als Therapie.
S chwartz -S alant , N athan and S tein , M urray (eds.). Archetypal Processes in Psychotherapy.
Y oung -E isendrath , P olly and H all , J ames (eds.). The Book of the Self: Person, Pretext, and Process.
S ocarides , C. W. The Pre-Oedipal Origin and Psychoanalytic Therapy of Sexual Perversions.
M attinson , J. Work, Love and Marriage.     

Perceptions of women: Effects of employment status and marital status

Eighty-four female and 84 male college students evaluated a briefly described female stimulus person on 20 seven-point bipolar scales which described personality traits and professional competencies. Each subject rated 1 of 12 women who were described as either never married, divorced, widowed, or married and as either employed full-time, employed part-time, or unemployed. As hypothesized, the personal traits and professional competencies of employed women were evaluated more favorably than those of unemployed women, and the personality traits of married women were perceived more positively than those of unmarried women. Contrary to predictions, unmarried and married women were perceived as equally competent.Portions of this paper were presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C., August 1982.     

Clauses and the semantic representation of words

When a sentence with more than one clause is processed, words of the first clause become less available for recall or recognition once the clause boundary has been passed. One common interpretation of this observation is that the representation of a given word shifts from a predominantly surface form (e.g., phonological or lexical) to a semantic form, after the clause boundary. Two experiments that test that interpretation are reported. In the first experiment, two-clause spoken sentences were followed by spoken word or picture probes. Pictures were intended to provide a fast semantic match to probed words, but a slow surface match. Although response times exhibited a robust main effect of the clause position of the probe, no interaction with probe type was found. Similar results were obtained in a second experiment that compared pictures with written word probes. The faster response to picture than to word probes in the second experiment indicates that subjects did not covertly name the picture, but made a semantic match (as intended). These observations suggest the following reinterpretation of earlier sentence memory experiments: Words in the most recent clause of a sentence are more available than words in an earlier clause because their semantic representations are more active, not because their surface representations are more active.     

Social Psychology of Women and Gender1

A selective overview of work in the field from 1970 to 1985 is presented. Sex comparisons are presented as an extensive research area needing theory-based empiricism. In another major area, gender belief systems, important progress has been made in studying the effects of stereotypes on subsequent behavior. Methodological critiques and advances are discussed. Two sources of research are highlighted: women's experience and theory. Examples are given of research advances stemming from women's experience and a case study is provided of the value of personal experience to the researcher. Theories focusing on individual differences are critiqued. Theory focusing on situational factors such as power and status are highlighted. Sherif s (1982) delineation of the self-system is presented as a major integrated theory. Directions for future work are provided focusing on inclusion of women of color, lesbians, and women from all social strata to understand the varieties of women's experience. A move to knowledge that is “gendered” rather than female-centered is proposed.     

Lay conceptions of personality: Eliciting tiers of a scientific conception of personality

Two studies are reported which examine the availability of scientific propositions of personality in lay conceptions of personality. It is argued from a social constructivist perspective that models of personality must derive from and refer to lay conceptions of persons. Eysenck's trait-type model of introversion-extraversion, containing specific propositions about phenotypic and genotypic differences between extraverts and introverts, was utilized as the scientific model of personality and its availability in lay conceptions of personality was examined in two studies. In the first study, subjects were presented with a genotypic characterization of either an introvert or an extravert target person and asked to infer corresponding phenotypic differences. In the second study, the inference process was reversed with subjects being asked to infer genotypic characteristics of introverts versus extraverts on the basis of phenotypic target person desecrations of the two types. Results from both studies show a high degree of accuracy in subjects' inferences, suggesting that laypersons have well-formed conceptions about personality containing ‘higher-order’ psychogenetic propositions corresponding to Eysenck's trait-type model. The implications of the findings for theory construction are discussed.     

Recipient's mood, relationship type, and helping

We conducted two studies to examine how a potential helper is affected by having a communal orientation toward a relationship with a potential recipient and by the potential recipient's sadness. We hypothesized that (a) having a communal orientation would increase helping and that (b) people high in communal orientation, but not others, would respond to a potential recipient's sadness by increasing helping. These hypotheses were tested in two studies. In Study 1, individual differences in communal orientation toward relationships were measured by using a new communal orientation scale reported for the first time in this article. In Study 2, manipulations were used to lead subjects to desire either a communal or an exchange relationship with another person. In both studies, subjects were exposed to a sad person or to a person in a neutral mood whom they were given a chance to help. As hypothesized, in both studies communally oriented subjects helped the other significantly more than did others. Also as hypothesized, in both studies communally oriented subjects but not others, increased helping in response to the other person's sadness although this effect reached statistical significance only in the second study.     

THE FILE DRAWER EFFECT AND PUBLICATION RATES IN MENSTRUAL CYCLE RESEARCH

The file drawer problem refers to a publication bias for positive results, leading to studies which support the null hypothesis being relegated to the file drawer. The assumption is that researchers are unable to publish studies with nonsignificant findings. A survey of investigators studying the menstrual cycle showed this assumption to be unwarranted. Much of the research did not lend itself to a hypothesis-testing model. A more important contribution to the likelihood of publication was research productivity, and researchers whose first study was published were more likely to have continued their work.