A COMPARISON OF VIETNAMESE-AUSTRALIAN AND ANGLO-AUSTRALIAN MOTHERs' BELIEFS ABOUT INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT*

Vietnamese- and Anglo-Australian mothers' beliefs about intelligence and its development were obtained through a structured interview. Twenty-five working-class Vietnamese, 32 working-class and 39 upper-middle-class Anglo mothers of five-year-old children were asked about the heritability and stability of intelligence, its importance in different life domains and the roles of parents and teachers in developing intelligence. Developmental timetables for the acquisition of certain intellectual abilities were also elicited. Culture emerged as a significant influence on mothers' beliefs considerably more than did social class or sex of their child. Vietnamese mothers perceived intelligence as more important than did Anglo mothers, had a more narrowly focused view of education and intellectual development, and expected later acquisition of intellectual abilities. These differences are consistent with traditional Vietnamese values.     

The effects of sensation seeking and misattribution of arousal on attraction toward similar or dissimilar strangers

While previous research has indicated that certain situational variables can mediate the typical positive relationship between attitudinal similarity and attraction, investigations focusing on the impact of individual difference variables on this relationship have typically yielded unimpressive results. The present experiment was conducted to test the prediction that individual differences in sensation seeking do moderate this relationship. The major results showed that, as predicted, high sensation seekers were more attracted than low sensation seekers to dissimilar others, whereas low sensation seekers were more attracted than high sensation seekers to people with similar attitudes. The data also indicated that a misattribution of arousal manipulation serves to increase attraction under certain conditions. Specifically, misattribution of aversive arousal increased low sensation seekers' attraction to a dissimilar stranger and increased high sensation seekers' attraction to a similar stranger.     

The Anatomy of Revolutionists

A questionnaire containing 62 items relating to the New Left and 28 items measuring anomia, authoritarianism, and Machiavellianism was given to 153 entering freshmen at Columbia in the fall of 1968. The five factors emerging from a factor analysis of responses to the items were labeled: New Left Philosophy, Revolutionary Tactics, Machiavellian Tactics, Machiavellian Cynicism, and Traditional Moralism. Students who had been politically active prior to coming to college scored higher than the rest of the group on New Left Philosophy, Revolutionary Tactics, and Machiavellian Cynicism, but scored lower on Machiavellian'Tactics and Traditional Moralism. In the spring of 1969, a revised set of items was given to students in introductory psychology classes at Columbia University and New York University. While the findings from these subjects replicated those found with the Columbia freshmen, they showed subtle differences which led to speculations about the radicalization process. Also discussed are the relationships between the nature of political participation and all of the factors, with special emphasis on the discrepancy between Machiavellian Tactics and Cynicism.     

Factors Related to Inconsistent Career Preferences

A sample of entering college freshmen was divided into 2 groups on the basis of the consistency or inconsistency of their first and second career preferences. The two groups were compared on several family and personal factors in order to identify variables that are related to inconsistencies in career preferences. The groups were observed to be somewhat different in the general level of their academic ability and the degree to which their interests were supported by SVIB results. No significant family differences between the two groups were observed. These findings were tentatively interpreted as implying that the inconsistency of career preference was more likely to be the result of the student's recognition of his limited abilities than the other variables examined in this study.     

Self-image of punk rock and nonpunk rock juvenile delinquents

The purpose of this study was to provide some understanding of punk rockers. Although they have received media attention in the depiction of their unusual hair and clothing styles, there is limited information about their personalities. In this study a delinquent group of punk rockers was compared with a delinquent group of nonpunk rockers on self-image, a personality factor related to teenagers' mental health and adjustment. Each group consisted of 20 subjects, 15 males and 5 females, aged 14 to 17. Subjects were administered a Screening Questionnaire, the Offer Self-Image Questionnaire (OSIQ), and the California Psychological Inventory (CPI) while detained at a Southern California juvenile hall. Interest in the CPI was focused on the Socialization (So) scale. A one-way analysis of variance was conducted on each of the five OSIQ dimensions. No significant differences were found between the groups. The importance of these findings is that even though punk rockers may look and act unusual, they may actually be similar to other groups. Due to possibly invalid CPI test protocols a t test and content analysis of the CPI So scale was conducted. The t test was significant and the chi-square analyses were significant on two questions of the CPI So scale. This suggests that there may be differences between the groups in terms of family dynamics. Professionals can utilize these findings in their work with this misunderstood segment of society.     

Brain catecholamines and memory modulation: effects of footshock, amygdala implantation, and stimulation

The results of previous studies indicate that the extent of a transient decline in brain norepinephrine (NE) levels shortly after training and administration of any of several memory modulating treatments is correlated with later retention performance. The present experiment assessed such changes after one-trial inhibitory (passive) avoidance training and, in addition, measured concentration changes in 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (MHPG), the major metabolite of brain NE, as well as dopamine (DA) and epinephrine (EPI) levels. The results indicate that the decreases in brain NE after footshock are accompanied by an increase in MHPG, thus providing additional evidence that brain NE is released after training. DA levels were unchanged after training; brainstem EPI levels increased after the training footshock, but forebrain EPI levels were unchanged. A second experiment examined brain catecholamine levels in animals which received post-training electrical stimulation of the amygdala. The findings of this experiment indicate that the amygdala damage which accompanies electrode implantation apparently results in a chronic change in whole brain NE levels and metabolism. After amygdala, NE concentrations in both brainstem and forebrain samples were reduced by 20% and MHPG was increased by 22-34%. Furthermore, NE levels were not responsive to training in implanted animals. Thus, brain NE levels after training were not predictive of retention performance in amygdala-implanted or -stimulated animals. However, the significance of such findings for understanding the possible role of central NE in memory storage is complicated by the severe modification of the dynamics of brain aminergic systems in animals bearing amygdala electrodes.     

Epinephrine facilitation of appetitive learning: attenuation with adrenergic receptor antagonists

Previous studies using aversive training tasks have reported that retention is enhanced by post-training administration of epinephrine. This study investigated the effects of post-training administration of epinephrine on retention of an appetitive task. The results indicate that epinephrine can enhance retention performance in an appetitive task of both rats and mice. Pretraining injections of propranolol and phenoxybenzamine, alpha- and beta-adrenergic receptor antagonists, attenuate the memory-enhancing effects of epinephrine. These results are consistent with the view that release of peripheral epinephrine may regulate storage of new information and may mediate memory modulation produced by a variety of treatments.