Background characteristics and women's dual-role attitudes

This study examines the relationship between the attitudes toward the employment of married women held by 583 currently married Los Angeles County women between the ages of 18 and 49 and their personal backgrounds in terms of certain basic demographic characteristics. The findings illustrate that the respondents' attitudes significantly varied as a result of their personal backgrounds (e.g., level of education, ethnicity, marriage duration, income, work status, religion, age, and number of children raised). However, the data do not support the belief of Mason and Bumpass that women's dual-role attitudes are a group phenomenon determined by group norms or collectively held perceptions arising from the women's particular social niches; the demographic characteristics included in the study were able to explain only 27% of the observed variation in dual-role attitudes.     

Chinese Dimensions of Parenting: Broadening Western Predictors and Outcomes

This study examined perceived parental styles and psychosocial adjustment in 97 Hong Kong Chinese late adolescent girls, using culturally sensitive measures of parenting (warmth, restrictive control, and attributes related to the Chinese philosophy of guan or “training”), and of adjustment. Parenting characteristics associated with guan showed coherence, correlated significantly with parental warmth, and predicted well-being. Contrary to the suggestions of other investigators, restrictive control related negatively to self-esteem and well-being. Maternal control and paternal warmth emerged as important parent style variables in relating to adaptation, and exercized their effects on well-being partly through the mediating agency of self-esteem and relationship harmony. This preliminary study provides an empirical investigation of the impact exercized by a culturally specific dimension proposed for Chinese parenting, and highlights the importance of using culturally sensitive measures of adaptation.     

Putting the feminism into feminism scales: Introduction of a Liberal Feminist Attitude and Ideology Scale (LFAIS)

A Likert-type scale was developed to provide a feminist attitude measure that taps the domains of gender role attitudes, goals of feminism, and feminist ideology. The development and testing of the scale involved two studies. First, a pilot study was conducted to help generate themes and items for the scale. Second, the validity and reliability of the scale was empirically tested. The pilot study was conducted with two samples, an undergraduate sample (N =99; ethnic breakdown unknown) and a group of participants in a women's studies conference (N =54; ethnic breakdown unknown). Subsequent empirical testing was conducted on two samples, an additional group of undergraduates (N =209; 43% Asian American, 37% Caucasian, 12% Hispanic, 4% African American, 2% Native American) and a subsample of the Women's Studies conference participants (N =25; 79% Caucasian, 17% Asian American, and 4% Hispanic). Results demonstrate that the final 60-item form of the Liberal Feminist Attitude and Ideology Scale (LFAIS) scale and each of its domains are highly reliable. Furthermore, the LFAIS has good convergent, divergent, concurrent, and known-groups validity. The scale was not susceptible to social desirability bias. Although tested on samples with fairly narrow demographics, the LFAIS shows promise as a reliable and valid measure of liberal feminist attitudes for use by researchers interested in an overtly sociopolitical measure of feminist attitudes. This research was carried out in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the doctoral degree in the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. A paper based on these results was presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, San Diego, CA, 1992. I gratefully acknowledge Ellen Greenberger for her invaluable help with every step of this project. I also appreciate the comments of several anonymous reviewers, Thomas Crawford, Jodie Ullman, Maithilee Pathak, and Diana Grant. Finally, I would like to thank Jonathan Gilmore for his help with data collection.     

Performance differences between stuttering and nonstuttering subjects on a sound fusion task

This study investigated the possibility that there are central auditory level processing differences between stutterers and nonstutterers. The experimental subjects were eight male and three female stutterers ranging in age from 20–45 yr, with a mean age of 31.2 yr. The control group consisted of the same number of males and females, ranging in age from 20–45 yr, with a mean age of 30.1 yr. Each subject participated in a sound fusion task under three variable conditions: 1) group performance (nonstutterers vs. stutterers); 2) ears (right vs. left); and 3) lead-time presentation (0–100 msec). Statistically significant differences were found for lead-time presentation.     

Relative contributions of face and body configurations: perceiving emotional state and motion intention

This study addressed the relative reliance on face and body configurations for different types of emotion-related judgements: emotional state and motion intention. Participants viewed images of people with either emotionally congruent (both angry or fearful) or incongruent (angry/fearful; fearful/angry) faces and bodies. Congruent conditions provided baseline responses. Incongruent conditions revealed relative reliance on face and body information for different judgements. Body configurations influenced motion-intention judgements more than facial configurations: incongruent pairs with angry bodies were more frequently perceived as moving forward than those with fearful bodies; pairs with fearful bodies were more frequently perceived as moving away. In contrast, faces influenced emotional-state judgements more, but bodies moderated ratings of face emotion. Thus, both face and body configurations influence emotion perception, but the type of evaluation required influences their relative contributions. These findings highlight the importance of considering both the face and body as important sources of emotion information.     

Exploring the Construct of Perceived Burdensomeness Among Suicidal Adolescents: An Intervention Development Study

Journal of Child and Family Studies - The Interpersonal Psychological Theory of Suicide has a growing base of empirical support for use with adolescents. Of the two interpersonal constructs that...     

Relative contributions of face and body configurations: Perceiving emotional state and motion intention

This study addressed the relative reliance on face and body configurations for different types of emotion-related judgements: emotional state and motion intention. Participants viewed images of people with either emotionally congruent (both angry or fearful) or incongruent (angry/fearful; fearful/angry) faces and bodies. Congruent conditions provided baseline responses. Incongruent conditions revealed relative reliance on face and body information for different judgements. Body configurations influenced motion-intention judgements more than facial configurations: incongruent pairs with angry bodies were more frequently perceived as moving forward than those with fearful bodies; pairs with fearful bodies were more frequently perceived as moving away. In contrast, faces influenced emotional-state judgements more, but bodies moderated ratings of face emotion. Thus, both face and body configurations influence emotion perception, but the type of evaluation required influences their relative contributions. These findings highlight the importance of considering both the face and body as important sources of emotion information.     

Desert Dreaming: Tracking Psyche through the Landscape

Everything at a distance turns into poetry: distant mountains, distant people, distant events; all become romantic.

—Novalis