Contrapower sexual harassment: The effects of student sex and type of behavior on faculty perceptions

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of sex of offender and type of behavior on faculty perceptions of contrapower sexual harassment. Probability samples of predominately white male and female faculty at two universities in the Midwest were asked to read and make judgments about an incident that might constitute sexual harassment of a faculty member by an opposite-sex student. The effects of offender/student sex, type of harassing behavior, and subject sex were assessed. Some of the results included, as hypothesized, that when the student offender was male, subjects were more likely to: (1) view the incident as harassment, (2) believe the faculty member would be upset, and (3) see the student as responsible, compared to when the student offender was female. Overall, obscene phone calls and explicit verbal-physical harassment were viewed more negatively than written sexual comments and implicit verbal-physical harassment. Female faculty subjects also viewed the incidents as more negative or problematic on several measures than did male faculty.     

Weapons used by juveniles and adults to kill parents

Youths who kill, particularly those who kill their parents, have been a matter of increasing concern in the United States in recent years. Empirical analyses of homicide and parricide cases, however, have been limited. The FBI Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) Data Base for the 10-year period 1977–1986 was utilized to investigate which weapons were used by children in the United States to kill male and female parents and stepparents in single victim, single offender situations. Biological parents were analyzed separately from stepparents. Significant differences were found in the weapons used to kill male and female parents, the weapons used by juveniles and adults when killing parents and stepfathers, and the weapons used by both juveniles and adults when killing male as opposed to female victims. The age and gender differences found in relation to weapons used to kill parents were consistent with a physical strength hypothesis. The relationship found between offender age and weapon used strongly suggests that the number of parricides committed by juveniles could be somewhat curtailed if access to firearms, particularly rifles and shotguns, was severely restricted.     

Activity settings as the unit of analysis: A theoretical basis for community intervention and development

Theory, methods, and action develop within context, one of which is the intellectual climate of an era. Community psychology is directly and indirectly interactive with many intellectual currents, such as postmodernism, semiotics, hermeneutics, and dialogism. These ideas are discussed as they impact on community psychology, with an emphasis on the reemergence of meaning as a central condition of psychology and community. Meaning is of key importance to the unifying concept in the transactional theoretical model which is presented. How this model might serve as a conceptual framework for an asset approach to community intervention and development is discussed. Increasingly, it is recognized that the development of theory to guide community research and action is necessary to advance intervention and to realize the potential of community psychology. It is argued that community psychology is positioned by concepts and practice squarely at the point of emerging thought, and can make fuondational contributions to general social science. The next article in this special section illustrates concepts of this model in an early education program and the remaining article illustrates the influence of ecocultural factors.     

The range effect as a function of stimulus set,presence of a standard,and modulus

The intramodal range effect (an inverse relationship between stimulus range and exponent in Stevens’s power law) has been well documented, but its conditions have not been tested. Both the estimates of stimulus magnitudes and their exponents are affected by context, stimulus location, and different standards and moduli, but how these variables might interact with the variable of stimulus range has not been studied. In the present research, exponents were derived from magnitude estimates of line length for each of three different stimulus: ranges at two different locations on the scale of length, with or without a modulus. Moduli of 50 and 500 permitted an analysis of the effect of response magnitude on the range effect. Because different ranges had stimulus values in common, the effect of range and location on exponents from those common values could be determined. Exponents decreased as stimulus range increased, but only in the free-modulus condition. For that condition, exponents derived from magnitude estimates of only the common stimuli also showed the range effect and response magnitude did not influence the range effect. Exponents were higher for stimulus ranges at the lower location, but location does not appear to contribute to the range effect. Although the range effect is not explained, the conditions under which it holds and some factors that may influence it are considered.     

Cognitive-behavioral treatment with and without response prevention for Bulimia

We compared cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) with and without exposure and response prevention (ERP) in the treatment of eating disorder patients who both binged and purged, and reported abnormal attitudes concerning body weight and shape. Both treatments produced significant and comparable reductions in binge-eating and purging, eating patterns, and attitudes about weight and shape at posttreatment. Treatment effects were generalized to improvements in different measures of general psychopathology, and were maintained over follow-ups of 3 and 12 months. The findings are consistent with prior research showing that CBT is an effective treatment for patients with the core features of bulimia nervosa. Furthermore, the data suggest that the addition of in-session exposure and response prevention does not enhance the effectiveness of the basic CBT program.     

Evaluation of A Single Presentation Format For Education About Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Disease1

This study explored the efficiency and effectiveness of a single presentation format for education about human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease. Pretraining and posttraining questionnaires assessing knowledge and risk assessment were given to police officers attending a two-hour seminar on HIV disease. A one-way ANOVA was used to compare posttraining scores of 42 officers who attended the seminar one year ago with the pretraining scores of 63 officers currently attending the seminar, some of whom had attended the seminar one year earlier. Significant differences were found on knowledge items (p < .05). Post hoc analysis revealed no significant decline in knowledge scores after one year, while pretraining knowledge scores for those who had attended the seminar before were significantly greater than for those who had not. No significant differences were found on risk assessment items, suggesting that beliefs about on the job risk have become part of the officers' common culture.     

Stutterer''s scaled attitudes and their prognostic significance in therapy

Thirty individuals who manifested stuttering behavior participated in an intensive therapy program. Measures of pretherapy attitudes on the Attitude and Behavioral Observation Scale, which consists of self-evaluations of attitudes on a scale of five equal-appearing intervals and also two questionnaires, the Iowa Scale of Attitude Toward Stuttering and the Stutterer's Self-Ratings of Reactions to Speech Situations were utilized. These three scales were found to be significantly correlated. A difference score from the Motor Performance Scale, a speech proficiency scale of one to five was completed at pre- and posttherapy, as a measure of the client's success from therapy. Generally, pretherapy attitudes did not correlate significantly with success from therapy.     

Effects of academic instruction on spatial visualization

The hypothesis that spatial ability can be improved through experience afforded but relevant college courses was supported for a group of 142 male and female college students. Two spatial visualization tests were administered before and after two years of college study. Students majoring in the humanities and the social sciences improved less than those majoring in mathematics and the physical sciences. Female physical science majors improved more than male physical science majors. A significant correlation between improvement in tested spatial ability and number of mathematics courses taken was obtained.     

TEACHING MENDING SKILLS TO MENTALLY RETARDED ADOLESCENTS

This experiment presents a model for analyzing community living skills and teaching them to mentally retarded adolescents. A task analysis of three mending skills was developed and validated, aided by consultation with persons having expertise in home economics and mental retardation. The task analysis was modified to compensate for the constraints imposed by the trainees' disabilities. Five moderately retarded youths received training on sewing hems, buttons, and seams. Sewing skills were acquired rapidly and maintained. The behavior generalized from trained to untrained tasks on their common components for all subjects. A multiple baseline across participants combined with a multiple baseline across responses demonstrated the combined effectiveness of an objectively validated, detailed task analysis; graduated sequence of prompts; and response consequences in training and maintaining community living skills with mentally retarded adolescents.     

A longitudinal study of real-life decision making: Choosing a college

Three hundred and twenty two college-bound high school students described aspects of their college decision-making processes. Students listed their criteria as well as the alternatives (i. e., schools) under consideration, rated the importance of each criterion, and rated each alternative with respect to each criterion. They also gave their overall impressions of each alternative. Finally, students rated their comfort with the decision-making process and, at the conclusion of the study, reported on how many schools they had applied to, had or had not been accepted at, were waiting to hear from, or were waitlisted at. Students consider four or five alternatives, and use eight to ten criteria in evaluating them. These figures do not change appreciably over the course of the process, although only about half the criteria or/and slightly more than half of the schools considered at one time are considered again 6 months later, and there are several changes in the kinds of criteria considered at different points in time. There was a marginally significant trend for higher ability and average ability students to consider more criteria, more distinct types of criteria, and more alternatives than do lower ability students. There were no gender differences in this regard. Gender differences and academic ability group differences were apparent, however, in the types of criteria students reported. Participation in multiple sessions in this study had few reliable effects on decision-making performance. Students were given a list of 34 standard criteria at each session, and incorporated some of these into their own lists of criteria during subsequent sessions. However, there was no indication that repeated participation led students to adopt a more analytical strategy than they would have otherwise. Data were compared with three linear models of information integration. Models using data with multiple criteria better fit the students' data than did a model using only the most important criterion. Higher ability students were particularly better able to integrate information according to linear models.