Attributes and roles assigned to characters in children's writing: Sex differences and sex-role perceptions

This research examined the creative writing of 180 elementary school children for evidence of sex difference and sex-role perceptions. Stories were analyzed for frequency of male and female characters, attributes, and roles. Writers were equally divided by sex and into three age groups—grades 1–2, 3–4, and 5–6. Results suggest that the total number of characters, roles, and attributes was equivalent. However, the distribution of male and female characters, roles, and attributes differed with male and female writers. Female writers included significantly more female characters and assigned more attributes and roles to these characters. Nevertheless, in the stories of both male and female writers, there was a predominance of male characters and assignment of attributes and roles to male characters. The findings support the development and implementation of a nonsexist curriculum.     

Fostering equitable consequences from computer learning environments

This article discusses (a) the potential advantages of learning computer programming, (b) the performance of males and females in middle school programming courses, (c) the problems teachers face in achieving this potential, and (d) the participation of males and females in programming courses. Females comprise about 40% of the students enrolled in middle school programming courses. They perform, on the average, as well as or better than the males, and comprise 60% of the most talented students. Significantly, neither males nor females make very much progress in learning to program and, therefore, in acquiring any of the general cognitive skills which might potentially result from programming courses.This material is based upon research supported by the National Institute of Education, Grant No. 400-83-0017. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Institute of Education. Special thanks are due to John Dalbey, Charles Fisher, Ellen Mandinach, Joanne Stein, and other members of the ACCCEL staff for helpful discussions of these issues.     

Alternation behavior, spatial discrimination, and reversal disturbances following 6-hydroxydopamine lesions in the nucleus accumbens of the rat

The effects of dopaminergic depletion of the nucleus accumbens was tested in various behavioral tasks such as alternation, spatial discrimination, and reversal learning, and in an extinction paradigm in a T maze. Animals with lesions showed impairment of spontaneous alternation behavior, disturbances in the acquisition of spatial discrimination, and great difficulty in reversing previously learned habits. In the extinction phase, experimental animals are unable to adjust their behavior, and continue to choose the previously reinforced arm of the T maze. It is suggested that the nucleus accumbens plays an important role in the transition of motivation into action, and that dopamine has a facilitatory influence on the mediation of these processes.     

Heart-rate responses of infant rats and guinea pigs to stimulus onset and offset: tests of the generality of a bidirectional effect

To test the generality, across modality and across species, of a bidirectional effect of photic stimulation in infant rats found in previous experiments, two experiments examined the effects on heart rate (HR) of onset and offset of auditory stimulation in rats and of photic stimulation in guinea pigs. Experiment 1 demonstrated a unidirectional, decelerative response in rats 17 and 21 days of age to the onset and offset of a 1-kHz tone, at both low (80 dB) and high (100 dB) intensity levels and at 14 days to the onset of the high-intensity tone. Experiment 2 demonstrated that infant guinea pigs, which unlike infant rats are precocial and not nocturnal, responded to the offset but not to the onset of light, and that this response was decelerative. These results indicated a lack of generality of the bidirectional HR effect, and were discussed in terms of the orienting/defensive reflex distinction.     

Aggressive behavior inhibition by serotonin and quipazine injected into the amygdala in the rat

The effects on aggressive behavior, open-field activity, and pain threshold of bilateral microinjections of serotonin (20 micrograms) and quipazine (20 micrograms), the direct serotonergic receptor agonist, into the cortico-medial amygdala were investigated in Wistar rats. Both drugs significantly prolonged the attack latency in isolated killer rats (predatory aggression model), and suppressed the incidence of aggressive postures/attacks in shock-induced fighting test (affective aggression). The only difference in the open-field behavior was the lower number of central square entries in drug-treated compared to saline-injected rats. None of the substances produced any significant change in jump threshold. It is concluded that stimulation of serotonin receptors within the amygdala produces inhibition of affective and muricidal behavior in isolated rats. The effect does not seem to be dependent on changes in general activity and pain sensitivity.     

The relation between classroom social status and classmate likability,compromising skill,temperament, and neighborhood social interactions

Classmate likeability, compromising skill, and temperament (n = 135) and after-school patterns of social interaction (n = 101) were examined for third through seventh grade children who were identified by a binomial probability model as popular, rejected, neglected, or average in the classroom setting. Significant effects were obtained for each type of score. Compared to the other social status groups, popular children were the best liked and rejected children were the least liked; neglected and average children fell between these two extremes. Popular children had higher compromising scores than either rejected or average children, and neglected children had higher scores than rejected children. Compared to average children, rejected children had higher attention and rhythmicity temperament scores. Finally, popular and average children had more neighborhood friends than either rejected or average children, and meglected children had more younger neighborhood friends than did average children. Results are discussed in terms of models of peer social status.     

Seeking urgent pediatric treatment: factors contributing to frequency, delay, and appropriateness

The present study explored the factors that contribute to mothers' decisions to seek urgent medical attention for their children when symptoms are not of a traumatic nature. One hundred mothers seeking treatment for their children at a prepaid clinic completed a questionnaire eliciting their expectations regarding the course of their children's problems, seriousness of the problems, perceived responsibility for the symptoms, and extent to which a variety of factors contributed to their decisions to seek treatment. Demographic data and information about each child's symptoms and medical history were also obtained. Four major "reasons for seeking treatment" factors were identified: family history of the presenting complaint, worry regarding the symptoms, situational variables, and the extent of the child's illness behavior. The appropriateness of the visit, delay in seeking treatment, and frequency of mothers' use of the pediatric clinic were predicted by the nature of the presenting symptoms (particularly the presence of fever), the ages of the mother and child, and two of the reasons for seeking treatment factors (i.e., family history and child's illness behavior). The present study suggests that mothers pay more attention to presenting symptoms and to the children's behavior than to psychosocial stressors in deciding to seek urgent care.     

Co-occurrent use of cigarettes, alcohol, and coffee in healthy, community-living men and women

Previous studies have examined intra-individual aggregation in the use of cigarettes, alcohol, and coffee by examining the co-occurrent use of any pair of these three substances. A recent literature review failed to find a single investigation that studied use of all three in the same sample. In the present study, co-occurrent use of all three of these substances was examined in crossvalidated subsamples of 226 male and 245 female healthy, community-living, middle-class Americans. A log-linear analysis was used to compare the proportion of smokers, ex-smokers, and nonsmokers categorized as users of more or less amounts of coffee and alcohol. Although most of the intercorrelations were not strong, the results indicate that for both sexes, smokers and ex-smokers were more likely than nonsmokers to drink greater amounts of alcohol and coffee. Furthermore, for smokers, ex-smokers, and nonsmokers, a majority of individuals who reported drinking more alcohol also reported drinking more coffee. Interestingly, the coffee and alcohol consumption levels of ex-smokers resembled those of smokers more than those of nonsmokers. Also, ex-smokers reported drinking more wine and decaffeinated coffee than either smokers or nonsmokers. Finally, the number of cigarettes smoked per day (daily quantity) was positively related to total alcohol and coffee consumption in men, but not in women. Further studies are recommended to examine the role of individual differences in the development, maintenance, and modification of these three appetitive habits and their co-occurrence.     

Disqualified and qualified poor sleepers: subjective and objective variables

Sleep laboratory studies of patients complaining of insomnia have demonstrated discrepancies between subjective reports and electroencephalograph (EEG)-recorded measures. In our research studies on sleeping aids, 60% of the self-described poor sleepers who reported usual sleep latencies of at least 45 min did not meet the laboratory qualification criterion of a 30-min or longer sleep latency. To learn to predict who would qualify for our studies, we compared 30 laboratory-qualified poor sleepers (QPS) with 30 laboratory-disqualified poor sleepers (DPSs) on subjective report, mood, and all-night sleep laboratory variables. QPSs had significantly lower sleep efficiency and total sleep time in the laboratory, but these differences were due to the longer sleep latencies (50.7 +/- 27.8 min vs. 15.2 +/- 6.1 min) of the QPS group. QPSs and DPSs differed significantly in their morning estimates of their laboratory sleep latencies; as a group, QPSs gave an accurate estimate (51.6 +/- 27.8 min), but DPSs were significantly more likely to exaggerate their sleep latencies. Although we did not identify ways of predicting which poor sleepers would show sleep-onset insomnia in the sleep laboratory, we did find that, in this young, healthy population, there are poor sleepers who give an accurate report of a rather severe sleep-onset insomnia.