Hearing the Difference: Theorizing Connection

Hearing the difference between a patriarchal voice and a relational voice defines a paradigm shift: a change in the conception of the human world. Theorizing connection as primary and fundamental in human life leads to a new psychology, which shifts the grounds for philosophy and political theory. A crucial distinction is made between a feminine ethic of care and a feminist ethic of care. Voice, relationship, resistance, and women become central rather than peripheral in this reframing of the human world.     

New parents at work: Jobs, families and the psychological contract

Interviews with seven women and six men who had recently returned to work after becoming first-time parents were carried out to examine experiences of the policies, practices and attitudes of their employers towards new parents, and to assess how far they felt able to discuss their circumstances and changed expectations with their managers. Findings pointed to considerable differences in the attitudes of employers to the men and women. Almost all the women had changed to part-time work, but arranging this had not been easy and some had found it difficult to come to terms with a difference in status. Many of the respondents had reservations about discussing their positions and altered expectations with their managers, and it seemed unlikely that mutually beneficial psychological contracts could be negotiated without changes in organisational cultures and policies. The findings have implications for our understanding of organisational careers and for career-planning interventions in organisations.     

Success,social comparison,and self-assessment: Parents' midlife evaluations of sons,daughters, and self

The literatures on sex-role socialization and social comparison theory were used to predict how parents would evaluate the life success of adult sons and daughters and how parents' assessments of themselves would be influenced by comparisons with these children. Although parents (N=215) did not report different levels of life success for 291 adult sons versus 251 adult daughters, parental well-being was more closely tied to assessments of sons' success. In addition, although parents' reported that both sons and daughters had exceeded their own life success, theparent-child comparison with daughters was the better predictor of parents' well-being. Findings are discussed in terms of parents' individual development, family processes at midlife, and cohort differences between parents and their children.     

Residence time and choice in concurrent foraging schedules

Five pigeons were trained on a concurrent-schedule analogue of the “some patches are empty” procedure. Two concurrently available alternatives were arranged on a single response key and were signaled by red and green keylights. A subject could travel between these alternatives by responding on a second yellow “switching” key. Following a changeover to a patch, there was a probability (p) that a single reinforcer would be available on that alternative for a response after a time determined by the value of λ, a probability of reinforcement per second. The overall scheduling of reinforcers on the two alternatives was arranged nonindependently, and the available alternative was switched after each reinforcer. In Part 1 of the experiment, the probabilities of reinforcement, ρ_red and ρ_green, were equal on the two alternatives, and the arranged arrival rates of reinforcers, λ_red and λ_green, were varied across conditions. In Part 2, the reinforcer arrival times were arranged to be equal, and the reinforcer probabilities were varied across conditions. In Part 3, both parameters were varied. The results replicated those seen in studies that have investigated time allocation in a single patch: Both response and time allocation to an alternative increased with decreasing values of λ and with increasing values of ρ, and residence times were consistently greater than those that would maximize obtained reinforcer rates. Furthermore, both response- and time-allocation ratios undermatched mean reinforcer-arrival time and reinforcer-frequency ratios.     

Features Resembling Tourette''s Syndrome in Developmental Stutterers

Developmental stuttering (DS) may be related to the extrapyramidal motor system and shares many clinical similarities with Tourette's syndrome (TS), which is widely believed to be associated with extrapyramidal dysfunction. Twenty-two stutterers were examined for neuropsychiatric features commonly seen in TS, including tics, obsessive-compulsive behaviors (OCB), and attention deficit disorders. Eleven stutterers displayed motor tics, and symptoms of OCB were observed at rates similar to those seen in persons with TS. Few stutterers demonstrated significant attentional deficits. Findings are consistent with models suggesting extrapyramidal involvement in DS and raise the possibility that DS and TS are pathogenetically related.     

Propensity to Sexually Harass: An Exploration of Gender Differences

This research explored the propensity ofpredominantly white male and female college students toengage in severe forms of sexual harassment. Inaddition, this research assessed the extent to whichmales' and females' intentions to harass are based onsimilar aspects of harassment situations. Resultsindicated that males had significantly higherpropensities to harass members of the opposite sex thanfemales. Additionally, the distributions of male andfemale scores on an instrument measuring propensity toharass were significantly different. Finally, analysessuggested that males and females attended to different aspects of harassment situations. Femalesappeared to attend to the nature of the powerrelationship between the potential harasser and target,which they defined more broadly than males, whereasmales attended to the sexual aspects of thesituation, which they defined more broadly than females.These results are discussed and their implicationsconsidered.     

Treatment of traumagenic beliefs among sexually abused girls and their mothers: An evaluation study

The objective of this study was to evaluate and compare the efficacy of two short-term individual therapy interventions for sexually abused girls and their nonoffending female caretakers. Thirty-two girls, ages 8 to 13, and their caretakers from primarily low-income, African-American families were randomly assigned to a theoretically based, structured experimental treatment program or to a relatively unstructured comparison intervention. Measures of child outcome were completed before and after the treatment program by each parent and child, and by a clinician blind to treatment condition. Pre- and postmeasures of maternal outcome were completed by the caretaker and a clinician not involved in the treatment. Both treatment programs yielded decreases in children's posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and traumagenic beliefs reflecting self-blame and powerlessness, and increases in children's overall psychosocial functioning. The experimental intervention was more effective than the comparison program in increasing abuse-related caretaker support of the child and in decreasing caretaker self-blame and expectations of undue negative impact of the abuse on the child. Clinical impfications of these findings include the development of interventions targeting sexually abused children's traumagenic beliefs and nonoffending parents' support of their victimized children.This research was supported by the Emory Medical Care Foundation and the Children's Trust Fund of Georgia. Preliminary findings were presented at the Society for Research in Child Development, New Orleans, March 1993.The authors thank the clinic families, volunteer therapists, and project staff members whose work together made this research possible. Core project staff members other than the authors include Milonne Ambroise, Mary Lynn Dell, Sherry Dey, Beth Dreelin, Jenny Gould, Katherine January, Suzann Lawry, Marie Simmons, and Lisseth Rojas.     

Characteristics and consequences of help-giving practices in contrasting human services programs

Relationships between human services program models and help-giving practices, and between both program models and help-giving practices and help-seeker control appraisals were examined in a study of 107 low socioeconomic background families. Three kinds of human services agencies were included in the study, each of which differed in terms of their implicit and explicit assumptions about the families they served and the roles professionals and families played as part of helping relationships. Results support the hypotheses that (a) a program philosophy that was family centered would be associated with more empowering help-giving practices compared to more professionally centered philosophies and (b) a family-centered program philosophy and empowering help-giving practices would be related to an enhanced sense of personal control over needed supports and resources from a target help-giver.     

Media use and political commitment: The 1992 U.S. presidential election

This study explores the relationship between media use and political commitment. Undergraduate participants answered an extensive political background questionnaire, which included measures of media use, perceived importance of information sources regarding the 1992 presidential election, and various political behaviors as an index of political commitment. Correlational analyses revealed that those who are more politically committed tend to select a variety of media sources regarding a presidential candidate. This study also investigated how informational and commitment variables were related to attitudes towards the major presidential candidates. Results observed for people expressing positive attitudes toward Perot are discussed in terms of the modern day “third party voter.”