Gender and self-concept: A reexamination of stereotypic differences and the role of gender attitudes

Sex Roles - Gender differences in overall self-evaluation and in specific dimensions of self-concept were examined in primarily White Caucasian college and high school students. The role of gender...     

Career Counseling Specialty: History,Development, and Prospect

This article contains an overview of the historical development of the specialized practice, preparation standards, and credentialing of career counseling. Discussion also focuses on commonalities of career counseling, general counseling, and other specialized forms of counseling, with attention to questions and implications for the future of career counseling practice and standards.     

Effect of Questioning Techniques and Interview Setting on Young Children's Eyewitness Memory

The goal of this research was to learn if supposed ineffective questioning techniques (e.g., question repetition within the interview) would reduce the accuracy of five-year-olds' eyewitness memory. In the first study, children viewed a slide show depicting a minor crime and were then interviewed either with a standard interview or one which incorporated ineffective questioning techniques. The results indicated that the type of interview did not affect children's eyewitness memory. In a second study, children were presented with the ineffective interview by an authoritative interviewer in a formal office setting. The results again indicated little influence of interview setting or question technique on children's eyewitness memory, identification accuracy, and suggestibility.     

The Experience of Growing Up in a Minister's Home and the Religious Commitment of the Adult Child of a Minister

A survey of 487pastors' children (PKs) age 25+ was undertaken to ascertain if there was any relationship between the unique aspects of the pastoral family and their relationships, and his or her adult religious commitment. Variables included the feelings of the PK toward moving, consistency of parental behavior, amount and quality of family time, ability to be oneself without being noticed, expectations by others for self-perceived as greater than their expectations for others, the status of having a pastor as a father, and the support of church and members, intimacy with each parent, satisfying parental marriage, and relationships with friends and extended family. All variables correlated with at least some measures of religious commitment although none were strong predictors. The strongest was the PKs' perception that more was expected of him or her. Other influences not examined in this study appear to have a greater impact on adult religious commitment. Qualitative analysis was consistent with the above.     

Bounded Identities: Women and Religion in Colonial Brazil, 1550–1750

This article examines the creation of women’s gender identity in the religious discourse of colonial Brazil and documents the creation of two separate norms—one for elite women and another for slave, lower-class, and mixed-race women. The Roman Catholic Church, closely linked with the Portuguese monarchic state and its colonial ambitions, transmitted both norms in religious guidebooks, missionary letters and sermons. This summary centers on the defining role for women in marriage, and indicates that the epoch of colonial Brazil is particularly important for feminist study. With the increasingly disparate perspectives on women from Late Antiquity, the Humanists, and Counter-Reformation theologians, this early modern era saw conflicted discourse concerning traditional gender roles.     

Age differences in skill acquisition and transfer in an implicit learning paradigm

Age differences in learning a complex cognitive skill are examined. The type of knowledge gained and levels of performance and transfer achieved, under different practice conditions, were compared in younger and older groups of trainees. The development of verbalizable knowledge about the task but not task performance itself varied as a function of age and practice condition. All trainees achieved transfer to novel versions of the task but older subjects appeared restricted to tasks drawn from the same semantic domain. The implications of these findings for developing training programmes for older workers are discussed.     

Male Partners' Role in Latinas' Amniocentesis Decisions

There has been relatively little research on men's experiences with fetal diagnosis or their role in their female partners' decisions about whether to be tested. This issue may be of particular salience in the delivery of genetic services to Latino groups, where it is often assumed that lower rates of genetic service utilization are linked to men's refusal to allow their wives to be tested. Here we present data from a multimethod study on the use of amniocentesis by Mexican-origin women in Southern California. We focus on the role male partners played in the women's amniocentesis decisions. Contrary to expectation, we found that women made the majority of the decisions about amniocentesis, although their partners' presence at the genetic consultation where the amniocentesis was offered proved an important predictive factor in amniocentesis uptake.     

Understanding Public Reaction to Energy Proposals: An Application of the Fishbein Model1

The Fishbein attitude model was applied to voter decision-making on an energy ballot proposal. Questionnaires were sent to a random sample of potential voters in Oregon's 1976 general election and dealt with the Nuclear Safeguards Initiative, a measure that would place restrictions on future nuclear power plants. Questionnaire items probed the attitude toward the act of voting “Yes” on the measure (A_act), perceived likelihood of various consequences of voting “Yes” (B_i), evaluations of these consequences (e_i), the subjective norm (SN), normative beliefs (NB_i), motivation to comply with several referents (Mc_i), and voting intention (VI). A follow-up interview determined the actual voting behavior (VB) of persons responding to the questionnaire. The following model predictions were tested and strongly supported by the data: (a) VB=VI; and (e) external variables have a nonsignificant relation to VB once VI is partialled out. It was concluded that the Fishbein model should be extremely useful in understanding public reaction to future energy proposals.     

Syllable onsets are perceptual reading units

Syllable onsets are defined as the initial consonant or consonant cluster in a syllable (e.g., BR in BREAD). In the present study, using a letter detection paradigm and French words, we tested whether syllable onsets are processed as units by the reading system. In Experiment 1, we replicated Gross, Treiman, and Inman's (2000) result of observing no difference between the detection latencies of letters embedded in a multi-letter syllable onset (e.g., c in ECLATER) relative to a single-letter syllable onset (e.g., C in ECARTER). In Experiment 2, participants took longer to detect the target letter when it was in the second position of a multi-letter onset (e.g., L in TABLIER) than when it was a single-letter onset (e.g., L in ECOLIER). In Experiment 3, this position effect was replicated for graphemes. In Experiment 4, we tested and ruled out an alternative explanation of the unitization effect, in terms of lateral masking. These results indicate that syllable onsets are processed as perceptual units by the reading system and that the unitization effect is position dependent.