The Development of Children's Concepts of Hardness

This study was conducted for three purposes. First, we assessed the development of children's concepts of hardness as an intensive physical quantity. We hypothesized a U-shaped behavioral growth curve for children's judgments on tasks measuring intensive physical quantity, but the hypothesis was not confirmed. The justifications accompanying correct and incorrect judgments for hardness were similar to those where U-shaped behavioral growth was found for other intensive physical quantities (temperature and sweetness). The second purpose was to determine how children solve seriation and transitivity tasks where hardness was the content. More older than younger children solved these tasks, and the transitivity task was correctly solved after the seriation task was correctly solved. One pattern of solutions for transitivity and intensive physical quantity allowed for differentiation between younger and older children who solved the intensivity tasks correctly. The third purpose was to determine whether children think that objects' hardnesses are labile (i.e., hard objects can become soft and vice versa) by simply adding more of that substance. More younger than older children thought that this was true     

Static and Phasic Cross-Talk Effects in Discrete Bimanual Reversal Movements

The authors examined the hypothesis that the phasic and the static cross-talk effects found in bimanual movements with different target amplitudes originate at different functional levels of motor control, which implies that the effects can be dissociated experimentally. When the difference between the short and the long amplitudes assigned to the 2 hands of 12 participants was decreased, the static effect disappeared. In contrast, the phasic effect, which can be observed only at short preparation intervals, did not disappear; although it became smaller in absolute terms, in relative terms it did not. In addition, the authors compared the time course of amplitude assimilation with the time course of amplitude variability and examined the correlation between left hand and right hand amplitudes. The disappearance of the phasic amplitude assimilation at increasing preparation intervals turned out to be delayed relative to the decline of the correlation between amplitudes. That finding suggests that the assimilation of mean amplitudes and the correlation between left hand and right hand amplitudes are not fully equivalent indicators of intermanual interactions, but may indicate different kinds of inter-limb coupling.     

Book Reviews

Dan Olweus. Prediction of Aggression (On the Basis of a Projective Test). Stockholm: Scandinavian Test Corporation, 1969. Reviewed by A. I. Rabin

F. D. Naylor. Personality and Educational Achievement. New York: Wiley, 1972, 162 pages, $6.95. Reviewed by Frank H. Farley

Hendrik M. Ruitenbeek (Ed.) The Analytic Situation: How Patient and Therapist Communicate. Chicago: Aldine, 1973, 222 pages, $8.50. Reviewed by Emanuel Berman     

Managing deviance: Hustling,homophobia, and the bodybuilding subculture

The subculture of bodybuilding is the backdrop of an analysis of some contradictions inherent in American masculinity. One of the most unusual, but telling of these has to do with “hustling”: the widespread selling of sexual favors by bodybuilders to gay men. In this, one also finds the incongruent presence of homophobia. Hence, homosexual behavior is juxtaposed by anti‐homosexual behavior. This study shows that this irony is necessary if the hustler is to maintain his alleged heterosexual identity. Hypermasculinity and strategies of economic survival in the highly competitive southern California bodybuilding scene are also examined in relation to hustling and more generally to American masculinity. Contradictions in bodybuilding are shown to be more problematic than studies of other street hustlers and prison populations where homosexual behavior is juggled with heterosexual identity.     

Influence of delayed muscle reflexes on spinal stability: Model-based predictions allow alternative interpretations of experimental data

Model-based calculations indicate that reflex delay and reflex gain are both important for spinal stability. Experimental results demonstrate that chronic low back pain is associated with delayed muscle reflex responses of trunk muscles. The aim of the present study was to analyze the influence of such time-delayed reflexes on the stability using a simple biomechanical model. Additionally, we compared the model-based predictions with experimental data from chronic low back pain patients and healthy controls using surface-electromyography. Linear stability methods were applied to the musculoskeletal model, which was extended with a time-delayed reflex model. Lateral external perturbations were simulated around equilibrium to investigate the effects of reflex delay and gain on the stability of the human lumbar spine. The model simulations predicted that increased reflex delays require a reduction of the reflex gain to avoid spinal instability. The experimental data support this dependence for the investigated abdominal muscles in chronic low back pain patients and healthy control subjects. Reflex time-delay and gain dependence showed that a delayed reflex latency could have relevant influence on spinal stability, if subjects do not adapt their reflex amplitudes. Based on the model and the experimental results, the relationship between muscle reflex response latency and the maximum of the reflex amplitude should be considered for evaluation of (patho) physiological data. We recommend that training procedures should focus on speeding up the delayed reflex response as well as on increasing the amplitude of these reflexes.     

Correcting Big Five Personality Measurements for Acquiescence: An 18‐Country Cross‐Cultural Study

For groups of persons with low or medium levels of education, Big Five personality scales typically yield scores that poorly replicate the idealized Big Five factor pattern. On the basis of representative samples of German adults, Rammstedt et al. have demonstrated that correcting each person's score for acquiescence eliminates this problem. In the present 18‐country study using large samples representative of each country's adult population, we found that, in all cases, correcting for acquiescence did indeed improve the congruence of factor loadings with an idealized Big Five pattern. However, although this correction led to acceptably high correspondence levels in all countries classified as individualistic, this was not always true for non‐individualistic countries. Possible reasons for this finding are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Verbal Memory Deficits in Children with Less than 750 g Birth Weight

Numerous studies have documented memory deficits in very low birthweight (VLBW, < 1500 g) children, yet we know little about the nature of these memory problems. To clarify memory sequelae and examine memory deficits in relation to the degree of low birth weight, we administered the California Verbal Learning Test–Children’s Version (CVLT-C) to a regional sample of 57 < 750 g birthweight children and to groups of 53 750–1499 g birthweight children and 49 term-born controls. Group comparisons revealed significant differences between the < 750 g birthweight group and term-born children on measures of list learning, delayed recall, and inaccurate recall. In addition, the percentage improvement in correct recognitions relative to long-term delayed recall was greater in the < 750 g group than in the term-born controls. Similar differences were observed between VLBW children with and without abnormal neonatal cerebral ultrasounds (high- and low-risk groups). Differences in learning rate between the VLBW and term-born groups, and between high- and low-risk VLBW children, were evident even when vocabulary skill was covaried or when children with neurosensory deficits or IQ < 80 were excluded from analysis. The findings document deficits in verbal memory in the subset of VLBW children at greatest biological risk, and suggest that acquisition processes are selectively impaired.     

Quasi-Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Structural Equation Models With Multiple Interaction and Quadratic Effects

In this article, a nonlinear structural equation model is introduced and a quasi-maximum likelihood method for simultaneous estimation and testing of multiple nonlinear effects is developed. The focus of the new methodology lies on efficiency, robustness, and computational practicability. Monte-Carlo studies indicate that the method is highly efficient and that the likelihood ratio test of nonlinear effects is robust and outperforms alternative testing procedures. The new method is applied to empirical data of middle-aged men, where a latent interaction between physical fitness and flexibility in goal adjustment on complaint level is hypothesized. A model with 5 simultaneous nonlinear effects is analyzed, and the hypothesized interaction is quantified and tested positively against an additive model with quadratic and linear effects.     

A Heterogeneous Growth Curve Model for Nonnormal Data

The heterogeneous growth curve model (HGM; Klein &; Muthén, 2006 Klein, A.G., &; Muthén, B.O. (2006). Modeling heterogeneity of latent growth depending on initial status. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 31, 357–375. doi: 10.3102/10769986031004357[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) is a method for modeling heterogeneity of growth rates with a heteroscedastic residual structure for the slope factor. It has been developed as an extension of a conventional growth curve model and a complementary tool to growth curve mixture models. In this article, a robust version of the heterogeneous growth curve model (HGM-R) is presented that extends the original HGM with a mixture model to allow for an unbiased parameter estimation under the condition of nonnormal data. In two simulation studies, the performance of the method is examined under the condition of nonnormality and a misspecified heteroscedastic residual structure. The results of the simulation studies suggest an unbiased estimation of the heterogeneity by the HGM-R when sample size was large enough and a good approximation of the heteroscedastic residual structure even when the functional form of the heteroscedasticity was misspecified. The practical application of the approach is demonstrated for a data set from HIV-infected patients.     

Practitioners of the Divine: Greek Priests and Religious Officials from Homer to Heliodorus

This review essay considers three recent introductory textbooks on Sikhism by Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh (Sikhism: An Introduction. New York: I.B. Taurus, 2011), Doris Jakobsh (Sikhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2012), and Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair (Sikhism: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013). The review begins with a brief historical précis of the early production of texts on Sikhs and Sikhism in North America, as well as the politicized contexts in which they were produced. As heirs to this (and earlier) history, the textbooks examined in the present review share a common premise: namely, each seeks to unsettle what their respective authors understand as the enduring specter of colonialism. The authors and their textbooks recognize the need to better reflect Sikh experience and self-understanding. At the same time, these textbooks illustrate a tremendous range of pedagogical trajectories and heuristic orientations: feminist and aesthetic, disparity and diversity, and conceptual and linguistic. Having used all three of these textbooks in undergraduate classes, the reviewer concludes with some reflections on pedagogy drawn from his own experiences and student responses to the texts.