“What matters to us”: The portrait values questionnaire to measure couple values

No previous studies have analyzed values as qualities of relational microsystems, such as the romantic couple. Based on Schwartz's Theory of Human Values, this study examines the psychometric properties of the Portrait Couple Values Questionnaire (PCVQ). It measures four couple value dimensions: conservation, openness to change, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence. Five hundred and forty-six Italian respondents (54.1% women), aged 41.52 years (SD = 7.19; range 23–63) and having a couple relationship, have filled in an anonymous online questionnaire. The results show the good psychometric properties of the PCVQ. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis Magnifying Glass Strategy shows good indexes of fit for each value dimension, except for the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) for openness to change, thus confirming that the PCVQ measures the four values with satisfactory internal consistency. The Multidimensional Scaling results, by showing a Stress-1 index of 0.07, confirm the circular structure of values because the four value dimensions are in the position predicted by Schwartz's model. Participants' personal and couple values are highly but not perfectly correlated, suggesting that couple values are a related but distinct construct compared to personal values. This study's contribution lies in introducing an innovative construct into the literature on values and couples, proposing a scale to assess it.     

Visual influences on auditory pluck and bow judgments

In the McGurk effect, visual information specifying a speaker’s articulatory movements can influence auditory judgments of speech. In the present study, we attempted to find an analogue of the McGurk effect by using nonspeech stimuli—the discrepant audiovisual tokens of plucks and bows on a cello. The results of an initial experiment revealed that subjects’ auditory judgments were influenced significantly by the visual pluck and bow stimuli. However, a second experiment in which speech syllables were used demonstrated that the visual influence on consonants was significantly greater than the visual influence observed for pluck-bow stimuli. This result could be interpreted to suggest that the nonspeech visual influence was not a true McGurk effect. In a third experiment, visual stimuli consisting of the wordspluck andbow were found to have no influence over auditory pluck and bow judgments. This result could suggest that the nonspeech effects found in Experiment 1 were based on the audio and visual information’s having an ostensive lawful relation to the specified event. These results are discussed in terms of motor-theory, ecological, and FLMP approaches to speech perception.     

Serious and playful aggression in Brazilian girls and boys

We report on an observational study on sex differences in serious and playful aggression in early childhood. The sample included 14 girls and 14 boys, aged 2 to 4. The study was carried out in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Half of the subjects attended a nursery school for children from a favela (slum district); the others attended a nursery school that was run by a local university and represented the life conditions of the middle class of the Brazilian society. Each of the children was observed at school for 3 hours (divided into 12–15 minutes episodes) through a focal sampling technique. Significant sex differences are found for the frequency of playful aggression for both the actor's and the victim's part of the aggressive act, but for the actor's role the effect holds only for the middle class setting. There are also tremendous differences between the frequencies of serious aggression in girls and some of the boys, although the effect is not statistically significant. When several types of aggression are compared, it becomes evident that sex differences are restricted to bullying (dominant aggression). The rates of instrumental and reactive aggression are similar in both sexes. Girls and boys from the favela setting do not differ in the relative importance of the different types of serious aggression, but in middle class children the proportion of acts of bullying is much higher in boys than in girls.Revised and elaborated version of the contribution to the Paper Session onFemale Aggression at the90th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Chicago, 1991. We thank Claúdio Simon Hutz and Tânia Sperb who helped us to carry out the observations and Simone Schenk and Iris Seltenreich for help in data analysis. We are also grateful to the children and the staff of two nursery schools in Porto Alegre, Brazil, who participated in the study.     

Dysfunctional beliefs, self-monitoring, and marital conflict

Relationships among relationship beliefs, self-monitoring and conflict behavior were examined in 74 married couples. It was predicted that dysfunctional relationship beliefs would be negatively correlated with marital satisfaction and that high self-monitoring spouses would endorse more dysfunctional relationship beliefs and display more disagreeing and leadership conflict behavior. Dysfunctional beliefs were negatively correlated with satisfaction but low and high self-monitors did not differ in their conflict behavior. Discriminant analyses indicated that marital distress was a function of endorsement of dysfunctional relationship beliefs; decreased satisfaction with decisions; increased conflict relevance; and increased impression management reflected in high self-monitoring orientations among husbands and wives’ beliefs that their husbands were not behaving “normally.” The contribution of gender and impression management to marital distress is discussed. This study was funded by a University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty research grant awarded to the author.     

Leibniz's complete propositional logic

Conclusion I have shown (to my satisfaction) that Leibniz's final attempt at a generalized syllogistico-propositional calculus in the Generales Inquisitiones was pretty successful. The calculus includes the truth-table semantics for the propositional calculus. It contains an unorthodox view of conjunction. It offers a plethora of very important logical principles. These deserve to be called a set of fundamentals of logical form. Aside from some imprecisions and redundancies the system is a good systematization of propositional logic, its semantics, and a correct account of general syllogistics. For 1686 it was quite an accomplishment. It is a pity that Leibniz himself did not fully appreciate what he had achieved. It does seem to me that this was due in part, as the Kneales urge (Note 4), to his having kept the focus of his attention on traditional syllogistics. It is a great pity that he did not polish GI 195–200 for publication. The publication of GI 195, 198, and 200 would have most likely promoted further research.This paper was conceived in a Seminar on the Generales Inquisitiones offered by Professor Klaus Jacobi at the University of Freiburg during the 1987 winter semester. I am grateful to him for having allowed me to participate in that exciting seminar. I am grateful to all the seminar participants, especially to Professor Jacobi, Professor Klaus Erich Kaehler, Doctor Helmut Pape, and Herr Hans-Peter Engelhart for sustained and illuminating discussions of some passages of the GI. Jacobi was extremely kind in reading the second version of this paper with a highly refined comb. I am most grateful to him for having pointed out typos, stylistic infelicities, and conceptual obscurities. He also provided advice on the translation, and, most generously and cooperatively, offered suggestions for improving the exposition and the arguments.     

Observing behavior in monkeys (Macaca arctoides): Support for the information hypothesis

A single lever, discrete-trials observing procedure was used with stumptailed monkeys (Macaca arctoides). Lever-presses during a trial produced colored key lights (IS⁺ and IS^?) which signaled whether the trial would end with response-independent food or without food. During the baseline period, both IS⁺ and IS^? were produced on a variable-interval (VI) 15-sec schedule which began operating at the onset of the trial. The two experimental conditions involved a combination of this VI schedule and a DRL schedule. In one of these conditions, only a response that both met the VI requirement and was preceded by at least 6 sec of nonresponding could produce IS^? on nonfood trials, while the schedule for IS⁺ on food trials remained VI 15 sec. In the other experimental condition, the schedules for producing the two stimuli were the reverse. All subjects eventually learned to produce either IS⁺ or IS^? on the combined VI-DRL schedule. These data support an information hypothesis of observing in monkeys and contrast with data from pigeons which support a conditioned reinforcement hypothesis.     

Orientations to conflict: Gender, attributions, resolution strategies, and self-monitoring

Gender differences in relationship quality, conflict perceptions, reported conflict strategy use, and self-monitoring orientations were examined in a sample of undergraduates. It was predicted that males and high self-monitoring individuals would see their relationships as less intimate, themselves as less committed, and would endorse more frequent use of uncooperative and avoidant strategies. Participants (n=124) completed the following: a measure of conflict perceptions; a Conflict Strategy Scale measuring frequency of Cooperative, Uncooperative, and Denial-Avoidant strategies; and Snyder’s Self-Monitoring Scale. Compared to females, males scored higher in self-monitoring, saw friendships as less intimate and stable, saw their conflicts as more stable, and endorsed more frequent use of Denial-Avoidant strategies. Masculine orientations to conflict reflected increased self-presentational concerns and perceptions that minimized the personal relevance of conflict.     

Sex differences,sex-role orientation,and reward allocations

In study 1, 52 male and 52 female undergraduates allocated rewards to pairs of children for their performances in team and competitive situations. Males allocated rewards more equitably, especially when allocating to boys in competition, while females allocated rewards more equally. Boys, but not girls, who did more work received more rewards than their partner; and children with greater work inputs under competitive conditions received more rewards than children in team conditions. In study 2, the sex-role orientation of 60 college students was found to be related to their reward allocations. Males and females with a masculine sex-role orientation allocated rewards equitably, while individuals with a feminine sex-role orientation allocated rewards equally. Results indicated that sex and situational differences in reward allocations are affected by sex-role orientation and differential socialization practices by adults.Portions of study 1 were presented at the Midwestern Psychological Association Meeting, Chicago, May 1978.