Emerging independence in nursing graduates: An analysis of traditional-nontraditional value patterns

The study sought to determine whether current nursing graduates value assertiveness, independence, and achievement to a greater degree than had past graduates, and whether selection or socialization might account for such a change. Scores on the Allport Vernon Lindsey Scale of Values for 55 1974 graduates of a private baccalaureate school of nursing were compared with 66 1980 graduates. Only scores on the political scale were significantly higher for the 1980 class. 1980 graduates displayed a traditional value pattern of high social and low political scores upon entering the educational program. Longitudinal comparison of scores for the 1980 class showed a significant rise in scores on the political scale; graduating scores did not differ significantly from college norms. The results suggest a rise in nontraditional values which is the result of the educational socialization process.     

The intergenerational transmission of relationship instability: A focus on emerging adult on-off relationships

This study extends prior research on the intergenerational transmission of relationship instability by examining parents' history of on-off relationships as a predictor of emerging adults' own cycling (i.e., breaking up and renewing with the same romantic partner). Data were collected at a large mid-western university from 702 emerging adults (18–25 years old). Multinomial logistic regression was used to predict the likelihood that participants had cycled in a past or current relationship. Results show that parental cycling increased the likelihood of offspring cycling in a past or current relationship relative to never cycling, and greater uncertainty about the future of the relationship was a mechanism through which such transmission occurred. Findings from this study demonstrate that parental relationship instability can even be consequential for the transient relationships within emerging adulthood, making family history a productive area to explore for practitioners working with cyclical partners and/or emerging adults.     

Grading the ‘cultural literacy’ project

The essay examines the argument advanced by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., for instituting ‘cultural literacy’ as a fundamental priority of schools. A number of confusions and equivocations in Hirsch's reasoning are identified, and the propensity of his project to indoctrinate is exposed. Among the features of Hirsch's argument shown to be troubling are his shifting construal of ‘language’, his inconsistency about the requirements of cultural literacy, and his uncritical relation to traditional images of the American past and present. The upshot is to raise the question why Hirsch's project has elicited wide support and praise.     

An on-line assessment of causal reasoning during comprehension

Fletcher and Bloom (1988) have argued that as readers read narratives, clause by clause, they repeatedly focus their attention on the last preceding clause that contains antecedents but no consequences in the text. This strategy allows them to discover a causal path linking the text's opening to its final outcome while minimizing the number of times long-term memory must be searched for missing antecedents or consequences. In order to test this hypothesis, we examined the reading times of 25 subjects for each clause of eight simple narrative texts. The results show that: (1) causal links between clauses that co-occur in short-term memory (as predicted by the strategy) increase the time required to read the second clause; (2) potential causal links between clauses that never co-occur in short-term memory (again as predicted by the strategy) have no effect on reading time; and (3) reinstatement searches are initiated at the end of sentences that are causally unrelated to the contents of short-term memory or that contain clauses that satisfy goals no longer in short-term memory. These results support the claim that subjects engage in a form of causal reasoning when they read simple narrative texts.     

Adaptiveness: A moderator of the adverse impact of hassles?

Adaptiveness constitutes coping consistently with Stressors so to reduce distress or, at worst, not aggravate it. Accordingly, it should moderate the adverse impact of hassles. Undergraduate volunteers (N = 200) responded to measures of hassles, adaptiveness, and the criteria of subjective distress, psychiatric symptomatology and minor physical ailments. In all three regression analyses, hassles made a substantial positive contribution and adaptiveness a small negative contribution to adverse outcome. The interaction between hassles and adaptiveness was non-significant in all three cases. Alternative interpretations were identified to guide further research.     

Referenzsemantik in der Partnermodellierung

How can we explain that an assertion on something perceived can be understood in the same manner by somebody who cannot perceive that scene? This problem bases the interest in computational linguistics in how listener modeling could possibly be harmonized with reference semantics. Mental images substituting real perception appear as a way out. The architecture of the listener model has to be adapted to the creation and use of such pictorial data structures. Furthermore, the relation between the latter and a verbal (i. e., propositional) representation must be understood. The resulting architecture of a listener model with reference semantics can be employed to solve communicational problems from three general classes in a better way, as is demonstrated by an example implementation.     

CYCLE OF BLAME OR JUST WORLD

The conviction rate for sexual assault is persistently low in the United States. We propose a cycle-of-blame framework to highlight the possibility that the same rape myths that limit convictions are in turn strengthened by not-guilty verdicts. Participants read a summary of a rape trial. In different conditions, they were told that the jury's verdict was guilty or not guilty. In a No-Verdict condition, participants merely read the summary. All 96 participants subsequently responded to questionnaires measuring rape-myth acceptance and victim empathy. Gender affected both the myth and empathy measures, with women accepting fewer myths than men and exhibiting more empathy for the victim. Gender and Condition interacted such that men showed greater acceptance of rape myths and less empathy after a not-guilty versus a guilty verdict. Women evidenced consistently high empathy across conditions and greater myth acceptance after a guilty verdict. Although the cycle-of-blame principle is consistent with the performance of men, women's data require a different interpretation, which we base on just-world theory.