The Transracial Adoption Debate: Counseling and Legal Implications

Over the last 30 years, the practice of White American parents adopting African American children has been the focus of much deliberation and commentary. In this article, the authors illuminate relevant literature and research regarding transracial adoption. Counseling and legal implications are also discussed.     

Structural limits on verb mapping: the role of abstract structure in 2.5‐year‐olds’ interpretations of novel verbs

Two experiments showed that 2.5‐year‐olds, as well as older children, interpret new verbs in accord with their number of arguments. When interpreting new verbs describing the same motion events, children who heard transitive sentences were more likely than were children who heard intransitive sentences to assume that the verb referred to the actions of the causal agent. The sentences were designed so that only the number of noun‐phrase arguments differed across conditions (e.g. She’s pilking her over there versus She’s pilking over there). These experiments isolate number of noun‐phrase arguments (or number of nouns) as an early constraint on sentence interpretation and verb learning, and provide strong evidence that children as young as 2.5 years of age attend to a sentence’s overall structure in interpreting it.     

Group decision process and incrementalism in organizational decision making

In two studies examining resource allocation, support is found for the notion that group decisions are affected in systematic ways depending on whether or not there was individual consideration of the problem before meeting as a group. Specifically, compared to no prior consideration groups, prior consideration groups (1) escalate their commitment more in progress (i.e., ongoing) decisions, and (2) are less willing to concentrate resources on a single project in adoption (i.e., resource utilization) decisions. The findings challenge the blanket assertion that promoting divergent views in a group decision context is always related to better decisions.     

Consequences of Feeling Dissimilar from Others in a Work Team

This study extended the current literature on group diversity by examining the moderating influence of perceived group openness to diversity on the relationships between perceived individual visible, informational, and value dissimilarity; individual task and relationship conflict; and work group involvement. A survey was administered to 129 public service employees who worked in intact teams. Results revealed that value dissimilarity had a positive association with task and relationship conflict and a negative association with work group involvement. Perceived group openness to diversity moderated the associations between visible and informational dissimilarity and work group involvement, and between value dissimilarity and task conflict. These results highlight the importance of managing differences by introducing norms promoting diversity and the involvement of all team members.     

Thoughts of Death and Suicide in Early Adolescence

The prevalence and persistence of thoughts of death and suicide during early adolescence were estimated in a community‐based cohort. A latent class approach was used to identify distinct subgroups based on endorsements to depression items administered repeatedly over 24 months. Two classes emerged, with 75% in a low ideation class across four assessments. Less than 2% persisted in the high ideation class over three or more assessments. African American and Asian American adolescents were more likely than European Americans to belong to the high ideation class. No members of the low ideation class endorsed “thought about killing myself,” while “thoughts of death and dying” was endorsed by members of both classes. Implications for interpreting meanings of death and suicide ideation in early adolescence are discussed.     

Describing organizations as reinforcer systems: A new use for job satisfaction and employee attitude surveys

Job satisfaction data on managerial personnel were used to illustrate how organizations can be differentiated and described as reinforcer systems. Twenty-seven specific satisfaction scales were regressed on overall job satisfaction, separately for each of five groups of managers from five organizations. For all groups, overall satisfaction was found to be determined mainly by scales concerning challenge of the job and prospects of one's chosen career. Application of decremental stepwise multiple regression procedures to obtain minimum-variable-set equations resulted in different, though overlapping, sets of variables in the equations for the different organizations. These results suggest a way of describing organizations as reinforcer systems, in terms of the specific determinants of overall satisfaction for the organization.