Message Intensity and Cognitive Representations of Discourse Effects on Inferential Processing

Two experiments were conducted to examine the influence of intensity on inferential processing. It was predicted that the likelihood and speed of inferential processing for high-intensity texts should be greater than for texts low in intensity. On a recognition task, both adults and children falsely recognized implicit text information after processing high-intensity texts. Further, high-intensity passages triggered inference making during recall more readily than did the texts low in intensity. In general, speed of inferential processing did not differ as a function of the intensity manipulation. Although there was some evidence indicating that fourth grade children were more sensitive to the manipulations than were kindergartners, there were no clear age-related differences in children's ability to make inferences. The results are interpreted from a general associative memory model.     

Job Search Activity Patterns of Successful and Unsuccessful Job Seekers

In this article, the author summarizes a study examining the number and pattern of job-search resources used by successful and unsuccessful job seekers.     

Moving from Feminist Identity Politics To Coalition Politics Through a Feminist Materialist Standpoint of Intersubjectivity in Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza

Identity politics deployed by lesbian feminists of color challenges the philosophy of the subject and white feminisms based on sisterhood, and in so doing opens a space where feminist coalition building is possible. I articulate connections between Gloria Anzaldúa's epistemological-political action tools of complex identity narration and mestiza form of intersubject, Nancy Hartsock's feminist materialist standpoint, and Seyla Benhabib's standpoint of intersubjectivity in relation to using feminist identity politics for feminist coalition politics.     

Children's Interpretations of Marital Conflict

An experimental study was devised to investigate the proposition that among children of latency age a process evolves of developing conceptual structures for interpreting and resolving interpersonal conflicts. The study was designed within a cognitive-developmental frame of reference drawn heavily from the theory of Jean Piaget. It was hypothesized that there would be developmental differences in the number of factors the children could consider simultaneously and the levels of abstraction they would utilize in conceptualizing and solving problems involving interpersonal conflicts of interest and in explaining their choices of preferred solutions. The three parts of the problem-solving process analyzed were the children's role-taking skills, solutions to the problem, and general reasoning. Implications for practice are discussed.     

Romantic partners’perceptions of social network attributes with the passage of time and relationship transitions

Data from five waves of a longitudinal study of romantic couples were analyzed to examine how the partners’perceptions of social network attributes (i.e., network approval for the relationship, network overlap, liking for partner's network) change with the passage of time and relationship transitions. The results indicated that perceptions of network approval, especially from the male partner's friends, tended to increase over time for the participants whose relationship remained intact throughout the longitudinal study. Furthermore, the transitions to engagement and to marriage were also associated with an increase in network approval from the male's friends. Individuals who experienced a breakup during the study reported more network approval than disapproval for the breakup. Finally, the likelihood of a breakup was significantly lower the more approval women reported from their friends and the more women expressed liking for their partner's family at Time 1 (these same associations were nonsignificant for men). These findings provide support for various social network perspectives, including social reactance (Lewis, 1973).