What moderates the attainment gap? The effects of social identity incompatibility and practical incompatibility on the performance of students who are or are not Black,Asian or Minority Ethnic

Social Psychology of Education - A successful journey through higher education is, for many, a once in a lifetime opportunity for social mobility. Unfortunately, one notable feature of higher...     

Neighborhood Stress and Life Satisfaction: Is there a Relationship for African American Adolescents?

Applied Research in Quality of Life - This study identified associations between perceived neighborhood stress and adolescents’ perceptions of life satisfaction. African American adolescents...     

Taxonomies of aggressive behavior: A preliminary report

It has been widely and regularly suggested that aggression is not a unitary concept but rather an omnibus term concealing important and distinct subclasses of behavior. Psychologists have offered various categorical schemes highlighting motivation and form as distinguishing criteria. Many writers have also noted the social relativity of dermitions of classes of aggression and called for a consideration of lay conceptions of aggressive behavior. The present paper explores the correspondence between psychologists' and laypersons' categorizations of aggressive acts. Ten short scenarios of aggression were generated to embody systematic permutations of form and motive as suggested by the published work of social psychologists. Subjects rated every pairwise combination in terms of perceived similarity. The data were subjected to three-factor, multidimensional scaling. The resulting structure indicated that subjects' ratings were not random and reflected consideration of motive (hostile, normative, instrumental, status) and of direct versus indirect form. The data were thus in close correspondence with the classifications generated by psychologists. The desirability of refining this technique and extending it to other cultural and subcultural groups is discussed.     

Depression in patients with spinal cord injuries: A synthesis of cognitive and somatic processes

Depression in some patients with spinal cord injuries may be clinically significant and, when present, should be treated to decrease morbidity including decreased physical functioning. Depression associated with spinal cord injury (SCI) may be misevaluated, due to (1) nonspecific multifactorial production of depression symptoms and (2) SCI-specific decrease in somatic sensory central nervous system input. The Somatic Suppression Hypothesis suggests that SCI patients have difficulty experiencing any intense emotion because of suppression of physiological arousal. In addition, cognitive processes that may reduce depression in SCI patients include: (1) attribution of somatic symptoms of depression to medical (biological) causes, (2) realistic, positive expectations for physical improvement, and (3) the perception that the disability of the SCI is only minimally related to the patient’s self-care after complete evaluation. Health personnel should accept lack of depression in SCI, and should encourage positive realistic expectations of recovery.     

STATED WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR PUBLIC GOODS:

Abstract— In the contingent valuation method for the valuation of public goods, survey respondents are asked to indicate the amount they are willing to pay (WTP) for the provision of a good. We contrast economic and psychological analyses of WTP and describe a study in which respondents indicated their WTP to prevent or to remedy threats to public health or to the environment, attributed either to human or to natural causes. WTP was significantly higher when the cause of a harm was human, though the effect was not large. The means of WTP for 16 issues were highly correlated with the means of other measures of attitude, including a simple rating of the importance of the threat. The responses are better described as expressions of attitudes than as indications of economic value, contrary to the assumptions of the contingent valuation method.     

The development of aggression in toddlers: A study of low-income families

The effort by developmental psychopathologists to understand the etiology of antisocial behavior has resulted in several significant findings. First, aggressive behavior is highly stable from early childhood into adolescence and adulthood. Second, parental factors including rearing practices and parental psychopathology, are correlated with childhood behavior problems. It was the aim of the present study to examine the correlates and stability of aggressive behavior in a sample of toddlers from low income families. Eight-nine mother-child dyads (52 boys and 37 girls) were observed in laboratory assessments when the child was 18- and 24-months old. Frequency and pervasiveness of aggression were coded from videotapes. Familial criminality, maternal depressive symptomatology, child noncompliance, and difficult child temperament were examined as contributors to the prediction of aggression in toddlers. Stability of aggression was moderate, especially for aggression occurring in low-stress situations. While there were few sex differences in the frequency and stability of aggression, there were marked differences in the correlates and predictors of aggression. Gender-specific, interactional models of the development of aggression are proposed.This study was supported by grants to Daniel Shaw and Joan Vondra from the following organizations within the University of Pittsburgh: the Mental Health Clinical Research Center for Affective Disorders, the Office of Child Development, the School of Education in conjunction with the Buhl Foundation, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Portions of this paper were presented at the Meeting for the Society for Life History Research, Philadelphia, April 1992. The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of Julie Alley, Jodi Chusta, and Kevin Cosley for their invaluable assistance in behavioral coding. Special thanks is given to the mothers and children who participated in this research.