The definition of sex stereotypes via the adjective check list

The Adjective Check List (ACL) was employed in the empirical definition of male and female stereotypes by 50 male and 50 female college student subjects. Judgments by male and female subjects correlated highly. There were 33 male adjectives and 30 female adjectives on which at least 75% of both sexes agreed. With a 60% agreement criterion, there were 98 male and 83 female adjectives. Both male and female stereotypes were treated as hypothetical persons and were shown to be highly deviant on standard ACL norms, with the male stereotype being more deviant and perhaps more “disturbed” than the female stereotype. It was concluded that the ACL is a promising method for the definition and study of sex stereotypes.     

The effect of continuous, intermittent, and "placebo" reinforcement on the effectiveness of the conditioning treatment for enuresis nocturna

It has been suggested that intermittent reinforcement may be of value in reducing the rate of relapse in bedwetting conditioning therapy. An experiment was conducted with 30 enuretic boys to examine acquisition and extinction parameters of continuous (100%), intermittent (70% variable ratio), and “placebo” (0%) reinforcement schedules. Reinforced trials were administered as in the typical Mowrer conditioning procedure. Non-reinforced trials were achieved by means of a time delay with the subsequent alarm being activated in the parent's room rather than in the child's room. These procedures required the development of a new conditioning device which could be programmed to automatically administer the desired schedule of reinforcement. The results of the field investigation revealed that continuous reinforcement (CR) and intermittent reinforcement (IR) groups attained acquisition in approximately the same number of trials and with essentially the same success rate. Relapse rate was significantly greater in the CR group than in the IR group. The placebo group showed no improvement over the 6 weeks of treatment. The results of this study may be interpreted as supporting the tenet that relapse can be viewed and treated as an extinction of the acquired response.     

Teaching a complex verbal response to a hearing-impaired girl

A 3-yr-old hearing-impaired girl, who used neither the article "the" nor the auxiliary verb "is" was taught to use these words in describing a picture, initially through imitation and then in response to the command, "Tell me about this". As a result, she was able to use sentences in the present progressive form to describe a number of pictures on which she had received no training. This newly acquired behavior was subsequently extinguished and then reinstated.     

Order effects in Rokeach's Value Survey

Two-hundred-twelve sociology students completed a version of Rokeach's Value Survey in which the presentation order of the values was randomized. Each respondent received a unique randomization pattern. Spearman's correlations were computed between the presentation order and the order of ranking done by the respondent. The magnitude of the correlations obtained was such that the amount of bias created by presentation order was sufficiently small as to suggest that order effects are not a problem in the instrument.     

A developmental study of recognition of pictures and nouns

Children at four age levels (4, 6, 8, and 10 years) were given continuous recognition tasks using concrete noun, abstract noun, and pictorial stimuli in a 4 × 3 factorial design. Pictures were recognized significantly better than concrete and abstract nouns at the 4- and 6-year age levels and significantly better than abstract nouns at the 8- and 10-year age levels. This supported Paivio's contention that pictures are easier to remember than words because of a greater possibility of dual encoding, while Rohwer's contention that there is a shift in recognition memory development received no support. There were no significant differences between recognition of concrete and abstract nouns at any age level, which opposed the findings from adult studies and suggested that Paivio's theoretical orientation would have to be extended in order to account for developmental data. Recognition for both concrete and abstract nouns was found to be linear and increasing significantly with age, but no age trends for picture recognition were found.     

There is no special problem with metaphysics

I argue for the claim in the title. Along the way, I also address an independently interesting question: what is metaphysics, anyway? I think that the typical characterizations of metaphysics are inadequate, that a better one is available, and that the better one helps explain why metaphysics is no more problematic than the rest of philosophy.     

Genetic Counseling for Fragile X Syndrome: Recommendations of the National Society of Genetic Counselors

The National Society of Genetic Counselors' (NSGC) recommendations for fragile X syndrome (FXS) genetic counseling are intended to assist health care professionals who provide genetic counseling for individuals and families in whom the diagnosis of FXS is strongly suspected or has been made. The recommendations are the opinions of genetic counselors with expertise in FXS counseling and are based on clinical experience, a review of pertinent English language medical articles, and reports of expert committees. These recommendations should not be construed as dictating an exclusive course of management, nor does use of such recommendations guarantee a particular outcome. These recommendations do not displace a health care provider's professional judgment based on the clinical circumstances of a particular client.     

Cardiovascular Disease in Elders: Is It Inevitable?

Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of death and disability in America. The burden of cardiovascular disease is higher in elders than in younger populations, presumably because of life-long exposure to risk factors such as hypertension, smoking, abnormal blood lipids, lack of exercise, and/or obesity. Many assume that it is too late to attempt to modify risk factors in elders because behavior is so difficult to change. The purpose of this article is to argue that cardiovascular risk factor modification is effective in elders and should be vigorously pursued for the good of individuals, families, communities, and societies.