Ethnic identity, self-esteem, and occupational aspirations of Indian and Anglo-Saxon British adolescents

A questionnaire monitoring occupational aspiration, ethnic identification, adolescent experience, and self-esteem was administered to a large sample of Indian and Anglo-Saxon British male and female adolescents attending school in the West Midlands. The relationship between these variables and differences between the four groups were consistent with predictions derived from the social identity approach to intergroup relations and group behaviour (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Indian males were found to possess a social mobility belief structure that mediates high occupational aspirations and keeness to marry out of their ethnic group. In contrast, Indian females were found to possess a social change belief structure associated with acceptance of the status quo and lower aspirations. Males and Anglo-Saxons reported higher self-esteem than females or Indians. The adolescent experience findings were less clear, but were consistent with the general interpretation of the data that the differences in intersex relations and gender-related experiences are contingent on ethnicity.     

Completion norms for 40 three-letter word stems

This is a report of the completion responses for 40 three-letter word stems (e.g., ABO) produced by 100 undergraduate students at the University of California at San Diego. The report includes a list of the different words that were written as stem completions, their frequency of occurrence as completions, and their frequency of occurrence in English according to published norms. This list of materials is useful for the construction of completion tests for future investigations of direct priming phenomena, and it may provide an important covariate in the analysis of performance on completion tests. Preliminary analyses of the results reveal three primary factors that determine overall performance on a stem-completion test: word frequency, word length, and meanings per word. Analyses of the completions produced for each individual word stem, however, reveal that usually only one of these factors makes a significant contribution to performance.     

Using an Apple II to control a two-field projection tachistoscope

A suite of programs is described that enables an Apple II+ microcomputer to control slide projectors and shutters as a two-field projection tachistoscope. This system is portable and allows more precise exposure timings and more complex visual stimuli to be used than are possible with earlier systems.     

Learning and motivation: Computer simulations of the Rescorla-Wagner,Solomon-Corbit,and Schull models

A suite of programs is described for simulating the Rescorla-Wagner (1972) model of associative learning, the Solomon and Corbit (1974) opponent-process theory, and Schull’s (1979) extension of the latter. The programs are written for the Commodore 64 computer.     

Parental preferences regarding sex education topics for sixth graders

The purpose of this study was to ascertain which sex education topics parents of preadolescents regarded as appropriate for their children. The sample was comprised of 146 respondents randomly selected from a class list of sixth graders in a suburban school district. A mailed, self-administered questionnaire listing 48 possible topics was used to elicit parental response. Pretesting found the questionnaire to be highly reliable (Cronbach's alpha = .95). Overall, parents strongly supported the inclusion of a broad range of sex education topics regardless of parental age, sex, marital status, income, education, or child's sex. Moreover, parents were largely in agreement with the inclusion of sensitive topics in addition to those which were more physiological or behavioral. Catholics more often than Protestants agreed with the inclusion of birth control, abortion, and sterilization even after controlling for income and education. Thus, the findings suggest that parents of sixth graders find a broad sex education program in the school appropriate. To this end, school officials and sex educators should not overlook the needs of preadolescents for sex education solely on the basis of perceived parental opposition.     

Projective-cognitive assessment of thoughts and feelings and their relationship to adaptive behavior in a dental situation

The purpose of this study is to examine the interrelationships among coping statements, a self-report measure of anxiety and maladaptive overt behavior in a real-life stressful situation. Measures of these variables (interviews using TAT-like cards, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children, Behavior Profile Rating Scale) were taken from 23 adolescents prior to and during their dental visit. Results indicated that as disruptive "in-chair" overt behavior increased, so did the percentage of coping statements. In addition, as self-report levels of anxiety increased, the percentage of coping statements significantly decreased. Interestingly, there was no significant relationship between self-report levels of anxiety and disruptive in-chair behavior. It was also noted that the subjects' self-report levels of anxiety significantly decreased following their opportunity to verbalize their coping/noncoping statements via the TAT-like procedure. The implications of these interrelationships to cognitive-behavioral theory are discussed.     

Shyness, group dependence and self-concept: attributes of the imaginary audience

The imaginary audience of 328 early and late adolescents was studied from the viewpoint of providing educators and clinicians with insight into its attributes--those which both facilitate and hinder youths' development. Early adolescents (about 14 or 15 years of age) displayed a greater awareness of an imaginary audience which probably contributed to their observed, elevated group dependence. Unexpectedly, the shyness of adolescents highly sensitive to an imaginary audience increased with age, possibly because they are unwilling to provide themselves with the social experiences necessary for decentering. Likewise, those highly sensitive to an imaginary audience projected low self-concepts and thus imply that their audience is relatively critical; thus, they probably validate a self-fulfilling prophecy, oblivious to a possible contradictory external reality. The anticipated fact that females appeared to be less socially bold and more group dependent than males might account, in part, for females' greater responsiveness to an imaginary audience. It is suggested that educators and clinicians encourage youth to validate social hypotheses in order to promote the dissolution of the imaginary audience, especially of those who are shy and display self-deprecatory tendencies.     

Adolescents' perception of aspects of the home environment and their attitudes toward parents, self, and external authority

Although there is extensive literature on the home environment as a socializing agent and on the perception of self and others, research relating home environment variables to adolescents' perception of themselves and others is not common. The present study, using a survey of 480 students, attempts to define and relate these two domains. Factor analyses of 16 semantic differential scales generated three dimensions--evaluation, understandability, and potency--for specifying attitudes toward self, parents, and certain external authority figures (teachers and police). In addition, factor analysis of 20 variables relating to adolescents' perception of their home environment suggested five factors: (1) extent of punishment, (2) amount of chores at home, (3) perceived parental control, (4) absence of parents, and (5) parents' attitude toward authority figures. Controlling for sex and age, these home environment factors were found to account for sizable portions of variance in certain components of the person perception domain. Particular relevance for several of these factors are discussed.     

Predictors of scientific majors for black and white college students

The differences in the personality and social backgrounds of science and non-science majors were assessed for 91 black and 109 white natural, social, and nonscience college majors. Subjects were administered the 16PF, Bem Sex-Role Inventory, and the Attitude Toward Women Scale, and data were collected on birth order, number of siblings, and social class level. Natural science majors were of a higher social class, had higher intelligence test scores, were more reserved, sober, practical, and male sex-role oriented than the social and non-science majors. Blacks and females resembled their white or male counterparts when categorized by college major.