Co-creating shared realities with couples

We are presenting a unique approach to understanding couples and relationships based on social constructionist principles. It is our belief that individuals possess constructions of reality with regard to relationships and must co-create a reality in which both partners participate. The implication of this theoretical principle is that differences between partners are not as important as the negotiation of such differences. One thousand premarital couples were examined to determine the effect of levels of flexibility and perceived differences on the quality of their relationships. Data analysis revealed that levels of flexibility were a significant factor in couples' abilities to cocreate a successful shared reality.Portions of this paper were presented at the annual conference of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, October 1992, Miami Beach, FL.Both authors were primary contributors to this paper.     

Control of Three- and Four-Joint Arm Movement: Strategies for a Manipulator With Redundant Degrees of Freedom

Control of arm movements when the number of joints exceeds the degrees of freedom necessary for the task requires a strategy for selecting specific arm configurations out of an infinite number of possibilities. This report reviews strategies used by human subjects to control the shoulder, elbow, and wrist (three degrees of freedom) while moving a pointer to positions in a horizontal plane (two degrees of freedom). Analysis of final arm configurations assumed when the pointer was at the target showed the following: (a) Final arm configurations were virtually independent of the configuration at the start of the pointing movement, (b) subjects avoided configurations subjectively felt to be uncomfortable (e.g., those with extreme flexion or extension of the wrist), and (c) the results could be simulated by assigning hypothetical cost functions to each joint and selecting the arm configuration that minimized the sum of the costs. The fitted cost functions qualitatively agreed with psychophysically determined comfort; they appeared to depend on joint angle and on muscular effort. Simple neural networks can learn implicit representations of these cost functions and use them to specify final arm configurations. The minimum cost principle can be extended to movements that use the fingers as a fourth movable segment. For this condition, however, experiments showed that final configurations of the arm depended upon initial configurations. Analysis of movement trajectories for arms with three degrees of freedom led to a control model in which the minimum cost principle is augmented by a mechanism that distributes required joint movements economically among the three joints and a mechanism that implements a degree of mass-spring control.     

The object-detection effect: Configuration enhances perception

Line drawings used by Weisstein and Harris (1974) are seen as box-like three-dimensional figures if the lines are arranged properly. A flat two-dimensional pattern is seen when these same lines are disarranged. A target line contained within the three-dimensional figure is identified more readily than is the same line contained within a two-dimensional figure. This finding was extended in the present experiments: The three-dimensional stimulus was detected more quickly than the two-dimensional stimulus, under conditions of visual backward masking. Three-dimensional stimuli were also classified more quickly than two-dimensional stimuli. Just as with the face-detection effect and the word-detection effect, object detection can be affected by the form of the visual stimulus.     

Presidential greatness and performance: Can we predict leadership in the White House?1

Two related questions regarding presidential leadership are addressed. First, what are the principal determinants of the rated greatness of American presidents? Second, can presidential performance be predicted using preelection biographical variables? Reliable measures of greatness and performance were operationalized for the 38 presidents of the United States, along with numerous potential predictors suggested by past literature on leadership, achieved eminence, and presidential popularity and greatness. About 75% of the variance in presidential greatness can be predicted using administration duration, number of war years, unsuccessful assassination attempts, scandals, and prepresidential publication record. Family background, personal characteristics, education, occupation, and political experiences provided few if any viable predictors of presidential performance, although succession to office through the vice-presidency exerted a rather general negative impact.     

The personality characteristics of the rigid learner

The present research investigated the personality dimensions concomitant with learner's cognitive rigidity. The results showed a highly reliable multiple relationship between rigidity scores and dimensions of IPAT's 16PF. Specifically, the personality dimensions of tenseness, compulsivity, group dependency, absent mindedness, sensitivity, and emotional stability explained 36% of the variability in subjects' increasing levels of cognitive rigidity. The results were interpreted as showing a pervasive use of stereotype behavior as a coping strategy in dealing with a greater amount of anxiety concomitant with cognitive rigidity.     

Sex and age differences in the sex-role stereotyping of third- and fifth-grade children

A four-part 85-item orally administered children's Sex-Role Expectations and Awareness Scale was developed. The four parts included measures of children's perceptions of (1) sex-associated behavior, (2) teacher expectations, (3) adult sex-role expectations, and (4) children's knowledge of the women's rights movement. The internally reliable scale was administered to 506 middle-class third- and fifth-grade children (259 females and 247 males) from eight schools in six states. Major results included the statistically significant findings that (1) although the absolute level of stereotyping was modest, males stereotyped significantly more often than females with regard to both male and female behavior traits and perceived teacher and adult sex-role expectation. (2) Third-grade students stereotyped more male behavior traits than fifth-grade students. (3) Females more often than males perceived teachers to expect traditional sex-role behavior from females. (4) Fifth-grade students knew more about the women's movement, but the absolute level of knowledge was quite low, with a comprehension rate around a third of the total number of items.     

Interdisciplinary and military determinants of scientific productivity: A cross-lagged correlation analysis

This paper explores the contemporaneous and intergenerational relationships among various scientific endeavors and military activity. Using European historical data from 1500 to 1900 A.D., generational (or 25-yr) fluctuations were examined for nine categories of scientific discovery and invention and for two aspects of military activity. A cross-lagged correlational analysis indicated that (a) casualties (but not war duration) has a significant negative contemporaneous association with medical discoveries, (b) several scientific disciplines display positive intergenerational influences (e.g., medicine, geology, and chemistry on biology), and (c) astronomy exhibits a negative intergenerational impact on technology, medicine, biology, and geology. The findings were discussed in terms of both stimulating interdisciplinary information exchanges and inhibitory competitive recruitment.     

Job design variables as change measures in a correctional facility

The importance of working conditions is stressed as a neglected area of concern in human service organizations. The present investigation attempts to demonstrate the utility of the concept of job design dimensions as evaluative measures of change in a correctional facility for delinquent youth. Staff were administered a modified version of the Hackman/Lawler Job Design Inventory at two time periods separated by an interval of 14 months. Staff who were participants in an innovative institutional change program at both times were compared with staff who were not participants at Time I but were at Time II. The results provide support for the notion that examination of the perceptions of working conditions by employees may be an important method for assessing institutional change.     

Perspective Effects on Causal Attributions of Success and Failure

The performance attributions of actors (participants on a task or in an interaction), active observers (co-actors who make observations of the actor) and passive observers (non-participants who observe but do not interact with the actor) were compared on a task in which actors succeeded or failed after competing or working independently. Contrary to Jones and Nisbett's (1971) divergent perspectives hypothesis, the results indicated that the subjects' person attributions were influenced interactively by the actor's outcome and the subjects' perspective while their situation attributions were influenced interactively by their perspective and the nature of the task. The implications of these findings for the divergent perspectives hypothesis were discussed.