The Politics of Self-Respect: A Feminist Perspective

Recent liberal moral and political philosophy has placed great emphasis on the good of self-respect. But it is not always evident what is involved in self-respect, nor is it evident how societies can promote it. Assuming that self-respect is highly desirable, I begin by considering how people can live in a self-respecting fashion, and I argue that autonomous envisaging and fulfillment of one's own life plans is necessary for self-respect. I next turn to the question of how societal implementation of rights may affect self-respect, and I urge that discretionary rights, which allow people to decline the benefits they confer, support self-respect more effectively than mandatory rights, which forbid people to refuse the benefits they confer. I conclude by examining the import of these contentions for feminist theory. I believe that my arguments are of particular concern to women because women have traditionally been victimized by a mandatory right to play a distinctively “feminine” role which has undermined their self-respect.     

Connections between reading disability and behavior problems: Testing temporal and causal hypotheses

In this study of children's reading and behavior problem status from Grade 2 to Grade 4 of elementary school, we tested hypotheses concerned with the temporal and causal connections between these two closely associated disorders. Children with both, either, or neither kinds of problems were followed up over 2 years. While reading disability remained stable over time, there was greater variability in behavior problem status. Our data did not support the claim that reading problems lead to the development of behavior problems. Children who were comorbid had the worst outcome at follow-up, suggesting that behavior problems may exacerbate reading delay. Reading-disabled children were lower (albeit in the normal range) on intelligence, but when IQ was controlled, large group differences on reading and spelling were still evident. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) type behavior problems significantly differentiated children with comorbid problems from children with behavior problems alone. Sex differences were noted in the association, with two-thirds of reading-disabled boys also having behavior problems and two-thirds of reading-disabled girls having no behavior problems, suggesting that pathways to reading disability may be gender specific.This research was supported by a grant from the Australian Research Council. Our thanks to the children, families and teachers for their support of our project.     

The effects of educational intervention on perceptions of sexual harassment

The effect of educational intervention upon perceptions of sexual harassment was investigated. Also investigated was whether gender differences in perceptions would be altered by educational intervention. Participants were 51 female and 45 male undergraduates (36% Caucasian, 31% Asian, 17% Hispanic, 14% African American, 2% unspecified) randomly assigned to three groups: one group viewed a video of vignettes about sexual harassment; another read educational literature about sexual harassment; and a third group, the control group, completed a placebo task. A comparison of pretest and posttest results on the Sexual Harassment Inventory indicated that educational intervention impacted perception of sexual harassment, with the literature intervention showing superiority over the video intervention. Gender differences in sensitivity to sexual harassment in favor of females prior to intervention evened out following intervention.     

EYEBLINK CLASSICAL CONDITIONING AND AWARENESS REVISITED

Abstract— Dual-task performance was assessed in 140 adults during eyeblink classical conditioning (EBCC) and one of several secondary tasks (timed-interval tapping, recognition memory choice reaction time, video viewing). Four groups received paired-EBCC stimulus presentation and three groups received explicitly unpaired EBCC stimuli. Although the subjects were not laid about the conditioning task, they acquired conditioned responses (CRs) as normal levels. Postsession interviews probed participants' awareness of EBCC stimulus contingencies and production of CRs. Reported awareness of paired-EBCC stimulus contingencies and CK production was not related to actual EBCC performance Twenty-seven percent of the participants receiving explicitly unpaired stimuli reported a stimulus contingency when none existed. The dissociation between awareness and performances provides additional support for the categorization of simple EBCC as a form of nondeclarative learning.     

Effects of consent form information on self-disclosure

When researchers encounter preexisting psychological distress in participants, ethical codes provide little guidance on how to balance issues of beneficence and autonomy. Although researchers may inform participants what will occur given responses indicating distress, this information may lead to biased self-reports. This important issue was addressed in this study by manipulating consent form information regarding the type of psychopathology to be assessed and various levels of possible follow-up. In comparing responses on self-report measures of anxiety, depression, and general psychological distress, men who believed depression was the focus of the study reported fewer symptoms of depression and less trait anxiety as intrusiveness of experimenter follow-up increased. These results are discussed within the framework of socialization theory. Given that half of the sample did not correctly answer questions regarding information contained in the consent form, guidelines to improve consent form comprehension are offered.     

Women's studies,self-esteem,and college women's plans for the future

Questionnaires distributed at the beginning and end of the semester assessed the self-esteem and life goals of college women enrolled in five women's studies courses and five other courses in related disciplines. The two groups were compared in terms of the changes in self-esteem and goals from the beginning to the end of the semester. The underclasswomen in the women's studies courses tended to express more traditional expected career goals and lowered self-esteem in the posttest. In contrast, the upperclass-women in the women's studies courses reported increased self-esteem in the posttest. Implications for teaching women's studies courses and previous women's studies research are discussed.     

Group shift to caution at the race track

Group and individual riskiness were compared on $2 “win” best at the race track. Using the standard pretest-posttest risk-shift design, group discussion to unanimous decision was found to produce a cautious shift in group bets.     

The discovery of a miniature linguistic system: Function words and comprehension of an unfamiliar language

Two experiments investigated two complementary hypotheses: (a) The presence of semantically unimportant function words in sentences will not slow down the way subjects, unfamiliar with the language, extract the meaning of those sentences, provided suprasegmental cues are present, and conversely (b) the omission of such function words—as in native speakers' simplified speech to nonnative speakers—will not necessarily facilitate the task of meaning extraction, contrary to popular belief. In Experiment I, Dutch adult subjects were exposed to sentences in a miniature artificial language (MAL). In Experiment II, Greek adult subjects were exposed to sentences in an unfamiliar natural language (Dutch). In both experiments, the sentences contained eight words constituting a miniature linguistic system (mls), a system that subjects discovered through an audiovisual, concept-indentification task. The rate by which subjects performed this task was investigated as a function of two linguistic variables: (a) the presence or absence of semantically unimportant function words, and (b) the presence or absence of suprasegmental cues, in the input sentences, respectively. Results from both experiments confirmed the hypotheses (p<.001) The findings are discussed with reference to the linguistic versus cognitive simplicity issue, and to the comprehension versus production issue in language acquisition research. The methodological potential of the experimental paradigm for psycholinguistic research is also discussed.This paper forms part of a doctorate research project concerned with the comprehensibility of foreigner talk, and was supported by the Foundation for Linguistic Research, which is funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, NWO.     

Cultural sex-role expectations and children's sex-role concepts

Middle-class children between the ages of 4 and 8 were interviewed about their sex-role attitudes, in order to determine the extent to which recently changing cultural mores have influenced children's sex-role concepts. The children were asked about their career goals; the careers they would choose if they were the opposite sex; the reasons why they like being a boy or girl; and their opinions regarding the appropriateness of men and women participating in 14 sex-stereotypic occupations and activities. The children's parents provided demographic information. The children expressed very nonstereotypic attitudes towards the 14 occupations and activities, compared to children in recent studies; but they chose very traditional careers for their own choices and opposite-sex career choices, and often gave stereotypic reasons for preferring their own sex. Parents' education, mothers' employment status, fathers' nontraditional careers, and the children's gender predict responses to several of the sex-role-related questions. Implications for research are discussed.