An intergenerational analysis of expectations for women's career and family roles

This study examined the career and family role expectations and attitudes of women university students and both of their parents. Data collected from 292 families revealed that most daughters and their parents were traditional in their attitudes toward mothering, held somewhat egalitarian attitudes toward marital roles, and generally expected daughters to experience little frustration regarding future career and family roles. Differences and similarities among daughters, mothers, and fathers as well as between intact and dissolved families of various SES were examined. Implications of findings and suggestions for future research were discussed.This research was supported by grants from the University of Rhode Island Council on Research and from the College of Human Science and Services. Portions of this paper were presented at the National Council on Family Relations annual meeting, New Orleans, Lousiana, November, 1989 and at the Eastern Sociological Society annual meeting, Providence, Rhode Island, April, 1991. The authors thank Mary Ellen Reilly for her encouragement and assistance.     

The utilization of genetic counselors within a newborn screening program

Genetic counselors have participated in the Michigan Newborn Screening Program on a contractual basis since 1988. Their role includes newborn screening education and training, newborn nursery site visits, and monitoring newborn screening in hospitals. Their impact has been to improve the quality of newborn screening services by reducing errors and increasing completion of data fields on newborn screening cards, improving hospital nursery cooperation and problem solving, and enhancing health department response to specific problems.     

Predicting Contraceptive Efficacy: A Discriminant Analysis of Three Groups of Adolescent Women1

The relationship of knowledge and attitudes to adolescent contraceptive efficacy was investigated in a multivariate study, with demographic and sexual history variables covaried. Subjects were unmarried, sexually active 15- to 19-year-old women. Two studies were conducted: one using a large and representative sample and the second using a smaller, high socioeconomic status sample that is more typical of samples generally used in earlier research. Subjects were classified as effective, ineffective, or nonusers of contraception, based on both frequency of use and effectiveness of the method(s) they used. Two discriminant function analyses were performed to determine (a) whether knowledge and attitudes contributed to discrimination among the groups over and above discrimination attributable to demographic and sexual history variables, and (b) which variables distinguished ineffective users from both other groups. The results of both studies indicate that attitudes, particularly attitudes toward contraception, are strong predictors of patterns of contraceptive use. Ineffective users were distinguished from nonusers by their greater knowledge of contraception, and from both other groups by their greater sexual activity and more positive attitudes toward intercourse. The discussion focuses on the theoretical implications of the results, the usefulness of the effective/ineffective/nonuser categorization, and applications of these findings to design of interventions.     

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.     

THE EFFECTS OF A CLASSROOM MANAGER ROLE ON THE SOCIAL INTERACTION PATTERNS AND SOCIAL STATUS OF WITHDRAWN KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS

We examined the effects of assigning a classroom manager's role on the frequency of social interactions and the sociometric standing of three withdrawn kindergarten students. Results showed that when the three socially withdrawn students were placed in the manager's role they substantially increased the frequency of their positive social initiations during free-play time, were the recipients of many more positive and significantly fewer negative social bids from their peers, were rated more favorably by their classmates on a sociometric rating scale, and were selected more frequently as best friends by their peers. In addition, follow-up data suggested partial maintenance of treatment effects when students no longer occupied manager positions.     

Sensitivity to lexical denotation and connotation in brain-damaged patients: A double dissociation?

Sets of words can be grouped in terms of their denotation (cold and warm both refer literally to temperature) or in terms of their connotation (cold and warm connote remoteness and intimacy, respectively). To assess whether these two facets of meaning are dissociable, unilaterally left- and right-hemisphere-damaged patients were presented with word triads and asked to group together the two words that were closest in meaning. Right-hemisphere-damaged patients showed a preserved sensitivity to denotation, and a selective insensitivity to connotative facets of meanings. In contrast, left-hemisphere-damaged patients exhibited a preserved sensitivity to connotation as well as a selective insensitivity to denotative aspects of meanings. Inasmuch as normal control subjects displayed a flexible sensitivity to both denotative and connotative aspects of meaning, the results suggest that unilateral brain damage selectively curtails use of one or the other major aspect of word meaning.     

Development of sex biases in children: 40 years later

Children in grades 2–10 (200 of each sex) assigned desirable and undesirable traits to girls or boys. Half the subjects had an additional option of both sexes. Children in all grades assigned more desirable traits to their own sex and more undesirable traits to the opposite sex, in line with Smith (1939). Both sexes became less positive toward their own sex and more positive toward the opposite sex with increasing age. This pattern also had characterized girls in Smith's study, whereas, boys had shown the opposite pattern. Beginning in the sixth grade, girls were more apt than boys to assign desirable traits to their own sex. Availability of the “both sexes” option decreased stereotyping, especially in girls.     

The psychotherapist's duty to act reasonably to prevent suicide: A proposal to allow rational suicide

It is proposed that society should re-examine its assumptions about suicide. Rational suicide is viewed as an extension of the right to die. After a review of the legal liability of the psychotherapist and psychiatric facility for both inpatient and outpatient suicide, the author presents an analysis of philosophical, ethical, and psychoanalytic arguments for allowing rational suicide. It is argued that emotional pain should be given more legitimacy as a reason for suicide. The decision to live or to die is argued to best rest with the individual.     

Research in Consultation: Toward Better Analogues and Outcome Measures

Recommendations for improving consultation research include (a) strengthening consultation analogue research by incorporating “boundary” conditions into research designs and (b) extending the outcome measures used.