EFFECTS OF CONTINGENT REWARD AND INSTRUCTION ON ORAL READING PERFORMANCE AT DIFFERING LEVELS OF PASSAGE DIFFICULTY

This study examined the effects of reinforcement contingencies designed to increase the performance of existing reading skills as well as the effects of instruction—modeling and practice—designed to increase skill level for oral reading fluency across three levels of reading materials. Results showed that a combination of contingencies, modeling, and practice was effective in producing substantial increases in reading fluency for all participants at their assigned grade levels. These results demonstrate one strategy for experimentally determining those instructional components that are required to increase oral reading rate.     

Navigating the Workplace: The Costs and Benefits of Shifting Identities at Work among Early Career U.S. Black Women

Although much progress has been made in race relations in the United States, discrimination still persists in the workplace. As a result, Black women, among individuals from other underrepresented groups, develop coping strategies, such as identity shifting, to diminish the negative consequences of discrimination. We used the phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory to examine shifting racial, gender, and class identities among early career (recent college graduates) U.S. Black women working in predominantly White environments. Drawing on ten semi-structured interviews with college-educated Black women, data were analyzed with an interpretative phenomenological analysis. The results revealed two major themes: (a) benefits of identity shifting and (b) the costs of identity shifting, the latter with five subthemes: (a) managing interpersonal rejection: frozen effect, (b) assimilation to the dominant culture and inauthenticity, (c) confronting and dismantling stereotypes, (d) model Black citizen, and (c) mixed feelings toward identity shifting. The findings indicate that Black women vacillate between the benefits and costs of identity shifting, altering their dialect and behavior to meet social norms. Our study’s implications suggest the necessity of a multicultural approach by employers to affirm their workers’ social identities, strengthen employee relationships, and lessen the need for shifting identities.     

Anger and effortful control moderate aggressogenic thought–behaviour associations

The effects of anger and effortful control on aggressogenic thought–behaviour associations were investigated among a total of 311 Finnish fifth and sixth graders (mean age = 11.9 years). Self-reported aggressive cognitions (i.e., normative- and self-efficacy beliefs about aggression) were expected to be associated with higher peer-reported aggressive behaviour. Teacher reported anger and effortful control were hypothesised, and found, to moderate the effects of aggressive cognitions on aggression, such that the effects were strongest for children who were high in anger and low in effortful control, as compared to other conditions. Furthermore, under the conditions of high anger and high effortful control, self-efficacy was negatively related to aggression. Thus, aggression is a result of a complex, hierarchically organised motivational system, being jointly influenced by aggressive cognitions, anger and effortful control. The findings support the importance of examining cognitive and emotional structures jointly when predicting children’s aggressive behaviour.     

Effectiveness of a Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Young Adults with Cystic Fibrosis

This study examined the effectiveness of a cognitive behavioral intervention for young adults with cystic fibrosis (CF). Four young adults were referred for the therapy by medical staff because of perceived problems with anxiety, anger, or coping. Treatment impact was assessed on measures of anxiety, anger, perceptions of functional disability, and coping. A multiple baseline design across subjects was used. Overall, the impact of the cognitive behavioral intervention for young adults with CF was mixed. If participants had elevated baseline scores on anxiety, anger, or perceived functional disability, then some improvement was shown. However, only one participant had elevated baseline anxiety and anger scores, while two had higher functional disability scores. For coping, only one participant clearly displayed a greater use of approach relative to avoidance coping by the end of treatment. Results are discussed in terms of treatment implications, assessment, and coping issues.     

Gender orientation and emergent leader behavior

Two studies compared the effects of masculinity and femininity on rater and ratee evaluations of emergent leader behavior in mixed- and same-sex groups. Data were collected in two consensus-seeking studies using the same procedures; only the gender composition of the task groups was changed. The first study was composed of 39 female and 21 male students in 15 mixed-sex groups, and the second study included 96 female students in 22 same-sex groups. Masculinity and femininity were measured with the Bem Sex Role Inventory [L. Bem, (1974) The Measurement of Psychology Androgyny, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Vol. 42, pp. 155–162]. Contrary to research and theory, masculinity was not associated with peer-rated leadership, yet femininity was correlated with two measures of self-rated leadership.     

Book reviews

Beguine Spirituality, An Anthology. Edited & introduced by Fiona Bowie. Translations by Oliver Davies. London: SFCK, 1989. xiii + 130 pp, 1 map. £ 4.95 (p/b).

Embroidered Textiles. Traditonal Patterns from Five Continents with a Worldwide Guide to Identification. Sheila Paine London: Thames & Hudson, 1990. 192 pp. £16.95 ISBN 0500–235–97 X

The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith since World War II. Robert Wuthnow. Princeton: University Press, 1988. 374 pp.     

Four probability-preserving properties of inferences

Different inferences in probabilistic logics of conditionals preserve the probabilities of their premisses to different degrees. Some preserve certainty, some high probability, some positive probability, and some minimum probability. In the first case conclusions must have probability 1 when premisses have probability 1, though they might have probability 0 when their premisses have any lower probability. In the second case, roughly speaking, if premisses are highly probable though not certain then conclusions must also be highly probable. In the third case conclusions must have positive probability when premisses do, and in the last case conclusions must be at least as probable as their least probable premisses. Precise definitions and well known examples are given for each of these properties, characteristic principles are shown to be valid and complete for deriving conclusions of each of these kinds, and simple trivalent truthtable tests are described for determining which properties are possessed by any given inference. Brief comments are made on the application of these results to certain modal inferences such as Jones may own a car, and if he does he will have a driver's license. Therefore, he may have a driver's license.     

Assumptions underlying psychological testing

Tests purporting to reflect the learning aptitudes of school children differ much more than generally is recognized. However, error in assesing such learning aptitude inheres much more in the users of the tests than in the tests themselves. Assumptions fundamental to such assessment, or even testing, are considered. It is particularly important that the assessor, or tester, constantly be sensitive to the nature of the relationship between the psychological demands of test items or tests and the learning demands confronting the child. Even tests that generally are grossly or crudely used often can yield psychoeducationally meaninful information if their results are differentially perceived in terms of the light they throw on the psychological operations fundamental to learning, “process,” as contrasted with that thrown on the results of the functioning of such operations, “product.”