Parental language and verbal responsiveness to children in crowded homes.

This article is a secondary data analysis of the University of Kansas Language Acquisition Project, which intensively studied, on a regular basis, parent and child language from age 6 months to 30 months. The association between residential density and parent-child speech was examined. Parents in crowded homes speak in less complex, sophisticated ways with their children compared with parents in uncrowded homes, and this association is mediated by parental responsiveness. Parents in more crowded homes are less verbally responsive to their children. This in turn accounts for their simpler, less sophisticated speech to their children. This mediational pathway is evident with statistical controls for socioeconomic status. This model may help explain prior findings showing a link between residential crowding and delayed cognitive development.     

Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness: Religiosity and Obsessiveness

Within the field of psychology of religion there has been increasing interest to test established theoretical perspectives with empirical data. One such initiative is concerned with examining theories derived from Freud and has examined the relationship between religiosity and obsessionality. This initiative has become increasingly complex, using a variety of different measures of both religiosity (attitude, practice and orientation) and obsessionality (personality traits and symptoms). The findings can be summarized: More positive religious attitude and greater frequency of religious practice are associated with higher scores on measures of obsessional personality traits, but not with scores on a measure of obsessional symptoms. Further, the limited data on the relationship between religious orientation and obsessionality is contradictory.     

Human Flavor-Aversion Learning: A Comparison of Traditional Aversions and Cognitive Aversions

Traditional flavor aversions form when an organism consumes a flavor prior to an illness-producing unconditioned stimulus (US). Rozin (1986), however, introduced a second type of taste-aversion learning produced by a disgust-eliciting US. In the present work, Rozin's disgust categorization is extended to include other human situations (negative information, forced consumption) in which taste aversions are mediated by cognitive processes. College students completed a self-report questionnaire that addressed their experiences with taste-aversion learning. The results show that cognitive aversions were stronger and longer-lasting than traditional aversions, they formed to foods of animal origin more than to other substances, and they could be produced without nausea. Finally, individuals who reported having a cognitive aversion had significantly more taste aversions than individuals who reported having a traditional aversion. These results provide additional evidence that taste-aversion learning can occur without the direct mediation of an illness-producing US.     

Making Connections through Talking with Children: from the 'Returns of the Repressed' to 'Dialectics'

This paper traces the author's thinking from a model of systemic practice based on a 'survival' model with its roots in psychoanalysis, to one based on the promotion of greater tolerance of difference within the family. The use of a particular form of conversation with children, as a route to this goal, is illustrated.     

The Inclusion of Fathers In Family Therapy: A Research Based Perspective

This paper summarizes the results of research on the role of fathers in families and family therapy with particular reference to preparation for fatherhood, father involvement in family life as a protective factor, fathers' deviant behaviour as a risk factor, fathers' communication and coping styles, fatherhood and different types of marriages, and the effects of the workplace on fathers' behaviour within the family. Available research suggests that, with respect to problem formation, the behaviour of fathers may serve as either a risk factor or as a protective factor. With respect to problem resolution, fathers may be a powerful therapeutic resource or seriously compromise effectiveness of family therapy. The implications of research for clinical practice are discussed.     

Type a and Risk Taking in Everyday Money Matters

The purpose of the present study is to extend previous research investigating personality factors as determinants of financial risk taking in everyday money matters (e.g., personal investments and household affairs). Type A and Type B subjects were asked to make a series of everyday financial decisions that varied in degree of risk. Type A individuals took greater financial risks than Type B individuals. The results provide additional support for the influence of personality factors in everyday financial risk-taking behavior and demonstrated another area of risk taking associated with the Type A behavior pattern not previously identified.     

Does Evidence Presentation Format Affect Judgment? An Experimental Evaluation of Displays of Data for Judgments

Information relevant to a prediction was presented in one of eight formats: a table of numbers, a brief text, a longer biographical story, and five different types of bar graphs. Experimental participants made judgments of marathon finishing times based on information about the runners' ages, prior performance, training, and motivation. A regression analysis was used to assess the individual judges' relative weighting of the various types of information relevant to their predictions. The different formats for displaying information yielded different levels of accuracy and patterns of information utilization. In accordance with an explanation-based decision model, the text and story displays induced the heaviest reliance on information about the runners' motivation and prior performance and produced the most accurate judgments of marathon finishing times.