Impacts on children of a policy to promote employment and reduce poverty for low-income parents: new hope after 5 years

The impacts of New Hope, a program to increase parent employment and reduce poverty, were measured 5 years after parents were randomly assigned to program or control groups. New Hope had positive effects on children's school achievement, motivation, and social behavior, primarily for boys, across the age range 6-16. In comparison to impacts measured 2 years after program onset, effects on achievement were robust, but effects on social behavior were reduced. The program produced improvements in family income and use of organized child care and activity settings, suggesting possible pathways by which the New Hope package of policies influenced children's behavior.     

A call to collaboration: the federal commitment to suicide prevention

The federal government, largely through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), sponsors an array of science-based suicide prevention initiatives. This article details the prevention-related agendas and collaborative efforts of five operating divisions within the Department of Health and Human Services: the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Indian Health Service, and Health Resources and Services Administration. The article highlights HHS's activities and their link to the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention, the plan which will guide the nation's suicide prevention efforts for the next decade.     

Television sex roles in the 1980s: Do viewers' sex and sex role orientation change the picture?

This study investigated viewer perceptions of female and male television characters as a result of viewer sex and sex role orientation. Young adult viewers (N=677) rated television characters and themselves using the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ). Viewers were classified as feminine, masculine, androgynous, or undifferentiated in their PAQ orientations. The television characters were four men and four women who shared the lead and a working relationship on crime action shows. Results indicated that viewers rated all the male characters as stereotypical masculine, but only one female character as stereotypical feminine. Viewer sex and sex role orientations did affect ratings. Viewer sex had a greater impact on the ratings of female characters than on the ratings of male characters. Female viewers tended to rate female characters as higher in instrumental and masculine traits than male viewers did. Results based on sex role orientation of the viewer were inconsistent across characters, but in general, undifferentiated viewers rated both male and female characters as low in expressive and instrumental traits compared to how androgynous viewers rated them. Further, a masculine sex role orientation appeared to block perception of expressive traits in both male and female characters.This research was supported in part by a University of Akron faculty research grant.     

The Attribution of Date Rape: Observer's Attitudes and Sexual Experiences and The Dating Situation

This study investigated the effects of individual experience with sexual aggression/victimization, rape myth score and dating situational factors on rape attributions. A sample of 332 males and 323 females from a freshman-level class read one of three rape scenarios—a planned date with monetary investment, a planned dutch-treat date and an unplanned pick-up date. ANOVAS consisting of a 3 (scenarios) × 2 (above vs. below median on rape myth scale) × 5 (level of sexual aggression/victimization) were performed separately for each sex on four ratings of the rape scenario. Sexually aggressive males and males who agreed more with rape myths were less likely to perceive the scenarios as rape, blamed the victim more, perceived the victim as desiring intercourse and viewed the assailants' behavior as less violent. The dating situation did not affect their attributions. Females tended to rate a pick-up date scenario as rape more frequently than a date with monetary investment and females who agreed more with rape myths tended to blame the victim and perceive the victim as desiring intercourse. A female's previous experience of sexual victimization did not influence attributions. The results are interpreted within a social-cultural context for males and points to the role of situational factors in understanding date rape from the female/victim perspective.     

Community-based multiple-gate screening of children at risk for conduct disorder

The present study employed a multiple-gate screening procedure to identify children at risk for the development of conduct disorder. Measures of cross-setting disruptive behavior and parent discipline practices were administered in sequential fashion to screen a population of 7,231 children attending suburban elementary schools. Convergent validity of the respective gating measures was confirmed by significant correlations with adjustment constructs. Analyses of covariance performed between positive screens, negative screens, and low-risk comparison children on adjustment constructs at each gate supported the discriminative validity of the gating procedure. Hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that the gating measures were predictive of diagnostic ratings of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder that were obtained 18 months following the screening. A stepwise logistic regression analysis indicated that the best predictors of high-risk group membership were variables related to family process, including poor family communication and involvement, poor maternal coping skills, and an external parent locus of control.This study was supported by grant MH-46584 from the National Institute of Mental Health.     

Individualism and Resistance to Affirmative Action: A Comparison of Japanese and American Samples1

It has been proposed that part of the resistance to affirmative action in the U.S. derives from the American discomfort with categorical social arrangements. An instance of gender discrimination was described to samples of Japanese and American students. The students then evaluated a set of remedies, one of which was a classic affirmative action solution and filled out Singelis’ Self-Construal Scale (Singelis, 1994). The Japanese sample was more collectivist than the American sample and endorsed the affirmative action solution more strongly than the American sample.     

Person and consciousness.

My interlocuter is Locke with his reduction of person to personal consciousness. This reduction is a main reason preventing people from acknowledging the personhood of the earliest human embryo, which lacks all personal consciousness. I show that Catholic Christians who live the sacramental life of the Church have reason to think that they are, as persons, vastly more than what they experience themselves to be, for they believe that the sacraments work effects in them as persons that can only be believed but that cannot be experienced within themselves in this life. I also show that Christians and non-Christians alike have an experience of moral good and evil in themselves that implies that they are, as moral persons, far more than they find in their conscious self-presence. It is, therefore, natural to think that if my being a person so far exceeds my consciousness, I may well have once existed as person even before the awakening of consciousness.