Jamaican child-rearing practices: the role of corporal punishment

The family is the most prominent social group that exists. It prepares its members for the various roles they will perform in society. Yet, the literature has unequivocally singled out the family as the most violent social group, with parental violence against children being the most prevalent type of family violence. While societies like the United States, Japan, and Sweden have taken a hard line on physical punishment and shifted to a gentler approach to discipline, harsh disciplining of children persists elsewhere. In the Caribbean, and Jamaica in particular, child-rearing and disciplinary practices that would warrant child abuse charges in other Western societies are rampant. This article examines the child-rearing techniques of Jamaican adults and their assumed effects on child outcomes. It also examines the plausibility of the assumption that the harsh physical punishment meted out to children is partially responsible for the current social problems of that island nation. We recommend approaches to tackle the broad goals of addressing familial and societal practices that compromise children's development and well-being.     

Meaning through syntax: language comprehension and the reduced relative clause construction

A new explanation is proposed for a long standing question in psycholinguistics: Why are some reduced relative clauses so difficult to comprehend? It is proposed that the meanings of some verbs like race are incompatible with the meaning of the reduced relative clause and that this incompatibility makes sentences like The horse raced past the barn fell unacceptable. In support of their hypotheses, the authors show that reduced relatives of The horse raced past the barn fell type occur in naturally produced sentences with a near-zero probability, whereas reduced relatives with other verbs occur with a probability of about 1 in 20. The authors also support the hypotheses with a number of psycholinguistic experiments and corpus studies.     

A prospective study of memory for child sexual abuse: new findings relevant to the repressed-memory controversy

Previous research indicates that many adults (nearly 40%) fail to report their own documented child sexual abuse (CSA) when asked about their childhood experiences. These controversial results could reflect lack of consciously accessible recollection, thus bolstering claims that traumatic memories may be repressed. In the present study, 175 individuals with documented CSA histories were interviewed regarding their childhood trauma. Unlike in previous studies, the majority of participants (81%) in our study reported the documented abuse. Older age when the abuse ended, maternal support following disclosure of the abuse, and more severe abuse were associated with an increased likelihood of disclosure. Ethnicity and dissociation also played a role. Failure to report CSA should not necessarily be interpreted as evidence that the abuse is inaccessible to memory, although inaccessibility or forgetting cannot be ruled out in a subset of cases.     

Code-switching across brainstorming sessions: implications for the revised hierarchical model of bilingual language processing

The revised hierarchical model (RHM) of bilingual language processing posits independent word form representations for the dominant language (L1) and the nondominant language (L2), facilitated translation from L2 words to L1 words, access to common concepts for L1 and L2, and stronger activation of concepts for L1 than for L2. Spanish-English and English-Spanish bilinguals brainstormed for two sessions; half switched languages (L1-L2 or L2-L1) and half stayed in the same language (L1-L1 or L2-L2) across sessions. In both sessions, L1 brainstorming resulted in more efficient idea productivity than L2 brainstorming, supporting stronger concept activation for L1, consistent with the RHM. Switching languages from L2 to L1 resulted in the most efficient idea productivity in Session 2, suggesting that switching to L1 not only permits strong concept activation, but also the activation of concepts that are relatively different than those activated by L2, inconsistent with the RHM. Switching languages increased the proportion of Session 1 ideas repeated during Session 2, despite instructions not to repeat. This finding suggests that there is activation of concepts as well as word forms in same language brainstorming and that this dual activation aids in following instructions not to repeat, consistent with the RHM. It is suggested that the RHM be re-specified to accommodate the notion that L1 and L2 access relatively different concepts.     

The Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale: Test-Retest and Inter-Rater Reliability

Two studies are reported addressing the reliability of the Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (BERS). The first study investigated test-retest reliability over a two-week period to determine the stability of the measure over time. The second study investigated inter-rater reliability between two teachers or classroom aides who were familiar with a student to determine the consistency with which the measure can be used by different individuals. In each study, samples were drawn from populations of students identified with emotional or behavioral disorders as specified by federal statutes. Reliability coefficients in each study were above .80, the standard recommended for screening tests that are reported individually, and in most cases above .90. Implications for use of the BERS are discussed.     

The intermodal representation of speech in newborns

It has been proposed that speech is specified by the eye, the ear, and even the skin. Kuhl and Meltzoff (1984) showed that 4-month-olds could lip-read to an extent. Given the age of the infants, it was not clear whether this was a learned skill or a by-product of the primary auditory process. This paper presents evidence that neonate infants (less than 33 h) show virtually identical patterns of intermodal interaction as do 4-month-olds. Since they are neonates, it is unlikely that learning was involved. The results indicate that human speech is specified by both eye and ear at an age when built-in structural sensitivities provide the most plausible explanation.     

Reading/writing between the lines

This paper critically examines the practices of reading and writing through the differing perspectives offered by Kierkegaard, Sartre, Barthes, Foucault, and Derrida. Although Kierkegaard's and Sartre's respective views on reading and writing do not receive much attention today, I argue that both articulate (albeit in different ways) a notion of shared responsibility between reader and writer that is compatible with their respective emphases on absolute responsibility for oneself, for others, and for the situation. An advantage to both Sartre's and Kierkegaard's accounts from a postmodern perspective, is that they affirm the simultaneity of individual and co-responsibility without appealing to a fixed or unitary self.     

Gender-Related Jokes in the Workplace: Sexual Humor or Sexual Harassment?1

When does a joke become sexual harassment? In a partial test of an integrative model of gender-related humor in the workplace, the role of personal and situational variables in perceptions of sexual harassment was examined. Other implications of sexual humor in the office were also studied.