A Child of the Empire: British Sociology and Colonialism, 1940s–1960s

British sociology was established as an academic discipline between 1945 and 1965, just as the British Empire was gearing up for a new phase of developmental colonialism backed by the social and other sciences. Many parts of the emerging sociological discipline became entangled with colonialism. Key themes and methods in sociology and the staff of sociology departments emerged from this colonial context. Historians have tended to place postwar British sociology in the context of expanding higher education and the welfare state, and have overlooked this colonial constellation. The article reconstructs this forgotten moment of disciplinary founding and explores three of the factors that promoted colonial sociology: the Colonial Social Science Research Council, the so‐called Asquith universities, and the social research institutes in the colonies; and the involvement of sociologists from the London School of Economics in training colonial officials.     

Item Selection for the Development of Short Forms of Scales Using an Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm

This article presents the use of an ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm for the development of short forms of scales. An example 22-item short form is developed for the Diabetes-39 scale, a quality-of-life scale for diabetes patients, using a sample of 265 diabetes patients. A simulation study comparing the performance of the ACO algorithm and traditionally used methods of item selection is also presented. It is shown that the ACO algorithm outperforms the largest factor loadings and maximum test information item selection methods. The results demonstrate the capabilities of using ACO for creating short-form scales.     

Kinesthetic Recall And Information Bold>Reduction Activity

2 experiments are reported in which interpolated motor activity requiring either information reduction (1.86 bits) or no reduction was compared to a control to examine their effects on kinesthetic retention. Exp. 1 used an independent groups design and found only absolute error to increase over the delay intervals. Information reduction activity did not affect kinesthetic retention and there was increasing negative error for longer movements, with positive response sets for short movements and negative response sets for long movements. Exp. 2 replicated the retention interval conditions using a within-Ss design. No difference between conditions was found for either absolute or algebraic error, but an effect of Retention Intervals was found for absolute error. For both studies, the Interpolated Activity X Retention Interval interaction failed significance. No evidence was found to support interference or available processing capacity expalanation for the loss of retention.     

Math Anxiety,Mother's Education,and the Mathematics Performance of Adolescent Boys and Girls: Evidence from the United States and Thailand

ABSTRACT

In this study, I investigated the relationship of mathematics performance to math anxiety, mother's education, and gender. A secondary analysis was conducted using nationally representative samples of 13-year-old children in the United States (N = 4,091) and Thailand (N = 3,613) collected as a part of the Second International Mathematics Study (Garden, 1987). Separate ANOVAs (Math Anxiety × Mother's Education × Gender) were run within each country using a 40-item math performance test as the dependent variable. Math anxiety has an inverse relationship with mathematics performance in the United States (r = ?.24) and in Thailand (r ?. 14). The relationship between math anxiety and mathematics performance is significant in both countries after controlling for previous achievement, mother's education, and gender, although the data suggest that there is a three-way interaction between math anxiety, mother's education, and gender in Thailand.     

The Significance of the Fluctuations Experienced in Observing Ambiguous Figures and in Binocular Rivalry

This study investigated predictions from Mednick's remote associates theory as to unusualness of response in a word association task as a function of remote associational ability (high or low scores on the RAT), the nature of the verbal stimulus (flat or steep hierarchy words), and the serial position of the response. Ss were Ohio high school students. Although high RAT scorers gave significantly less unusual responses overall than did low RAT scorers, results were interpreted as generally supportive of the theory. Low RAT scorers moved more rapidly to less frequent responses than did high RAT scorers, later responses were more infrequent than earlier responses in the sample tested, and while word-type did not in itself determine unusualness of response, it did interact with the other variables in a manner consistent with the theory.     

Book Notes

Abstract

Identification of Book Reviewers for this Number. Samuel J. Brandenburg is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Economics in Clark University. James B. Hedges is Assistant Professor of American History in Clark University. George Humphrey is Professor of Philosophy in Queen's University, Ontario.

The Normal Mind: an Introduction to Mental Hygiene and the Hygiene of School Instruction. By William H. Burnham, Ph.D., New York, Appleton, 1924.

The Mentality of Apes. By Wolfgang Köhler. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., Inc., 1925. pp. 342.

The Growth of the Mind. By Kurt Koffka. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, Inc., 1924. pp. 383.

The Mental Growth of the Pre-School Child. By Arnold Gesell. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1925. pp. 447.

Instinct, Intelligence and Character. By Godfrey H. Thomson. New York, Longmans, Green and Co., 1925. pp. 282.

Mental Growth of Children in Relation to the Rate of Growth in Bodily Development. By Buford Johnson. New York, E. P. Dutton & Company, 1925. pp. 160.

Vocational Self-Guidance. By Douglas Fryer. Philadelphia, J. P. Lippincott Co, 1925. pp. 385.

The Story of Human Progress. By Leon C. Marshall. New York, Macmillan Company, 1925. pp. 548.

Educating for Freedom. By Edward O. Sisson. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1925. pp. x, 225.     

Scores of Spanish-Speaking Children on Repeated Tests

Abstract

(Burrow, T. The Biology of Human Conflict. New York: Macmillan, 1937. Pp. 435.) Reviewed By William Galt

(Wheeler, R. H. The Science of Psychology. New York: Crowell, 1940. Pp. 436.) Reviewed By David G. Ryans     

Stimulus Determinants of Aggregative Behavior in the Domestic Chicken

Identity status and self-esteem were determined for 88 undergraduate college women. Identity status was measured two ways: with the sexual values questions included, and with the ORP (occupational goals, religious ideology, and political ideology) interview alone. Significant differences in self-esteem as measured by the Texas Social Behavior Inventory (TSBI) were found for women in the four identity statuses. These differences were significant on the basis of both methods of identity assessment. Achievement women scored higher than Moratorium and Diffusion women, but not Foreclosure women. Moratorium women had the lowest self-esteem in the sample. Results were discussed as supportive of the notion that achievement of identity is enhancing of self-esteem in women, and that nontraditional areas of identity development are becoming more important determiners of adjustment in women. The differential adaptability of Moratorium and Foreclosure statuses for women was discussed.     

The Persistence Of Psychological Refractoriness

The view that psychological refractoriness is a fundamental characteristic of human performance was supported by its survival of a determined attempt to eliminate it through training. An S was given practice for 87 days on a successive choice-response task with a constant inter-signal interval of 100 msec. Although his performance became better than any exhibited by Ss with more typical practice, he was not able to reduce psychological refractoriness to less than 20 or 25 msec. Moreover, when S was then shifted to variable inter-signal intervals he showed greater than the usual amount of psychological refractoriness at the intervals next longer than 100 msec. This indicated that he had learned a special skill rather than a generally “less refractory” mode of response (or merely better technique on the separate tasks). Training was found to be an effective way of eliminating holding back on the first response.