Analysis and analogy in the perception of vowels

In two experiments, we investigated the creation of conceptual analogies to a contrast between vowels. An ordering procedure was used to determine the reliability of simple sensory and abstract analogies to vowel contrasts composed by naive volunteers. The results indicate that test subjects compose stable and consistent analogies to a meaningless segmental linguistic contrast, some invoking simple and complex relational properties. Although in the literature of psychophysics such facility has been explained as an effect of sensory analysis, the present studies indicate the action of a far subtler and more versatile cognitive function akin to the creation of meaning in figurative language.     

Interpersonal attraction and personality: what is attractive--self similarity, ideal similarity, complementarity or attachment security?

Little is known about whether personality characteristics influence initial attraction. Because adult attachment differences influence a broad range of relationship processes, the authors examined their role in 3 experimental attraction studies. The authors tested four major attraction hypotheses--self similarity, ideal-self similarity, complementarity, and attachment security--and examined both actual and perceptual factors. Replicated analyses across samples, designs, and manipulations showed that actual security and self similarity predicted attraction. With regard to perceptual factors, ideal similarity, self similarity, and security all were significant predictors. Whereas perceptual ideal and self similarity had incremental predictive power, perceptual security's effects were subsumed by perceptual ideal similarity. Perceptual self similarity fully mediated actual attachment similarity effects, whereas ideal similarity was only a partial mediator.     

Why do battered women stay?: Three decades of research

A review of the domestic violence research was conducted to assess the most salient factors that predict the likelihood of a woman remaining in or leaving an abusive relationship. The research is still in its early stage and no single theory can confidently predict this tendency on the part of battered women. Research that currently appears to provide the best explanations for remaining in an abusive relationship and factors that enable women to end their abuse are summarized.     

Individuation,ego development and the quality of conflict negotiation in the family of adolescent girls

Individuation, ego development and family negotiation of conflict were studied in 27 Norwegian families with an adolescent daughter, 16–19 years, drawn from a larger sample to represent a rectangular distribution of ego development. Individuality and Connectedness (individuation) as conceptualized and scored by Condonet al. (1984) was modified and adapted to a Norwegian material. Four factors were extracted, one related to individuality (self-assertion and separateness) and two to connectedness (clarification and acceptance). Ego development, measured by the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (Loevinger & Wessler, 1970) was related to connectedness between mother and daughter and between father and daughter, but not to individuality. Maturity of conflict negotiation was positively related to connectedness between mother and daughter and negatively to individuality between father and daughter. It was argued that for women, individuality may not be a singular goal in ego development or in individuation and that self-other differentiation of identity and interests may develop within a close relationship and not only through separation.     

Why do battered women stay?: Three decades of research

A review of the domestic violence research was conducted to assess the most salient factors that predict the likelihood of a woman remaining in or leaving an abusive relationship. The research is still in its early stage and no single theory can confidently predict this tendency on the part of battered women. Research that currently appears to provide the best explanations for remaining in an abusive relationship and factors that enable women to end their abuse are summarized.     

Care-oriented moral reasoning and prosocial behavior: A question of gender or sex role orientation

Sex Roles - The possibility that sex role orientation was a better predictor of care-oriented moral development than gender for both men and women was investigated in this study. Also, the...     

Holy Apparition or Hyper-Religiosity: Prevalence of Explanatory Models for Religious and Spiritual Experiences in Patients with Bipolar Disorder and Their Associations with Religiousness

Pastoral Psychology - One point that emerges from qualitative research on religion and bipolar disorder (BD) is the problem patients with BD experience in distinguishing between genuine religious...