Children and aging: attitudes, differentiation ability, and quantity and quality of contact

The attitudes and age differentiation ability of forty-seven 3- to 5-year-old children toward pictures of older and younger people were assessed. In addition, cognitive performance on a seriation task as well as the quantity and quality of each child's contact with adults over 60 years of age were measured. Chi squares were performed by sex and age of stimulus photograph on the attitudinal questions. One of the chi squares reached significance on the age comparison and two on the sex comparison. In addition, sign tests were used to assess the direction of the trends on the questions, and both age and sex trends were significant at the .05 level with children being more likely to choose pictures of younger rather than older models and female rather than male models. Ability to correctly order pictures by age was significantly related (r = .53, p less than .001) to the seriation ordering task. Four of the 18 correlations between contact and attitudinal variables were significant and negative.     

Measuring flicker thresholds in the budgerigar

Pigeons were trained to discriminate apparent movement and real movement in visual displays showing horizontal movement. Generalization testing on the dimension of directional movement yielded gradients that sloped as movement changed from horizontal to vertical. Evidence of generalization between apparent movement and real movement was found in equivalent response rates to training displays of either type. Extremely low response rates to training displays pulsating but showing no movement eliminated flicker as the basis of the discrimination.     

Sigmund Freud's Racial Vocabulary and Related Fragments from the Analyses of Clarence P. Oberndorf and Smiley Blanton

Psychoanalysis is the product of a highly original and independent thinker from an historically marginalized minority with a perspective dedicated to plumbing the depths of our self-deceptions. Although the European anti-Semitism faced by Sigmund Freud was particularly relevant to his personal and professional identities, he was not unmindful of conflictual ''race, creed and color'' paradigms peculiar to the ''New World''. Fragments from the analyses of two American psychiatrists (whose formative years were centered in the post-Civil War South) reveal the confluence of such cross-currents in their autobiographical accounts of his inter- relationships with each of them.     

Social Anxiety in Children with Anxiety Disorders: Relation with Social and Emotional Functioning

Investigated the psychometric properties of the Social Anxiety Scale for children-Revised (SASC-R) as well as relations between social anxiety and children's social and emotional functioning. Participants were a clinic sample of children, ages 6–11 with anxiety disorders (N = 154) who completed the SASC-R. For a subset of these children, parent ratings of social skills, and self-ratings of perceived competence and peer interactions were also obtained. Factor analysis of the SASC-R supported the original three-factor solution and internal consistencies were in the acceptable range. Among children with simple phobia, scores on the SASC-R differentiated those with and without a comorbid social-based anxiety disorder. Social anxiety was also associated with impairments in social and emotional functioning. Specifically, highly socially anxious children reported low levels of social acceptance and global self-esteem and more negative peer interactions. Girls with high levels of social anxiety were also rated by parents as having poor social skills, particularly in the areas of assertive and responsible social behavior.     

Perceived numerosity, item arrangement, and expectancy

Ten sets of dots ranging in number from 7 to 91 per set were presented to 54 subjects. Half were arranged regularly and half randomly. The regular sets were overestimated by an average of 22%, while the random were underestimated by 16% compared with the physical number. Evidence was presented showing that subjects expect results in the opposite direction. The findings are discussed in relation to the expectancy-contrast model of Birnbaum and Veit.     

Sociality effects on the production of laughter

Certain facial displays (typically the human smile) have been found to vary with a situation's sociality. Because the facial display that accompanies laughter is under less voluntary control, it is a stronger test of sociality effects. Participants (N = 162) were videotaped watching a humorous videoclip in 1 of 3 conditions: alone, in a same-sex dyad with a stranger, or in a same-sex dyad with a friend. The frequency and time spent laughing were significantly greater in one or both dyadic conditions than in the alone condition, although no differences existed for self-reported evaluations of the videoclip's funniness or amusement felt. When the self-report measures were controlled for, the dyads of strangers (compared with the alone condition) were associated with the frequency of laughter. Although the results provide further support for sociality effects, the situational demands faced by participants may be a better predictor of facial displays than level of sociality.