Adjusting To a New Racial Climate: Maintenance of Personal Integrity

This paper will focus on the writer’s experience as a native New Yorker relocating to Montgomery, Alabama. The writer will share how he adjusted and coped with overt discrimination and racism in the context of the high school in which he attended there-a majority white high school on the “other” side of town. The writer will share how he employed the following coping mechanisms as methods of adjusting to his new environment: translating emotional experiences into words (relaxation and talk therapy), involvement with other black positive peers, careful assessment before acting, withdrawal and avoidance, and consuming African-American literature.     

Working memory and intelligence: the same or different constructs?

Several investigators have claimed over the past decade that working memory (WM) and general intelligence (g) are identical, or nearly identical, constructs, from an individual-differences perspective. Although memory measures are commonly included in intelligence tests, and memory abilities are included in theories of intelligence, the identity between WM and intelligence has not been evaluated comprehensively. The authors conducted a meta-analysis of 86 samples that relate WM to intelligence. The average correlation between true-score estimates of WM and g is substantially less than unity (p=.479). The authors also focus on the distinction between short-term memory and WM with respect to intelligence with a supplemental meta-analysis. The authors discuss how consideration of psychometric and theoretical perspectives better informs the discussion of WM-intelligence relations.     

Perceptions of Dating Violence Following a Sexualor Nonsexual Betrayal of Trust: Effects of Gender, Sexism, Acceptance of Rape Myths, and Vengeance Motivation

College womens (N = 220) and mens (N = 208) perceptions of violence following a betrayal by a romantic partner were studied in an independent groups design that varied gender of the participant, type of betrayal (sexual or nonsexual), and gender of the betrayed individual. Participants read one of four brief vignettes in which the betrayed person slapped his/her partner and made his/her lip bleed. Justification of this action was rated on 10 items. Factor analysis of these items indicated the presence of three factors for men and four for women. Both men and women indicated that hitting the partner, getting even, and being angry were more justifiable following a sexual betrayal. The hitting of a male partner by a betrayed woman was perceived as more justified than the hitting of a female partner by a betrayed man. In absolute terms, hitting and getting even by both women and men were generally viewed as unjustifiable, whereas being angry was viewed as justifiable. For both women and men, scores on the Vengeance Scale (Stuckless & Goranson, 1992) and Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1995) were related to getting even. For men, the Hostile Sexism Scale (Glick & Fiske, 2001) was related to getting even or being angry and breaking up. Results indicated that perceptions of reactions to betrayal are related to type of betrayal and to the dispositional characteristics of the perceiver.