Being female and athletic: A cause for conflict?

This study examined the interrelationships among role conflict, gender role orientation, and female sport participation. One hundred six female high school athletes and nonathletes were administered the Personal Attributes Questionnaire and a role conflict inventory. Multivariate analyses revealed that athletes experienced significantly higher levels of role conflict than nonathletes, but a nonsignificant relationship was found between role conflict and gender role orientation. Role conflict was also unrelated to type of sport, although team athletes high in feminine orientation perceived higher role conflict than low feminine oriented athletes. Overall, levels of perceived and experienced role conflict were low. In sum, role conflict does not appear a major concern for adolescent female athletes nor was gender role orientation a factor related to conflict between the roles of female and athlete.     

The Composite-Stimulus Analysis and the Quantal Nature of Stimulus Control: Response and Incentive Factors

The Psychological Record -     

The effects of dynamic assessment procedures on Raven Matrices performance,visual search behavior,test anxiety and test orientation

The effects of dynamic testing procedures on Raven Coloured Matrices performance, visual scanning procedures, test anxiety, and orientation to the test situation were assessed. The subjects were 72 third-grade children. The results supported the hypotheses of the study showing that (1) dynamic assessment procedures involving either verbalization or elaborated feedback lead to higher levels of Raven Matrices performance; that (2) dynamic assessment modifies visual search behaviors; and that (3) dynamic assessment reduces test anxiety and negative orientation to the testing situation. The results are interpreted as offering construct validation to the assessment approaches used.     

Toward a predictive model of family planning

A study of 1200 women aged 15-45 in Mexico City was conducted with the object of discovering the factors that have the greatest predictive value for attitudes, beliefs, intentions, and behavior in reference to family planning. Information was solicited by questionnaire with respect to 6 groups of variables: 1) independent variables (age, education, occupation and education of spouse, and whether the woman worked before marriage); 2) perceived value of children and family planning; 3) peer group norms; 4) marital relationship; 5) modernization; and 6) motivation. Factor analysis was applied to each of the groups ofvariables to determine which factors had the greatest impact within the group; then multiple regression analysis was applied to determine which factors had the greatest predictive value. A predictive model of family planning according to the results is illustrated and the various aspects discussed. It was found that the intention to use contraceptives and a good marital relationship (one with open communication and shared decision making) were the best predictors of effective family planning behavior.     

Discrimination training and stimulus compounding: consideration of non-reinforcement and response differentiation consequences of S

In Exp. 1, four rats were trained on a two-component multiple schedule with tone and light each associated with different variable-interval schedules. Extinction in light-out no-tone, common to previous studies reporting additive summation to compounded discriminative stimuli, was omitted from training. In testing, the simultaneous presentation of tone and light controlled a response rate intermediate between that controlled by these stimuli presented singly. In Exp. 2, animals were trained on three-ply multiple schedules. While tone and light were each associated with variable-interval schedules for both groups, light-out no-tone signalled extinction for one and differential-reinforcement-of-behavior-other-than-bar-pressing for the other. This permitted response reduction during light-out no-tone to be viewed independently of non-reinforcement. Responding of both groups showed summation to tone plus light in testing, with the effect clearly larger for extinction-trained subjects. These experiments indicate that: (1) discrimination training afforded by extinction has been integral to additive summation previously reported, (2) response differentiation and non-reinforcement consequences of extinction training contribute to the magnitude of summation, and (3) summation and peak shift might be functionally related phenomena.     

ON SCIENCE AS A GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING THE ORDER AMIDST THE DIVERSITY OF LIFE

This paper is the reprinting under a new title of the “Foreword” of Paul A. Weiss's Life, Order, and Understanding: A Theme in Three Variations, published in 1970 as volume 8 supplement of The Graduate Journal of the University of Texas (Austin, Texas, #5.00 [hardcover], #2.50 [paperback], 157 pages). We reprint this paper here for two reasons. The first is that its beautiful, scientifically grounded imagery of living systems in relation to wave dynamics provides a significant supplement to this issue of Zygon on human values in the context of thermodynamics. The second is that it is hoped this foreword will serve better than would a book review to introduce Zygon readers to the philosophical and scientific wisdom contained in Life, Order, and Understanding.–Editor.     

Free-operant compounding of variable-interval and low-rate discriminative stimuli

Four rats were trained on a schedule containing stimuli associated with variable-interval 30-sec and differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate 20-sec schedules of reinforcement. Subsequently, a stimulus compounding test was administered that included individual presentations of two intensities of each stimulus plus compounds of these stimuli. In training, extremely high rates were emitted to the variable-interval stimulus, and very low rates to the differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate stimulus. Compounding the two training stimuli always produced an overall response rate intermediate between the rates controlled by the two stimuli separately presented. Essentially the same relationship held with different stimulus intensities. These results resolve the confounding of response and reinforcement variables present in previous conditioning studies reporting response averaging. They are discussed in terms of the incompatibility of the response chains associated with the individual stimuli compounded.     

Overt “mediating” behavior during temporally spaced responding

A rat was trained on a schedule that programmed reinforcements only when a minimum waiting time between successive responses was exceeded (DRL schedule). It was observed to fill much of the pause between lever presses with a stereotyped behavioral chain: it would take its tail in its mouth and nibble it. This behavior was shown to be functionally related to the efficiency with which the subject spaced its responses. It is thought to have served as mediating behavior, providing discriminating stimuli for appropriate lever presses.