Feminism and Psychological Autonomy: A Study in Decision Making

Women seeking to realize the feminist goal of autonomy, defined as self-interested decision making, encounter conflict and anxiety. This study reports a group experience that used life-space drawings and force-field analyses to reduce anxiety and foster autonomous decision making. The 15 women participants in the yearlong study reported at least one action in the area originally designated for decision making. Among the components in the process, participants cited identification with, and support and information from, other group members. The results suggest that for the women in this study, group participation enhanced individual autonomy. Autonomy for me is believing in my own ability to do what I want to do, … then taking productive, creative steps toward fulfilling my own goals. … Autonomy for me is a personal thing, an internal thing, feeling that I have power.*     

An opponent-process theory of motivation: III. Some affective dynamics in imprinting

The theory suggests that for immature precocial birds, the stimulation from an appropriate imprinting object innately arouses a primary effective process that is hedonically pleasant. The occurrence of this process automatically generates (via an opponent loop system) an opponent-process which is hedonically unpleasant. When the imprinting object is withdrawn, the primary process rapidly terminates, but the opponent-process persists, unopposed, for some time. By assuming that the opponent-process becomes stronger with its repeated (or prolonged) arousal, it is possible to account for many of the motivational factors in imprinting. These include: (1) the pattern of distress vocalization that occurs when an imprinting object is first presented to and then withdrawn from newly hatched ducklings, (2) the reinforcement and punishment effects that characterize imprinting, and (3) the priming effects that occur in the context of imprinting.     

Book reviews

SANDERS, A. F. (Ed.). Attention and Performance III. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company. 1970. Pp. viii + 442. (Price not known.)

CORCORAN, D. W. J. Pattern Recognition. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd. 1971. Pp. 223. £0.50.

SCHRIER, A. M. and STOLLNITZ, F. (Eds.) Behaviour of Nonhuman Primates Vol. III. New York: Academic Press Inc. 1971. £4.45.

KINTSCH, W. Learning, Memory, and Conceptual Processes. New York: Wiley and Sons. 1970. Pp. 498. £4.40.

MORTON, J. (Ed.) Biological and Social Factors in Psycholinguistics. London: Logos Press. 1971. Pp. 215. £3.50.

RITCHIE RUSSELL, W. The Traumatic Amnesius. London: Oxford University Press. Pp. 84. £2.00.

MILLER, N. E. Selected Papers. Chicago: Aldine Publishing. 1971. Pp. 874. £15.00.

SUTHERLAND, N. S. AND MACKINTOSH, N. J. Mechanisms of Animal Discrimination Learning. New York: Academic Press. 1971. Pp. 559. $18.50.

FURCHTGOTT, E. (Ed.). Pharmacological and Biophysical Agents and Behavior. New York: Academic Press. 1971. Pp. xii+402. $14.50.

EYSENCK, H. J., ARNOLD, W. AND MEILI,R. (Eds). Encyclopedia of Psychology. Volume I. London: Search Press. 1972. Pp. 396. £8.00.     

The fruits of their labors: a longitudinal exploration of parent personality and adjustment in their adult children

This longitudinal study of several aspects of parenting examines how children "turn out" as adults. Ratings of adjustment (educational and occupational attainment as well as social and emotional maturity) in young adult children (aged 25-37) were made on the basis of information from 64 mothers who were participants in a longitudinal study of women's lives. As hypothesized, mothers who were demanding yet responsive, sensitive, and psychologically mature at ages 27 and 43 had children with higher overall adult adjustment scores. Other factors correlated with adjustment included the mother's long-term commitment to being a wife and mother, and the cohesiveness of the home environment. In their 50s, characteristics of parents associated with adult child adjustment were different for men and women (competence in women and forcefulness and individuality in men). Divorce was not a negative factor, and mothers' paid work (after age 27) was positive at a trend level.     

Variance in faking across noncognitive measures

There are discrepant findings in the literature regarding the effects of applicant faking on the validity of noncognitive measures. One explanation for these mixed results may be the failure of some studies to consider individual differences in faking. This study demonstrates that there is considerable variance across individuals in the extent of faking 3 types of noncognitive measures (i.e., personality test, biodata inventory, and integrity test). Participants completed measures honestly and with instructions to fake. Results indicated some measures were more difficult to fake than others. The authors found that integrity, conscientiousness, and neuroticism were related to faking. In addition, individuals faked fairly consistently across the measures. Implications of these results and a model of faking that includes factors that may influence faking behavior are provided.     

An investigation of the relationship between teachers’ expectations and teachers’ perceptions of student attributes

Little is known about factors other than students’ abilities and background variables that shape teachers’ achievement expectations. This study was aimed at investigating the role of teachers’ perceptions of students attributes (working habits, popularity, self-confidence, student–teacher relationships, and classroom behavior) in shaping teachers’ expectations. The sample analyzed consisted of 5316 students and 469 classes in grade 6 in Dutch primary education. Teachers had higher expectations for students who they perceived as self-confident and having positive work habits. Differences in expectations between boys and girls could partly be explained by the teachers’ perceptions of students’ work habits. Teachers differed in the extent to which they let their perceptions of student attributes shape their expectations.     

Birth,kind and naïve biology

Much recent debate concerning the acquisition of naïve theories of biology and of race has turned on the claim that even preschoolers understand biological inheritance. At issue is what is implied by the belief that offspring will have the characteristic features of their kind. The present paper argues that such an essentialist belief in innate potential need not indicate a domain‐specific understanding of the biological inheritance of human kinds (or race). In Study 1, preschoolers in a Switched‐at‐birth task were found to be as likely to judge an adopted girl to resemble her birth parents on the color of their shirts as on their race. In Study 2, a variant on the task, 4‐year‐olds were found to be more likely to judge the girl to resemble her adoptive parents, suggesting that the concept of birth origin was not central to their reasoning. Though the results are consistent with the claim that preschoolers reason about human kinds in an essentialist manner, they undermine the broader claim that such reasoning is anchored by a naïve theory of biology. The finding is of cultural as well as cognitive consequence.