Age differences in resistance to peer influence

Prior research describes the development of susceptibility to peer pressure in adolescence as following an inverted U-shaped curve, increasing during early adolescence, peaking around age 14, and declining thereafter. This pattern, however, is derived mainly from studies that specifically examined peer pressure to engage in antisocial behavior. In the present study, age differences and developmental change in resistance to peer influence were assessed using a new self-report instrument that separates susceptibility to peer pressure from willingness to engage in antisocial activity. Data from four ethnically and socioeconomically diverse samples comprising more than 3,600 males and females between the ages of 10 and 30 were pooled from one longitudinal and two cross-sectional studies. Results show that across all demographic groups, resistance to peer influences increases linearly between ages 14 and 18. In contrast, there is little evidence for growth in this capacity between ages 10 and 14 or between 18 and 30. Middle adolescence is an especially significant period for the development of the capacity to stand up for what one believes and resist the pressures of one's peers to do otherwise.     

Concerning the Preservation of God’s Omnipotence

Numerous examples have been offered that purportedly show that God cannot be omnipotent. I argue that a common response to such examples (i.e., that failure to do the impossible does not indicate a lack of power) does not preserve God’s omnipotence in the face of some of these examples. I consider another possible strategy for preserving God’s omnipotence in the face of these examples and find it wanting.

The Making of Female Presidents and Prime Ministers: The Impact of Birth Order, Sex, of Siblings, and Father-Daughter Dynamics

Although research into the factors that may affect male achievement of political leadership is relatively robust, very few studies on the making of female presidents and prime ministers exist. This paper examines the literature on birth order, sex of siblings, and parent-daughter dynamics to see whether the findings for male political leaders—that first-born individuals will be overrepresented as compared with later-born siblings—also hold for female ones. Two other hypotheses were tested concerning differences in birth order and sex of siblings between female political leaders and a larger sample of women. A review of the literature on parent-daughter dynamics suggests that this may be another important variable for future research into explanations for the success of women who achieve senior-level positions of power. The findings suggest that first-born women, like first-born men, are overrepresented among political leaders; that first-born women are overrepresented among female political leaders as compared with their numbers in a larger sample population; and that fewer female political leaders have an older brother than would be expected to occur in a larger sample population. The last finding applies only for women who come to power in the period 1960–1989, not those who gained office more recently.     

Hierarchical semantic organization in 6-year-olds

Fifty-eight first graders saw eight pictures of things familiar to them. Subsequently they attempted to recall each picture given as retrieval cues the corresponding noun and four other words. Each set of cue words mapped onto a tree-like, class-inclusion structure. Five predictions based on a model of semantic distance in the structure were confirmed. Contrary to what might have been expected from previous research, the results suggest that class-inclusion hierarchies can serve as the functional basis for retrieving information in children as young as 6 years old.     

Semantic universals in sentence processing and interpretation: A study of Chinese,finnish, Japanese,and Slovenian speakers

The universality of certain aspects of sentence interpretation was investigated with native speakers of a variety of language families.Ss were given, in their own language, the same 156 affirmative and 156 corresponding negative sentences to sort into categories solely on the basis of sentence samples. The categories represented semantic sentence interpretations based on information value and nonsensicality.Ss generally sorted the same sentences (translation equivalents) into the same categories: e.g., Informative,The person is a man; Redundant,The man is a person; Contradictory,The chair is a spouse; Amphigorously Redundant,The chair is not a spouse. A semantic feature analysis indicates thatSs base their interpretations on particular interactions of features. Sets of rules and operations utilizing such feature combinations are formulated and attributed to theSs. Such knowledge is postulated to be universal to speakers of all languages.     

Phonology,reading, and Chomsky and Halle's optimal orthography

Chomsky and Halle claim that an orthography based on their underlying phonological representations (UPR) of lexical items would be optimal for English. This paper challenges three of C & H's basic phonological assumptions, that their vowel shift rule is valid, that the UPR is the only sound representation to be listed in the lexicon, and that derived words do not appear as wholes in the lexicon. A less abstract phonological representation level based on the conscious perceptions of speakers, the surface phonemic (SPR), is proposed. An SPR-based orthography has advantages which a UPR-based orthography would not: it is easy to learn and teach, it can be learned at an early age, and it permits rapid detection of rhyme. It is concluded that an orthography based on SPRs, and not UPRs, would be optimal.This research was supported in part by Office of Education contract OEC-9-71-0036(508), project 1-0527, to D. Steinberg and R. Krohn.