The masculinity—Irrationality relationship explored: Searching for a common denominator

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relative empirical support for two alternative ways of interpreting the relationship between masculinity and irrationality. The common denominator in this particular relationship was theoretically assumed to either reflect a person's locus of control expectations or his/her level of self-esteem.Two separate empirical studies were performed with groups of undergraduate university students. Both studies replicated earlier results, thus supporting the masculinity hypothesis as the one accounting for the relationship between sex-role orientation and irrationality.Of the two possible common denominators explaining this relationship, level of self-esteem was the one receiving the strongest empirical support. Some interesting gender differences concerning these two possible common denominators were also found.Ole Johan Hovland, Cand.paed., is Assistant professor of Personality Assessment at the Department of Personality Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway, and maintains a small private practice in Laksevåg, Bergen, Norway. FranÇoise De Lange Alsaker, Cand.psychol., is a Research fellow in the field of personality development at the Department of Personality Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway. Fred Vollmer, Mag.art., is Senior Lecturer in personality psychology at the University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.     

Marx,technocracy, and the corporatist ethos

Communism, in Marx' mind, did not mean simple liberation, but the economics of liberation. The realm of necessity (technē) was to become the primary field for emancipation (praxis), the latter taking form in new institutions, responsive to real socio-economic needs. In this sense, the problem of technocracy and the corporatist ethos in Marx are part of a broader discursive structure, which links the experiences of workers through the industrial revolution with the philosophies ofpraxis as they reach from Hegel through Marković.     

Logical pragmatism and dialectical materialism: The beginning of dialogue

A philosophical movement, correctly called logical pragmatism, is growing up around the philosophy of W. V. O. Quine, Soviet scholars follow this development with clear and well-grounded understanding of the origins and tenets of the system. This essay continues the dialogue between contemporary Marxism-Leninism and logical pragmatism recommended by Soviet scholars.A Russian translation of this article is being published inFilosofskie nauki (Moscow).     

Plekhanov on the role of the individual in history

This essay critically assesses Plekhanov's famous article on the role of the individual in history. Part I explicates his treatment of the problem of free will and determinism and argues that it is unsatisfactory. The whole issue, however, is held to be largely irrelevant to Marxism. Part II then turns to the question of the explanatory weight given to individual action by historical materialism. Plekhanov's discussion of this issue is more insightful, and the essay endeavors to distinguish between the strong and weak points of his analysis in order to lay the foundations for a more adequate handling of the subject.     

Absence of age-related proneness to short-term retroactive interference in the absence of rehearsal

Age differences in short-term retroactive interference, unconfounded with age differences in rehearsal in the retention interval of the Brown-Peterson Task, were not found in a cross-sectional study of adults 18-32 and 64-78 years of age. Degree of retroactive interference was manipulated conjointly with distractor interval length (0-15 s). Individual memory span was assessed and used as the list length in order to achieve stimulus equivalence of memory loads across individuals and age groups. An attention-demanding matching task that adjusted itself in difficulty to the individual's attentional capacity was used as the distractor activity. Covert rehearsal during the retention interval was inferred using several measures, including a comparison of distractor task performance in the presence and in the absence of a memory load, and rehearsers were excluded from the primary analyses. We conclude that there is no interference proneness with increasing age in the present study.     

Continuity in intellectual functioning: the role of self-reported health

Surviving members of the Berkeley Older Generation Study were interviewed and tested with the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale in 1969-1970 and again in 1983-1984, when subjects' ages ranged from 73 to 93. Health was assessed by self-reports at both measurement periods. Although many individuals showed some decline in intellectual functioning, substantial individual differences were apparent at all age levels. More than one half of the subjects showed no reliable change, and a minority showed a reliable increase in verbal scores. The role of self-reported health has increasing importance in the maintenance of intellectual functioning in advanced old age.