Justice of give‐and‐take in the intimate relationship: When one partner of a couple is diagnosed with cancer

This study examined to what extent couples facing cancer (N= 55) and healthy couples (N= 74) perceived various distributions of give‐and‐take to be just or fair when occurring within a relationship of a cancer patient and his or her partner. Participants read one of three versions of a bogus interview with a couple facing cancer. In these scenarios, both partners were either equally well‐off in terms of give‐and‐take or one partner was better off than the other. In general, participants judged the equitable situation to be the fairest. Thus, even in a situation in which one partner of a couple has cancer, people generally judge a relationship in which both partners mutually support each other to be the fairest. Only in extreme situations (i.e., if the patient were in a bad condition) did participants regard a distribution according to need fairer than a distribution according to equity. Couples facing cancer and healthy couples did not differ in their judgments. In addition, emotional responses to the scenarios were studied. Consistent with equity theory, participants expected to feel most guilty in an overbenefited situation. In contrast with equity theory, however, participants did not expect to feel especially angry or sad in an underbenefited situation.     

Intercultural Effectiveness,Authoritarianism, and Ethnic Prejudice

This study examined the extent to which intercultural effectiveness dimensions (cultural empathy, open‐mindedness, social initiative, emotional stability, flexibility) and right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) predicted the ethnic prejudice of 166 Australian respondents toward Indigenous Australians. Intercultural effectiveness was assessed on the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire, and RWA was assessed on the RWA scale, whereas ethnic prejudice was measured on the Modern Racism Scale. The results revealed that intercultural effectiveness (open‐mindedness, flexibility, cultural empathy) was inversely related to ethnic prejudice, with open‐mindedness being the main predictor. Intercultural effectiveness was also inversely related to RWA, the latter being directly related to ethnic prejudice. The implications of these findings for the potential role of intercultural effectiveness in combating ethnic prejudice are discussed.     

Contextual constraint: a Danish language replication of Miller-Selfridge with methodological improvements

Previous studies in the English language have demonstrated the relevance of context and redundancy in assessing the impairment of information processing functions in psychopathology. In the present investigation, Danish language texts, varying in their degree of contextual constraint, were presented orally to 32 normal subjects, following the procedure of Miller & Selfridge (1950). Zero-order texts were created with and without matching for word frequencies, a control that was not employed by Miller & Selfridge. Immediate recall was measured and analysed as a function of degree of contextual constraint. Context effects upon accuracy of recall were obtained. The results essentially replicated the findings of Miller & Selfridge, and those of similar studies in other languages. Word frequency affected accuracy of recall at the zero-order point. The potential value of these texts as research tools in psychopathology is discussed.     

A Decade of Career Development Research: Implications for Theory,Practice, and Research

This study examines trends in the area of career development programs, practices, and research during the last decade based on program sessions at the American Educational Research Association's annual meetings.