The single parent: Power and the integrity of parenting

I have explored some issues of power and the balance of power in the situation of the single parent and the family. The single parent may need the support of a holding environment to achieve psychological integration as exemplified by my treatment with Ms. B. Without a cooperative mate and with societal prejudice, the psychotherapeutic situation may be the only nurturing environment. The therapist empowers the single parent by providing a supportive, nurturing environment. Parenting is receiving bad press in this decade. More examples of child abuse and the extreme of homicide come to public attention. Children do have power and society needs to support a constructive use of child as well as parental power. At this stage in societal/cultural development the legal system is unfortunately more available to punish than provide lines of protection or guidance to parent or child. The psychoanalytic literature hasn't been kind or supportive to the parent. We must keep in mind that the psychotherapist's lot is simpler, less stressful, and more protected from real life stresses than that of the single parent. I suggest a model of parenting with the establishment of ongoing dialogue between parent and child in which each is receptive to the other. While it is the parental task to set limits and teach about the real world, the goal is to establish an exchange in which parent and child are both teacher and student. This creative relationship produces growth and builds esteem for parent and child alike.     

“Single white male looking for thin,very attractive...”

Sociocultural pressures on women to be thin and physically attractive assume many forms today. When these external pressures are combined with the excessive demands many women already place on themselves in these areas, chronic dieting, and ultimately binge eating, often result (Agras & Kirkley, 1986; Hsu, 1989). The present study investigated the extent to which single women currently were receiving the message that physical attractiveness in general, and weight in particular, were crucial factors in being selected as a dating partner. A total of 283 male and 231 female personal ads from a singles' magazine were examined. Twenty-eight categories were created to label the qualities designated as desirable in a partner. As predicted, physical attractiveness was the characteristic most frequently sought by males (56.9%). Significantly fewer females (26.4%) required this in a prospective partner. Furthermore, requests for a thin partner were made by significantly more males (33.6%) than females (2.2%). Sex differences also were detected for the quality sought most often by females: interpersonal understanding. The results demonstrated that males still attributed greater importance to physical attractiveness and thinness than did females when selecting a date. Possible explanations for these different emphases were offered, and features that distinguished the “physical attractiveness” seekers from others were explored. The link with today's high rate of eating disorders among women was reappraised.     

Inferences about the femininity of competent women and their implications for likability

Male (N=59) and female (N=60) college students were given a written protocol describing a competent, achievement-oriented female stimulus person (SP) with either a masculine or feminine pattern of vocational and avocational interests. Three groups were given a masculine-pattern protocol and one group was given a feminine-pattern one. They were then asked to rate the SP on likability in work and social settings, femininity, and a number of other personal attributes. Two groups given the masculine-pattern protocol were also supplied with the SP's responses to items from a “personality” test answered in a predominantly feminine (Masculine—Feminine SP) or masculine (Masculine-Masculine SP) direction. The remaining groups (Masculine-Neutral and Feminine-Neutral SPs) were given no additional information. In agreement with previous findings, the Masculine-Neutral SP was liked more in social settings than was the Feminine-Neutral one. It was hypothesized and confirmed that the Masculine-Neutral SP would be perceived as similar to the Masculine-Feminine SP in femininity and likability and that both these SPs would be judged to be higher on these characteristics than the Masculine-Masculine. Complex results were obtained from the ratings of other attributes. Overall, they indicated that the Masculine-Feminine SP, in whom femininity was explicitly suggested, received the weakest ratings on a series of achievement-related attributes and the Masculine-Neutral SP the strongest.     

Retrieval processes in recall

A reaction time (RT) paradigm was developed to study retrieval processes in paired associate (PA) recall. Prior to the experimental session, subjects learned lists of PAs (varying in length from three to 24 pairs); during the experimental session, subjects' RT to say the response word from the onset of a visually presented stimulus word was measured. The implications of several classes of retrieval models were discussed in the context of this paradigm. The shape of the RT-list length function, practice, and sequential effects were all of interest in distinguishing among models. Four experiments were reported which were designed to (1) establish the baseline effects in this paradigm, (2) determine which of these effects should be attributed to the retrieval stage of processing, and (3) investigate the effect of semantic memory in this task. Results suggest that simple serial scanning models are inadequate to handle the data from this task. Strength, direct-access, or parallel processing models, on the other hand, seem to capture the qualitative effects present in our experiments. When a strength model was formalized and fit to the data from Experiment I, it was found that a two-trace version gave good quantitative fits while a one-trace version did not, suggesting that both short- and long-term memory independently contribute in this task.     

What’s up in mental rotation?

We report two experiments on the influence of head tilt on mental rotation. In Experiment I, subjects decided whether dot patterns were or were not repeated about a line. Their reaction times (RTs) were consistent with the interpretation that they mentally rotated the patterns so that the line was subjectively vertical before making their decisions. When the subjects tilted their heads, the RT functions shifted in the direction of the tilt, indicating that the subjective vertical lay closer to the retinal than to the gravitational vertical. In Experiment II, subjects decided whether singly presented alphanumeric characters in various orientations were standard or backward (mirror-reversed). Again, analysis of their RTs suggested mental rotation to the standard upright, but the function was unaffected by head tilt; in this case, the subjects operated in subjective gravitational rather than retinal coordinates. The choice of retinal or gravitational coordinates may depend on whether the stimuli are interpreted egocentrically or as part of the external world.     

Visual interaction in a group of introverts and extraverts

Ten introverts and 10 extraverts were selected from a student population on the bask of their responses to the E.P.I. The groups contained 5 men and 5 women and were matched for Neuroticism. Each subject took part in two 4-minute conversations, one with a male confederate, one with a female confederate. The same two confederates were used throughout the experiment, and no attempt was made to programme any aspect of their behaviour. Two trained observers, who sat behind a one way screen situated close to the speakers, recorded the visual and speech behaviour of both subject and confederate by means of a four-channel event-recorder. The recordings were made for the last 3 minutes of each interaction. Extraverts Looked more frequently than introverts, but there were no differences between the two groups in the proportions of time spent in Looking and eye-contact, or in the mean length of Looks. Extraverts also spoke more frequently than introverts, a finding which may complement that for the number of Looks. The findings could not be explained by the behaviour of the confederates, since they behaved consistently across the two groups of subjects. The experiment is discussed with particular reference to Mobbs (1968) and Kendon and Cook (1969). Comparisons of methodology are made.     

CONCEPTS OF INTELLIGENCE: A COMPARISON OF CHINESE GRADUATES FROM CHINESE AND ENGLISH SCHOOLS IN HONG KONG*

The present study investigated the concepts of intelligence of two groups of Hong Kong Chinese university students. They differed in the secondary schools from which they graduated, one followed the Chinese system and the other the English system. These two groups were otherwise similar in age, academic achievement, and racial background. Subjects were asked to rate items selected from four popular intelligence tests in terms of their relevance to measuring intelligence and perceived difficulty. The relevance ratings were taken as reflections of the group's concept of intelligence. Factor analysis revealed two major factors and several minor factors underlying the relevance ratings of the two groups. The major ones were Non-verbal and Verbal reasoning skills, and the minor ones were Social, Numerical, and Retrieval skills. The Non-verbal reasoning skill was rated equally relevant by the two groups of subjects and was considered as the most relevant skill to measuring intelligence. The Verbal reasoning and Social skills were next, followed by the Numerical skill with the Retrieval skill being the least relevant. The Chinese-school group tended to rate the Verbal reasoning skill to be less relevant than did the English-school group. These findings were attributed to the mental effort involved in solving each type of task and to the differences in school instruction.     

Overall nutrient intake of preschool hyperactive and normal boys

Studies examining the relationship between sugar intake of hyperactive children and behavior problems have reported inconsistent results. We hypothesized that if the problem behaviors of attention deficit-disordered children with hyperactivity (ADDH) are exacerbated by food, then this might be due to differences in their background nutrition relative to non-ADDH children. Parents and day care workers of 24 ADDH and 27 non-ADDH preschoolaged boys were trained to keep food diaries for 21 days. Analysis of the last 14 days for each child revealed no differences in overall nutrient intake between the two groups. On the other hand, for 5 ADDH and 3 non-ADDH children the within-subject correlations between daily behavior and sugar intake were significant. We concluded that nutrition-behavior interactions are more likely a function of idiosyncratic sensitivities, rather than a general tendency for ADDH children to eat differently from non-ADDH children.This research was funded by the Alberta Mental Health Research Advisory Council, and by the National Health Research and Development Program of Health and Welfare Canada. We think Jeannine Fraser for help with data analyses.