Indirect influence of maternal social contacts on mother-child interactions: A setting event analysis

Fourteen mother-child dyads who had sought psychological help for severe interaction problems took part in a study that investigated the relationship between maternal social interactions with adults outside the family and mother-child interactions in the home. Social interactions outside the family were based on maternal self-reports; mother-child interactions in the home were based on direct observations and included both base-rate and sequential measures. Results indicated that mothers were significantly more aversive toward their children on days in which they had themselves experienced a high proportion of aversive interactions with adults than on days in which they had not. This higher level of aversiveness was evident in their responses to both aversive and nonaversive child behavior and could not be attributed to any corresponding change in child behavior. Implications for research and clinical practice are discussed.This work appeared first as a paper presented at the 92nd Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, August 1984. The research data reported in this article were generated by support from the National Institute of Mental Health, Crime and Delinquency Section, Grant No. R01-1068-58, to Robert G. Wahler. His permission to use these data is gratefully acknowledged.     

Inductive generalization in 9- and 11-month-olds

Using little models, we showed 9- and 11-month-old infants events in which animal or vehicle properties were demonstrated, such as a dog drinking from a cup or a car giving a ride. The infants were tested on imitation of these properties on the same exemplars as used for the modeling, on generalization to other exemplars from the same domain, and on generalization to exemplars from an inappropriate domain. Infants generalized the properties broadly to both typical and novel exemplars within the appropriate domain, and rarely to exemplars from the inappropriate domain. It is concluded that at least by 9 months infants have formed global concepts of animals and vehicles that control the way infants learn the characteristic properties of these classes.     

Generalization of relative competence mediating conformity across differing tasks

Subject correctness and group agreement were initially varied for college subjects performing a multiple-choice informational task (Canadian Knowledge Inventory). On a subsequent perceptual task (Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices), the dependent variable of conformity was assessed to examine generalization of relative competence formed on the informational task. It was seen that: (1) Those who perceived themselves to be less competent than the group on the first task exhibited the greatest level of conformity on the second task, thus replicating previous research on perceived relative competence as a determinant of conformity; (2) suspicion reduced conformity.