Measuring gender differences: The expressive dimension and critique of androgyny scales

This paper calls for a new approach to the measurement of gender similarities and differences in personality. Critiques of current measures that are based on the measurement of stereotypical masculinity and femininity are reviewed, and an alternative measure is presented. It avoids many of the problems in the other scales by measuring expressiveness and instrumentality in such a way that they are not confounded with variables such as independence or autonomy. Results with this measure in five different samples are presented. These confirm our theoretical definitions of expressiveness and instrumentality, and suggest that only the expressive or relational dimension consistently differentiates samples of women and men.We thank Mary Rothbart for her insightful and constructive comments on an earlier draft; Leisha Sanders, Marcia DeCaro, Vickie Van Nortwick, and Lyn Cogswell for their clerical assistance; the Center for the Study of Women in Society for financial support; and Liza Kuecker and Patricia Gwartney-Gibbs for providing data used in the analysis. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1984 annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association.     

Adolescent alcoholism in Benin City, Nigeria

The consumption of alcohol by Nigerian adolescents is investigated. Adolescence and alcoholism as applied in this study are defined, and the financial costs and physical and mental effects of alcohol use are described. The author used unobtrusive methods to gather data, visiting three nightclubs and an amusement park where alcohol is served in order to observe and interview adolescents. The findings show that adolescents begin drinking at an early age and consume large quantities of beer. The findings are consistent with those of other epidemiological studies. Finally, recommendations for controlling adolescent alcohol use are made.     

Belief systems and attitudes toward the death penalty and other punishments

This study focused on the relationship of belief systems as a configural construct and conservatism-liberalism to attitudes toward the death penalty and other punishments for offenses of varying severity Extrapersonalists, the most concretely functioning of the four conceptual or belief systems posited by Harvey, Hunt, and Schroder (1961), were most in favor of the death penalty They also endorsed the most severe punishment for a variety of crimes, to a particularly greater extent than did representatives of either of the two more abstractly functioning systems The belief dimensions of Openness, Evaluativeness, and Complexity, as well as the frequency of church attendance, correlated more highly and consistently with attitudes toward punishment than did either Conservatism-Liberalism or gender Both of the latter variables failed to correlate with a number of the outcome variables and related at only low levels to the others The greater predictive power of a configural conception of personality or belief systems over a unidimensional conception seems to have been demonstrated Configural concepts may additionally be generally superior to multidimensional concepts treated linearly     

The relations between type A behavior, clinically relevant behavior, academic achievement, and IQ in children

The relation of Type A behavior to IQ, academic achievement, and several clinically relevant dimensions of behavior in children was assessed in 873 fourth, fifth, and sixth graders by means of the Matthews Youth Test for Health (MYTH), the Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT), the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITED), and the teachers' form of the Missouri Children's Behavior Checklist (MCBC-T). The MYTH and its competitiveness and impatience-aggression subscales were found to be differentially related to academic achievement and to account for a small but significant portion of the variance in achievement not accounted for by IQ. The subscales of the MYTH were found to be highly correlated with several clinically familiar dimensions of children's behavior. The significance of these findings for the construct validity of the MYTH is discussed.