Hispanic and majority student attitudes toward forcible date rape as a function of differences in attitudes toward women

Less rejecting attitudes toward forcible date rape are related to more traditional attitudes toward women, as measured by the Attitudes Toward Women Scale (G. J. Fischer, “College Student Attitudes Toward Forcible Date Rape. I. Cognitive Predictors,” Archives of Sexual Behavior, 1986, 15, 457–466). Does this relation reflect more traditional or more negative attitudes toward women? If the former, then an ethnic minority having still more traditional attitudes toward women (than the nonethnic majority), also should be less rejecting of forcible date rape. This hypothesis was assessed by surveying attitudes of bicultural and bilingual Hispanic, other self-reported Hispanics, and nonethnic majority college students from a large introductory sociology class in a large Southwestern university. Results showed that Hispanics, overall, (1) had more traditional attitudes toward women than nonethnic majority and (2) as hypothesized, had less rejecting attitudes toward forcible date rape. However, these effects were not a simple function of ethnicity, at least not for males. For example, bicultural and bilingual Hispanic males were least likely to blame the male for the forcible date rape, but were no less rejecting of such behavior than other Hispanic males and had no more traditional attitudes toward women than other Hispanic or majority males. Bicultural and bilingual Hispanic females, on the other hand, were most likely to blame the male, had the least rejecting attitudes toward date rape, and had the most traditional attitudes toward women. one interpretation is that exposure to less restrictive sex roles of the majority culture is a liberating influence on Hispanic females, but not on Hispanic males who, perhaps, see more liberal attitudes toward women as having no or even negative payoff. Differences found between Hispanics who are bicultural and bilingual and other self-reported Hispanics suggest that these groups should not be combined, and that a research sample needs to be defined more specifically than “Hispanic.”     

Who volunteers for companionship with mental patients? A study of attitude-belief-intention relationships1

329 students were asked to join a companionship program for mental hospital patients. It was expected that the relationship between humanitarian attitudes and intention to participate would be stronger for subjects with benign beliefs than for subjects with unfavorable beliefs about patients The findings were (a) subjects’ intentions corresponded to their later joining (p<.001), and were unrelated to social desirability, (b) general helping and social-responsibility attitudes correlated higher than did specific beliefs about patients, with willingness to become a companion, (c) attitude-intention correlations were greatest for subjects with neutral beliefs, and weakest for subjects with benign beliefs (upsetting the main hypothesis), (d) the same pattern of correlations obtained in subgroups trichotomized on the basis of another scale (ostensibly unrelated to volunteering for companionship) which had an authoritarian component. Result (d) suggests that a personality factor, not beliefs about patients, moderated variations in the attitude-intention relationship     

A programmable multiple-tone generator

A simple tone generator that allows software control of auditory stimuli is described. The circuit provides for the simultaneous generation, timing, and amplification of three different tones. Its low cost, ease of construction, and versatility make it an attractive alternative to conventional auditory stimulus hardware.     

A small-animal inhalation chamber for short-to-intermediate term exposure

An inhalation chamber for behavioral toxicology studies is described. Complete and uniform diffusion of test atmospheres throughout the chamber is achieved, thus solving a dead-airspace problem prevalent in extant chamber designs. Modular attachments to the chamber allow for a variety of uses, including physiological-pathological and classical or operant conditioning. The chamber design and size are appropriate for testing most small laboratory animals (e.g., birds, rodents, and small primates), but the chamber is easily modified for use with larger vertebrates. Despite the versatility of design, the chamber is relatively inexpensive and easy to build.     

On the existence and uniqueness of maximum-likelihood estimates in the Rasch model

Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of a solution of the so-called unconditional (UML) and the conditional (CML) maximum-likelihood estimation equations in the dichotomous Rasch model are given. The basic critical condition is essentially the same for UML and CML estimation. For complete data matricesA, it is formulated both as a structural property ofA and in terms of the sufficient marginal sums. In case of incomplete data, the condition is equivalent to complete connectedness of a certain directed graph. It is shown how to apply the results in practical uses of the Rasch model.Paper read at the European Meeting of the Psychometric Society, Groningen, June 19–21, 1980.Part of the research reported herein was done while the author was staying at the Pulmologisches Zentrum der Stadt Wien; he is indebted to Professor Dr. F. Muhar and Dr. R. Mutschlechner for providing excellent working conditions.     

Pathways of identity development in college women

In order to study pathways of identity achievement, the identity statuses of college women were assessed through an interview procedure. Based on areas of identity achievement, the women were designated as following a female pathway, a male pathway, an androgynous pathway, or no pathway. Women in the female pathway were significantly higher on self-esteem than women in the male pathway. In addition, youthfulness was positively related to self-esteem. The results were interpreted to indicate difficulties of choice confronting modern women. Commitments in nontraditional areas such as career and ideological concerns may raise anxieties for women which are reflected in lower self-esteem.The authors wish to thank Dave Drissel, Jimmy Hahn, Randy Herschel, and Sue McGovern for their assistance in interviewing and rating the interviews.     

Perceiving minimal distinctions in ASL under normal and point-light display conditions

Perceptual confusions within 36 formationally minimal pairs of signs were assessed for native signers under two conditions of video presentation: (1) normally lighted black-and-white displays and (2) point-light displays constructed by affixing 26 points of retroreflective tape on the fingertips, back knuckles, and wrists and 1 point on the nose of the signer. Nine pairs were selected for each of the formational parameters of handshape, location, movement, and orientation. For each minimal pair, a native signer constructed and signed an ASL sentence that was syntactically and semantically appropriate for both members of the pair. Fourteen highly fluent ASL users responded by selecting a picture appropriate to the viewed sentence, thus avoiding contamination by English. For both viewing conditions, subjects discriminated the minimal pairs significantly better than chance. Performance was better (1) when location or orientation differentiated the signs than when movement or handshape did and (2) in normal lighting than in the point-light displays. With the point/light displays, discrimination of location, movement, and orientation was poorer and handshape discrimination was at chance. The discussion considers (1) the confusion of signs in the absence of linguistic redundancy, (2) the effectivenese of the point-light configurations as “minimal cues” for the contrasts, and (3) the efficacy of using these point-light configurations to reduce the information in ASL to a narrow bandwidth.