A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FUTURE

Since the 19th century, feminists have criticized the mental health establishment and its treatment of women. Issues include the sexist use of psychoanalytic concepts and psychiatric diagnoses, the misuse of medication, and sexual misconduct in therapy. Feminists have also called attention to psychological problems arising from gender inequality in everyday life. Physical and sexual abuse of women is of special concern. Feminist innovations in therapy include consciousness-raising, sex-role resocialization, and new approaches to psychoanalysis and family therapy. We urge feminists to develop a fuller understanding of gender and power, and to use this knowledge to challenge the established theory and practice of clinical psychology.     

Profile of the American CEO: Comparing Inc. and fortune executives

Given the documented differences between entrepreneurial and traditional organizations in their structure and climate, a well as the predicted escalation of competition in global markets in the upcoming decade, the present study focused on the following questions. First, do chief executive officers (CEOs) from different corporate environments differ in the attributes, skills, and abilities they possess, and second, what meaning do these differences have for CEOs in confronting immediate and future challenges in small growth companies and large corporations. A sample of 35Fortune 500 CEOs and 35Inc. 500 CEOs was assessed on the London House STEP battery in order to identify differences between these groups. It was hypothesized that although there would be some overlap, the pattern of strengths and weaknesses would differ between the CEO groups. Specifically, it was expected thatInc. CEOs would be more creative whileFortune CEOs would exhibit a better balance in their breadth of managerial and executive skills. Results showed that these hypotheses were confirmed. Both groups were, not surprisingly, high in their potential for success and were not significantly different from one another in this overall dimension. However,Inc. CEOs were significantly higher in creativity, ability to work under pressure, and developing technical ideas, whileFortune CEOs excelled in the interpersonal skills of communications, developing teamwork, supervisory practices, developing employee potential and in the areas of leadership experience and financial responsibility. Findings are discussed in terms of developmental and strategic suggestions for current and aspiring CEOs.Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Academy of Management, Washington, D.C., August, 1989.     

Men in female-dominated professions: Distinguishing personality and background features

Personality and background features of men in female-dominated professions were assessed by comparing survey data on 54 men employed in atypical professions (A′s) with 63 men employed in sex-typical fields (S′s). Subjects were American born, college-educated males, under 50 years of age, employed in fields with over 75% male or female participation, and recruited in Atlanta in 1978. Subjects completed a biographical questionnaire, the Cattell 16 PF, and the Bem Sex Role Inventory under three instructional sets. In comparison with S′s the A′s showed lower adherence to traditional sex-role expectations on the Bem Sex Role Inventory, in the allotment of sex-typed household responsibilities, and in their greater “tender-minded” emotional sensitivity on the Cattell 16 PF. In terms of their personal histories, A′s more frequently reported having had employed mothers, having had distant relationships with their fathers, and having been positively influenced in their career choices by women. A′s more frequently experienced a death of a parent or sibling, or parental divorce or separation, and frequently mentioned such stresses as sensitizing them to their nurturant and emotional capabilities. There was also evidence that upward-mobility strivings may have contributed to atypical career choice, with A′s more frequently being members of racial minorities and/or of lower socioeconomic background. As expected, in contrast to S′s, A′s shared personality and socialization factors indicative of lower sex-typing, thus confirming the psychological significance of the sex composition of one's occupation for men as was confirmed earlier for women.     

Children's perceptions of relative competence in sex-typed occupations

Children ranging in age from 5 1/2 to 9 years old selected either a male or a female doll in response to questions about who would be “better” at an occupation. The occupations were selected so that half were female and half were male sex-typed occupations. The responses indicated that children have clear sex-typed expectations concerning occupational competence. While the differences between the “female” and “male” occupations were significant at each age level, the interaction revealed an increasing adherence to the stereotypes with increasing age. A sex of child main effect was produced by the tendency of female children to select the female doll more often than did male children. The results are interpreted as demonstrating that children's perceptions of these occupations reflect an evaluative bias and not simply a recognition of adult stereotypes or actual rates of employment in the positions.     

Self-Efficacy to Use Condoms in Unmarried Latino Adults

Measures of self-efficacy to use condoms can clarify the barriers to condom use Latinos encounter. A 20-item scale, that differed slightly for men and women, and was based on extensive elicitation interviews, was used in a random digit dial household survey of 1,600 unmarried Latino adults in 10 states with large Latino populations. Self-efficacy was related to condom use for both men and women. Factor analyses revealed five correlated factors: Regular Partner, Impulse Control, Partner Resistance, STD Thoughts, and Condom Discussion. Both men and women reported lowest self-efficacy for impulse control and using condoms with a regular partner. Less-educated men and women had lower self-efficacy to discuss condoms, to manage partner resistance, to use condoms with a regular partner, and to control impulses, but there were few other demographic differences in self-efficacy. The scale can be helpful in the design and evaluation of HIV prevention.     

On the coding of spatial information

Two experiments studied recall of objects and their locations in an intentional-incidental learning paradigm. When studying spatial information, the usual incidental condition is not truly incidental, because subjects often deliberately use locations to help organize objects for recall. Therefore, a true incidental task was devised in which neither objects nor locations were expected to be recalled and for which explicit encoding of locations was irrelevant. There was only a small loss in recall of objects or their locations in a true incidental condition. It was concluded that a great deal of location information is automatically coded into long-term memory storage in the sense that active processing is not required. The data were contrasted with incidental processing of other attributes, such as color. Although adults performed better than children, there were no age-related interactions, indicating similarity of functioning at all ages studied.     

Sex differences in coping with depression

A Depression Coping Questionnaire (DCQ) was devised to compare strategies for coping with depression reported by male and female college students. Discriminant analysis showed that females were significantly more likely than males to report crying, eating, smoking cigarettes, becoming irritable, and confronting their feelings when depressed. Males were significantly more likely than females to report becoming aggressive and engaging in sexual behavior when depressed. Discriminant analysis data from students in Massachusetts showed significant cross-validation with discriminant analysis data from students in California. Comparison of depressed males and females indicated that depressed males reported behaviors of withdrawal such as spending time alone and using stimulating and tranquilizing drugs. Depressed females reported self-blame. Significant multiple correlations between DCQ questions and depression scores on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) showed that high BDI scores were associated with isolation and escape in males, and with self-blame and acting out in females. It is concluded that depressed females might benefit most from alleviation of self-blame and adaptive relabeling of depressive symptoms, and depressed males might benefit most from increased self-awareness and active coping.The authors are indebted to Colleen F. Surber, John R. Surber, and Frederick B. Meeker.     

Beyond family‐level adversities: Exploring the developmental timing of neighborhood disadvantage effects on the brain

A growing literature suggests that adversity is associated with later altered brain function, particularly within the corticolimbic system that supports emotion processing and salience detection (e.g., amygdala, prefrontal cortex [PFC]). Although neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage has been shown to predict maladaptive behavioral outcomes, particularly for boys, most of the research linking adversity to corticolimbic function has focused on family‐level adversities. Moreover, although animal models and studies of normative brain development suggest that there may be sensitive periods during which adversity exerts stronger effects on corticolimbic development, little prospective evidence exists in humans. Using two low‐income samples of boys (n = 167; n = 77), Census‐derived neighborhood disadvantage during early childhood, but not adolescence, was uniquely associated with greater amygdala, but not PFC, reactivity to ambiguous neutral faces in adolescence and young adulthood. These associations remained after accounting for several family‐level adversities (e.g., low family income, harsh parenting), highlighting the independent and developmentally specific neural effects of the neighborhood context. Furthermore, in both samples, indicators measuring income and poverty status of neighbors were predictive of amygdala function, suggesting that neighborhood economic resources may be critical to brain development.