Race and self-esteem: meta-analyses comparing whites,blacks, Hispanics,Asians, and American Indians and comment on Gray-Little and Hafdahl (2000)

These meta-analyses examine race differences in self-esteem among 712 datapoints. Blacks scored higher than Whites on self-esteem measures (d = 0.19), but Whites scored higher than other racial minority groups, including Hispanics (d = -0.09), Asians (d = -0.30), and American Indians (d = -0.21). Most of these differences were smallest in childhood and grew larger with age. Blacks' self-esteem increased over time relative to Whites', with the Black advantage not appearing until the 1980s. Black and Hispanic samples scored higher on measures without an academic self-esteem subscale. Relative to Whites, minority males had lower self-esteem than did minority females, and Black and Hispanic self-esteem was higher in groups with high socioeconomic status. The results are most consistent with a cultural interpretation of racial differences in self-esteem.     

Acquisition and automatization of a complex task: an examination of three-ball cascade juggling

The learning patterns of 3-ball cascade juggling from acquisition until automaticity were examined in 10 participants. On the basis of outcome measures derived from 26 practice sessions and 4 periodic probe sessions, the authors differentiated participants into 3 distinct learning types: a proficient group, an emerging group, and a single late learner. The proficient group was distinguished by how rapidly they learned and automatized performance. Most interesting, an inverse response cost (i.e., performance boost) on the secondary task was found in the majority of proficient group members during the dual-task condition. The present results are discussed in relation to the P. L. Ackerman model (1987, 1988) of complex skill acquisition as is the significance of the inverse response cost finding.     

Topics of marital disagreement among African-American and Euro-American newlyweds

To see what issues couples most and least often reported as topics of marital disagreement, survey data were analyzed for 113 African-American and 131 Euro-American couples reporting in the first and third years of marriage. Friedman tests showed that in both the first and third years of marriage, money was most often reported as a topic of marital disagreement; tensions about leisure, each spouse's family of origin. and children were reported significantly less often; and tensions about religion were reported least often. Findings were very similar for African Americans and Euro-Americans, and for husbands and wives. Overall, findings show considerable stability in the relative frequency with which specific topics reportedly evoke tension early in marriage.     

Motor and functional skills of children with developmental coordination disorder: a pilot investigation of measurement issues

This paper reports on the motor and functional outcomes of 20 children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) aged 4-8 years consecutively referred to a pediatric physiotherapy service. Children with a Movement ABC (M-ABC) score less than the 15th percentile, and with no concurrent medical, sensory, physical, intellectual or neurological impairments, were recruited. The Motor Assessment Outcomes Model (MAOM) [Coster and Haley, Infants and Young Children 4 (1992) 11] provided the theoretical base for measurement selection, and preliminary findings at the activities and participation levels of the model are reported in this article. Children with DCD performed at the lower end of the normal range on the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales (fine motor total score) (M=85.65, SD=12.23). Performance on the Visual Motor Integration Test (VMI) standard scores was within the average range (M=96.15, SD=10.69). Videotaped observations of the children's writing and cutting indicated that 29% were left-handed and that a large proportion of all children (31%) utilized unusual pencil grasp patterns and immature prehension of scissors. Measurement at the participation level involved use of the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance (PCSA) and Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory (PEDI). Overall, these young children rated themselves towards the more competent and accepted end of the PCSA over the dimensions of physical and cognitive competence and peer and maternal acceptance. The PEDI revealed generally average performance on social (M=49.98, SD=16.62) and mobility function (M=54.71, SD=3.99), however, self-care function was below the average range for age (M=38.01, SD=12.19). The utility of the MAOM as a framework for comprehensive measurement of functional and motor outcomes of DCD in young children is discussed.     

Visual recalibration of auditory speech identification: a McGurk aftereffect

The kinds of aftereffects, indicative of cross-modal recalibration, that are observed after exposure to spatially incongruent inputs from different sensory modalities have not been demonstrated so far for identity incongruence. We show that exposure to incongruent audiovisual speech (producing the well-known McGurk effect) can recalibrate auditory speech identification. In Experiment 1, exposure to an ambiguous sound intermediate between /aba/ and /ada/ dubbed onto a video of a face articulating either /aba/ or /ada/ increased the proportion of /aba/ or /ada/ responses, respectively, during subsequent sound identification trials. Experiment 2 demonstrated the same recalibration effect or the opposite one, fewer /aba/ or /ada/ responses, revealing selective speech adaptation, depending on whether the ambiguous sound or a congruent nonambiguous one was used during exposure. In separate forced-choice identification trials, bimodal stimulus pairs producing these contrasting effects were identically categorized, which makes a role of postperceptual factors in the generation of the effects unlikely.     

Self-reported parental abuse relates to autobiographical memory style in patients with eating disorders

Previous research has shown a relationship between levels of self-reported childhood abuse and overgeneral memory style. This relationship was further clarified in patients with an eating disorder (ED). Patients and healthy controls completed a task in which they had to generate specific autobiographical memories to emotional cue words. The results showed that first, the ED group, relative to the controls, produced more first memories that were "overgeneral" and fewer first memories that were specific. Second, in the ED group, the level of self-reported parental abuse was positively correlated with the tendency to produce overgeneral memories to negative cues. This effect remained significant even after levels of depressed mood were controlled for.     

When cues collide: use of stress and statistical cues to word boundaries by 7- to 9-month-old infants

Prior research suggests that stress cues are particularly important for English-hearing infants' detection of word boundaries. It is unclear, though, how infants learn to attend to stress as a cue to word segmentation. This series of experiments was designed to explore infants' attention to conflicting cues at different ages. Experiment 1 replicated previous findings: When stress and statistical cues indicated different word boundaries, 9-month-old infants used syllable stress as a cue to segmentation while ignoring statistical cues. However, in Experiment 2, 7-month-old infants attended more to statistical cues than to stress cues. These results raise the possibility that infants use their statistical learning abilities to locate words in speech and use those words to discover the regular pattern of stress cues in English. Infants at different ages may deploy different segmentation strategies as a function of their current linguistic experience.     

The process of coping among ethnic minority first-generation college freshmen: a narrative approach

Using a narrative approach, the authors explored the process of coping among ethnic minority college students. Participants were 30 freshmen, predominantly the 1st members of their families to attend college, who wrote journals once a week for 3 weeks on their ways of coping with stress. They also completed a survey of background information. Those who were more successful in coping, compared to those who were less successful, expressed a greater sense of self-efficacy and did not feel that they lacked needed social support. However, those who were more successful in coping did not differ on demographic variables, including ethnicity, gender, country of birth, and parental education. The narratives provide evidence of the complex and interactive process of coping among ethnic minority college students.