African Americans' Racial Identity and Socially Desirable Responding: An Empirical Model

The authors developed a model of the relationships between racial identity development and socially desirable responding, using a sample of African American undergraduate students. Instruments used were the Racial Identity Attitude Scale‐Long Form (J. E. Helms & T. A. Parham, 1996) and the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (D. L. Paulhus, 1991). The results challenge previous research conclusions regarding social desirability and racial identity development. Implications of findings for researchers, instrument developers, and counselors are included.     

Recognizing the Threat Posed by an Incestuous Parent to the Victim's Siblings: Part I: Appraising the Risk

Despite unmistakable evidence that incest offenders rarely stop with one child, courts routinely fail to protect an incest victim's siblings. Many courts simple deny that a parent's sex act with one child signals risk to others. Nevertheless, even those courts that acknowledge a sibling's risk reach wildly different results when confronting similar cases. Courts are split over whether a parent who molests his stepchild is equally likely to victimize biological offspring or whether a father who violates a daughter will also victimize sons. There is a substantial body of research about incest that can aid courts to better gauge a sibling's risk. Because the first act of incest creates a corresponding risk to some—but not necessarily all—children in the family, Part I of this 2 part series argues in favor of a presumption of risk that offenders may rebut. Part II examines whether a sibling's gender, genetic ties to the offender, or the offender's treatment mitigate the threat and, consequently, should serve as a basis for rebutting the presumption. Ultimately, this article concludes that the law can safeguard children only if guided by substantial evidence of how abusive families function.     

Exploring relational regulation in computer-mediated (collaborative) learning interaction: a developmental perspective.

This article presents a qualitative analysis showing the dependency of effective collaborative argumentation on interpersonal relational aspects that develop during synchronous interaction. Four regulatory principles are proposed as propelling the interaction, and of these, autoregulation, or the conservative restraints within the existing relation, appears to be the dominant force. When using a structured dialogue system (SDS), instead of free chat, via roles and sentence-openers, the social dimension of the relation between participants disappears from the surface interaction. Even though using the SDS seems to foster a more focused and task-functional approach, argumentation appears to affect the relations between participants in a negative way, since after an argumentative sequence, repair of the relationship takes place. It might even be argued that, because of relational stress, in many cases, argumentation is momentarily suspended.     

An Examination of Moderators of the Effects of Customers' Evaluation of Employee Courtesy on Attitude Toward the Service Firm1

Employee courtesy is recognized as an important dimension of customer service. This paper presents and tests a model suggesting that employee courtesy affects attitudes toward a service firm. Employee courtesy, the physical environment, and locus of causality are three important elements of a service experience that might affect attitude toward a service firm. The paper reports results of two experiments that found there was an interaction effect between employee courtesy and the physical environment on attitude toward the service firm. That is, the effect of employee courtesy on attitudes is more positive when the environment is evaluated favorably than when it is evaluated unfavorably. However, there were no interaction effects of locus of causality and courtesy on attitude toward the service firm. In the second study, there was a main effect from locus of causality on attitude toward the firm in that experiment. That is, participants with an internal locus of causality had a more favorable attitude toward the service firm than did participants with an external locus of causality.     

Concurrent and prospective effects of multi‐dimensional aggression and anger on adolescent alcohol use

This study examined the relationship between alcohol, anger, and aggression in high school students. Anger and three types of aggressive expression (verbal, physical toward people, and physical toward objects) were evaluated cross‐sectionally and prospectively, via structural equation modeling for relationships to alcohol use in Mexican American and white non‐Latino 9–10th (Time 1) and 11–12th grade (Time 2) students. At both times cross‐sectionally, anger and aggressive anger expression tended to correlate positively with alcohol use in each ethnicity/gender group. However, prospectively, aggressive forms of anger expression tended not to be related to alcohol use two years later. Only verbally aggressive anger expression was related to alcohol use two years later and then, only for Mexican American and white non‐Latino females. There was, therefore, little basis for causal links between aggressive anger expression and alcohol use in a general population of high school students. Aggress. Behav. 30:356–372, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Population sex differences in IQ at age 11: the Scottish mental survey 1932

There is uncertainty whether the sexes differ with respect to their mean levels and variabilities in mental ability test scores. Here we describe the cognitive ability distribution in 80,000+ children—almost everyone born in Scotland in 1921—tested at age 11 in 1932. There were no significant mean differences in cognitive test scores between boys and girls, but there was a highly significant difference in their standard deviations (P<.001). Boys were over-represented at the low and high extremes of cognitive ability. These findings, the first to be presented from a whole population, might in part explain such cognitive outcomes as the slight excess of men achieving first class university degrees, and the excess of males with learning difficulties.     

Born gay? The psychobiology of human sexual orientation

Sexual orientation is fundamental to evolution and shifts from the species-typical pattern of heterosexuality may represent biological variations. The growth of scientific knowledge concerning the biology of sexual orientation during the past decade has been considerable. Sexual orientation is characterised by a bipolar distribution and is related to fraternal birth order in males. In females, its distribution is more variable; females being less prone towards exclusive homosexuality. In both sexes homosexuality is strongly associated with childhood gender nonconformity. Genetic evidence suggests a heritable component and putative gene loci on the X chromosome. Homosexuality may have evolved to promote same sex affiliation through a conserved neurodevelopmental mechanism. Recent findings suggest this mechanism involves atypical neurohormonal differentiation of the brain. Key areas for future research include the neurobiological basis of preferred sexual targets and correlates of female homosexuality.     

A Decade of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings: The Short Longer View

The progress and accomplishments of psychology in medical settings over the past decade since the publication of the Handbook of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings (J. J. Sweet, R. H. Rozensky, & S. M. Tovian, 1991) and the subsequent founding of the Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings (JCPMS) in 1994 are highlighted. Areas of progress and accomplishments reviewed include professional developments with our field, roles and services provided by psychologists, education, training and research issues, and program administration in medical settings. The current status of, and possible changes in, medical settings is identified. Future challenges and opportunities for the profession are discussed.