The personal style inventory: Preliminary validation studies of new measures of sociotropy and autonomy

We conducted five studies with depressed patients, demographically matched controls, and college students to develop and psychometrically evaluate new measures of concerns about interpersonal relationships (sociotropy) and autonomous achievement (autonomy), constructs that have been proposed to confer vulnerability to depression. The final version of the Personal Style Inventory (PSI) Sociotropy and Autonomy scales showed a good factor structure, internal consistency reliability, and test-retest stability, a low correlation with each other, and weak or no gender differences. Convergent and discriminant validity were examined with respect to depressive symptom levels, the Dependency and Self-Criticism scales of the Revised Depressive Experiences Questionnaire, and a social desirability scale and were generally acceptable. Further evaluations of the construct validity of the PSI are indicated.     

Feminism and reproductive technologies

...Rowland is a social scientist and a radical feminist, and she has undertaken the task of making readers think twice about reproductive technologies. If a reader isn't thinking twice, it will not do to blame it on Rowland and the shortcomings of her book. She has a good deal to say that is extremely important and that needs to be considered by anyone who is interested in the moral issues, in general, and the issues for women and children, in particular, that are raised by the new and emerging reproductive technologies. Her book should be widely read. And it should generate the worries it is written to generate.     

The problem-solving strategies of kindergarten and first-grade children during discrimination learning

Kindergarten and first-grade children (6 and 7 years of age, respectively) were given specially designed discrimination tasks with introtact probes preceding each trial. One group (CON) was given the criterion task without prior training. A second group (LTL) received three pretraining tasks of the same type as the criterion task. A third group (HYP) received the same pretraining tasks, but with explicit instructions designed to teach a simple hypothesis-testing strategy. Several indices, designed to reflect the use of win-stay and lose-shift rules, as well as memory for disconfirmed hypotheses, were computed from the protocols of the criterion task. The indices for Group CON suggested that most of these children were using a guessing strategy that involved quite frequent changes in hypotheses. Moreover, many of these children restricted their hypotheses to the irrelevant cues. The indices for Group LTL revealed a spontaneous use of the hypothesis-testing strategy by nearly half of the children. The results for Group HYP indicated that over four-fifths of these children became highly efficient in the use of the problem-solving strategy.     

Co-Training: A Collaborative Model

In personal growth groups, collaborative co-training means not only the presence of two or more leaders, but also an interaction between or among the leaders that provides the groups with a model of cooperation and mutual learning. A synergy results that energizes the group. Necessary skills for collaborative co-trainers are flexibility, consensual decision making, the ability to learn from one another, and the ability to develop an intimate communication system. This article describes a collaborative model, the skills needed, the advantages of co-training, and the dimensions of co-trainer selection.     

The sex discrimination act and the apu occupational interests guide: A reply to closs

Closs has suggested that the present interest differences between the sexes are a sufficient basis for guidance on career choice. It is doubtful, however, whether the practice of such sexual pre-selection is within either the letter or the spirit of the Sex Discrimination Act. It is accordingly argued that the APU guide is discriminatory and backward-looking. Though statistically excellent, it should not be used in its present form, but should be altered in accordance with contemporary morals and recent legislation.     

Laboratory and field interview methods for the study of shiftworkers

Gordon, Tepas, Stock, and Walsh (1979) describe the manner in which shiftworkers were selected as research subjects through the cooperation of labor union organizations. In this paper, we describe the methods used to select and orient the workers to serve in a laboratory study involving measurement of the psychophysiological correlates of sleep. Procedures used for field interviews with the same subjects are also described. Some of the advantages and disadvantages of using a multimethod (laboratory and field interview) approach to the study of shiftwork effects are detailed.     

Comprehension and production of the /−ez/ plural allomorph

Children's knowledge of morphological elements has traditionally been tested using Berko-type production tasks. Failure to respond correctly in this task may reflect production constraints independent of underlying linguistic knowledge. Accordingly, a detailed comparison of the comprehension of one morphological unit the /–ez/ plural allomorph, was investigated. Two groups of subjects were tested: (1) those who produced this allomorph correctly and (2) those who failed to produce it. For the subjects as a group, the results indicated that children who could produce the /–ez/ allomorph in nonsense word contexts performed significantly better than children who were unable to produce this allomorph. An analysis of individual performance indicated that almost all of the subjects who produced the /–ez/ allomorph correctly reliably comprehended it. A little more than half of the subjects who failed to produce it evidenced reliable comprehension. The conclusion was drawn that comprehension learning precedes production learning and that production-type tasks may consistently underestimate linguistic knowledge.This paper was supported by the Graduate College, University of Missouri, Kansas City.     

Neighborhood effects in visual word recognition: Facilitatory or inhibitory?

In five experiments, in which subjects were to identify a target word as it was gradually clarified, we manipulated the target's frequency of occurrence in the language and its neighborhood size—the number of words that can be constructed from a target word by changing one letter, while preserving letter position. In Experiments 1–4, visual identification performance to screen-fragmented words was measured. In Experiments 1 and 2, we used the ascending method of limits, whereas Experiments 3 and 4 presented a fixed-level fragment. In Experiment 1, there was no relation between overall accuracy and neighborhood size for-words-between three and six letters in length. However, more errors of commission (guesses) were made for high-neighborhood words and more errors of omission (blanks) were made for low-neighborhood words. Letter errors within guesses occurred at serial positions having many neighbors, and these positions were also likely to contain consonants rather than vowels. In Experiment 2, a smallfacilitatory effect of neighborhood size on bothhigh- and low-frequency words was found. In contrast, in Experiments 3 and 4, using the same set of words,inhibitory effects of neighborhood size, but only for low-frequency words, were found. Experiment 5, using a speeded identification task, showed results parallel to those of Experiments 3 and 4. We suggest that whether neighborhood effects are facilitatory or inhibitory depends on whether feedback allows subjects to disconfirm initial hypotheses that the target is a high-frequency neighbor.     

The spouse subsystem in the family context: couple interaction categories

Within a semi-structured family interview (the McMaster Stuctured Interview of Family Functioning), several questions focus on intimate areas of the marital relationship. How couples answer these questions provides a window into their style of communication around potentially stressful issues. Viewing their videotaped interactions while noting their gaze patterns, dialogue, tension, and attitude, produced the following categories: Adaptive, Stable, Co-operative, Disengaged/anxious, Parallel, or Failing. Inter-observer relability was high, and the categories were related in meaningful ways to a self-report questionnaire, the McMaster Family Assessment Device, completed independently by each parent.