The influence of parenting stress and child behavior problems on parental estimates of expressive and receptive language development

This study examined the relative contributions of parental reports of child-related and parent-related stress to their estimates of expressive and receptive language skills on the Minnesota Child Development Inventory in 152 children referred to a communicative disorders clinic. Correlational analysis showed moderately high agreement between parental estimates and objective measures of expressive and receptive language ability. Multiple-regression analyses revealed that independent measures of language acquisition accounted for the greatest amount of variance in parental estimates of expressive and receptive language skills. Stressful child behavior accounted for a small but statistically significant proportion of the variance in estimates of expressive and receptive language skills. Parental stress, in contrast, did not contribute significantly to language estimates. These findings suggest that parents are able to formulate estimates of language development which are relatively independent of personal or child-related stressors.     

Situational shifts in sex role orientation: Correlates of work satisfaction and burnout among women in special education

A battery of instruments dealing with job stress and satisfaction and social role traits was administered to 78 female special educators. Social role orientation (instrumental, expressive, balanced, undifferentiated), as measured by a modified version of the Bem Sex Role Inventory, was determined for each teacher. The relationship between social role orientation and job stress and satisfaction was examined. Shifts in teachers' social role composition from off the job to on the job were examined regarding four indices of stress and satisfaction. A balanced social role orientation on the job was associated with higher levels of job satisfaction and lower levels of job stress. Higher levels of instrumentality on the job and off the job and higher levels of expressivity on the job and off the job were associated with higher levels of personal accomplishment and lower levels of depersonalization.     

Linguistic analysis of children's conversational repairs

Conversational repairs used by children in Brown's Stages III and V and by 5- to 6-year-olds were investigated. A linguistic analysis revealed that each group repaired their utterances when not understood but did so using different repair types. Individual preferences for using a specific repair type was observed, although preferences decreased with age.     

Basque attitude towards political violence: Its correlation with personality variables,other sociopolitical attitudes,and political party vote

The Basque are a strongly nationalistic European people in northern Spain and southern France with an ancient ethnic tradition and a language unrelated to any other known. Their recent history has been overshadowed by a terrorist organization perpetrating political violence within the boundaries of the Basque Country and often beyond its borders within the Spanish state. Research on the Basque, with an emphasis on the comparison of psychological characteristics (studied by the use of an instrument developed for that purpose by the author of this article and another colleague, Jesús Guerra, of the University of the Basque Country), has provided an opportunity to review attitudes towards violence within the general population, analyze different groups constituted according to differences in attitude as well as political party vote, and to compare them with regards to differences in personality. The distribution of these attitudes within the sample population, as well as some hypotheses as to their origins, are presented, discussing their possible relationship to social and psychological variables at work within Basque society. Psychopathological indicators permit an estimation of the degree of abnormality associated with the attitude towards political violence. © 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

FEMINISM AS LIFE RAFT

We looked at relationships between academic women's feminist identity and their perceptions of discrimination. From a sample of self-labeled feminist professors of psychology who had participated in the Feminist Teaching Project, we examined previously transcribed interviews and also collected new, auxiliary information. We expected to find that our respondents would view feminism as both provoking discrimination and helping them cope with discrimination. We found that experiences with gender discrimination were common among our sample, but that feminism in isolation was not perceived by our respondents as a provocation for problems. Rather than making it hard for women to swim in academic waters, feminism seemed to serve as a life raft for many professors.     

Some effects of later-occurring information on the perception of stop consonant and semivowel

In three experiments, we determined how perception of the syllable-initial distinction between the stop consonant [b] and the semivowel [w], when cued by duration of formant transitions, is affected by parts of the sound pattern that occur later in time. For the first experiment, we constructed four series of syllables, similar in that each had initial formant transitions ranging from one short enough for [ba] to one long enough for [wa], hut different in overall syllable duration. The consequence in perception was that, as syllable duration increased, the [b-w] boundary moved toward transitions of longer duration. Then, in the second experiment, we increased the duration of the sound by adding a second syllable, [da], (thus creating [bada-wada]), and observed that lengthening the second syllable also shifted the perceived [b-w] boundary in the first syllable toward transitions of longer duration; however, this effect was small by comparison with that produced when the first syllable was lengthened equivalently. In the third experiment, we found that altering the structure of the syllable had an effect that is not to be accounted for by the concomitant change in syllable duration: lengthening the syllable by adding syllable-final transitions appropriate for the stop consonant [d] (thus creating [bad-wad]) caused the perceived [b-w] boundary to shift toward transitions of shorter duration, an effect precisely opposite to that produced when the syllable was lengthened to the same extent by adding steady-state vowel. We suggest that, in all these cases, the later-occurring information specifies rate of articulation and that the effect on the earlier-occurring cue reflects an appropriate perceptual normalization.     

The portrayal of men and women in U.S. television commercials: A recent content analysis and trends over 15 years

This article summarizes the content analyses of male and female portrayals in U.S. television commercials that have been published since 1971. The paper also includes the results of a content analysis of television commercials conducted on a 1985 sample. Where possible, the data from the present study are compared to the findings of previous research to illustrate trends over time. The results reveal several differences between the portrayal of men and women, but many of the gaps seem to be narrowing. Men and women now appear equally often as central characters in prime-time commercials. Although a prior study indicated a difference between male and female primary characters' use of arguments, the present data revealed no differences in this regard. A lower percentage of female than of male central characters are depicted as employed, but males are being presented in increasing numbers as spouses and parents, with no other apparent occupation. Women are still more likely than men to be seen in domestic settings, advertising products used in the home. Although the difference seems to have become smaller, women are more likely than men to be shown as users of the products they advertise. The most striking gap persists with regard to narrators. Consistent with other content analyses conducted over the past 15 years, approximately 90% of all narrators are male. The findings are discussed in terms of the potential effect of exposure to stereotyped depictions on viewers' sex role attitudes.     

Predicting Recycling Behavior from Global and Specific Environmental Attitudes and Changes in Recycling Opportunities1

Surveys of households in a medium-sized city were conducted at three different points in time to investigate changes in general environmental concern (as measured by the New Environmental Paradigm), specific recycling attitudes (as measured by constructs of the Schwartz moral norm model), and recycling behavior that occurred as recycling opportunities increased over time. After the initial data point, a voluntary curbside recycling program was implemented in central sections of the community and then later expanded citywide. The results indicate that over time, the proportion of households indicating that they recycled increased along with the actual volume of materials recycled in the community. General environmental concern and specific attitudes regarding recycling also became more favorable over time with recyclers exhibiting stronger pro-environmental attitudes than nonrecyclers. Specific recycling attitudes were found to be only moderately related to generalized concern for the environment. Lastly, the predictive utility of general environmental concern and specific recycling attitudes were examined.