Self-esteem of adolescent girls as related to weight

The Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale was administered to 550 14- and 16-yr.-old (+/- 6 mo.) girls. Self-esteem scores were categorized by weight and weight by height. Scores on the Quetelet Index for obesity were correlated with self-esteem scores. Mean self-esteem of the low- and middle-weight by height group was significantly higher than the mean of the high-weight by height group. In analyzing weight alone, the self-esteem of the middle-weight group was significantly higher than the self-esteem of the high-weight group. The correlation of the obesity index and self-esteem indicated that as weight increased self-esteem decreased.     

Sex role orientations of male and female collegiate athletes from selected individual and team sports

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether the sex role orientations of male and female collegiate athletes were more similar in team sports than in individual sports. It was predicted that females in masculine-oriented team sports (basketball and volleyball) would exhibit sex role orientations more similar to those of their male counterparts than would females in individual sports (track/field and swimming). To test this notion the S. L. Bem (The Measurement of Psychological Androgyny, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1974, 42, 155–167) Sex Role Inventory was administered to 381 athletes from 37 National Collegiate Athletic Association institutions. The median-split procedure (S. L. Bem, On the Utility of Alternative Procedures for Assessing Psychology Androgyny, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1977, 45, 196–205) was used to classify subjects as masculine, feminine, androgynous, or undifferentiated. Separate Gender × Sex Role Orientation chi square tests were performed on the frequency data of team and individual sport athletes. The results indicated no significant differences in the sex role orientations of male and female team sport performers, with the greatest proportion (66%) having a masculine (33%) or androgynous (33%) orientation. For individual sports there was a significant difference in the sex role orientations of males and females. The highest proportion of females were classified as feminine (37%) and the lowest proportion were classified as masculine (11%). Individual sport males were somewhat evenly distributed among the four sex role orientation categories, with the highest proportion classified as undifferentiated (36%). It was concluded that sex role orientation of elite female athletes may be associated with the male appropriateness of the sport in which they participate.     

Rationality ideals and mentality

Mackenzie, this journal, this issue, convincingly shows that in certain dialogue games (commitment games) there are procedural restrictions similar to those that I impose on rationality idealizations. But, whereas my rationality analysis is set in the context of belief games, commitment games do not postulate beliefs. Is this significant? I suggest that mackenzie thinks that it is. There follow discussions of Psychologism and Behaviourism.     

Long latency auditory evoked potentials

Experiment 1 elicited the P1, N1, P2, and N2 components of the long latency auditory evoked potential (AEP) using a 1000 Hz tone presented at 30, 50, or 70 dB SPL and 1-, 3-, or 5- second inter-stimulus intervals to assess the relative effects of the combination of these variables on component amplitude and latency. Four blocks of 16 tone presentations each were recorded from each subject to determine if changes in the AEP would occur because of short-term habituation. Both stimulus factors interacted significantly in a systematic fashion for the amplitude measures, with increases in latency also associated with increases in intensity and inter-stimulus interval. Only minor changes across the four trial blocks for either the amplitude or latency measures were observed over the various stimulus presentation conditions. Experiment 2 employed the same tone stimulus presented at 50 dB SPL and a 3-second inter-stimulus interval. Eight blocks of 64 trials were recorded from each subject on each day for four days to investigate long-term habituation effects. No substantial changes in any of the component amplitudes or latencies were obtained across the 32 trial blocks. It was concluded that intensity and inter-stimulus interval interact to determine AEP amplitude as well as latency values and that the constituent components do not change appreciably with repeated stimulus presentations, even after several days.     

PROBLEM SOLVING TO PREVENT WORK INJURIES IN SUPPORTED EMPLOYMENT

A problem-solving strategy was used to teach three groups of 3 individuals in supported employment how to prevent work-related injuries. The problem-solving strategy was taught in two training phases. The first training phase involved the use of cue cards, and the second involved the withdrawal of the cue cards. Interviews and staged generalization assessments in the participants' natural work environments were conducted before, during, and up to 12 weeks after training. In these assessments, situations were presented that were either similar or dissimilar to situations presented in training. Results of both the interviews and staged assessments indicated that the participants' newly acquired problem-solving skills generalized to similar and dissimilar situations.     

Revision algebra semantics for conditional logic

The properties of belief revision operators are known to have an informal semantics which relates them to the axioms of conditional logic. The purpose of this paper is to make this connection precise via the model theory of conditional logic. A semantics for conditional logic is presented, which is expressed in terms of algebraic models constructed ultimately out of revision operators. In addition, it is shown that each algebraic model determines both a revision operator and a logic, that are related by virtue of the stable Ramsey test.The author is grateful for a correction and several other valuable suggestions of two anonymous referees. This work was supported by the McDonnell Douglas Independent Research and Development program.     

Partial monotonicity and a new version of the Ramsey test

We introduce two new belief revision axioms: partial monotonicity and consequence correctness. We show that partial monotonicity is consistent with but independent of the full set of axioms for a Gärdenfors belief revision sytem. In contrast to the Gärdenfors inconsistency results for certain monotonicity principles, we use partial monotonicity to inform a consistent formalization of the Ramsey test within a belief revision system extended by a conditional operator. We take this to be a technical dissolution of the well-known Gärdenfors dilemma.In addition, we present the consequential correctness axiom as a new measure of minimal revision in terms of the deductive core of a proposition whose support we wish to excise. We survey several syntactic and semantic belief revision systems and evaluate them according to both the Gärdenfors axioms and our new axioms. Furthermore, our algebraic characterization of semantic revision systems provides a useful technical device for analysis and comparison, which we illustrate with several new proofs.Finally, we have a new inconsistency result, which is dual to the Gärdenfors inconsistency results. Any elementary belief revision system that is consequentially correct must violate the Gärdenfors axiom of strong boundedness (K^*8), which we characterize as yet another monotonicity condition.This work was supported by the McDonnell Douglas Independent Research and Development program.     

The representation and integration in memory of spatial and nonspatial information

A series of experiments investigated whether people could integrate nonspatial information about an object with their knowledge of the object's location in space. In Experiments 1 and 3, subjects learned the locations of cities on a fictitious road map; in Experiments 2, 4, and 5, subjects were already familiar with the locations of buildings on a campus. The subjects then learned facts about the cities on the maps or the buildings on the campus. The question of interest was whether or not these nonspatial facts would be integrated in memory with the spatial knowledge. After learning the facts, subjects were given a location-judgment test in which they had to decide whether an object was in one region of the space or another. Knowledge integration was assessed by comparing levels of performance in two conditions: (a) when a city or a building name was primed by a fact about a neighboring city or building, and (b) when a city or a building name was primed by a fact about a distant city or building. Results showed that responses in Condition a were faster or more accurate, or both faster and more accurate, than responses in Condition b. These results indicate that the spatial and nonspatial information were encoded in a common memory representation.     

Context-dependent variation in social stereotyping 1: The effects of intergroup relations as mediated by social change and frame of reference

During the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf conflict an experiment was conducted with Australian university students (N = 200) to investigate whether the social stereotyping of Americans varied with social contextual manipulations related to the hostilities. The study, conducted in two phases at the start and end of the conflict, examined how the assignment of standard stereotypical traits to Americans was affected (a) by the large-scale social change constituted by the war and (b) by variation in the frame of reference provided by relevant comparison groups. The elicited stereotypes were sensitive to both of these contextual variables, demonstrating significant variation and fluidity. Overall, stereotypes of Americans were relatively negative. They were significantly more negative (a) at the end of the war than at the beginning in the restricted frame (when Australia and Britain were comparison groups) and (b) in the first phase of the conflict when the frame was extended to include Iraq as a comparison group. The findings were in line with expectations derived from self-categorization theory (Turner, 1985) that the social categorization of self and other into ingroup and outgroup is inherently variable, comparative and context-dependent. They question the long-held view of stereotypes as fixed, rigid and resistant to change.