Book reviews

The Word Speaks to the Faustian Man. Som Raj Gupta. Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass. 455+xvi pp., Rs. 500

A History of Indian Buddhism, From Sākyamuni to Early Mahāyāna. Hirakawa Akira, translated and edited by Paul Groner, 1990. Asian Studies at Hawaii, No. 36. Honolulu, HI, University of Hawaii Press. xix +402, £33.25

The Doctrine of the Upanisads and the Early Buddhism. Hermann Oldenberg, translated by Shridhar B. Shrotri, 1991. Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass. Rs. 225

Evil and the Mystics’ God: Towards a Mystical Theodicy. Michael Stoeber. London, Macmillan. x+225 pp., £40     

Nonsuicidal physically self-damaging acts in adolescents

To determine the frequency and correlates of nonsuicidal physically self-damaging acts in 12–14 year olds, a two stage epidemiologic survey with a self-administered questionnaire (N=3283) followed by a psychiatric interview of a subsample of the adolescents and their parents (N=444) was used. Prevalence estimates of interview validated nonsuicidal physically self-damaging acts were 2.46% in males and 2.79% in females. Significant relationships were found between nonsuicidal physically self-damaging acts and suicidal ideation, major depression and undesirable life events. Data suggest that physically self-damaging acts occur at substantial rates during early adolescence. The strong correlation between nonsuicidal self-destructive acts and both suicidal ideation and major depression clarifies prior conflicting reports in the literature and suggests that a history of self-damaging acts should be taken into consideration when evaluating for possible depression and suicide risk.     

Dynamic spatial performance and general intelligence

A computerized video-game-like dynamic spatial ability measure and a paper-and-pencil group test of intelligence were administered to 94 university students. The purpose of the study was threefold: (a) to evaluate the reliability of the dynamic spatial measure; (b) to investigate the extent to which the dynamic spatial measure is saturated with variance associated with traditional measures of fluid and crystallized intellectual ability; and (c) to explore the possibility that dynamic computer based performance measures define factors that are distinct from those associated with traditional paper-and-pencil measures. The number of times the participant hit a moving target served as the dependent variable for the dynamic spatial measure. Number of hits proved to be correlated with Performance IQ, but was not significantly correlated with Verbal IQ. Maximum likelihood factor analysis revealed that the dynamic spatial measure did not load substantially on a factor of general intellectual ability but provided additional evidence that it is related to a performance component.     

Psychological androgyny: A black female perspective

The focus of the present study is the relationship between Masculine and Feminine personality attributes (as measured by the PAQ), sex role attitudes, and socialization antecedents among a sample of Black women. The majority of the Black women in this study report Androgynous sexual identities, but have traditional beliefs about the female role in the family. Androgynous women are more likely to be positively identified with both mother and father. Women who are college graduates have more liberal views about the female role and are more likely to identify themselves as Masculine and Undifferentiated. Regardless of sexual identity category, the subjects are all heavily invested in the mothering role. Racial comparisons indicate more Black women are in the Androgynous category and more White women in the Undifferentiated category. White respondents have more liberal sex role attitudes than the Black respondents.     

Vulnerability to Stress: Self-Criticism and Stress-Induced Changes In Biochemistry

ABSTRACT It has been hypothesized that individuals who are high on the attribute of self-criticism are particularly vulnerable to failure stress. To test this hypothesis, we examined the relationship between self-criticism and changes in plasma homovanillic acid (HVA; the metabolite of dopamine) and emotion during exposure to an induced-failure task. Participants consisted of 21 women. Plasma HVA and emotion were assessed at three time points: baseline (T1), during stress exposure (T2), and 40 minutes after cessation of the stressor (T3). We found that self-criticism was significantly and positively related to changes in plasma HVA during stress exposure. In addition, the personality attribute was significantly and positively related to subjective ratings of stress and changes in scores on the Confusion-Bewilderment scale of the Profile of Mood States during the task. To our knowledge, this is the first study to report that self-criticism is related to stress-induced changes in biochemistry.     

Gender, object, and humor

Male and female respondents rated jokes with either a female initiator/male target of joke or vice versa. For male respondents, the gender of the joke target made no difference. For female respondents, however, jokes with males as the target received significantly higher ratings than jokes with females as the target.     

Developing local lifelong guidance strategies

The background, rationale, methodology and outcomes of a project on developing local lifelong guidance strategies in four areas are outlined. The main components of the strategies developed in the four areas are analysed, and a number of issues relating to the process of strategy development are addressed. Much of the lack of coherence at local level stems from lack of coherence at national policy level: implications for national policy are examined. Finally, implications for parallel work in other localities are explored.     

The numbers game: Gender and attention to numerical information

Research suggests that males outperform females on standardized tests of math ability from early adolescence onward. Several explanations for this difference focus on the different experiences of females and males with numerical information. We reasoned that males have more experience with numerical information than females because typical male interests (e.g., sports) are more likely to involve numerical information than typical female interests (e.g., physical appearance). Thus, we predicted that males would attend more to numerical information than would females, at least when the information was presented in a male-related or gender-neutral context. Females were expected to attend more than males when the context was female-related. Results using White/Caucasian subjects provided some support for these predictions. Implications for future research on the relationship between the gender-linkage of math materials and gender differences in math performance are discussed.     

Token reinforcement, choice, and self-control in pigeons.

Pigeons were exposed to self-control procedures that involved illumination of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as a form of token reinforcement. In a discrete-trials arrangement, subjects chose between one and three LEDs; each LED was exchangeable for 2-s access to food during distinct posttrial exchange periods. In Experiment 1, subjects generally preferred the immediate presentation of a single LED over the delayed presentation of three LEDs, but differences in the delay to the exchange period between the two options prevented a clear assessment of the relative influence of LED delay and exchange-period delay as determinants of choice. In Experiment 2, in which delays to the exchange period from either alternative were equal in most conditions, all subjects preferred the delayed three LEDs more often than in Experiment-1. In Experiment 3, subjects preferred the option that resulted in a greater amount of food more often if the choices also produced LEDs than if they did not. In Experiment 4, preference for the delayed three LEDs was obtained when delays to the exchange period were equal, but reversed in favor of an immediate single LED when the latter choice also resulted in quicker access to exchange periods. The overall pattern of results suggests that (a) delay to the exchange period is a more critical determinant of choice than is delay to token presentation; (b) tokens may function as conditioned reinforcers, although their discriminative properties may be responsible for the self-control that occurs under token reinforcer arrangements; and (c) previously reported differences in the self-control choices of humans and pigeons may have resulted at least in part from the procedural conventions of using token reinforcers with human subjects and food reinforcers with pigeon subjects.