The family-of-origin framework: A model for clinical training

Family-of-origin work is defined as a person's attempt to examine and/or change the patterns of interaction that occur in the family in which s/he was raised. This article outlines a model of family-of-origin work that is used in the clinical psychology training program at St. Louis University. The family therapy literature, particularly the work of Bowen, provides its theoretical underpinnings. An integral part of family-of-origin presentations is the genogram, or visual depiction of a family tree. Many ethical issues arise from the use of family-of-origin work within the context of clinical training, including confidentiality, responsibility, informed consent, values, and the boundaries of the supervisory relationship.     

Children's nurturant interactions with their infant siblings: An exploration of gender differences and maternal socialization

In this study, 20 families with two parents, an infant under the age of 1 year, and one or two older siblings between the ages of 4 and 7 years, were observed in their homes. Each family was observed four times at approximately monthly intervals. Only data from the last three observations were reported. Two issues were being studied: gender differences in the interactions of the older child with the infant, and maternal socialization of the older child's nurturant interactions with the infant. Older girls interacted more with their infant siblings, particularly in a nurturant manner. There was virtually no evidence of direct maternal socialization of this gender difference.The research reported here was supported by a grant from the Purdue Research Foundation. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Atlanta, 1988. I would like to thank Cathy Fruchey, Larilynn Cole, Cheryl Kesterke and Ann Mensch for their assistance. I would also like to thank Mary Jo Rogers and Julia Haseleu for their work on the pilot project.     

The relationship of sex-role identity,life style,and mental health in suburban american homemakers: 1. Sex role,employment and adjustment

Prior research has suggested that a traditional feminine role may be a mental health liability for women. The present study investigates whether adjustment difficulties among homemakers may be a function of discrepancies between life roles and sex-role orientation. Subjects were 97 suburban mothers divided into full (N=59) and part-time (N=38) homemaker groups. Each subject was given the Bem Sex Role Inventory and SCL-90-R, which yields nine symptom scores and an overall adjustment index. A 4 (sex-roles) by 2 (homemaker status) ANOVA for overall adjustment was carried out. Significant differences were found only for sex roles, androgynous subjects showing significantly less symptomatology than undifferentiated subjects. In a stepwise multiple discriminant analysis, to predict sex roles from the nine symptom scores, masculine and androgynous groups reported symptoms of depression, anxiety, and interpersonal sensitivity much less frequently than feminine and undifferentiated subjects. High masculinity among this group of women (masculine or androgynous sex-role orientation) thus appears as a key factor related to adjustment, whereas life role-sex role consistency does not.     

The effects of competent behavior on interpersonal attraction and task leadership

Past research relating to competence and the status of sex-role stereotypes has produced highly divergent and confusing results, while research into their effects on leadership choices has been scarce. With these issues in mind, the current study varied subject sex, competence, and confederate sex to evaluate their influence on attraction, leadership choice, and sex-role stereotyping on a number of bipolar items. Results revealed that competent womenw ere found to be as attractive as competent men, while incompetent women were found to be more attractive than incompetent men. Leadership remained a masculine trait; women assumed much less responsibility for leadership than did men. Thus, while women may be viewed as being as attractive as men when both are competent, they are not given, nor do they assume equivalent amounts of responsibility for leadership. There was generally a lack of sex-role stereotyping on bipolar items.     

On surrender,death, and the sociology of knowledge

Surrender-and-catch is a protest against [... our time] and an attempt at remembrance of what a human being can be. The sociology of knowledge is a protest against its hypocrisy and against unexamined social influences. Like surrender, the sociology of knowledge does not fear but passionately seeks what is true and thus, like surrender, is a remembrance, proclamation, and celebration of the spirit. Both ideas, that of the sociology of knowledge and that of surrender, are critical, polemical, radical [...]; so is the sociology of knowledge also in its practice, while in its practice surrender is cognitive live. Using a [...] distinction developed by Mannheim, we may also say that the sociology of knowledge is an extrinsic interpretation of its time, our time; surrender, an intrinsic one: the former is, advocates, and practices such an extrinsic (sociological) interpretation but needs the latter to overcome the relativism it encounters in its practice by its remembrance, rediscovery, reinvention, the catch, of what is common to all human beings, what is universally human (Wolff, 1982., pp. 265–266).     

A factor analysis of new and standardized instruments to measure the creative potential and high-energy action preference of performing arts students. A preliminary investigation

Two standardized creativity instruments and three original instruments to measure a preference for high-energy activity and to provide a creative product were given to 86 dance, music and drama students. A factor analysis of eight scales of the five instruments showed correlation between the new and standardized instruments, produced three groupings—visual, verbal and action—and an ANOVA demonstrated that some of these scales could differentiate among the specialist groups. The new instruments were devised to clarify if performing arts students, whose major activity is often interpretive, are creative and if their choice to be performers is related to a preference for high-energy physical activities.     

Context and companion's behavior as determinants of cooperation and competition in school-age children

Information about the social context and a companion's actions were studied as determinants of cooperation and competition in middle childhood. In Experiment 1, first-, third-, and fifth-grade children were told that they would play a board game with another same-age, same-sex child (actually a bogus companion). The experimenter's instructions established shared rewards or winner-take-all as outcome conditions. Preprogrammed responses—100% cooperative or 100% competitive—provided information about the companion's actions. Results revealed that the companion's responses alone determined cooperation and competition among the first graders. Third graders used both types of information. Fifth graders, however, demonstrated a bias to respond cooperatively whenever a cooperative cue was present. In Experiment 2, first-grade subjects were given extra rehearsal of the game strategies, a scorekeeping procedure for use during the game, or a combination of the two. Results indicated that, under these conditions, younger subjects were able to use the instructions about reward distribution as well as the companion's actions in guiding their social behavior.     

The development of young children's awareness of the word as a unit of spoken language

Young children's awareness of the word as a unit of spoken language was investigated in a series of five experiments that required children aged from 4 to 7 years to segment spoken language strings into words. The results of the first three experiments suggest that young children have considerable success in segmenting spoken language materials, regardless of the grammaticality of the strings, and regardless of the grammatical form class, plurality, or syllabic length of the component words. The basis of such successful segmentation ability was considered further in a fourth experiment, which indicated that children may use stress as a basis of response. A fifth experiment therefore manipulated syllabic stress and morphemic structure to determine what response strategies are employed by children of different ages in segmenting speech. The results suggest that 4- to 5-year-old children respond primarily on the basis of acoustic factors such as stress, whereas somewhat older 5- to 6-year-old children respond on the basis of (unbound) morphemic structure. By age 7, most children have abandoned strategies and now respond on the basis of word concept. Implications of these findings for reading acquisition are briefly indicated.This research was supported by a Tertiary Education Commission, General Development Grant (University of Western Australia), and by an Education Research Grant from the Education Research and Development Committee, Canberra.