Arguers as editors

People use editorial criteria to decide whether to say or to suppress potential arguments. These criteria constitute people's standards as to what effective and appropriate arguments are like, and reflect general interaction goals. A series of empirical investigations has indicated that the standards fall into three classes: those having to do with argument effectiveness, those concerned with personal issues for arguer and target, and those centered on discourse quality. The essay also sketches the affinities certain types of people have for the different criteria.     

Public self-Attention and personal standards: The impact of group composition

Increases in self-attention as a function of decreases in the relative size of one’s subgroup in a heterogeneous group context have been shown to result in increased regulation of behavior toward social (normative) standards for behavior. The present study demonstrated increased regulation of behavior toward a personal standard for behavior as a function of variations in group composition. One hundred twenty-five subjects individually completed the Creativity subscale of Scott’s Personal Value Scale assessing attitudes toward originality. They then completed a word-association task in groups ranging in size from 2 to 8. Originality of word-associations was determined by reference to previously established word-association norms and norms based on frequency of responses given in the present study. Results indicate that originality in responses increase as the relative size of one’s own subgroup decreases (indexing increases in self-attention) for subjects who value originality. Discussion centers on the distinction between experimentally manipulated public and private self-attention and standards that are adopted for behavioral self-regulation. Portions of this study were presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, New York, April 1991.     

Perceptions of maternal and paternal solicitude by birth children and adoptees: Relevance for maternal bonding theory

This study emanated from the long-standing question of whether a maternal bonding process similar to other mammalian species occurs in humans. The perceptions of adult adoptees and a matched sample of non-adoptees about their parents' behaviours towards them were compared on an original Parental Solicitude Scale. As hypothesized, birth children perceived their mothers as the more solicitous parent, but ratings of adoptive mothers showed a unilateral decline. Further, the differential ratings for birth and adoptive mothers occurred mostly for the factors labelled benignity vs abuse and tolerance vs control, rather than caretaking vs neglect, which was congruent to reported effects in prior studies of lack of mother-infant contact during the sensitive period for bonding. An alternative explanation of the data was also tested but not substantiated.     

Mental Arithmetic: A Componential Analysis of Speed-of-Processing Across Monolingual,Weak Bilingual,and Strong Bilingual Adults

Two experiments compared rates of solving simple and complex addition and multiplication problems in groups of speakers of French or English in Experiment 1 (n = 35) and Spanish or English in Experiment 2 (n = 84). Subjects were divided into groups of English unilinguals, weak bilinguals, and strong bilinguals according to their performance on a naming task. In both experiments, simple problems consisted of two single-digit numbers. At least three single-digit numbers were used for complex problems in Experiment 1 and double-digit numbers in Experiment 2. Mean solution times, particularly for complex problems, were lowest for the monolingual group, followed in turn by the weak bilingual and strong bilingual groups, but these differences were not statistically reliable in either experiment. In Experiment 2, however, componential analyses of solution times indicated that strong bilingual subjects were slower at executing the carry operation when solving complex problems, relative to the two remaining groups. Results were interpreted in terms of the relationship between bilingualism and the representation and processing of numerical information.     

Perceived Health Barriers and Health Value in Seniors: Implications for Well-Being and Mortality1

There is growing evidence to suggest that the ways in which people think about their health problems may have significant implications for psychological and physical well-being. This possibility has the greatest consequences for those groups facing health problems on a daily basis, in particular, the elderly. This study examined the role of perceived health barriers and value for health in later life. A Perceived Health Barriers (absent, present) by Health Value (low, medium, high) 2.3 factorial design was analyzed for younger and older seniors on: number of life-threatening diseases, need for health care, and life satisfaction. In addition, a longitudinal design was used to examine the joint roles of perceived health barriers (PHBs) and health value (HV) on mortality. Findings generally indicated that individuals’ PHBs and HV are associated with health-related outcomes; however, the results differed for young and old elders. Among young elders, those with PHBs and those with high HV had the most negati e profile. That is, they had more diseases, higher health care needs, and lower life satisfaction. Among older elders, the findings were more complicated in that the relationship between PHB and the outcomes depended on HV. Overall, the patterns for old elders suggest that perceived health barriers are most relevant among those with medium value for health and least relevant among those with low value for health.     

Child and adolescent psychopathology research: Problems and prospects for the 1990s

In November 1990 the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) convened a special conference of over 100 scientists and leaders to outline specific strategies and research initiatives that should be developed to implement the recently released National Plan for Research on Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders.Participants included journal editors, educators from psychology and psychiatry, representatives from private foundations, and leaders of research program areas in public funding agencies. Critical knowledge gaps were identified in five areas of child and adolescent psychopathology, including depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, the anxiety disorders, and the developmental disorders. For each of these areas, special emphasis was placed on developing new ideas and obtaining critical input from other areas of investigation. This report summarizes the identified research gaps and recommends research initiatives to implement the National Plan, as outlined by the conference participants.     

Religious self and secular self: Clinical transitions

Clerical people, returning to secular life, may undergo shifts in self-experience, including alterations in internal object relations. Self-psychology, positing the importance to health of cohesion of all aspects of self, provides a theoretical model for exploring such shifts and their facilitation through psychoanalytic psychotherapy. A case of a released Roman Catholic priest is discussed to illustrate dynamic processes. Emphasis is on a clinical approach that does not require conversion of religious and spiritual self-experience into drive derivative formulations     

Values of Postpartum Women from the Inner City: An Exploratory Study

An exploratory study of the values of inner-city postpartum women was conducted. Subjects were largely single, with many on/or going on public assistance. Each subject was given the Rokeach Value Scale and asked to prioritize the terminal values (goals) in terms of herself and the instrumental values (means) in terms of what she would like to teach her child. Rankings were compared to corresponding rankings compiled by a national sample, considered a more traditional era, and by marital status within the postpartum mother sample itself. Economic values were ranked higher by inner-city mothers than by the national sample. The top terminal value was family security and the top instrumental value was responsible. When compared by marital status, the only significant difference was the higher ranking of mature love given by married women. Results suggests that the values of the inner-city single postpartum mother can be conceptualized as a mosaic incorporating values shared with the mainstream and values adapted to the conditions of poverty.     

Explicit contamination in “implicit” memory for new associations

In one view of implicit memory, priming arises from modification of preexisting representations; however, the role of such representations is currently in doubt following findings of implicit memory for newly formed associations. Closer consideration of studies reporting this effect, and of others that have failed to obtain it, suggests that such priming might result from the employment of explicit memory strategies. With measures designed to permit exclusion of such strategies, three experiments using lexical decision and stem-completion tasks found no evidence of truly implicit memory for unrelated pairs. Instead, priming was found only in those subjects (50% of the total in one experiment) who reported using explicit memory in stem completion. Contrary to previous conclusions, the results indicate a role for established representations in explaining implicit memory.