Responses to the Challenger tragedy: Subtle and significant gender differences

Within two weeks of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, 188 subjects rated and ranked questionnaire items, and completed open-ended questions reporting their responses to and concerns arising from the accident. Analysis of open-ended responses showed females focused more on communal, person-centered aspects of the tragedy than did males. Analysis of ratings showed females viewed person-oriented issues as more important than did males. However, males and females did not differ in rankings assigned the items nor in ratings of the importance of the technological issues. Claims about sex differences in moral orientation are discussed in light of the results of this study.     

An intergenerational analysis of expectations for women's career and family roles

This study examined the career and family role expectations and attitudes of women university students and both of their parents. Data collected from 292 families revealed that most daughters and their parents were traditional in their attitudes toward mothering, held somewhat egalitarian attitudes toward marital roles, and generally expected daughters to experience little frustration regarding future career and family roles. Differences and similarities among daughters, mothers, and fathers as well as between intact and dissolved families of various SES were examined. Implications of findings and suggestions for future research were discussed.This research was supported by grants from the University of Rhode Island Council on Research and from the College of Human Science and Services. Portions of this paper were presented at the National Council on Family Relations annual meeting, New Orleans, Lousiana, November, 1989 and at the Eastern Sociological Society annual meeting, Providence, Rhode Island, April, 1991. The authors thank Mary Ellen Reilly for her encouragement and assistance.     

Stories and tales in logotherapy with Urban-Appalachian families

In this article the authors describe and illustrate the use of stories and tales for metaphorical communication in family logotherapy with the Urban-Appalachian family. In this logotherapy approach, stories and tales are used to help the Urban-Appalachian family bring repressed meanings and meaning potentials to the conscious level of family awareness.James Lantz, Ph.D, and Karen Harper, Ph.D, are staff members at the Urban-Appalachian psychotherapy project and associate professors at the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.     

Creating new memories that are quickly accessed and confidently held

In two experiments involving a total of 542 subjects, a series of slides depicting a burglary was shown. After the initial event, subjects were exposed to one or more narratives about the event that contained some misinformation or neutral information about four critical details. Finally, subjects were tested on their memories of what they saw, and their reaction times and confidence levels were measured. When subjects took a standard test in which the misinformation item was a possible response option, they responded very quickly and confidently when making this incorrect choice. Misled subjects responded as quickly and confidently to these "unreal" memories as they did to their genuine memories. It does not seem, then, that the misinformation effect arises from a large proportion of subjects who must resolve a conflict between two memories when they are tested, a conflict that would be expected to take time. When subjects took a modified test in which the misinformation item was not a possible response, misled subjects were as accurate as were controls, but they responded more slowly, regardless of whether they ultimately chose the right or wrong option. These findings indicate that misinformation does introduce some form of interference not detected by a simple test of accuracy.     

The utility of differentiating between mixed and pure forms of antisocial child behavior

This study examined the utility of classifying boys on the basis of a typology of antisocial behavior. A group of 195 boys, aged 10–17, was divided into four mutually exclusive groups based on their pattern of antisocial behavior. Stealing and fighting were chosen as criteria to define the four groups: (a) boys who fought but did not steal (Exclusive Fighter Group), (b) boys who stole but did not fight (Exclusive Theft Group), (c) boys who stole and fought (Versatile Antisocial Group), and (d) boys who did neither (Remaining Group). A multimethod-multirespondent study of these boys showed that (a) the Exclusive Fighter Group tended to score high on a range of overt antisocial behaviors and were relatively little involved in delinquency; (b) the Exclusive Theft Group tended to score high on some overt antisocial behaviors and were much involved in delinquency; (c) Versatile Antisocial youths scored highest among all groups on almost all overt and covert antisocial behaviors, and in terms of delinquent acts. The Versatile boys came from families with the most disturbed child-earing practices.The authors are indebted to Gerald Patterson for his inspiration and encouragement through-out the study. They acknowledge the most helpful comments they have received during earlier drafts of this paper from Drs. John Reid, Magda Stouthamer-Loeber, and Mark Weinrott.The paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Denver, Colorado, November 10, 1983. The study has been funded by the Center for Studies in Crime and Delinquency, National Institute of Mental Health, Grants MH 32857 and MH 37940.