Participation,influence, and satisfaction in group decision making

The hypothesis that attitudinal effects of participation depend on individual differences in motivation was tested in a laboratory experiment with 56 three-man groups (leader and two members). Measures of the attractiveness of power and social acceptance were obtained prior to a group decision task, after which members described their perceived participation, influence, and satisfaction. Results showed that: (a) influence was more strongly related to satisfaction for members with strong, as opposed to weak, power motives; (b) for members with strong affiliation motives, participation was more strongly related to satisfaction than was influence. Relationships varied across satisfaction aspects. It was concluded that participation may be associated with favorable role attitudes through different motive-attainment mechanisms in the group decision-making process.     

CHANGING PROTECTIVE AND RISKY BEHAVIORS TO PREVENT CHILD-TO-PARENT TRANSMISSION OF CYTOMEGALOVIRUS

Child-to-parent transmission of cytomegalovirus may be reduced by increasing protective behaviors (handwashing and glove use) and decreasing risky behaviors (intimate contact between child and parent). This study showed that an educational intervention resulted in increases in reported and objective measures of protective behaviors and decreases in reported risky behaviors. Further study must determine if changes in protective and risky behavior are maintained and prevent cytomegalovirus transmission.     

Gender role socialization in toy play situations: Mothers and fathers with their sons and daughters

This study examined the interaction within and between 20 intact families. As in past research, when parents were separated and not influenced by their child (i.e., completing a toy desirability scale), traditional findings were supported; neutral toys are not specific to the gender of the child while feminine toys were preferred for girls and masculine toys were preferred for boys. However, when parents were actively engaged in play with their child this traditional pattern was not supported. In general, parents spent the least amount of time with feminine toys. Children eagerly accepted most of the toys presented by their parents and their enthusiasm was equal for the toys in all three categories. This research suggests a change in parents' perceptions of what is acceptable gender-typing behavior.     

Sex roles and friendship patterns

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships among sex, sex role orientation, and friendship. Based on the Bem Sex Role Inventory, 164 participants were categorized as either androgynous (17 males; 29 females), traditional (36 males; 39 females), or undifferentiated (26 males; 17 females) in their sex role orientation. Participants reported the number of close male and female friends, and responded to several questionnaires: interpersonal trust of male and female friends, communal and exchange orientations, affective and activity attributes associated with male and female friends, loneliness, and friendship satisfaction. Results indicate that close friends tended to be same sex, even though females had more close friends overall than did the males. Androgyny was related to characteristics that enhance the development and maintenance of close friendships, such as a communal orientation and positive conceptions of friends, while the undifferentiated orientation was related to less relationship enhancing orientations and a less rewarding interpersonal milieu. The study confirms that sex and sex role orientation are important factors in both quantitative and qualitative aspects of friendship during young adulthood.Portions of this paper were presented at the annual convention of the Southwestern Psychological Association, Houston, Texas, April 13, 1989. We appreciate the extensive help of an anonymous reviewer on earlier versions of this paper.     

Is there implicit memory without attention? A reexamination of task demands in Eich’s (1984) procedure

The relation between memory and attention has been of long-standing interest. Eich (1984) made an important discovery of implicit but not explicit memory for contextually determined homophones (e.g., taxi-FARE) presented in a channel to be ignored within a selective listening procedure. However, his slow rate of presentation of shadowing task materials may have allowed frequent attention shifts to the allegedly ignored channel. With a direct replication of Eich’s timing parameters, we reproduced his results, but when the attended channel was presented twice as fast as Eich’s, implicit memory for the to-be-ignored words vanished. Our results contradict claims of extensive semantic processing of unattended auditory information in this task.     

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board's Survey of Sexual Harassment: The Fit of a Three-Factor Model

Research over the past decade and a half exploring the psychological dimensions of the definition of sexual harassment has converged on a three-factor model: gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion. The current study used confirmatory factor analysis to determine whether the most widely used sexual harassment survey, the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (USMSPB; 1981) survey, measures this three-factor structure. Data from a sample of the USMSPB's 1988 survey of Federal employees (n= 1070) and from a midwestern university's survey of undergraduates (n= 572) and graduate students, faculty, and staff (n= 575) were analyzed. The three-factor model fit reasonably well in all samples, but two survey items, measuring sexual assault and sexual favors, were weakly related to their respective factors. This model, however, was only marginally stable across female and male subsamples, and gender harassment and unwanted sexual attention had low discriminant validity. Both practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

HYPOTHESIS-BASED INTERVENTIONS FOR TANTRUM BEHAVIORS OF PERSONS WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES IN SCHOOL SETTINGS

We conducted a functional assessment of problem behaviors of 2 students with developmental disabilities in their classroom environments. Results of the assessments showed that although there were more tantrums in demand than in no-demand conditions, the function of the behavior was to gain attention (positive reinforcement) rather than to avoid or escape demands (negative reinforcement); demand conditions apparently served a discriminative function for the availability of attention. Therefore, intervention was based on the positive reinforcement hypothesis, resulting in a substantial reduction of tantrums for both subjects.