The Heterosocial Assessment Inventory for Women: A psychometric and behavioral evaluation

This paper presents a preliminary psychometric and behavioral evaluation of the Heterosocial Assessment Inventory for Women (HAI-W), a novel self-report instrument that evaluates five dimensions that may influence performance in 12 heterosocial situations: likelihood of initiation, anxiety, skillfulness, expectation of outcome, and influence of attractiveness. Study I obtained acceptable reliability and concurrent validity data and described the factor structure of the HAI-W with female college students. Study II found a significant relationship between the HAI-W factors and global ratings of the role-play performances of high- and low-heterosocially competent female college students as rendered by the male confederate, peer judges, and expert judges. The implications of these findings for the multidimensional assessment and facilitation of heterosocial competence are discussed.This study is part of a dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, under the direction of Michael A. Milan. Portions of these data were presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy, Los Angeles, 1982.     

Egocentrism and classroom adjustment

This study examined the relationship between persistent egocentrism and adjustment status in normal school children. Fifty-three fourth-graders (33 males, 20 females) were administered measures of egocentrism and peer sociometric status, and indices of classroom adjustment were obtained from teachers. Degree of egocentrism was shown to correlate with classroom adjustment for both boys and girls and with peer group status for boys. The pattern of correlations suggested that the negative consequences of persistent egocentrism were different for the two sexes, with high egocentrism associated with shy, anxious behavior for girls and acting-out and learning difficulties for boys.The authors wish to thank Michael Chandler for his invaluable assistance. Gratitude is also expressed to Jeffrey Frost, Rana Gordan, Joyce Kramer, Peter Moshbach, Katie Pelz, Robert Rosen, Jane Scheibel, and Harley Sobin for their help in the collection of the data, and to the administration, staff, and pupils of the Paddy Hill Elementary School, Greece, New York.     

A rating formulation for ordered response categories

A rating response mechanism for ordered categories, which is related to the traditional threshold formulation but distinctively different from it, is formulated. In addition to the subject and item parameters two other sets of parameters, which can be interpreted in terms of thresholds on a latent continuum and discriminations at the thresholds, are obtained. These parameters are identified with the category coefficients and the scoring function of the Rasch model for polychotomous responses in which the latent trait is assumed uni-dimensional. In the case where the threshold discriminations are equal, the scoring of successive categories by the familiar assignment of successive integers is justified. In the case where distances between thresholds are also equal, a simple pattern of category coefficients is shown to follow.This work was conducted in part in the first half of 1977 while the author was on study leave at the Danish Institute for Educational Research. The Institute provided required research facilities while The University of Western Australia provided financial support.     

Prediction as a means of inducing tolerance

Female subjects were exposed individually to the attitude item responses of a similar or dissimilar stranger. They were asked either to copy down the stranger's attitudes or to predict (with accurate feedback) how the stranger answered each item. Predict subjects were found to be more tolerant of the dissimilar stranger than were Copy subjects, while both groups were equally attracted to the similar stranger. It was suggested that training people to anticipate disagreements may be a useful way of fostering tolerance.     

Interfacing the microcomputer: A component-level approach

A method is described for interfacing relatively inexpensive component- and chip-level devices to a standard Intel microcomputer board for providing an on-line physological monitoring system. The system demonstrates basic interfacing techniques and a highly simplified approach for integrating various state-of-the-art peripheral circuit components to a standard microcomputer configuration.     

Memory for movement: Interaction of location and distance cues and imagery ability

The present experiments examined the role of imagery ability in recall of either the terminal location or the distance of a preselected horizontal linear movement following changes in the recall starting position. Subjects were selected on the basis of their scores on a shortened version of the Betts Questionnaire upon Mental Imagery (Betts Q.M.I., Sheehan 1967). Both high and low imagers were assigned to one of four groups, HIL, LIL, HID, LID, the last letter indicating the movement cue (terminal location or distance moved) to be recalled. Recall of the appropriate movement cue from one of four new recall starting positions occurred after either a 5-sec or 30-sec unfilled retention interval. Analysis of constant error indicated all groups were unable to recall the specified movement cue independent of the other source of information, even when subjects were given explicit instructions to utilise an imagery strategy. The data corroborate our earlier findings that memory for self paced movements is based on an interaction of location and distance cues derived from the criterion movement.