Concealment and disclosure: Some effects of information control on the person who controls

Goffman (Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1963) has argued that individuals must often control information about themselves that might be discreditable, but that often people are themselves uncertain how to evaluate the critical attribute. Self-perception theory predicts that in such uncertain conditions, one's attitude toward information concealed or disclosed may be formed in part by the very acts of concealment and disclosure. Twenty-three males and 29 females served as subjects in an information control situation where successfully concealing or disclosing information about oneself to a female stooge led respectively to negative and positive self-evaluations of that information. Results are interpreted to suggest that altered self-perceptions of one's own worth may be a consequence of concealment or disclosure.     

Memory of myself: Autobiographical memory and identity in Alzheimer's disease

A number of theories posit a relationship between autobiographical memory and identity. To test this we assessed the status of autobiographical memory and identity in 20 individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 20 age‐matched controls, and investigated whether degree of autobiographical memory impairment was associated with changes in identity. Two tests of autobiographical memory (Autobiographical Memory Interview, autobiographical fluency) and two measures of identity (Twenty Statements Test, identity items of the Tennessee Self Concept Scale) were administered. AD participants exhibited significant impairments on both memory tests, and changes in the strength, quality, and direction of identity relative to controls. Impairments of some components of autobiographical memory, particularly autobiographical memory for childhood and early adulthood, were related to changes in the strength and quality of identity. These findings support the critical role of early adulthood autobiographical memories (16–25 years) in identity, and suggest autobiographical memory loss affects identity.     

Positional cues in serial learning: The spin-list technique

To test the hypothesis that serial learning depends largely on the encoding and retrieval of position-to-item associations, we examined whether people can learn spin lists on which starting position is randomly varied across successive learning trials. By turning positional information from a reliable cue into a source of intertrial interference, we expected learning to be greatly impaired. Contrary to this hypothesis, we found that participants were only slightly worse at serial learning under spin conditions and that this impairment reflects a substantial increase in initiation errors coupled with a small increase in intertrial forgetting. These data show that participants can effectively use nonpositional cues when positional cues are unreliable.     

Learning to Live in the Anthropocene: Our Children and Ourselves

This essay responds to recent philosophical interest in the Anthropocene by asking (Trachtenberg in Inhabiting the Anthropocene: how we live changes everything, 2016): Can and should educators adopt, form, transmit, teach ways of living to maintain, if not enhance Earth’s habitability, especially its habitability for diverse children? This inquiry therefore calls for conceptual study of learning to live through the Anthropocene—with, despite, after, before, amid, among, away from, and against its myriad harms, possible and actual, especially its harms to children. Examining cases of environmental racism in Checker’s Polluted Promises (2005), and other cases of environmental threats to children’s health, in Steingraber’s Raising Elijah (2011), this study begins by proposing the ecological gap in philosophy of education consequential for children resides within another epistemological gap, variously designated gender gap, love gap, care gap (Martin in The schoolhome: rethinking schools for changing families. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1992; Education reconfigured: culture, encounter, and change. Routledge, New York, 2011; Warren in Ecofeminist philosophy: a Western persepctive on what it is and why it matters. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, 2000). Ruddick’s maternal thinking (1984, 1988) provides a conceptual frame for theorizing three moral aims of learning to live in the Anthropocene that might inform public schooling.     

Individual differences in early adolescents' beliefs in the legitimacy of parental authority

Adolescents differ in the extent to which they believe that parents have legitimate authority to impose rules restricting adolescents' behavior. The purpose of the current study was to test predictors of individual differences in legitimacy beliefs during the middle school years. Annually, during the summers following Grades 5, 6, and 7, early adolescents (n = 218; 51% female, 47% African American, 73% in 2-parent homes) reported their beliefs regarding the legitimacy of parents' rules that restrict and monitor adolescents' free time activities. Cross-lagged analyses revealed that legitimacy beliefs were bidirectionally associated with independent decision making, psychological control, antisocial peer involvement, and resistance to control. Legitimacy beliefs declined more rapidly during the middle school years for boys than for girls and for adolescents who were older relative to their classmates. More independent decision making in Grades 5 and 6 predicted larger than expected declines in legitimacy beliefs in Grades 6 and 7. In sum, legitimacy beliefs weaken developmentally, and weaker legitimacy beliefs relative to same-grade peers are anteceded by premature autonomous experiences, psychological control, and adolescent attributes.     

Marital Adjustment and Irrational Beliefs

The present study was designed to determine which aspects of Ellis' irrational beliefs as well as emotional traits (anxiety, curiosity, anger) differentiate couples attending marriage counseling from couples couple not attending marriage counseling as well as levels of marital satisfaction in couples as measured by the Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Test. Participants were 61 married couples, 18 of whom were attending marriage counseling and 43 who were not attending marriage counseling. Each partner completed a number of self-report questionnaires containing items measuring irrational /rational beliefs, anger, anxiety and curiosity, and communication skills. Correlational and multiple regression analyses indicate support for Albert Ellis' proposition concerning the importance of individual partner's emotional traits and accompanying irrational beliefs in marital adjustment and dissatisfaction. Self-downing and need for comfort were the dimensions of irrational thinking most strongly related to marital dysfunction. Anger, anxiety but neither curiosity nor communication skills distinguished individuals experiencing or not experiencing marital problems. Implications for relationship counseling are briefly discussed.     

Contextual determinants of mothers' interventions in young children's peer interactions

In this study, the role of context in mothers' interventions in their preschool children's peer relationship problems was investigated. Event theme (aggression, peer rebuff, or initiating play), the child's role in the event (actor or target), the child's age and sex, and the mother's emotional reaction were examined as predictors of the extent to which mothers (N = 71) said they would discuss peer relationships, encourage peer interaction, and use power assertion in response to a series of videotaped vignettes depicting common peer relationship problems. Mothers suggested using more discussion in aggressive situations and more encouragement in initiating play situations. Mothers said they would use more power assertion when the child was the actor (i.e., provocateur), rather than the target, in an aggressive situation. Findings are discussed in terms of (a) the importance of considering context in understanding how mothers intervene in their children's peer relationships and (b) the need to examine moderators of cross-contextual consistency in mothers' interventions.     

Psychometric analysis of the Minnesota Test of Critical Thinking

With the increase over the past two decades in interest in critical thinking instruction, reliable and valid means for measuring critical thinking are necessary. The Minnesota Test of Critical Thinking was developed to measure critical thinking as defined by the American Philosophical Association in 1990. The present purpose was to explore the structure and reliability of the intervention and its instantiation of the critical thinking framework. Analyses of responses from 151 adult participants gave estimates of reliability varying from .29 to .78. A factor analysis of the test scores supported critical thinking conceptualized as a single, latent trait. With further refinement, the invention should become a valuable measure of general critical thinking skills of upper-division secondary and postsecondary students.     

‘Language of the past’ – Exploring past tense disruption during autobiographical narration in neurodegenerative disorders

Compromised retrieval of autobiographical memory (ABM) is well established in neurodegenerative disorders. The recounting of autobiographical events is inextricably linked to linguistic knowledge, yet no study to date has investigated whether tense use during autobiographical narration is disrupted in dementia syndromes. This study investigated the incidence of correct past tense use during ABM narration in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD, n = 10) and semantic dementia (SD, n = 10) in comparison with healthy older Controls (n = 10). Autobiographical narratives were analysed for episodic content (internal/external) and classified according to tense use (past/present). Across both patient groups, use of the past tense was significantly compromised relative to Controls, with increased levels of off‐target present tense verbs observed. Voxel‐based morphometry analyses based on structural MRI revealed differential associations between past tense use and regions of grey matter intensity in the brain. Bilateral temporal cortices were implicated in the SD group, whereas frontal, lateral, and medial temporal regions including the right hippocampus emerged in AD. This preliminary study provides the first demonstration of the disruption of specific linguistic constructs during autobiographical narration in AD and SD. Future studies are warranted to clarify at what point in the disease trajectory such deficits in tense use emerge, and whether these deficits are a product or contributing factor in memory disruption in these syndromes.