Predicted and Recommended Behavior of a Woman as a Function of Her Inferred Helplessness in the Dowry and Wife-Beating Predicaments

Two experiments, using hypothetical situations, examined predictions and recommendations regarding a woman's behavior in the dowry and wife-beating predicaments as a function of her perceived helplessness. The dowry experiment described the situation of a stimulus person who has to decide whether to marry a boy under the dowry condition and had a 2 (subject's sex) × 2 (stimulus person's attractiveness) × 2(stimulus person's age) × 3 (stimulus person's socioeconomic status) factorial design, with estimated likelihood of marrying and recommendation to marry as the two dependent measures. The wife-beating experiment described the situation of a battered stimulus person who has to decide whether to leave her violent husband and had a 2 (subject's sex) × 2 (stimulus person's economic independence) × 2 (stimulus person's having children) × 3 (stimulus person's socioeconomic status) factorial design, with estimated likelihood of leaving the husband and recommendation to leave the husband as the two dependent measures. The subjects of the two experiments were undergraduate or graduate students of Bombay University, with 15 subjects per cell in the dowry experiment and 13 subjects per cell in the wife-beating experiment. Female subjects gave a stronger recommendation against marrying under the dowry condition and in favor of leaving the husband than did male subjects. The economically independent women was perceived as more likely to leave the husband than the dependent woman. Results of the wife-beating experiment suggested greater social constraints, under some conditions, on the middle class woman as compared to upper and lower class women in India.     

The Priestley duality for Wajsberg algebras

The Priestley duality for Wajsberg algebras is developed. The Wajsberg space is a De Morgan space endowed with a family of functions that are obtained in rather natural way.As a first application of this duality, a theorem about unicity of the structure is given.     

An on-line assessment of causal reasoning during comprehension

Fletcher and Bloom (1988) have argued that as readers read narratives, clause by clause, they repeatedly focus their attention on the last preceding clause that contains antecedents but no consequences in the text. This strategy allows them to discover a causal path linking the text's opening to its final outcome while minimizing the number of times long-term memory must be searched for missing antecedents or consequences. In order to test this hypothesis, we examined the reading times of 25 subjects for each clause of eight simple narrative texts. The results show that: (1) causal links between clauses that co-occur in short-term memory (as predicted by the strategy) increase the time required to read the second clause; (2) potential causal links between clauses that never co-occur in short-term memory (again as predicted by the strategy) have no effect on reading time; and (3) reinstatement searches are initiated at the end of sentences that are causally unrelated to the contents of short-term memory or that contain clauses that satisfy goals no longer in short-term memory. These results support the claim that subjects engage in a form of causal reasoning when they read simple narrative texts.     

Changes in information as a function of a culturally appropriate smoking cessation community intervention for Hispanics

Tested a 7-month, media-based, community intervention among Hispanics in San Francisco designed to change levels of information on the damaging effects of cigarette smoking and on the availability of culturally appropriate cessation services. Three community-wide surveys of Hispanics were conducted with independent random samples, two as baselines (n = 1,660 and 2,053) and one postintervention (n = 1,965). Results showed that changes in the level of awareness of cessation services had taken place after implementation of the intervention. Furthermore, those changes took place primarily among the less acculturated Spanish-speaking Hispanics who were the target of the intervention. The changes in information reported here demonstrate that a culturally appropriate information dissemination campaign that utilizes multiple channels can produce changes in a community's level of information even when the campaign is implemented for a relatively short period.     

Tracks and affordances: The sources of a physical ontology

How is meaning assigned to those terms in a theory which are remote from direct observational instantiation? Models and analogies play a role, but close examination of theories in high energy physics shows that the design of experimental apparatus also influences the interpretation of such terms. Certain apparatus favours certain kinds of effects, and this affects the way mathematical theories are interpreted. In particular track producing apparatus becomes involved with theories in which photonic terms are picked out in the theory. A further conceptual constraint is thus introduced. It is argued that this situation favours the interpretation of dispositional properties as affordances rather than as simple dispositions.     

The role accorded to the public by philosophers of science 1

The role accorded to the public by scientists and philosophers of science has undergone an essential historical change in the last three centuries. Public participation in (witnessing of) scientific experiments was considered an important requirement for 17th century experimenters (e.g. for Boyle or Pascal). The cognitive role played by lay persons was later substantially downgraded; witnessing went out of fashion, while science became more and more esoteric and a matter for experts only. Part of this process was that all scientific disciplines became intensively compartmentalized and in consequence a rather puzzling or even paradoxical situation appeared: that the scientists themselves were and are being reduced epistemically to the status of lay persons, outside of their proper field of expertise (as was pointed out by J. Hardwig). The paper deals with some cognitive aspects of this historical process.     

Social Dominance Orientation, Hierarchy Attenuators and Hierarchy Enhancers: Social Dominance Theory and the Criminal Justice System

This study investigated differences in social dominance orientation between incumbents of different social roles (police officers vs. public defenders) and ethnic groups known to differ in general social status (i.e., whites vs. blacks and Hispanics). Consistent with theoretical expectations: (a) Police were significantly more social-dominance oriented than either jurors or public defenders. (b) Public defenders tended to be less social-dominance oriented than jurors. (c) Euro-Americans were significantly more social dominance oriented than Afro- and Hispanic-Americans, (d) Euro-American police officers had, by far, the highest levels of social dominance orientation. Furthermore, all of the effects above held even when controlling for demographic factors such as gender, social class, age, education, and ethnic group. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

INCREASING COMPLEX SOCIAL BEHAVIORS IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM: EFFECTS OF PEER-IMPLEMENTED PIVOTAL RESPONSE TRAINING

Two children with autism were taught to engage in a variety of complex social behaviors using peer-implemented pivotal response training (PRT), a set of procedures designed to increase motivation and promote generalization. Typical peers were taught to implement PRT strategies by modeling, role playing, and didactic instruction. After training, peers implemented the procedures in the absence of direct supervision in a classroom environment. After the intervention, both children with autism maintained prolonged interactions with the peer, initiated play and conversations, and increased engagement in language and joint attention behaviors. In addition, teachers reported positive changes in social behavior, with the largest increases in peer-preferred social behavior. Further, these effects showed generality and maintenance. Implications of these findings are discussed.