Preschoolers affect others' reputations through prosocial gossip

Providing evaluative information to others about absent third parties helps them to identify cooperators and avoid cheaters. Here, we show that 5‐year‐olds, but not 3‐year‐olds, reliably engage in such prosocial gossip. In an experimental setting, 5‐year‐old children spontaneously offered relevant reputational information to guide a peer towards a cooperative partner. Three‐year‐old children offered such evaluative information only rarely, although they still showed a willingness to inform in a non‐evaluative manner. A follow‐up study revealed that one component involved in this age difference is children's developing ability to provide justifications. The current results extend previous work on young children's tendency to manage their own reputation by showing that preschoolers also influence others' reputations via gossip.     

Anagram solving: Does effort have an effect?

The purpose of these studies was to explore the role of effort in remembering anagrams and their solutions. In Experiment 1, we compared the effects on memory of copying words, typing them as solutions for easy anagrams, or typing them as solutions for difficult anagrams. Solving anagrams involved more effort than did simply typing words, as indexed by response time. However, this effort facilitated recall for solutions to easy anagrams but not for solutions to difficult anagrams. In Experiment 2, we compared memory for anagrams and their solutions using a frequency-judgment task. Memory for solutions was better than memory for anagrams, and this difference was not affected by anagram difficulty. The results of these studies have implications for our understanding of the role of effort in remembering.     

Sex differences in the lateralized processing of facial emotion

Two reaction time tasks were administered to male and female normal subjects, involving judgments of facial emotion. In the Word-Face task, judgments of similarity or difference of a centrally presented emotion word and an emotional face presented in the left or right visual field were required, and in the Face-Face task, comparisons of a centrally presented and a laterally presented emotional face were required. Results were significant for the matching trials only. Reaction times to negative emotions were faster overall than to positive emotions, and an Emotional Valence by Visual Field interaction was found such that reaction times were faster for negative emotions in the left visual field and for positive emotions in the right visual field. This interaction was significant for the female but not the male subjects, although similar patterns were observed in both sexes. Further, an interaction of Gender, Task, and Emotional Valence was found, such that the two tasks had opposite effects for the two sexes. The Face-Face task appeared to inhibit the performance of the male subjects and facilitate the performance of the female subjects in terms of reaction time. It was suggested that specifying the target emotion by an emotional face elicits a greater emotional response on the part of the subject than specification by a word, and that this emotional elicitation may result in a reactive inhibition in the male subjects and in an elaboration of the emotional response in the female subjects.     

Sexual dysfunction in women sexually abused as children

Women who were sexually victimized as children report problems in relating to both men and women. Studies have found that victims are less satisfied with their current sexual relationships and with the quality of their relationships with men in general. Fear of sex, arousal dysfunction and desire dysfunction were the most common sexual disturbances found in incest victims.The purpose of this paper was to examine the differences in sexual functioning in abused women who perceived themselves to be adjusted to the trauma of their sexual abuse and those who did not.A sample of 57 nonclinical adult women who had been sexually abused as children was studied. Data were analyzed by means of cross-tabulation, chi square statistics, analysis of variance, and multiple regression.Orgasm was experienced by 63% of the women. There was a significant interaction among ability to be an orgasmic, sexual esteem and adjustment to abuse. Over 56% of the women experienced physical discomfort during intercourse and 36% indicated that they needed sex therapy. The implications of these and other findings are discussed.     

Purdue pegboard performance of disabled and normal readers: Unimanual versus bimanual differences

Differences between dyslexics and controls in the unimanual and bimanual conditions of the peg placement section of the Purdue Pegboard Test were examined. Twenty-three disabled and twenty-three normal readers were studied. The groups were carefully screened on a neuropsychological battery. The disabled readers were comprised of a relatively homogeneous language-disordered subgroup exhibiting deficits in naming. Significant Group X Condition interactions were obtained for both raw and percentile scores and indicated that disabled readers performed worse than controls in the unimanual compared to bimanual conditions. The dyslexics performed particularly poorly compared with controls on the left hand condition. The implications of these data for hypotheses which argue for left hemisphere dysfunction, as well as those which posit interhemispheric transfer deficits in reading disabled children, are discussed.     

Visual attention skills of premature infants with and without intraventricular hemorrhage

The relation between two medical complications associated with prematurity (intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) and respiratory distress syndrome (RDS)) and visual attention skills of very low birth-weight (VLBW) infants were examined. Fourteen preterm VLBW infants with IVH and RDS, 9 preterms with RDS and no IVH, and 10 full-term infants matched on SES, sex, and race were assessed at 7 months of age (after correction for prematurity) for their ability to show a decremental response to a familiar visual stimulus and an increment in response to a novel visual stimulus. Measures of attention getting (turning toward a stimulus) and attention holding (sustained fixation on the stimulus after turning) were taken. On the attention-getting measures, IVH-RDS preterms had longer latencies than both the RDS-no-IVH preterm group and the full-term group. There were no group differences on attention-holding measures. The three groups did not differ in habituation to the familiar visual stimulus or discrimination of the novel stimulus. This study indicates that the early visual attention skills of preterm infants are differentially affected by specific types of prenatal complications.     

The frequency,sources, and correlates of sexual harassment among women in traditional male occupations

Sexual harassment has increasingly come to be recognized as a major problem confronting working women. Utilizing the results of a survey of women in traditional male occupations (N=160), this paper summarizes some new data on the amount, type, and sources of harassment experienced by this group. Interpreting these findings within the content of the larger theory of patriarchy, it also identifies and provides further clarification of some individual and organizational correlates of harassment. The data offer provisional support for recent theoretical claims that women in male-defined occupations occupy a particularly problematic position vis-`a-vis men. Over 75% of the respondents reported experiencing at least one form of harassment as compared to the 50% + generally cited for the population as a whole. Consistent with the general cultural patterns of sexual violation, incidence of harassment was found to be inversely related to the level of severity. Probably predicated at least partially on opportunity structure, peers were cited as the most frequent source of harassment, followed by supervisors, subordinates and clients. A number of individual correlates of harassment were also identified. As expected, married workers and older respondents reported lower levels of harassment. A curvilinear relationship was found to exist between length of employment and harassment. Finally, respondents who were employed as managers and engineers reported approximately equal levels of harassment, while those in the professions such as the sciences, computers, public administration, etc., reported significantly lower levels of harassment. Consistent with the thesis of organizational culpability in the prevalence and persistence of sexual harassment, individuals employed in firms perceived to have high equal employment opportunity for women reported significantly lower levels of harassment than those in firms with low opportunity.     

Perceived Marital Changes Following Marriage Guidance Training

Training to become a marriage guidance counsellor in Scotland involves a relatively demanding 18 months' programme of both didactic and experiential learning. Changes in the counsellors' marital relationships following training were evaluated using the Marital Adjustment Test and two ad hoc questionnaires. Of the 49 counsellors who (a) began training between 1976 and 1980, (b) completed the training and (c) were still counselling in February 1983, 33 participated, as did 30 of their partners. In general, the counsellors and their partners reported increased marital satisfaction following the training period, though five counsellors and two partners reported a decrease. The findings from the ad hoc questionnaires were also encouraging.