SEXIST DISCRIMINATION AS DISTANCING BEHAVIOR: I. A LABORATORY DEMONSTRATION

Attitudes toward and beliefs about women have been studied but investigations of behavior directed toward women in simple interpersonal situations have been relatively infrequent, in this study, ten previously unacquainted pairs of men, ten pairs of women, and twenty mixed–gender pairs were observed during a 10-minute task in which each pair constructed a domino structure for a contest. Under these laboratory conditions in which sexual arousal and nurturance cues were minimal it was predicted that men would behave differently toward women partners than toward men partners by manifesting avoidance or distancing behavior more frequently, but that women's responses to other–gender and same–gender partners would not be reliably different. Dependent measures were obtained by self–report and by ratings of observers who watched the dyadic interaction behind a one–way vision screen. As predicted, women in mixed–gender pairs did not differ significantly from those in same–gender pairs on any measure, but men were found to distance themselves from a woman partner (as compared to a man) by turning their faces or bodies away and making negative comments, by not following advice, and by placing dominoes closer to themselves.     

Must realists be skeptics? An Aristotelian reply to a Darwinian Dilemma

In a series of influential essays, Sharon Street has argued, on the basis of Darwinian considerations, that normative realism leads to skepticism about moral knowledge. I argue that if we begin with the account of moral knowledge provided by Aristotelian naturalism, then we can offer a satisfactory realist response to Street’s argument, and that Aristotelian naturalism can avoid challenges facing other realist responses. I first explain Street’s evolutionary argument and three of the most prominent realist responses, and I identify challenges to each of those responses. I then develop an Aristotelian response to Street. My core claim is this: Given Aristotelian naturalism’s account of moral truth and our knowledge of it, we can accept the influence of evolutionary processes on our moral beliefs, while also providing a principled, non-question-begging reason for thinking that those basic evaluative tendencies that evolution has left us with will push us toward, rather than away from, realist moral truths, so that our reliably getting things right does not require an unexplained and implausible coincidence.     

Sex-role ideology and children's drawings: Does the jack-o-lantern smile or scare?

Jack-o-lanterns drawn by kindergarteners were submitted to adult judges who were asked both to identify the child's gender from the drawing and to give reasons for the judgment made. Judges agreed that the characteristics distinguishing girls' from boys' drawings were use of details, neatness, colorfulness, smiling face, and symmetry; while boys' drawings differed from girls' in their frightening faces, messiness, incompleteness, and unconventionality. Judges were accurate about 60% of the time in identifying boys but only about 30% of the time in identifying girls, a statistically reliable difference.The cooperation of the kindergarten children in South Road (SR) and West Kingston (WK) schools, their teachers, Frances Streeter and Susan Wise, and their principals, John Fratiello and Richard Corcoran, is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks are also extended to the university students whose participation contributed to this investigation.     

Family/school strategies in dealing with the troubled child

Often a troubled child will exhibit problem behaviors in school. In many cases, these behaviors can be controlled and quickly curtailed by the teacher. In other cases, parents may have to intervene with rules and consequences. Sometimes, however, both teacher and parents fail, and the child's school problems escalate until they have reached crisis proportions. At this point, a therapist often becomes involved. The therapist can greatly enhance his or her range of possible therapeutic strategies by temporarily including the child's teacher in the hierarchical reorganization of the family. The expansion of the family hierarchy to include the teacher expedites the problem-solving process. The phases of problem escalation and proposed hierarchical reorganization are offered by way of clinical principles and case illustrations to demonstrate this viewpoint.Barbara E. DiCocco, L.C.S.W., is the Clinical Coordinator of the RICA II Satellite Program, a bio-psycho-educational day program in Frederick, Maryland and is a private practicing fmaily therapist. Ellen B. Lott, Ph.D., Counseling Psychology, is a family therapist and psychometrician in the RICA II Satellite Program. Boththerapists are grateful to Jay Haley for his suggestions and support of this work.     

Observations on the adaptation of induced motion

Induced motion (IM) was measured before and after a 10-min adaptation period during which subjects viewed the IM display without judging IM magnitude. The inducing stimulus was a rectangle, which contains both horizontal and vertical reference detail. The magnitude of IM was significantly lower following the adaptation period. This result is inconsistent with the hypothesis that adaptation of IM represents an instance of perceptual learning wherein the contribution of relative motion to motion perception is reduced. In a separate study, similar results were obtained when the inducing stimulus was a single vertical bar presented either to the left or to the right of the fixation stimulus. In addition, adaptation was obtained when the location of the inducing bar was changed during test measures, demonstrating that this effect is not specific to the retinal locus of the adaptation stimulus.     

Personal reflections: barriers and strategies in increasing diversity in psychology

In this article, six faculty and students of color who participated in a panel discussion at a symposium during the National Multicultural Conference and Summit of 2003 talk about the barriers they encountered and continue to encounter in their graduate training and places of employment. They also discuss strategies they found to be effective, enhancing, and positive and suggest other possibilities. The contributors describe their relationships with dominant-group and minority peers and talk about how issues of social class, disability, and sexual orientation as well as color have been part of their experience.     

Women as cues for men's approach or distancing behavior: A study of interpersonal sexist discrimination

The purpose of this study was to investigate interpersonal sexist discrimination, operationally defined as distancing behavior. A heterogeneous sample of participants were approached at four train stations and completed two paper and pencil simulated seating measures, a sex role attitudes measure, and provided demographic information. It was predicted that in the neutral situations presented in the seating measures where there is a choice to sit either next to a man or a woman, men would more often choose to sit next to a man but women were not expected to make seating choices based on the gender of the person seated. Men's seating choices were found to be influenced by the gender of target persons whereas women's choices were not, but men either distanced from or approached women target persons. Self-reported sex role attitudes were found not to be related to distancing behavior.We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Alyson Andrews, Nicholas Geraci, Scott Marino, Stacy Schiff, Robert Victoria, and Lisa Zamara, seniors at the University of Rhode Island, who served as investigators in this study and also assisted in the coding of data. Portions of this paper were presented at the national conference of the Association for Women in Psychology in Oakland, CA, on March 6, 1994.Requests for reprints may be sent to any of the authors at the University of Rhode Island, Department of Psychology, Kingston, RI 02881.