Anxiety and locus of conflict in emotionally disturbed children

The State Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC) and the Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (CMAS) were administered to 50 emotionally disturbed children (40 males and 10 females). In addition, ratings on a Locus of Conflict Rating Scale were obtained from their special education teachers. Significant correlations were obtained between all anxiety measures. However, anxiety, as measured by the CMAS, A State and A Trait, was not significantly correlated with the ratings of internalization, externalization, or the total maladjustment index. Girls reported greater anxiety than boys on the CMAS and the STAIC A Trait scale, while boys were rated as significantly higher on the internalization and externalization scales, and in total maladjustment.     

A field experiment testing the utility of regulatory fit messages for promoting physical activity

Guided by regulatory focus theory, we examined whether messages tailored to individuals’ promotion- or prevention-goal orientation (regulatory focus) elicit positive thoughts and feelings about physical activity and increase participation in physical activity. Inactive participants (N = 206) were assigned randomly to receive either promotion-focused or prevention-focused messages encouraging physical activity. Two weeks after message exposure, we assessed participants’ thoughts and feelings about physical activity and physical activity behavior. Tailored messages that fit individuals’ regulatory focus led to greater physical activity participation and more positive feelings than non-fit messages, particularly in the promotion-focused condition. Furthermore, positive retrospective feelings about physical activity mediated the effects of the tailored messages on behavior. These findings provide support for regulatory focus theory and direction for enhancing the effectiveness of messages encouraging physical activity and other health behaviors.     

Toxic Handshake—A Case Study of the Ku Klux Klan

The Ku Klux Klan represents a virulent belief system that continues to spawn hatred toward non-Whites, especially African Americans and Jews. This non-risk-free research or autobiographical case study consists of three exposures to the Klan during a time span of fifty years. Part I takes place during a small town parade in Missouri, 1954. Nearly forty years later Part II begins in Stone Mountain, Georgia, and develops in four other locations, including Freud's London and Vienna homes. Part III occurs at a recent gun show in North Georgia. Collectively, these experiences of hatred illustrate a social cancer that is metastasizing in our country. White supremacy is an insidious psychosocial pathology that faces the pastoral counselor of today, particularly in rural communities scattered throughout the southern and midwestern United States.     

Learning what feelings to desire: socialization of ideal affect through children's storybooks

Previous findings suggest that cultural factors influence ideal affect (i.e., the affective states that people ideally want to feel). Three studies tested the hypothesis that cultural differences in ideal affect emerge early in life and are acquired through exposure to storybooks. In Study 1, the authors established that consistent with previous findings, European American preschoolers preferred excited (vs. calm) states more (indexed by activity and smile preferences) and perceived excited (vs. calm) states as happier than Taiwanese Chinese preschoolers. In Study 2, it was observed that similar differences were reflected in the pictures (activities, expressions, and smiles) of best-selling storybooks in the United States and Taiwan. Study 3 found that across cultures, exposure to exciting (vs. calm) storybooks altered children's preferences for excited (vs. calm) activities and their perceptions of happiness. These findings suggest that cultural differences in ideal affect may be due partly to differential exposure to calm and exciting storybooks.     

Relational Biology of Symbiosis

I formulate in relational terms the ubiquitous biological interaction of symbiosis. I explicate the topology of the different modes of relational interactions of (M, R)-networks, the entailment diagrams that model the host and the symbiont. These modes all have biological realizations as various categories of symbiotic relationships, ranging from mutualism to parasitism to infection.     

A program for studies of altered sleep-wake schedules and performance

Studies of the effects of variations in sleep-wake schedules on human performance tend to run for several days and involve extensive repeated testing in order to take into account time-of-day and cumulative cross-day effects (Broughton & Ogilvie, 1992; Monk, 1991; Webb, 1982). Such research typically addresses issues pertaining to sustained operations and shift work and is often more appropriately conducted in the field. The present paper describes a computer-automated system designed to administer sleep-wake schedules and performance tests, and to store results of such testing in file formats that are easy to access with commercially available statistical packages.     

JOB ANALYSIS MODELS AND JOB CLASSIFICATION

Recent research in job classification has focused on the appropriate data analysis model for analyzing the similarities and differences among jobs. In the present research, the data analysis model is held constant, and the type of job analysis data is varied to examine the effect on the resulting job classification decisions. Seven foremen jobs in a chemical processing plant were analyzed using three different levels of job analysis data: task-oriented, worker-oriented, and abilities-oriented. All three sets of data were analyzed using the same hierarchical clustering procedure. Results indicated that the number and type of resulting job clusters was clearly dictated by the type of job analysis data that was used to compare the foremen jobs. Practical implications of these findings are presented.     

The Primal Scene Phenomenon: Witnessing Parental Sexual Activity and Sociosexual Orientation

Sigmund Freud coined the term urszene—or “primal scene”—to describe the experience of children witnessing their parents engaging in sexual activity. We examined the historical context in which the primal scene emerged, considered contemporary views of the primal scene, and conducted two empirical studies (N = 961, 1390) to investigate Freud’s proposition that children who witness the primal scene would later be prone to “attacks of falling physically in love,” which we operationalized as sociosexual orientation. In both studies, individuals who witnessed the primal scene as children had a more unrestricted sociosexual orientation than those who did not. Additionally, men had a more unrestricted sociosexual orientation than women. Altogether, these results suggest a possible link between primal scene exposure and sociosexual orientation. In contrast to psychoanalytic theories, we offer psychodynamic and normative social explanations of the primal scene phenomenon.     

Women's Attitudes Toward Affirmative Action: Putting Actions in Context1

Although women typically favor affirmative action, they do exhibit a range of reactions to affirmative action programs. To understand the diversity of reactions, the present study proposed an examination of various forms of affirmative action in the context of the discrimination problem such actions were designed to address. In Study 1, 60 female university students were presented with one of six scenarios describing a situation of discrimination against women, followed by a series of potential affirmative action response options which participants rated in terms of their level of endorsement. Analyses of variance showed that, despite the range of discrimination scenarios, some of which presented extreme cases of discrimination against women, respondents consistently endorsed nondiscrimination measures, and opposed affirmative action strategies involving preferential treatment. Study 2, which preselected 43 women who valued social equality, replicated this finding and found that these results were not due to women not perceiving the presence of collective discrimination. Study 3 examined the attitudes of women in a law and security police training stream (n = 19), whose vulnerability to employment discrimination, both as a group and personally, would be salient. The women in this study endorsed all forms of affirmative action, including explicit preferential treatment in the hiring of women police officers. The implications of these results for the consideration and implementation of affirmative action programs are discussed.