The institutional turn in professional ethics

The traditional ideal in which professionals alone or in small groups serve their patients and clients in accord with a public-spirited goal is giving way to practice in which professionals serve in organizations that value mainly their expertise and expect them to act in accord with the organization's goals. The study of professional ethics has not kept pace with this trend and, as a result, has neglected the institutional aspects of ethical problems. I focus attention on these aspects by considering a case that raises 2 problems that are particularly relevant in the context in which professionals now practice: the problem of representation (whom does the professional act for) and the problem of authority (who has the right to make the policy for the institution).     

Moral hypocrisy: appearing moral to oneself without being so.

How can people appear moral to themselves when they fail to act morally? Two self-deception strategies were considered: (a) misperceive one's behavior as moral and (b) avoid comparing one's behavior with moral standards. In Studies 1 and 2 the authors documented the importance of the 2nd strategy but not the 1st. Among participants who flipped a coin to assign themselves and another participant "fairly" to tasks, even a clearly labeled coin that prevented misperception did not produce a fair result (Study 1). Inducing behavior-standard comparison through self-awareness did (Study 2). Study 3 qualified the self-awareness effect: When moral standards were not salient before acting, self-awareness no longer increased alignment of behavior with standards. Instead, it increased alignment of standards with behavior and produced less moral action. Overall, results showed 3 different faces of moral hypocrisy.     

Television Cartoons: Do Children Notice It's a Boy's World?

This study involved structured interviews with 89 children ranging in age from 4 to 9 years to determine how they perceived the presentation of male and female characters in cartoons. Approximately 85% of the respondents were Caucasian, and 15% were African American. Consistent with a recent content analysis of cartoons, the children perceived most cartoon characters in stereotypical ways—boys were violent and active and girls were domestic, interested in boys, and concerned with appearances. Significant relationships were observed between noticing gender-stereotypic behaviors in the cartoon characters and reporting more traditional job expectations for self and others. The type of cartoon preferred by the children and whether their mother worked outside the home seemed to be related to their perceptions.     

Evaluation of an Air Force Child Physical Abuse Prevention Project Using the Reliable Change Index

Three hundred and seventy-nine parents at 25 Air Force bases participated in a collaborative child physical abuse prevention project designed by the United States Air Force Family Advocacy Program and Father Flanagan's Boys' Home (Boys Town). These participants were active duty or civilian employee parents and their spouses who completed the Boys Town Common Sense Parenting ® program as part of a comprehensive prevention effort. We hypothesized that participants would report decreased child behavior problems, improved relationships with family members, and reduced risk for child physical abuse after attending parenting sessions. Results supported this hypothesis. The data were also analyzed to determine the frequencies of individual parents who made statistically reliable changes on the dependent measures using Jacobson's Reliable Change Index. Nineteen to 30% of the participants reported significant improvement in the areas assessed. Parents who improved in abuse risk were at a higher level of risk and were less satisfied with family relationships prior to their participation than those who did not change. Implications for prevention of child physical abuse and future directions for research are discussed.     

Expectancies generated by melodic intervals: Evaluation of principles of melodic implication in a melody-completion task

Bottom-up principles of melodic implication (Narmour, 1990) were evaluated in a melody-completion task. One hundred subjects (50 low training; 50 high training in music) were presented each of eight melodic intervals. For each interval, the subjects were asked to compose a short melody on a piano keyboard, treating the interval provided as the first two notes of the melody. For each melody, the first response—the note immediately following the initial interval—was analyzed. Multinomial log linear analyses were conducted to assess the extent to which responses could be predicted by Narmour’s (1990, 1992) bottom-up principles. Support was found for all of Narmour’s principles, and two additional predictors based on implied tonal structure. Responses of low- and high-training groups were similar.     

Helplessness deficits in students: The role of motivational orientation

This paper includes research comprised of field studies and laboratory experiments to examine our diathesis-stress model that students with an extrinsic motivational orientation given evaluative/controlling directives are at risk for maladaptive achievement patterns, including performance, cognitive, and emotional deficits of helplessness. The findings, using our multimethod approach, confirmed our assumptions and indicated that motivational orientation is a more reliable predictor of helplessness than either attributions or perceptions of competence. The pattern of data obtained across studies is discussed in light of other theoretical approaches to understanding achievement patterns in students.The research reported here was supported, in part, by Grant No. MN45566 from NIMH. Address all correspondence to Ann K. Boggiano, Department of Psychology, Campus Box 345, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0345.     

Crime,social status,and alienation

Explored the ecological consequences of crime and violence. Selected to reflect alienation between individuals and their settings, the criterion measures were fear of crime, avoidance behavior, anomia, and external locus of control. Exposure to crime was assessed at both individual and community levels. Using data from a large statewide sample of adult Kentuckians, hierarchical regression analyses were performed in which the criterion variables were regressed on measures of social status (e.g., education, sex), crime, and interactions between the two. The pattern of results highlighted the pervasive consequences of experiencing personal violence; effects of property crime and community-level exposure were more limited in scope. Social status also exerted strong effects on the criterion measures and modified many of the observed effects of crime. Implications of the study for interventions are discussed.     

Asymmetry of perceived key movement in chorale sequences: Converging evidence from a probe-tone analysis

Summary In a probe-tone experiment, two groups of listeners — one trained, the other untrained, in traditional music theory — rated the goodness of fit of each of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale to four-voice harmonic sequences. Sequences were 12 simplified excerpts from Bach chorales, 4 nonmodulating, and 8 modulating. Modulations occurred either one or two steps in either the clockwise or the counterclockwise direction on the cycle of fifths. A consistent pattern of probe-tone ratings was obtained for each sequence, with no significant differences between listener groups. Two methods of analysis (Fourier analysis and regression analysis) revealed a directional asymmetry in the perceived key movement conveyed by modulating sequences. For a given modulation distance, modulations in the counterclockwise direction effected a clearer shift in tonal organization toward the final key than did clockwise modulations. The nature of the directional asymmetry was consistent with results reported for identification and rating of key change in the sequences (Thompson & Cuddy, 1989 a). Further, according to the multiple-regression analysis, probe-tone ratings did not merely reflect the distribution of tones in the sequence. Rather, ratings were sensitive to the temporal structure of the tonal organization in the sequence.     

Judgments of moving and intending to move in a timed-response task

Summary Subjects performed a timed-response task in which they attempted to synchronize a rapid flexion of the index finger of their preferred hand with the last of a train of four regularly spaced acoustic clicks. The task was used to stabilize the execution time of a simple voluntary response in order to facilitate psychophysical judgments about the subjects' perception of having responded and of having intended to respond. In the first experiment, male subjects (N = 6) adjusted the appearance time of a reference stimulus (a brief percutaneous pulse to the responding finger) until it appeared to be simultaneous with their perception of having made the response. All subjects adjusted the reference stimulus to appear after response onset during the latter half of the force impulse. This finding suggests that the perception of having responded is based on peripheral feedback from the response. In the second experiment, male subjects (N = 6) performed the same motor task, but adjusted the time of the reference stimulus so that it appeared to be simultaneous with their intention to respond. Two subjects were not able to do the task successfully; the remaining four subjects adjusted the reference stimulus to appear from 101 to 145 ms before response onset. This finding suggests that the intention to respond is perceptually separable from the response itself and occurs at a measurable time before response onset.     

Finnish and American university students compared on a verbal aggression construct.

232 Finnish and 145 American university students showed no significant differences on Infante and Wigley's measure of verbal aggressiveness. In keeping with general stereotypes, the men of both cultures (88 Finns, 86 Americans) were more verbally aggressive than were the women (144 Finns, 59 Americans).