OBSERVATIONS ON CONTACT STIMULATION PROVIDED YOUNG CHILDREN IN SELECTED AREAS OF GREECE,USA, AND USSR

This study was a cross-cultural investigation of contact stimulation, a variable known to be important to the developmental status of young children. An observational checklist was employed to examine objectively physical contacts provided young children by their caretakers in three modern western societies. Forty-nine caretaker-child pairs were studied for a total of 635 minutes in free-play situations in selected areas of Greece, the United States and Russia. Contacts designated as caretaking (designed to satisfy needs of children), pacifying (designed to please children), retrieval (designed to remove children physically from undesirable situations or places), and punishment were observed and measured. Results showed that American caretakers provided their charges with significantly fewer contacts than did caretakers in either of the other two societies studied. No differences were found either in physical retrieval or punishment contacts among the three groups. Implications for childrearing in all three societies were discussed.     

Sexual Aggression and Control In Dating Relationships

This paper examines the effect of interpersonal control on sexual aggression while dating. A sample of white, heterosexual, college dating relationships is examined. Data are collected on men and women who inflict and sustain sexual aggression. The results indicate that, net of other effects, interpersonal control is a significant predictor of both men and women inflicting and women sustaining sexual aggression. It is argued that future research should look more to interaction patterns among couples rather than viewing sexual aggression as the result of men demonstrating their masculinity.     

Weak stimulus generalization using sinusoidal gratings: A cautionary note in animal psychophysics

Psychophysical techniques involving operant and classical conditioning are used commonly to determine the visual thresholds of nonverbal subjects. Typically, subjects are conditioned to respond to a particular stimulus, and once trained sufficiently, the subject’s sensitivity to this and similar stimuli can be determined by decreasing the stimulus intensity until the animal no longer responds. However, this assumes that the animal’s tendency to respond correlates with its sensory abilities. Stimulus generalization to sinusoidal gratings of different spatial frequencies was examined in goldfish. Subjects were classically conditioned to suppress respiration upon presentation of a sinusoidal grating. Animals’ learning curves to each spatial frequency grating were compared in order to determine whether the animals generalized across stimuli. Results indicate that fish show weak stimulus generalization across spatial frequencies. Also, the shape of the contrast sensitivity function, a common measure of the animal’s visual capabilities, is distorted by insufficient training. We conclude that when the goal is to obtain accurate data on visual capabilities, either subjects should be trained to each stimulus to be tested or their generalization gradients should be measured.     

The Impact of Gender on Productivity and Satisfaction Among Medical School Psychologists

The impact of gender on productivity and satisfaction was examined among a random sample of 293 psychologists employed as faculty members in medical schools. Forty-one percent of the respondents were female. Males were older than females, had worked in a medical school longer, had higher academic ranks, held more administrative positions, were more likely to be tenured, and earned higher salaries. When years of employment as a psychologist were statistically controlled, there were no gender differences in productivity, as measured by publications, presentations, and grant awards; however, gender differences in salary remained. Females were less satisfied than males with regard to salary, promotion opportunities, and overall respect. Results are discussed within the context of the changing gender composition within psychology and the changing demands within the health care system.     

Psychiatric and Psychological Morbidity as a Function of Adaptive Disability in Preschool Children with Aggressive and Hyperactive-Impulsive-Inattentive Behavior

Children with high levels of aggressive-hyperactive-impulsive-inattentive behavior (AHII; n = 154) were subdivided into those with (n = 38) and without (n = 116) adaptive disability (+AD/–AD) defined as a discrepancy between expected versus actual adaptive functioning. They were compared to each other and a control group of 47 normal children. Both AHII groups were more likely to have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder, and conduct disorder than control children; more symptoms of general psychopathology; greater social skills deficits; more parental problems; and lower levels of academic achievement skills. Compared to AHII – AD children, AHII + AD children had (1) more conduct disorder; (2) greater inattention and aggression symptoms; (3) more social problems, less academic competence, and poorer self-control at school; (4) more severe and pervasive behavior problems across multiple home and school settings; and (5) parents with poorer child management practices. Thus, adaptive disability has utility as a marker for more severe and pervasive impairments in AHII children.     

MORALIZATION AND BECOMING A VEGETARIAN:

Abstract —We describe a rather common process that we call moralization, in which objects or activities that were previously morally neutral acquire a moral component. Moralization converts preferences into values, and in doing so influences cross-generational transmission (because values are passed more effectively in families than are preferences), increases the likelihood of internalization, invokes greater emotional response, and mobilizes the support of governmental and other cultural institutions. In recent decades, we claim, cigarette smoking in America has become moralized. We support our claims about some of the consequences of moralization with an analysis of differences between health and moral vegetarians. Compared with health vegetarians, moral vegetarians find meat more disgusting, offer more reasons in support of their meat avoidance, and avoid a wider range of animal foods. However, contrary to our prediction, liking for meat is about the same in moral and health vegetarians.     

Repetition of previously novel melodies sometimes increases both remember and know responses in recognition memory

Recognition memory for previously novel melodies was tested in three experiments in which subjects usedremember andknow responses to report experiences of recollection, or of familiarity in the absence of recollection, for each melody they recognized. Some of the melodies were taken from Polish folk songs and presented vocally, but without the words. Others were taken from obscure pieces of classical music, presented as single-line melodies. Prior to the test, the melodies were repeated for varying numbers of study trials. Repetition of the Polish melodies increased both remember and know responses, while repetition of classical melodies increased remember but not know responses. When subjects were instructed to report guesses, guess responses were inversely related to remember and know responses and there were more guesses to lures than to targets. These findings establish that remembering and knowing are fully independent functionally and, by the same token, they provide further evidence against the idea that response exclusivity causes increases in remembering to force decreases in knowing. The findings also suggest that simultaneous increases in remembering and knowing occurred because the Polish melodies came from a genre for which the subjects had relatively little previous experience.     

Managing occupational stress: A national and international perspective

Theoretical models of occupational stress are important because they suggest a focus for intervention, and inform practice. The gap between research and practice was exposed most recently by Burke (1993) claiming little awareness of research findings by practitioners (managers, consultants, clinicians), little intervention activity being undertaken at the organizational level, little research being undertaken to determine the effectiveness of individual level interventions, and only modest use of work research findings for intervention and policy development (p. 85). This paper discusses the issue of intervention, and examines values, assumptions and the politics of applied research. A critical review of the evaluation studies of individual vs. organizational level interventions is undertaken and finally the problem of occupational stress as a national and international issue is considered.     

Self-Concept Clarity and Preferred Coping Styles

ABSTRACT This study examined the relation between self-concept clarity and (a) preferred general coping styles, (b) coping with a specific event, and (c) coping with a specific ongoing situation in 175 undergraduate students. The results of the regression analyses for general coping styles indicated that self-concept clarity made a reliable but weak positive contribution to active coping styles (e.g., planning and taking action) and a strong negative contribution to passive coping styles (e.g., denial). The unique negative contribution of self-concept clarity to passive coping was replicated with respect to coping with a specific event and to coping with a specific ongoing situation. However, the weaker positive contribution of self-concept clarity to active coping was not replicated with respect to coping with specific events or specific ongoing situations.