Sibling Conflict Resolution Skills: Assessment and Training

Sibling conflict can rise to the level of a clinical problem. In Phase 1 a lengthy behavioral role-play analog sampling child reactions to normal sibling conflicts was successfully shortened. In Phase 2 normal children who lacked sibling conflict resolution skills were randomly assigned to a Training or Measurement Only condition. Training consisted of five clinic sessions focusing on verbal reasoning, assertiveness, and acceptance skills. Trained children outperformed Measurement Only children on the shortened role-play test. Parents of trained children, but not untrained children, perceived improved social competence in the home. The project provides an empirical foundation for future research with aggressive siblings.     

Pigeons and people select efficient routes when solving a one-way "traveling salesperson" task

The authors presented people (Experiment 1) and pigeons (Experiments 2 and 3) with a large number of 1-way traveling salesperson problems that consisted of 3, 4, and 5 identical stimuli (nodes) on a computer monitor. The sequence of nodes that each traveler selected was recorded, and the distance of the route was subsequently determined. The routes the pigeons and people selected were reliably more efficient than those used by a Monte Carlo model given the same problems. The pigeons' routes were significantly less efficient than a nearest neighbor model of performance, however. In Experiment 3, pigeons were required to select a route that was within the top 33% of all possible solutions for a given problem. The pigeons' solutions were significantly more efficient than those observed in Experiment 2, in which the behavioral criterion was not imposed. The mechanisms that pigeons and people may have been using to solve the traveling salesperson problems are discussed.     

Managing Workplace Conflict in the United States and Hong Kong

We propose that managers have norms (standards of appropriate behavior) for resolving conflict, that these norms are culturally based, and that they explain cultural differences in conflict management outcomes. We confirm that the traditionally American norms of discussing parties' interests and synthesizing multiple issues were exhibited more strongly by American managers than by their Hong Kong Chinese counterparts. In addition, we confirm that the traditionally Chinese norms of concern for collective interests and concern for authority appeared more strongly among Hong Kong Chinese managers than among their American counterparts. American managers were more likely than Hong Kong Chinese managers, to resolve a greater number of issues and reach more integrative outcomes, while Hong Kong Chinese managers were more likely to involve higher management in conflict resolution. Culture had a significant effect on whether parties selected an integrative outcome rather than an outcome that involved distribution, compromise, higher management, or no resolution at all. Conflict norms explained the cultural differences that existed between reaching an integrative outcome and reaching an outcome involving distribution, compromise, or higher management; however, conflict norms did not fully explain the cultural differences that existed between reaching an integrative outcome and reaching no resolution.     

Movement patterns of persons with HIV receiving treatment in public clinics in the Southern Health Region,Puerto Rico

A survey conducted among 187 HIV-infected patients from publicly supported HIV clinics in the Puerto Rican Southern Health Region (SHR) failed to substantiate health planners' concern that this group travels frequently to the US to receive medical services. Respondents were questioned about all places of residence and all sites of HIV treatment in the past 12 months. Movement was defined as being anywhere outside of the SHR for 2 weeks or longer. 7% of the sample had moved at least once in the past year; 4% had moved outside the SHR but within Puerto Rico, while 3% had been in the continental US. Compared to the heterosexual risk group, intravenous drug users and men who have sex with men were 7-8 times more likely to have moved. The attainment of at least a high school education was also significantly and independently associated with increased probability of movement. Medical care was not identified by any of these respondents as the primary reason for travel. 58% indicated they were in their current place of residence to be near family, friends, and relatives. Both the small sample size and the low socioeconomic status of respondents may have limited the ability of this study to identify the so-called "air bridge," however.     

The Correlation Between Depression and Headache: The Role Played by Generational Changes in Female Achievement

The relationship between depression and somatic symptoms such as headache has never been explained. Both depression and headache appear to become more prevalent among women than among men only for cohorts that reach adolescence during periods of great change in opportunities for a female's academic achievement. In Studies 1a and 1b, the same pattern was found to apply to the correlation between depression and headache. In Studies 2a and 2b, self-report measures of depression and headache were found to share significant variance only among female adolescents who reported concerns regarding the limited achievements of their mothers. These females may view the roles of adult women as being limited and may experience stress and low self-esteem associated with depressive and somatic symptomatology.     

Gender differences in depressive symptomatology: The role played by “anxious somatic depression” associated with gender-related achievement concerns

In the studies reported here, females were more likely than males to report high levels of depression accompanied by anxiety and somatic symptomatology such as disordered eating and headache, but not more likely to report depression unaccompanied by these symptoms. This gender difference in depression prevalence and the symptomatology associated with depression was due to a subgroup of females who scored high on scales comprised of items measuring concerns about the limitations placed on their achievement (sample item: “More people would pay attention to my ideas if I were male”) or on their mothers (sample: “When you were growing up, how much did your mother feel limited by being female?”) due to responses to their gender.     

Social desirability in the bedroom: Role of approval motivation in sexual relationships

One-hundred and twelve unmarried participants completed a questionnaire that examined the relationship between gender and approval motivation (assessed by the Marlowe—Crowne Social Desirability Scale) and college students' stereotypes of and experiences with power in sexual encounters. Regardless of approval motivation, students described men as using power predominantly to have sex and women as using power predominantly to avoid having sex. However, interactions between need for approval and gender suggested that high-need-approval women might be having more experiences with sex and power in the bedroom than high-need-approval men. These results are discussed in light of Elkind's hypothesis that adolescent behavior conforms to an imaginary audience of peers and the Crowne-Marlowe model of approval motivation.An earlier version of this article was presented in the symposium Gender and Power Strategies: Contrasting Models and Applications, at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, August 24–28, 1981. The authors wish to express appreciation to J. W. McCormick for his assistance with data analysis and to E. Allgeier for her helpful comments on a previous draft.