The Relationship Between Childhood Teasing and Later Interpersonal Functioning

The current study explored the relationship between recall of a form of bullying, specifically childhood teasing, and later interpersonal functioning in a sample of 414 college students. It was predicted that memories of frequent teasing during childhood would be associated with fewer close friends, a more anxious attachment style in the context of romantic relationships, and lower social self-esteem in early adulthood. Although recalled-teasing was not associated with number of friends later in life, it was related to other interpersonal difficulties. Specifically, frequent teasing was associated with less comfort with intimacy and closeness, less comfort in trusting and depending on others, a greater degree of worry about being unloved or abandoned in relationships, and poorer social self-esteem. The relationship of these difficulties to specific domains of teasing was also explored.     

The Social Production of Altruism: Motivations for Caring Action in a Low-Income Urban Community

Contemporary social science paints a bleak picture of inner-city relational life. Indeed, the relationships of low-income, urban-residing Americans are represented as rife with distress, violence and family disruption. At present, no body of social scientific work systematically examines the factors that promote loving or selfless interactions among low-income, inner-city American individuals, families and communities. In an effort to fill that gap, this ethnographic study examined the motivations for altruism among a sample of adults (n = 40) who reside in an economically distressed housing community (i.e., housing project) in New York City. Content analyses of interviews indicated that participants attributed altruism to an interplay between 14 motives that were then ordered into four overarching categories of motives: (1) needs-centered motives, (2) norm-based motives deriving from religious/spiritual ideology, relationships and personal factors, (3) abstract motives (e.g., humanism), and (4) sociopolitical factors. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Animal innovation defined and operationalized

Innovation is a key component of most definitions of culture and intelligence. Additionally, innovations may affect a species' ecology and evolution. Nonetheless, conceptual and empirical work on innovation has only recently begun. In particular, largely because the existing operational definition (first occurrence in a population) requires long-term studies of populations, there has been no systematic study of innovation in wild animals. To facilitate such study, we have produced a new definition of innovation: Innovation is the process that generates in an individual a novel learned behavior that is not simply a consequence of social learning or environmental induction. Using this definition, we propose a new operational approach for distinguishing innovations in the field. The operational criteria employ information from the following sources: (1) the behavior's geographic and local prevalence and individual frequency; (2) properties of the behavior, such as the social role of the behavior, the context in which the behavior is exhibited, and its similarity to other behaviors; (3) changes in the occurrence of the behavior over time; and (4) knowledge of spontaneous or experimentally induced behavior in captivity. These criteria do not require long-term studies at a single site, but information from multiple populations of a species will generally be needed. These criteria are systematized into a dichotomous key that can be used to assess whether a behavior observed in the field is likely to be an innovation.     

Are Nativists a Different Kind of Democrat? Democratic Values and “Outsiders” in Japan

This paper combines three elements: a discussion of democratic values and the status of outsiders in Japanese political culture, the development of new measures to examine sensitive issues of nativism and foreigner perception in Japan, and an empirical exploration of the relationship between democratic values and antipathy toward outsiders. Two forms of democratic orientation were investigated in a sample of about 1,000 university students in Japan: a defensive version, which adheres to the formalistic requirements of democracy but is exclusionary and illiberal, and a universalist version that is liberal and tolerant. A defensive orientation is associated with greater chauvinism, a greater sense of threat emanating from foreigners, and a heightened anxiety about economic competition. A universalist orientation is associated with low perceived threat and low chauvinism, a lack of fear of economic competition, and a positive view of the cultural contributions of outsiders. Nativism may indeed be compatible with democratic values, but only with the defensive, exclusionary form. In short, the defensive form is democracy for xenophobes. Such an orientation is not unique to Japan, but is likely to be found in developing democracies as well as in advanced democracies that feel threatened.     

Transformation to achieve a longitudinally stationary factor pattern matrix

Meredith's method of extracting a factorially invariant solution is adapted to longitudinal settings. An explorational estimation procedure is presented which attempts to identify the longitudinal factor components of an across occasion variance-covariance matrix. This is effected by transforming an initial factor pattern matrix to stationarity. The estimation is performed in two parts, the first employing a stepwise algorithm to ascertain the dimensionality and existence of the longitudinal components and the second being the direct estimation of the existing factor pattern.     

The relation of lightness and stereoscopic depth in a simple viewing situation

The effect of stereoscopic depth on perceived lightness was studied using a simple, achromatic stimulus arrangement. In Experiment 1, depth/lightness interactions were sought between a single test field and a single induction field. In Experiment 2, depth/lightness interactions were looked for between a single test field and two induction fields. Stimuli were presented on a computer screen and viewed with a stereoscope. The subjects reported perceived lightness of the achromatic test field by rating its apparent blackness along a dimension of 0%–100%. In Experiment 1, they reported lightness judgments of the test field across 13 perceived depth levels and 8 contrast levels. In Experiment 2, they gave lightness judgments of the test field across 7 perceived depth levels and 16 contrast levels. We were particularly interested in observing the generality of Gilchrist’s coplanar ratio hypothesis. The results showed that when stereopsis and contrast levels are the available cues, depth and lightness percepts are independent, and it is retinal ratios, not coplanar ratios, that dictate lightness perception. We conclude that before the relative depth location of an object is determined, its lightness value is known through sensory-level processes.     

Methods for evaluating empirical bayes point estimates of latent trait scores

Empirical Bayes point estimates of latent trait scores, derived under the assumptions of one of several test theory models, display a certain degree of instability unless the sample size is sufficiently large. A measure of this instability over repeated sampling is the distribution of the overall expected squared error loss which converges, both in probability and in the mean, to the minimum (Bayes) overall expected loss as sample size increases. An asymptotic distribution theory is developed, and the resulting large sample approximation is compared with results obtained from simulated data. Attention is also given to the effects of using a smoothing procedure.     

Structure in semantic memory: A probabilistic approach using a continuous response task

In the continuous response (CR) task, the subject is given the name of a familiar category and must respond with category examples within a fixed time limit. The response sequence and the interresponse times are the measured variables. A general model is proposed for performance in the CR task. The time taken to generate a response is identified with the shortest search time from among a set of simultaneous search processes. Each response has a generation probability that is a function of the parameters governing the search process durations. Data involving the category states in the United States are used to test the model. The model accounts for the performance of nearly all individuals in these data.This article is based on a dissertation completed at the University of California-Berkeley in partial fullfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree in psychology. Portions of the article were presented at the joint meeting of the Psychometric and Classification Societies (June 1984) and at the meeting of the Society for Mathematical Psychology (August 1984). The authors wish to thank Barbara Mellers, Juliet Schaffer, Steve Palmer, and Eleanor Rosch for helpful comments.     

Presentation modality and proactive interference in short-term retention using a mixed-morality distractor task

Two experiments investigated the release from PI following a shift in mode of presentation of the study words. In each experiment, the interpolated task required processing of both auditory (A) and visual (V) information. The results were the same with mixed lists (Experiment I) and with independent groups (Experiment II): A release from PI was obtained following an A to V shift but not following a V to A shift. It was concluded that the mixed-modality filler task has functional characteristics very similar to those of an A filler and that the filler task influences the memory code for study items.