Relationship between parental discipline and children's ability to cope with stress

A questionnaire was developed to assess the use of disciplinary methods by parents regarding their children's approach to fearful situations. The predictive validity of this tool was evaluated by correlational analyses with the assessment of fear (behavioral, subjective, and physiological) in their children during hospitalizations for surgery. The results confirmed the usefulness of the questionnaire. Parents who reported use of positive reinforcement, modeling, and persuasion as ways of encouraging the child to deal with fearful situations had children who were low in anxiety during the actual stressful life experience. The reported use of punishment, force, or reinforcement of dependency was correlated with higher anxiety. Differences in the use of these methods by mothers and fathers are reported. The reliability of the questionnaire and its relationship to social desirability and the sex of the child are discussed.     

Spacing effects in picture memory

Three experiments were conducted to capitalize on the conclusion of Shaffer and Shiffrin (1972) that complex visual scenes are not rehearsed in testing the hypothesis that the effect of spacing on memory is due to rehearsal. In Experiment I, a list of vacation slides was presented in which both the number of repetitions and the spacing of repetitions were varied. Subsequent frequency judgments showed an effect of spacing much like that found using verbal materials. In Experiments II and III, effects of filled and unfilled spacing intervals were compared, and it was concluded that the spacing effect is primarily a function of the duration of the spacing interval. No evidence was found to support the notion that pictures are rehearsed. Rehearsal apparently cannot play the key role in an adequate, completely general explanation of the spacing effect.     

Self-Explanations: How Students Study and Use Examples in Learning to Solve Problems

The present paper analyzes the self-generated explanations (from talk-aloud protocols) that “Good” and “Poor” students produce while studying worked-out examples of mechanics problems, and their subsequent reliance on examples during problem solving. We find that “Good” students learn with understanding: They generate many explanations which refine and expand the conditions for the action parts of the example solutions, and relate these actions to principles in the text. These self-explanations are guided by accurate monitoring of their own understanding and misunderstanding. Such learning results in example-independent knowledge and in a better understanding of the principles presented in the text. “Poor” students do not generate sufficient self-explanations, monitor their learning inaccurately, and subsequently rely heavily on examples. We then discuss the role of self-explanations in facilitating problem solving, as well as the adequacy of current AI models of explanation-based learning to account for these psychological findings.     

An application of the empirical Bayes approach to directly adjusted rates: a note on suicide mapping in California

A simple, reliable, and comparable measure for suicide mapping and other health problems is needed. Because standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) may not indicate the relative meaning of their magnitudes when compared with one another, and statistical significance levels of tests for SMRs overlook the areas that have small populations, neither of these approaches provides a satisfactory index. The results using directly adjusted rates can be ordered directly according to their magnitudes. However, because of the lack of reliable estimates of local age-specific rates, the usefulness of directly adjusted rates in mapping suicide is also limited. To extend the usefulness of directly adjusted rates, an empirical Bayes approach whereby information from other areas is borrowed to improve the precision of the estimates of local age-specific rates in calculating directly adjusted rates--especially in the areas with small population sizes--is proposed. When an empirical Bayes approach was applied to the 1983 suicide data for California counties, a more reasonable conclusion than could be obtained by using directly adjusted rates was reached.     

An initial investigation of validation of the Matrix Analogies Test-Expanded Form in Ecuador

This is a first preliminary study of the validity and reliability of the Matrix Analogies Test--Expanded Form in South America. Participants were 104 Spanish-speaking children between the ages of 5 and 17 years living in Ecuador. Values of Cronbach alpha ranged from .87 to .92 for the 4 groups of items and was .95 for the total score. Raw scores on the MAT increased across ages. Scores of boys did not differ significantly from those of girls. Total test scores correlated significantly with scores on the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices (r = .62, p < .005; r = .82 before controlling for age). A principal factor analysis conducted to provide evidence of the test's construct validity indicated that all four sets of items loaded substantially on one unrotated factor, presumed to be g. In sum, these results suggest that the test is a valid and reliable nonverbal measure of general cognitive ability in this population.     

Women's Physiological Reactions to Physically Demanding Work

Eight females ( age = 20 yrs.) were subjects in an experiment consisting of two parts. The first part measured the maximal work capacity and peak work load on a treadmill at a speed of 8 kms (5 mph) with grade increasing 2 1/2% every 3 minutes. The second part measured energy expended on a treadmill walked under varying conditions of speed, grade, and load in an eight hour day of strenuous work. The results showed that these women were able to do strenuous work expending 2369 kcals for 8 1/2 hours. The energy expended exceeded that required for most physically demanding occupations. The results have implications for vocational choice research for women who have been excluded from occupations due to an assumed lack of strength.