Measuring gender differences: The expressive dimension and critique of androgyny scales

This paper calls for a new approach to the measurement of gender similarities and differences in personality. Critiques of current measures that are based on the measurement of stereotypical masculinity and femininity are reviewed, and an alternative measure is presented. It avoids many of the problems in the other scales by measuring expressiveness and instrumentality in such a way that they are not confounded with variables such as independence or autonomy. Results with this measure in five different samples are presented. These confirm our theoretical definitions of expressiveness and instrumentality, and suggest that only the expressive or relational dimension consistently differentiates samples of women and men.We thank Mary Rothbart for her insightful and constructive comments on an earlier draft; Leisha Sanders, Marcia DeCaro, Vickie Van Nortwick, and Lyn Cogswell for their clerical assistance; the Center for the Study of Women in Society for financial support; and Liza Kuecker and Patricia Gwartney-Gibbs for providing data used in the analysis. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1984 annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association.     

Kohut's case of Mr Z: overcoming countertransference in self psychology

This paper has attempted to discover if the two analyses of Mr. Z by Kohut do in fact substantiate the clinical efficacy of his theoretical model. A brief overview was presented, as were critical assessments. The major point was developed, that a creative working-through of a complementary countertransference was largely responsible for the success of a second analysis after a first phase was seriously undercut by interfering material which rigidified the therapist's interpretation. It was concluded by noting how Kohut's need to overcome the countertransference played a vital role in catalyzing the evolution of his new theory.     

On the longevity of behavioral interventions for challenging behavior

The capacity for a treatment to maintain its effects over time may be the most critical component of behavioral interventions for challenging behavior as treatments that fail to persist are likely to be of little value to society. We reviewed the quality and quantity of different types of post-intervention data for the treatment of challenging behavior in studies published over the last 7 years. We found that for the majority of participants at least one measure of maintenance, fading, or follow-up was reported but with limited information regarding the quality of those measures. Reports of secondary variables related to post-intervention data (e.g., latency to measurement) were also uncommon. We discuss possible explanations for the paucity of post-intervention data, barriers to obtaining post-intervention data, strategies for obtaining these data, and implications for the external validity of behavioral interventions for challenging behavior. We provide recommendations for increasing the probability that post-intervention data are included in applied research on challenging behavior.     

Extensionality, underdetermination and indeterminacy

I am grateful to Burton Dreben, Warren Goldfarb, Don Gustafson, Jim Higginbotham, Jerrold Katz, Joe Levine, Ted Morris, Nick Pappas, Hilary Putnam, Georges Rey and Bob Richardson for helpful discussions and comments on the issues discussed in this paper. Also I thank an anonymous reviewer for Erkenntnis for helpful comments.     

SUBLIMINAL EXPOSURE TO DEATH-RELATED STIMULI INCREASES DEFENSE OF THE CULTURAL WORLDVIEW

Abstract— Three experiments reported here provide empirical support for the hypothesis derived from terror management theory that unconscious concerns about death motivate allegiance to cultural beliefs, Study 1, contrasted exposure to a subliminal death-related stimulus, a standard mortality-salience treatment, and a neutral subliminal stimulus, and found that both the subliminal and the standard reminder of mortality led to more favorable evaluations of people who praised subjects' cultural worldview and more unfavorable evaluations of those who challenged it Study 2, replicated this finding by comparing the effects of exposure to subliminal death stimuli and subliminal pain stimuli. Study 3, contrasted subliminal death stimuli, supraliminal death stimuli, and subliminal pain stimuli and found that only subliminal death stimuli produced these effects.     

Judging a book by its cover: Interpretative effects of content on problem-solving transfer

We examine how cover stories of isomorphic problems affect transfer. Existing models posit that people retain content in problem representations and that similarities and differences between the “undeleted” cover stories might interfere with recognition of structural similarities.We propose that cover stories can affect transfer in another way—by inducing semantic knowledge that modifies problem structures. Two experiments examined how people represent and solve permutation problems dealing with random assignment of elements from one set to elements from another set. Although the problems were structurally isomorphic, cover stories involving different pairs of element sets led subjects to abstract different “interpreted structures.” Problems involving objects and people (e.g., prizes and students) led subjects to abstract an asymmetric structure (“get”) and problems involving similar sets of people (e.g., doctors and doctors) led subjects to abstract a symmetric structure (“pair”). Transfer was mediated by similarities and differences between the interpreted structures of the learned and the novel problems.