MARRIAGE AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS

This study examined gender differences in the configuration of components of intimacy in marriage and in the relationship of marriage to depression in a community sample of 260 men and women. We hypothesized that women's report of marital intimacy would include a distinct self-disclosure component, whereas this would be part of companionship in men's report of intimacy. Also, using self-in-relation theory, we hypothesized that self-esteem level would mediate the relationship between marital quality and depression for women but would moderate this relationship for men. Both predictions were upheld, suggesting a need to reformulate current models of the role of marital quality in depression to better capture the influence of gender.     

The influence of parents and family context on children's involvement in household tasks

To determine the relative impact of a number of family variables on children's performance of gender-typed household tasks, this study took account of the gender of the child, the gender of a sibling within the same age range (8–14 years), whether a first or second child and three parental variables: the degree of encouragement given to perform masculineand femininetasks, parental involvement in the same tasks, and parents' general egalitarianism. The sample consisted of 191 white, mainly Anglo Australian two-parent families, with the two oldest children in a boy—boy, girl—girl, boy—girl, or girl—boy sequence. To check on the robustness of effects, measures were taken on two occasions, on average 16 months apart. Among the family context variables, the gender of the child was the strongest contributing variable, with girls doing more feminine tasks than boys and boys doing more masculine tasks than girls. There was limited support for the proposition that first children do more housework than second children of the same gender, while the results for gender of sibling were small and inconsistent. Among the parental variables, encouragement had strong positive effects for feminine tasks (i.e., more encouragement by parents corresponded to more involvement by children). In contrast, parental involvement in the same tasks (modeling) and parental egalitarianism predicted only the performance of masculine tasks, and the direction of the effects was mostly negative (e.g., the more a father was involved in masculine tasks, the less a child did of those tasks). The results point to involvement in gender-typed activities being influenced by multiple factors, with parental encouragement and gender of child being most prominent among these. They also point to the value of sampling on more than one occasion and of considering separately the performance of feminine and masculine tasks. This research was financially supported by the Australian Research Council. We are happy to acknowledge that support, together with the essential assistance of the Department of Education and the many parents and children who participated in the study.     

Gender differences in evaluation of performance and leadership ability: Autocratic vs. democratic managers

This laboratory experiment involved 290 undergraduate seniors (130 females and 160 males) who were taking the capstone course in business policy in the college of business at a large university. The population of business seniors from which the random sample was drawn consisted of approximately 3.7% African Americans, 7% Asians, 1% Hispanics, and 88.3% white Americans. The study investigated the impact of autocratic and democratic leadership styles on the perception of how well male and female managers perform as well as the leadership ability attributions made to them. It was found that, in general, democratic managers are perceived to be much higher performers, and superior leaders when compared to autocratic managers. There was some support for the gender contrast effect in that the autocratic female managers were perceived to be higher performers than autocratic male managers. Further, the study found support for the perceptual similarity thesis. Male subjects tended to evaluate other male managers higher while female subjects were partial to female managers in their evaluations. In particular, female subjects gave autocratic male managers very low evaluations on performance and judged them to be inferior leaders. The female subjects, however, gave female autocratic managers substantially higher evaluations in terms of both performance and leadership ability.     

A Grammatical Specific Language Impairment in Children: An Autosomal Dominant Inheritance?

The aim of this study is to provide further characterization of a subgroup of so-called “Grammatical specific language-impaired (SLI)” children. The Grammatical SLI children have a persistent and disproportionate impairment in grammatical comprehension and expression of language. Previous research has indicated that their language impairment may be characterized by a domain-specific and modular language deficit. This study provides an initial investigation as to whether there is a genetic basis underlying their disorder as has been found for other forms of SLI and for SLI in general. The incidence of familial aggregation of language impairment was investigated in 12 Grammatical SLI children (aged 9:3 to 12:10). A familial language impairment (LI) history was classified as positive if one or more of the probands' relatives had a history of a speech/language or reading/writing problem which required speech therapy or any other form of remedial help. Case history information provided an initial indication that the Grammatical SLI children had a significantly higher incidence of a positive familial LI history than could be expected by chance. A questionnaire provided evidence of a positive LI history in the first-degree relatives of the SLI probands and 49 normally developing control probands. The SLI probands had a clearly and significantly higher incidence of a positive familial LI history than the control probands (77.8 vs. 28.5%, respectively). The results are consistent with a genetic basis underlying Grammatical SLI. The pattern of impairment in the SLI probands' relatives is consistent with an autosomal dominant genetic inheritance. In contrast to the control probands, the SLI probands' impaired relatives did not show a male gender bias. Thus, the gene does not appear to be sex-linked. The data indicate that further research is warranted to investigate the nature of the LI in the relatives of the Grammatical SLI probands and the genetic characteristics of this subgroup. The implications for the biological, domain-specific, and modular bases to language are discussed.     

Value Crisis: Affective Organization of Personal Meanings

The focus of this article is on the specific affective organization of the self in a value crisis. Whereas the self is conceptualized as an organized system of personal meanings, a value crisis is defined as a disorganization of this system. Personal meanings were investigated using a self-confrontation method that is sensitive to the affective properties of personal meanings and their organization into a composite whole. Three groups of students were compared, one high, one medium, and one low in value crisis. Results indicate that the high crisis group had a lower level of intensity of affect referring to self-enhancement, a lower intensity level of affect referring to contact and union with the other, and a lower level of positive affect in comparison with the other groups. In addition, negative meanings were more generalizing in the self of subjects in crisis, whereas positive meanings were more generalizing in the self system of those not in crisis. Moreover, people in crisis showed more discontinuity between their past and future than those not in crisis. Special emphasis was placed on the specific affective organization of subjects in crisis. Two idiographic case studies were presented to illustrate meaningful exceptions to the rule. It was concluded that value crisis is an “in-between state” involving the risk of disorganization of the self, but at the same time including opportunities for innovative self-development.     

Kant and Husserl

This paper was presented at the Kant-Congress held in Memphis, Tennessee in March, 1995.     

Teacher stress and guidance work in Hong Kong secondary school teachers

Major sources of stress in Hong Kong teachers were investigated, with specific reference to guidance work as a potential source of stress. A survey of 415 secondary school teachers revealed that guidance-related aspects of work constituted a major dimension of stress, with guidance teachers, female teachers, younger teachers and junior teachers perceiving more stress than their counterparts in this dimension. Workload and time pressure were perceived as the most stressful aspects of work for all teachers. Results also showed an association between stress and job satisfaction, and biographical variables. Implications of the findings for teachers doing guidance work in Hong Kong and internationally are discussed.     

Gaze avoidance: Personality and social judgments of people who avoid direct face-to-face contact

Some people maintain direct, face-to-face contact during interaction, whereas others avert their gaze or turn their face while interacting. Research on individual differences in gaze avoidance, while sparse, falls into two areas. One concerns the personality and psychopathology correlates of gaze aversion, and the other concerns social judgments made of people who avert their gaze during interaction. The findings generally show that gaze aversion is associated with unfavorable traits (shyness, social anxiety, risk for schizophrenia) and negative social evaluations (gaze averse people are rated as more deceptive and less sincere). The present study took advantage of an archival data set that contained facial photographs from which gaze avoidance could be scored. The correlates of gaze avoidance were different for men and women. Gaze avoidant men tended to be emotionally inhibited and overcontrolled, and reported a high incidence of various psychosomatic and physical symptoms. Gaze avoidant women, on the other hand, were high on measures of psychopathy, hysteria, and traditional femininity, they tended to have fewer physical symptoms. Gaze avoidant women were also viewed by others in a negative light (as being disagreeable, unconscientious, unattractive, and even somewhat lower on intelligence). In males, none of the social judgment variables correlated significantly with gaze avoidance. Results are discussed in terms of sex differences in the meaning and communicative function of this non-verbal social behavior.