Cognitive Slippage in Children Vulnerable to Schizophrenia

Psychological deficit research with adult schizophrenics has been hindered by numerous methodological problems that may be avoided by the prospective study of children vulnerable to the disorder. An object sorting task was administered to 156 children of schizophrenic patients, 102 children of depressed patients, and 139 children of normal parents. The children were between 6 and 15 years old. The children of schizophrenic parents made fewer superordinate sorting responses than those of normal parents, and more complex sorts (a category of inadequate responses) than children of either normal or depressed parents. Our analyses showed that these deficits could not be explained by differences in intelligence. These deficits in conceptual performance may reflect the genotypic predisposition to schizophrenia and/or represent an early precursor of later maladjustment.This research was supported by grant MH 21145 from the National Institutes of Mental Health and by funds from the William T. Grant Foundation. We would like to thank Linda Doll, Diane Liebert, and Jean C. Sullivan for testing the children, and Barbara Mosbacher and Rochelle Weinberger for scoring the protocols.     

Attitudinal versus ecological approaches to the characterization of institutional treatment environments

The relational and discriminative properties of attitudinal and ecological measures of environments were examined within the context of a state hospital for mentally retarted clients. Three hypotheses were advanced, and the results gave substantial support for one of these and partial support for a second: (a) that the correlations between attitudinal and ecological measures should not differ significantly from zero, and (b) that differences among hospital treatment programs and living units should be reflected in ecological but not in attitudinal measures. However, the results did not provide clear confirmation for a third hypothesis: that differences among staff demographic characteristics and employment history should be reflected in attitudinal but not in ecological measures. It was suggested that these background variables may not be appropriate measures of personality-linked attributes.     

An analysis of observational learning in autistic and normal children

The present investigation studied observational learning in autistic children. Fifteen autistic and 15 normal children watched an adult model engage in a set of behaviors under specific verbal instructions. After observing this situation, the children were tested to determine what they had acquired through observation. The results showed that (1) the majority of the autistic and the youngest normal children acquired only some limited features of the observational situation and (2) chronological age was related to the amount of learning through observation in the normal children but not in the autistics. The deficit that the autistic children showed in observational learning may be related to a failure to discriminate or attend to the total stimulus input presented. Their failure in observational learning can be seen to contribute in a major way to the severely impoverished behavioral repertoires of these children.     

Traditionality of choice and sex-role identification as moderators of the congruence of occupational choice in college women

This study examined the relationship of traditionality of occupational preferences and sex-role orientation to personality-occupational environment congruence in college women. Three-letter Holland personality codes were obtained for each of 184 college women based on same-sex normative scores from the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory and on scores from the ACT Unisex Interest Inventory (UNIACT). Subjects' occupational preferences were classified as traditional, moderately traditional, or nontraditional based on the percentages of women in the occupation. Scores on the Bern Sex Role Inventory were used to classify subjects into one of four sex-role categories. Results indicated a strong association between congruence and traditionality of choice; women whose choices were in nontraditional career fields were significantly more likely to be making choices congruent with their personality type than were women choosing traditional career fields. Further, while sex-role orientation was not significantly related to either congruence or traditionality, masculine-typed women were most likely to make nontraditional and congruent career choices, while the majority of feminine-typed, androgynous, and undifferentiated women stated preferences for traditional career fields. Implications for the applicability of Holland's congruence postulate to women's vocational behavior are discussed.     

Characteristics of career success: An additional input to selecting candidates for professional programs?

It has been argued that selecting students for graduate degrees in professional schools should involve the use of information on a student's potential for “career” as well as academic success. The purpose of this study was to describe the elements of career success of 96 former doctoral students in educational administration and to measure their relationship to conventional academic and individual variables, such as GRE and MAT scores, career experience, age, sex, and quality of reference. It was found that there were no statistically practical or significant relationships between measures of academic success and career success.     

The Effects of Type of Information and Method of Dissemination on the Reporting of a Shoplifter

The present study demonstrated increased reporting rates of a staged shoplifting in a university bookstore. Two methods of information presentation (lecture format, mass-media campaign) succeeded in producing these effects. The type of information given to 72 male and 99 female students was also varied and included: (1) how and why to report shoplifting, (2) the social-psychological factors which inhibit reporting, and (3) a combination of these. All types of information increased the reporting rates compared to the control groups. The lecture format increased reporting rates above that of the mass-media groups. No sex differences were found. The findings have implications for the way factual knowledge and attitudes interact in influencing behavior.     

Long-term memory and retrieval at ages 2, 3, 4

Two experiments are reported examining the contents and accessibility of a subset of the knowledge represented in long-term memory by very young children. In Experiment 1, children aged 2 to 4 were asked in a production task to name items commonly found in particular rooms in a house, and then to verify the appropriate locations of a set of miniature replicas of household items in a dollhouse. In Experiment 2, object context was manipulated to observe if further external context improves or changes production. Children 3 and 4 years old were asked to produce appropriate room items under one of three conditons: either presented no room objects as in the first experiment, or given room objects highly- or less-frequently associated in the first study.Very young children revealed considerable knowledge in this domain, and even at the youngest ages, core defining information was retrieved. It was equally clear, however, that young children know much more than they can produce, that there is noticeable improvement in ability to retrieve information over this age range, and that additional external object context does not necessarily facilitate retrieval from long-term memory.     

Developmental differences in cognitive mapping: Configurational knowledge of familiar large-scale environments

In order to investigate the development of cognitive mapping of familiar large-scale environments. First-, fifth-, and eighth-grade children were asked to make bearing and distance estimates to six targets from three sighting locations in their school. Correlations between estimated and actual bearings and distances were extremely high at all grade levels, indicating that (a) children at all grade levels could reliably make such estimates, and (b) route knowledge of even the youngest children was quite high. Bearing accuracy increased between first- and fifth-grade and showed little improvement thereafter. Increases in a measure of configurational accuracy were found between first- and fifth-grade and between fifth- and eighth-grade. Differential accuracy as a function of the demands of particular sighting locations was found only for the younger children.     

The effect of affirmative action on attributions about minority group members

In the first study subjects were given information about an applicant to graduate school and asked to rate his qualifications. The information experimentally varied (a) whether the school had an affirmative action policy, (b) the ethnicity of the applicant, and (c) whether the applicant was accepted or rejected. Based on Kelley's discussion of the discounting and augmentation principles, it was predicted that the minority applicant would be rated as less qualified when the university was committed to an affirmative action program. The reverse pattern was predicted for the non-minority applicant. The results supported the first prediction but not the second. Experiment 2 was designed to eliminate alternative interpretations of the data and the same results were found. Possible interpretations for the failure of affirmative action in affecting the ratings of nonminority applicants are discussed.