Sex role identification and young women's irrational beliefs

The present study was designed to examine the relationship between young women's beliefs about approval, frustration, and dependency and their sex-role identification. Sixty-six college women responded to a questionnaire which contained the Irrational Beliefs Test (Jones, 1969) and the Multidimensional Sex Role Inventory (MSRI; Bernard, 1981). As predicted, women who score high in irrational beliefs concerning approval, frustration, and dependency also scored higher on the MSRI scale pertaining to anxiety and neuroticism than did their more rational counterparts. Also, the high irrational group scored lower than did the low irrational group on the MSRI scale measuring instrumental-agentic traits. These results have two implications for feminist RET psychotherapists. First, they clarify the value of using instruments to assess both irrational beliefs and sex role identification in treatment planning. Secondly, they sensitize the psychotherapist to the impact of sex-role socialization and identification on the psychological adjustment of young women.This article is based in part on a master's thesis completed by Tracy L. Vining, M.A.The authors thank William Tooke, Ph.D., for his helpful advice.Tracy L. Vining, M.A., is a School Psychologist at the Wayne Finger Lakes BOCES in Rushville, N.Y. William P. Gaeddert, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at SUNY-Plattsburgh, and Naomi B. McCormick is a Professor in the Psychology Department at SUNY-Plattsburgh and a Fellow of the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy.     

Holocaust messages from the past

The impact of the Holocaust on the functioning of the survivors in the role of parents, and its influence on the second generation, has now become apparent. Most research findings and observations point to typical characteristics of survivor parents, such as: over-protection, insecurity, separation anxiety, guilt, as well as excessive expectations of their children. While building new families, many of the survivors are haunted by memories of traumatic events-mainly the loss of former families, spouses, and children. The off-spring are often committed to a heritage they cannot understand, which they absorb either by over-exposure or through the protective cover of silence. It is their wish to find ways of transmitting these historical messages to the third generation without the heavy emotional burden they themselves experienced.All quotations are freely translated from the Israeli film Because of that War by Orna Ben-Dror, Niv, with the permission of the publishers-Shani films, Israel. In this film, Yehuda Poliker and his father Jacko, and Yacov Gilad and his mother, Alina, describe their personal experiences. The authentic stories of these two families represent an excellent example of the transmission of Holocaust messages from generation to generation.     

Cognitive contributions to theory of mind ability in children with a traumatic head injury

The objective of the current study is to examine the contribution of intellectual abilities, executive functions (EF), and facial emotion recognition to difficulties in Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities in children with a traumatic head injury. Israeli children with a traumatic head injury were compared with their non-injured counterparts. Each group included 18 children (12 males) ages 7–13. Measurements included reading the mind in the eyes, facial emotion recognition, reasoning the other’s characteristics based on motive and outcome, Raven’s Coloured Progressive Matrices, similarities and digit span (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – Revised 95 subscales), verbal fluency, and the Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Functions. Non-injured children performed significantly better on ToM, abstract reasoning, and EF measures compared with children with a traumatic head injury. However, differences in ToM abilities between the groups were no longer significant after controlling for abstract reasoning, working memory, verbal fluency, or facial emotion recognition. Impaired ToM recognition and reasoning abilities after a head injury may result from other cognitive impairments. In children with mild and moderate head injury, poorer performance on ToM tasks may reflect poorer abstract reasoning, a general tendency to concretize stimuli, working memory and verbal fluency deficits, and difficulties in facial emotion recognition, rather than deficits in the ability to understand the other’s thoughts and emotions. ToM impairments may be secondary to a range of cognitive deficits in determining social outcomes in this population.     

DO EXPLANATORY DESIRE ATTRIBUTIONS GENERATE OPAQUE CONTEXTS?

Many philosophers assert that psychological verbs generate opaque contexts and that the object of a psychological verb cannot be replaced with a co-referring expression salva veritate as the objects of non-psychological verbs can be. I argue that the logical and linguistic concerns which govern this assertion do not transfer to observational and experimental situations because the criteria that we use in order to verify that an observed subject has one hypothesized desire rather than another provide inconclusive evidence when we don't allow for all regular substitutions in psychological contexts. This becomes more obvious when we contextualize intentional behavior within the appropriate framework by recognizing that, in order to make sense of any desire attribution, we must understand the subject experiencing the desire to be pursuing each desired situation as a means to a further overarching goal. I conclude that the object of desire should always be read de re.     

Psychological disturbance in children with physical disabilities: Continuity and change in a 5-year follow-up

This study measures continuity in behavioral disturbance over a 5-year period among 255 children with physical disabilities who were 6 to 18 years old at first assessment. The pattern of the results differed from that reported previously for a sample of the general population of children. Disabled children showed little stability in aggression, an area in which stability over time had been consistently reported for the general child population. Furthermore, important differences were observed between children with cystic fibrosis and children with cerebral palsy, myelodysplasia, or multiple physical handicaps, all conditions involving brain abnormality. Children with cystic fibrosis followed the trend toward better adjustment seen among the general population of children. In contrast, among children with conditions involving the brain, the majority of those who had been classified as psychologically severely impaired remained at this level of impairment 5 years later. In two behavioral domains, Mentation Problems and Isolation, children with conditions involving the brain maintained, on the average, the same markedly high score they had initially. Among children with physical conditions involving the brain, Mentation Problems and Isolation signify persistent problems that do not subside as the children mature.This study was supported by NIH grant No. HD-16821, by Research Scientist Development Award No. MH-00380 from NIMH, and by grants from the Cleveland Foundation and the Charles S. Mott Foundation.     

The psychological study of chronically ill and disabled children: Are healthy siblings appropriate controls?

This study examined the appropriateness of siblings as controls in the psychological assessment of children with chronic illness or disability. Findings from 304 cases and 360 randomly selected controls were compared to findings from a subset of 206 case-sibling pairs. Cases were children 6 to 18 years of age with cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, myelodysplasia, and multiple handicaps, selected from specialty clinics in two teaching hospitals in the Cleveland area. Results from both data sets were in agreement on major findings indicating that children with cystic fibrosis are not at increased risk for psychopathology, whereas children in the remaining three diagnostic groups show a substantial excess in Mentation Problems and Isolation. The comparisons with matched siblings underestimated pathology in the disabled children in Regressive-Anxiety and aggressive behavior.     

Siblings of disabled children: Birth order and age-spacing effects

Whereas older siblings of children with congenital disability have lived their earliest years in a normal family environment, younger siblings, especially those in a close age-spacing relationship, were born into families marked by the presence of a disabled child. In this paper, 237 siblings of disabled children are compared to 248 siblings from a random sample of families to examine whether the early family environment of siblings of disabled children, as indexed by relative birth order and age-spacing, has a unique influence on psychological functioning. The findings partially confirmed the expected relationships: Younger male siblings, specifically those in close age-spacing relationship to the disabled child, scored higher on psychological impairment than older male siblings. Among female siblings, a similar influence was not in evidence: Younger female siblings were psychologically better off than older female siblings and their age-spacing was not significantly related to psychological functioning. However, the results suggest that siblings' later response to early life experience may be sex-contingent, with males demonstrating interpersonal aggression and females experiencing depressive-anxious feelings.This study was supported by grants from the Cleveland Foundation and the C. S. Mott Foundation. The helpful comments of Joanne C. Gersten are gratefully acknowledged.     

The relationships among sex-role orientation,cognitive complexity,and tolerance for ambiguity

Two hundred and four female and eighty-seven male college students completed the Schroder and Streufert measure of cognitive complexity, Budner's Intolerance for Ambiguity Scale, and Bem's Sex Role Inventory (BSRI). It was hypothesized that subjects classified as androgynous and as cross-sexed would be more cognitively complex and more tolerant of ambiguity than sex-typed or undifferentiated subjects; and cognitive complexity and intolerance for ambiguity would be negatively correlated. The data indicated that male and female androgynous and cross-sexed subjects were more tolerant of ambiguity than sex-typed subjects and cognitively more complex than undifferentiated subjects. Cross-sexed subjects were more cognitively complex than sex-typed subjects. Cognitive complexity and intolerance for ambiguity were negatively correlated. The BSRI had differential power to predict cognitive complexity depending upon sex of subject.Part of this research was presented at the Forty-Ninth Annual Convention of the Eastern Psychological Association, Washington, D.C., April 1978.Both authors are senior authors; each contributed equally to this work.     

Father identification,achievement, and occupational behavior of rural youth: 10-year follow-up

Males from rural economically deprived school districts, who had previously been surveyed as high school seniors, again 1 year after graduation, and again 5 years after graduation, were surveyed a fourth and final time 10 years after high school graduation concerning their occupational status and aspirations, their marital status, their spouses' educational and occupational achievements, the importance of life roles, and their occupational and personal satisfactions. In the original study the participants had been divided into two groups, low-identification males (LIM) and high-identification males (HIM) based on independent evaluators' judgments of the adequacy of their fathers as identification models. Each group's responses to the survey were compared. The results indicate that there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups on the variables of optimism about the future, spouses' occupational achievements, role importance, occupational satisfaction, and personal satisfaction. There were statistically significant differences on the variables of occupational status, occupational aspirations, educational achievements, educational plans, marital status, and spouses' educational achievements. The results are discussed in the context of the three previous surveys. Over the 10-year period the occupational and educational achievements and aspirations have been significantly higher for the HIM group than for the LIM group. Equally consistent is the finding that over the 10-year period there has been no differences between the two groups in satisfaction with status.