Structural complexity and the quality of stepfather-stepchild relationships

This research examined the effects of structural complexity and sex of stepchild on the quality of stepfather-stepchild relationships. Sixteen simple stepfather families (the wife had custody of a child from a previous marriage, but the stepfather has no biological children) and 16 complex stepfather families (the wife had custody of a child from a previous marriage, and the stepfather was a noncustodial biological parent) with half of each type (N = 8) having a male and half having a female, 9-12-year-old target child participated in a multimethod-multimeasure assessment of the stepfather-stepchild relationship. Families were recruited from marriage license records, and data collection was accomplished in a single three-and-a-half-hour home visit. Dependent variables included: (a) questionnaire measures of love and detachment relationship dimensions independently obtained from parents, stepparents, and (step)children, and (b) proportions of positive and negative stepparent and stepchild communication behaviors derived from videotaped interaction tasks. Findings revealed that simple and complex stepfather families did not differ on any questionnaire or behavioral measures. Girls, however, engaged in a lower proportion of positive verbal and greater proportion of negative problem-solving behaviors toward their stepfathers than boys did. Stepfathers did not differ on proportions of communication behaviors emitted toward boys and girls. No sex-of-child differences were obtained on the questionnaire measures. Directions for future research on structural complexity and stepfather families are discussed.     

The role of self-produced movement and visual tracking in infant spatial orientation

In two longitudinal studies, infants were trained at 12 and 18 months to find an object hidden in one of two identical wells in a Plexiglas box. On the test trial, normal access was blocked and infants were either guided by their mother or allowed to move on their own to another opening on the opposite side. In Experiment 1 significantly more correct responding occurred after active movement than after passive at 12 months, with correct responding related to high visual tracking. In contrast, at 18 months correct search without tracking predominated among both movement conditions. A difference between the conditions in the position of the mother on the test trial was ruled out as a contributor to performance on the basis of data from Experiment 2. When opaque sides were inserted to prevent tracking in Experiment 3, active movement no longer facilitated correct search at 12 months, thus indicating that the tracking and not the active movement per se was the critical factor.     

The selective impact of question form and input mode on the symbolic distance effect in children

Five experiments are reported on the symbolic distance effect (SDE) and related phenomena with 6- and 9-year-old children. In the first of these, children were asked to judge the relative sizes of animals in verbal and pictorial tests featuring the comparatives "bigger" and "smaller." A perceptual condition with actual objects was included by way of comparison. A Symbolic Distance Effect was obtained for both lexical and pictorial input. Mode differences were also observed. Pictures produced faster responses than words, and congruity effects occurred only in the pictorial condition. Although performance was similar in tests with either comparative, our subsequent experiments on both 6- and 9-year-olds reveal a significant asymmetry in the child's capacity to verify statements of relation as a function of the direction along the (size) continuum implied by the question. However, important differences between age groups also apparent in the data lead us to conclude that the older subjects develop strategies to overcome this asymmetry by translating certain statements of relation into a form more congruent with their natural modes of encoding.     

Stimulus context and infant orientation discrimination

In three experiments, the effect of additional "contextual" elements on the discrimination of the orientation of linear and curvilinear segments was investigated with 4-month-old infants. In Experiment 1, paired visual matrices (one which contained some irregularity in orientation of internal elements, vs one which contained no irregularities) were presented. Infants detected irregular matrices significantly better than chance, but such detection was not aided by contextual elements. Discrimination of orientation in Experiment 2 was assessed with a paired-comparison familiarization-novelty paradigm. It was found that the addition of elements here significantly aided discrimination of linear segment orientation, but not curvilinear segment orientation. Experiment 3 investigated why this effect was not found for curvilinear segments; after equating the curvilinear stimuli to linear ones used in Experiment 2 with respect to the closedness of figure, discrimination of curvilinear orientation was observed.     

Stress, externality, and depression

Previous research has found mixed support for the possibility that locus of control moderates the effects of life stress on depression. Two methodological choices may have influenced previous findings: the use of a unidimensional rather than a multidimensional locus of control scale, and reliance on linear statistical methods using median splits. We attempted to correct these choices by using the Levenson IPC scale (1974) and multiple regression analyses in a female undergraduate population (N = 158). The results supported use of a multidimensional scale, since Stress, Internality, and Powerful Others were found to have main effects on depression whereas Chance interacted with life stress. The question of whether locus of control refers to responsibility for causing an event, i.e., self-blame, or belief in control over future events, i.e., coping behavior, was discussed.