A two-year follow-up study of a preventive mental health program for preschoolers

The long-term effects of a preschool intervention program for high-risk experimental children were assessed and compared to a high-risk placebo control group and low-risk normal controls. Seventy first-grade children were involved in this 2-year follow-up. The experimental treatment group was superior to that of the placebo control group at follow-up on the criteria measures of behavioral adjustment and achievement. The low-risk normal control group was significantly different from that of the placebo control groups, but generally not significantly different from that of the experimental groups, suggesting that the intervention had boosted the high-risk experimental treatment children to the point where their performance was comparable to that of children who had not experienced behavioral or learning difficulties.The study was supported by grants from the McGregor Fund and the Eloise and Richard Webber Foundation, and by the Detroit Public Schools, for which the authors express grateful appreciation. A version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, New York, September 1979.     

Arithmetic achievement as a function of introversion-extraversion and teacher-presented reward and punishment

Following Eysenck (1967), Gray (1973) and Wakefield (1979), it was hypothesized that the arithmetic achievement of extraverts would be better than introverts in those classrooms in which teacher-presented rewards predominated, and the arithmetic achievement of introverts would be better than extraverts in those classrooms in which teacher-presented punishment predominated. Five classrooms were rank-ordered according to their ratios of teacher-presented reward to teacher-presented punishment. A total of 101 fourth and fifth grade students from the five classrooms were then administered the Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (JEPQ) and an arithmetic pretest. Subsequent to 40 school days, the students were administered the arithmetic posttest. Partialling out arithmetic pretest scores, lie scale scores from the JEPQ, and total arithmetic raw scores from the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS), regression analysis of arithmetic posttest scores with the interaction of extraversion scores from the JEPQ and classroom rank-order of the ratio of teacher-presented reward to teacher-presented punishment yielded significant results supporting the hypothesis. Additional analysis indicated the presence of non-hypothesized interactions of the Psychoticism and Neuroticism scales of the JEPQ with reward-punishment and extraversion.     

Factors underlying the social readjustment rating scale

The Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) was administered to 185 subjects whose age ranged from 21 to 61 yr. The responses were factor analyzed for a principal axis solution followed by isopromax oblique rotation. All the items were loaded and clustered under five factors labeled as follows: (1) personal growth, maturation, and renewal; (2) tension and uncertainty; transitions in personal or occupational situations; (3) changes in one's usual routine and relationship; (4) significant changes in family or mirriage; and (5) personal catastrophies. Males scored significantly higher than females on factors 4 and 5. There were no age differences in the obtained scores. The finding of the factorial structure was thought to add credence to the scale especially in view of past criticism. Implications for future research were also discussed.     

A psychometric analysis of the Personal Attributes Questionnaire

The psychometric properties of the Personal Attributes Questionnaire were examined in independent samples of male and female high school students, college students, and adults. In each of the six samples a two-factor structure (masculinity/instrumentality and femininity/expressivity) paralleling the empirically derived scales was found. Additional factor analyses of negative masculine and feminine traits were reported. Discriminant analyses revealed highly significant differentiation between the sexes. The reliabilities (Cronbach alpha) of the unit-weighted scales in each sample were also satisfactory.Support for this research was provided by NASA Grant NSG 2065 (Robert L. Helmreich, Principal Investigator) and NSF Grant BNS 78-08911 (Janet T. Spence and Robert L. Helmreich, Principal Investigators). The article was prepared while the second author was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, with support from the Spencer Foundation, NIMH Grant 5T32MH14581-03, and the University of Texas Research Institute.     

ISRO: A scale to measure sex-role orientation

Sex-role research has been hampered by a lack of valid and reliable research tools to measure the construct being studied. This article describes the development of a research scale (ISRO) to measure women's sex-role orientation. This 16-item questionnaire has been shown to be internally consistent and to have fairly high temporal stability over 30 days. The high sensitivity (96.2%) and specificity (95.5%) suggest that it differentiates feminist from traditional women. Three factors assess attitudinal domains of conflict between family responsibilities and having a career; male/female division of household responsibilities; and women's work roles outside the home. Education appears to be the strongest predictor of ISRO scores.This study was supported in part by a grant from the American Nurses Foundation.     

Tomboys and sissies: Androgynous children?

Psychological studies of masculinity-femininity in children have paralleled those done with adults, which often consider deviations from masculinity for males and femininity for females as abnormal and perhaps pathological. Children who demonstrate cross-sex behaviors, however, may become androgynous adults whose cross-sex behaviors mean flexibility, not pathology. This study had two purposes: (1) to identify potentially androgynous children as those labeled by their peers as tomboys and sissies; (2) to compare personality characteristics of androgynous children with those of peers. Subjects were 312 elementary school children in a midwestern city. Results indicate that the labels tomboy and sissy are not necessarily indicators of androgynous children, but important social behaviors are related to the labels. For males, the possibility of frustrated creativity was raised.