Effective functioning in dual-career families: an investigation

This study is concerned with the commonalities inherent in diverse psychotherapeutic strategies, despite seemingly discontinuous theoretical stances. Two approaches were evaluated with respect to effective family functioning, viz. Analytical Psychology and Systems Theory. Analytical Psychology posits the growth of conscious awareness in the individual as the source of therapeutic change. Problem centred systems therapy of the family emphasizes the importance of teaching clinically presenting families to negotiate collectively family rules and expectations and thus to allocate and monitor roles via clear and direct verbal communication. Both positions thus stress the reflective mode as a pivotal factor in effective problem solving. Analytical psychology maintains that conscious awareness expands to the extent that the individual integrates the contrasexual aspect of the personality, that is, the affective, expressive mode or 'feminine principle' in the male, or the instrumental, assertive 'masculine principle' in the female. Such individuals are said to be 'androgenous'. It was therefore hypothesized that such individuals would more readily be able to negotiate family rules and expectations in a manner consistent with a major therapeutic thrust of family therapy. These clinically derived hypotheses were subjected to an empirical test by assessing twenty, non-clinical, dual-career families where both parents pursued careers and were therefore presumably both required to share instrumental and affective roles on the basis of mutual agreement. Results indicated that negotiation contributed significantly to successful role fulfilment and effective family functioning, thus substantiating the focus of family therapy strategies upon clear and direct communication and role allocation.     

Adaptive reasoning: Componential and eye movement analysis of geometric analogy performance

The present study explored individual differences in performance of a geometric analogies task. Whereas past studies employed true/false or two-alternative items, the present research included four-alternative items and studied eye movements and confidence judgements for each item performance as well as latency and error. Item difficulty proved to be a function of an interaction between the number of response alternatives and the number of elements in items, especially for subjects lower in fluid-analytic reasoning ability. Results were interpreted using two hypothesized performance strategies: constructive matching and response elimination. The less efficient of these, response elimination, seemed to be used more by lower ability subjects on more difficult items. While two previous theories resemble one or the other of these strategies, neither alone seems to capture the complexity of adaptive problem solving. It appears that a comprehensive theory should incorporate strategy shifting as a function of item difficulty and subject ability.Componential models, based in part on past research, revealed that a justification component was activated and deactivated depending upon the nature of the analogy being solved. In addition, two new components, spatial inference and spatial application, were identified as important on some items, suggesting that different geometric analogy items invoke different cognitive processing components. Thus, a comprehensive theory should also describe component activation and deactivation.     

A comparison of the social status and social behavior of Aggressive and Aggressive/Withdrawn boys

The purpose of this study was to clarify contradictory findings concerning the social status of aggressive youngsters. This was undertaken by dividing kindergarten boys into either Aggressive [A] or Aggressive/Withdrawn [A/W] groups, as proposed by Ledingham [1981]. Both groups were found to be high on peer-nominated rejection, but the A group was also high on peer-nominated popularity while the A/W group was low. Similarly, both groups were observed to be high in negative peer interactions, but the A group was also high in positive interactions. It was noted that valuable information regarding the social status and social behavior of aggressive youngsters would be lost if such subgrouping is not undertaken. The relationship between Ledingham's categorizations and others reported in the literature was discussed.This research was supported in part by NIH grant No. 32992 to the first author.     

A preliminary study of Hare's “Research Scale for the Assessment of Psychopathy” in mentally-abnormal offenders

The abbreviated (15-item) version of Hare's Research Scale for the Assessment of Psychopathy (RSAP) was investigated in a sample of male admissions to Broadmoor Special Hospital (N = 50), along with five MMPI measures relevant to psychopathy (Impulsivity, Sociability, Psychopathic Deviate, Anxiety and Sociopathy). Patients were assigned to one of four clinical diagnostic groups: Personality Disorder, Mixed (personality disorder with schizophrenia), Schizophrenia and Affective Disorder. Results indicated that while both psychopathic groups (Mixed and Personality Disorder) showed high scores on almost all RSAP items, the Affective Disorder group showed low scores on almost all items. Results of a discriminant function analysis indicated that Hare's RSAP was superior to the MMPI measures at discriminating between psychopaths and non-psychopaths. Use of the discriminant function to re-allocate patients to criterion groups showed a high hit rate (94%) for psychopathic patients but a hit rate of only 61% for non-psychopathic patients. Half of the schizophrenic patients were mis-allocated to the psychopathic group. The results support the idea of an affective deficit common to psychopaths and schizophrenics, but suggest that psychopaths additionally show a deficit which may be characterized by a lack of goal-directed behaviour.     

Intrinsic enjoyment and boredom coping scales: Validation with personality,evoked potential and attention measures

This paper reports the validation of brief, self-report measures of intrinsic enjoyment and boredom coping. Intrinsic enjoyment is characterized by intense involvement, interest and absorbed concentration; boredom coping is designed to reflect the disposition to restructure one's perceptions and participation in potentially boring activities so as to decrease boredom. Both traits are hypothesized to reflect the capacity for good attentional control across a variety of situations. Reliability was established by test-retest correlation and by an inter-item consistency measurement. Construct validity was established by comparison with previously-validated personality tests, real-life measures (such as Random Activities Experiential Sampling, which involves repeated self-report measures in daily life), as well as with laboratory measures of attention (including the averaged visual evoked potential (EP) and the Continuous Performance Test). Intrinsic enjoyment is significantly correlated with an independent measure of intrinsic involvement (low wish to be elsewhere in one's daily life), the affective experience of potency, self-reports of concentrating well with ease, high ego development, an internal locus of control, lack of boredom susceptibility and certain EP indices of attentional change and ‘cortical’ augmenting. Boredom coping is associated with a higher percent of time actually spent alone, high continuous performance task measures of attentional capacity, and low MMPI and Research Diagnostic Criteria indices of psychopathology.     

Models of central capacity and concurrency

According to single channel theory, the ability of humans to perform concurrent mental operations is limited by the capacity of a central mechanism. The theory was developed by analogy with early computers which had a single central processing unit and required sequential processing. These limitations are not likely to be properties of the mind. But now computers have begun to employ extensive concurrent processing, because of the decreasing cost of the necessary hardware. In this review we will try to bring the computer analogy up to date. Theoretical issues important for concurrent systems may be of interest to psychologists and have applications to such problems as the speed-accuracy trade-off. Several hypotheses about the way signals gain access to the central mechanism are reviewed. Recent variations of the single channel theory are discussed, including the hypotheses that more than one process can use the central mechanism at a time, and that some processes do not use the central mechanism and can be executed concurrently with those that do. In addition, relevant concepts from scheduling theory and operating systems theory are introduced and difficulties encountered by concurrent systems, namely complexity, deadlocks, and thrashing, are discussed.     

Children's relative number judgments: One-to-one correspondence,recognition of noncorrespondence,and the influence of cue conflict

Although one-to-one correspondence can be seen as a component of successful counting, number conservation, and relative number judgments, there is evidence of considerable discrepancies between children's competencies in these different tasks. Concerning relative number judgments there are strikingly different claims concerning the ability of young children to make one-to-one correspondence-based judgments. In part these discrepancies reflect differences in criteria. Four experiments are reported in which 5-year-olds' relative number judgments of small and large number displays with and without perceptual aids were studied. Children were found to respond to local rather than global density differences and to benefit from the provision of perceptual aids on both small and large number displays with one exception, namely, large number displays where the longer row is less numerous.     

Agreement between observers when the categories are not specified in advance

To test the agreement between two observers who categorize a number of objects when the categories have not been specified in advance, Brennan & Light (1974) developed a statistic A′ and suggested a normal approximation for its distribution. In this paper it is shown that this approximation is inadequate particularly when one, or both, of the observers place a fairly equal number of objects in all of their categories. A chi-squared approximation to the distribution of A′ is developed and is shown to work well in a variety of situations. The relative powers of A′ and the ordinary X² test for association are dependent on the type of ‘agreement between the observers’ that is assumed. However a simulation for a fairly general type of agreement indicates that the X² test is more powerful. As the X² test is also much easier to apply, it would seem preferable in most situations.     

SEX DIFFERENCES IN THE ATTRIBUTION OF SOCIALLY DESIRABLE AND UNDESIRABLE TRAITS TO OUT-GROUP MEMBERS*

One hundred and forty-four male and female Australian subjects rated an Australian or a Vietnamese target group on the possession of five socially desirable and five socially undesirable personality traits. As predicted, the out-group was perceived less favourably than the in-group, but only by the males, the females not making the distinction.