The Imaginary Audience, Self-Consciousness, and Public Individuation in Adolescence

ABSTRACT In this study, we examined the construct of the imaginary audience (Elkind & Bowen, 1979), presumably a precipitant of adolescent egocentrism, as it relates to public individuation and self-consciousness. We hypothesized that the imaginary audience inhibits public individuation and represents a critical form of public self-consciousness. We also argued that the imaginary audience is a normal aspect of early adolescent development that diminishes in the context of secure parental relationships by late adolescence but remains salient if these relationships are insecure. These hypotheses were examined in a cross-sectional study of 850 adolescents in the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 12th grades. Support was generally found for the hypothesized relations. The validity and limitations of the imaginary audience and public individuation constructs are discussed, along with more general theoretical issues concerning adolescent self-consciousness.     

Self-concept in Profoundly Deaf Adolescent Pupils

This study compares the concept of self of profoundly deaf adolescents with that of their hearing companions of the same age. The technique originally designed by Khun and Portland was used: “Who am I?” The chief results indicate on the one hand some significant differences between the hearing and the deaf, and on the other hand the difficulties of the latter in defining themselves as deaf. However, it is necessary to point out that the few references to hearing deficiency do not carry a negative connotation. These data are interpreted in the framework of the educational conditions of the country in which integration is a general mode of schooling and frequently the deaf pupil has no opportunity to have class or school companions who are also deaf. It concludes with some considerations of an educational nature about the future lines of research in which a greater variety of educational and social conditions could be taken into account.     

A Comparison of the Effectiveness of Substantive and Contextual Mediation Tactics1

The effectiveness of three mediation tactics was compared in two laboratory studies. It was hypothesized that a content mediation procedure which involved identifying the priorities of both parties and suggesting a trade-off of low for high priority issues would be most effective in helping to resolve the dispute, followed by an issue identification mediation procedure in which priorities were identified but no suggestions were made. A positive framing mediation procedure in which the benefits of a negotiated settlement were emphasized was expected to be somewhat less effective. In Study 1, 64 students played the role of company negotiator and interacted with a programmed citizen group negotiator. All three mediation tactics produced more satisfactory outcomes (higher joint payoffs) than did a no-mediation condition. In Study 2, 46 pairs of students negotiated with one another and received content mediation, issue identification mediation, positive framing mediation, or no mediation. Negotiators receiving content mediation achieved more satisfactory outcomes (higher joint profits) than did negotiators in the other 3 conditions. Results are discussed in terms of a contingency model of mediation effectiveness.     

The Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (PC-DISC v.3.0): Parents and Adolescents Suggest Reasons for Expecting Discrepant Answers

To identify reasons for discrepancies between parent and child reports of child/adolescents's psychiatric symptoms, parents and adolescents (51 pairs) were asked to guess what the other would answer to questions from the PC-DISC about the adolescent's psychiatric symptoms, and to explain why they expected disagreement when the answer they provided for the other was different from their own. Adolescents' explanations for expecting (1) parental denial of symptoms the adolescent reported were: the parent was unaware of, forgot about, assumed the adolescent could not have, or trivialized the symptom; and (2) parental report of symptoms the adolescent denied were: the parent misread or exaggerated the adolescent's symptom, had too high expectations for the adolescent's behavior, put a negative label on or did not trust the adolescent. Parents' reasons for expecting their children to (1) deny symptoms the parents reported were: the adolescent did not remember how s/he felt, lied, did not recognize or minimized the importance or frequency of the symptom; and (2) report symptoms the parents denied were: the adolescent lied, exaggerated the importance of or interpreted the symptom differently.Support for this work was provided by National Institute of Drug Abuse grant number DA-05585 (Dr. Cottler, P.I.), and National Institute of Mental Health grants numbers MH-31302 (Dr. R. C. Cloninger, P.I.) and MH-17104 (Dr. Cottler, P.I.).Address all correspondence, including reprint requests, to Michelle Bidaut-Russell, Ph.D, MPH, MPE, Department of Psychiatry, Box 8134, Washington University School of Medicine, 4940 Children's Place, St. Louis, Missouri 63110.     

Dissipating the quantum measurement problem

The integration of recent work on decoherence into a so-called modal interpretation offers a promising new approach to the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. In this paper I explain and develop this approach in the context of the interactive interpretation presented in Healey (1989). I begin by questioning a number of assumptions which are standardly made in setting up the measurement problem, and I conclude that no satisfactory solution can afford to ignore the influence of the environment. Further, I argue that there are good reasons to believe that on a modal interpretation environmental interactions rapidly ensure that a quantummechanically describable apparatus indeed records a definite result following a measurement interaction.     

Signifying harassment: Communication,ambiguity and power

This essay reports on phenomenological research conducted with people who describe having been harassed, having been accused of harassment, and/or having mediated or adjudicated harassment disputes. The authors review recent legal conceptions of sexual harassment and articulate a methodology for analyzing individual narrative accounts. The analysis of six selected interviews (three alleged harassers and three declared harassees) depicts how, through discourse with others, persons in ambiguous cases of harassment come to perceive themselves as harassers or harasseesgradually, how intention is inferred from conductcontingently, and how perceptions and expressions are often reified as certainties in the effort to secure some sense of justiceinstitutionally.Many people have been involved with this project since its inception, and most wish to remain anonymous. We would like to thank all participants, colleagues, students, and critics for their contributions and expressions of interest. We would especially like to acknowledge Thomas Pace and Richard Lanigan for their teaching, friendship and support, and Frances Chaput Waksler for her helpful comments. An earlier version of this paper was presented to The Society for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences, Boston MA, USA, October 1992.