Self-concept and attitude to school as predictors of academic achievement by West Indian adolescents

The Coopersmith Self-esteem Inventory and the School Sentiment Index were administered to 215 West Indian middle-class 14-yr.-olds (95 boys and 120 girls) to assess their validity as predictors of academic achievement. Step-wise multiple regression analysis identified School-Academic, a self-concept measure, as the strongest predictor of academic achievement.     

Sex-role orientation of Caribbean adolescents

A total of 140 Caribbean middle-class 17-yr.-olds (68 boys and 72 girls) completed the Bem Sex-role Inventory. Analyses indicated strong stereotypical behavior in the direction of each group's respective sex-type.     

Effects of home nest odors on black-white preference in the developing rat: implications for developmental learning research

Developing animals 17 and 30 days of age were tested for black-white preference in the presence of either clean shavings or soiled bedding material from the home cage. Home nest shavings markedly reduced dark preference in 17-day-old rats but had no effect on dark preference in 30-day-old rats. Because many developmental studies have used two-compartment, black and white chambers to study the effects of familiar home nest shavings on learning and memory, it may be that differential preference for black influenced the results obtained. The apparent alleviation of learning and memory deficits produced by the presence of home nest shavings may have been the result of changes in black-white preference rather than differences in learning and memory per se. Similar influences may underlie the effects of home nest stimuli on other learning tasks such as spatial alternation.     

Concreteness and imageability

Previous research has shown that the positive effect of imageability upon recall is confined to abstract items. In Experiment I it was found that imageability would affect the recall of concrete items if subjects were instructed to use imagery in their memorizing. This suggested that imagery is not usually employed in remembering concrete items. In Experiment II subjects were asked to categorize items on the basis of their meaning. A majority showed sorting related to the concreteness of the items, but very few showed sorting related to imageability. In Experiment III it was found that the concreteness of an item correlated with the time taken to produce a free associate to it, but that its imageability did not. It was concluded that concreteness is a feature of lexical organization, and not a measure of the image-arousing quality of verbal material.     

Book reviews

MELTON. A. W. and MARTIN, E. (Eds). coding Processes in Human Memory. Wahsington, D. C.: V. H. Winston and Sons. 1973. Pp. xiv + 448. £ 5.54.

ADOLFSON, J. and BERGHAGE, T. E. Peception and Performance Underwater. New york: Wiley Interscience. 1974. Pp. xx + 359. £ 10.60.

SCHWARTZ, M. Psysiological Psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofs. 1973. Pp. 484. $ 7.65.

VALENSTEIN, E. S. Brain Control. New York: Wiley. 1973. Pp. 407. £ 6.40.

GOODMAN, I. J. and SCHEIN, M. W. (Eds). Birds: Brain and Behaviour. New York: Academic Press. 1974. Pp. 457. £ 10.00.

STONE, L. J., SMITH, H. T. and MURPHY, L. B. The Competent Infant. London: Tavi-stock Press. 1974. Pp. 1314. £ 11.00.     

Mutual visual regard during mother-infant play.

Mutual visual regard was observed in 48 mother-infant dyads during a 6-min. play session. Infant-mother dyads containing 4 mo. -olds displayed significantly more mutual visual regard than dyads containing 6- or 8-mo.-olds. In addition, the more time infants spent in face-to-face interaction with mother, the more smiling they engaged in. No sex difference were observed.