Toward a Feminist Conception of Self-Respect

The concept of self-respect is often invoked in feminist theorizing. But both women's too-common experiences of struggling to have self-respect and the results of feminist critiques of related moral concepts suggest the need for feminist critique and reconceptualization of self-respect. I argue that a familiar conception of self-respect is masculinist, thus less accessible to women and less than conducive to liberation. Emancipatory theory and practice require a suitably feminist conception of self-respect; I propose one such conception.     

Client Gender and Sex Role: Predictors of Counselors' Impressions and Expectations

Researchers of this study questioned: Are clients (male or female) with self-reported “masculine” versus “feminine” role orientations viewed more favorably by counselors? Which is more predictive of the counselor's impressions: the client's gender or his or her sex role orientation? Results suggested that highly masculine and highly feminine clients (regardless of gender) are perceived as more socially skilled and likely to experience a positive therapeutic outcome. Gender did not uniquely predict counselors' impressions. Highly feminine women clients, however, were viewed as more socially skilled than were highly feminine men. On average, clients were viewed as friendly and submissive.     

Sex differences among partner preferences: Are the sexes really very similar?

The question as to what type of individual we prefer in a “romantic” partner has stimulated a long history of research, with much of the present debate centering around the issue of the sex differences in partner preferences. In the studies described in this paper, two groups of participants completed a variety of different questionnaire schedules indicating their preferences for a partner. In study 1, 216 single students demonstrated a prevailing desire for a kind, considerate, and honest partner who displayed a keen sense of humor. Consistent with the hypothesis, there were no clear sex differences evident in these results. In study 2, 76 dating agency members completed a similar schedule examining partner preferences. Here again, preferences were similar across the sexes, although men preferred the submissive and introverted partner and stressed the importance of physical appearance in a mate. The general discussion considers the implications of these findings in the light of previous research on partner preferences.     

Processing level and recognition: A search method for inducing alternative encodings of unrelated words

Twenty-four subjects viewed cards containing four words. In synonym orienting, half of the cards contained a synonym pair and half did not; in homophone orienting, half of the displays contained a homophone pair. The remaining two words in each display were used to index retention. During presentation of displays, subjects responded “yes” or “no” to indicate the presence or absence of a matching pair. Following presentation, a recognition test was administered. Half the items were tested early and half were tested late; within each test order, half the items appeared with context cues during testing and half appeared without. Results showed superior recognition (1) following semantic orienting, (2) for items tested early, (3) for items tested with context, and (4) for nonmatch displays requiring exhaustive item comparison. An Orienting by Test Cuing interaction showed that the presence of test cues improved recognition for homophone orienting items only. The interaction may have resulted from the lack of cuetarget associations and the reinstatement of the phonemic orienting set during the test.     

Case-like categories in children: The actor and some related categories

Case categories were investigated using a method in which pictures are presented accompanied by a sentence describing the scene: Preschool children learn to put tokens on the objects in the pictures according to the role each object plays in the scene as described. Generalization trials explore what the children include within the various roles. Children rapidly learn to associate tokens with case-like categories during the training phase, and readily transfer to new stimuli in generalization trials. The experiments demonstrate that children have a broad Actor category. The Actor “does” the action, and Actors are not necessarily animate. However, animacy is a class property of stimuli to which the children were very sensitive. There was evidence that User and Instrument are subcategories of Actor that are differentiated only when a sentence contains both. The data also suggest a Locative category, and Patient as a category of the grammatical object. Finally, the children appeared to treat subjects of predicate adjectives as a separate category, here called the Subject of Attribution, distinct from Actor, and functionally independent of objects of transitive verbs.     

Effects of methylphenidate alone and in combination with behavior modification procedures on the behavior and academic performance of hyperactive children

Twenty hyperactive 6- to 9-year-old children of normal intelligence were studied in a half-day laboratory classroom in a 2-week period baseline-treatment-reversal design for behavior modification. Under double-blind conditions half the children were placed on .3 mg/kg of Ritalin and half on placebo for the entire program. The classroom program consisted of a group period with immediate reinforcement possible, and an individual time period without immediate reinforcement possible. Behavior modification caused a significant decrease in nonattending, out-of-seat, inappropriate vocalizing and inappropriate peer interaction behavior in the group period. Fidgeting, a nontargeted behavior, was not significantly decreased during this period but did signficantly decrease as a result of medication. No other drug effects occurred during this period. During the individual period, the results were essentially reversed. There were no significant behavior modification effects observed. Significant reductions resulted from medication in all behaviors except out-of-seat and fidgeting. Behavior modification alone significantly affected the two academic measures. No significant effects were seen on the Conners Abbreviated Teacher Rating Scale. No significant interactions were noted between medication and behavior modification.This study was supported by a grant from the Health Services and Mental Health Administration, Maternal and Child Health Service Project 920. Special thanks are due to Judy Racheleu, Charles Cunningham, Christopher P. S. Williams, Dan Lee, Russell Barkley, Ross Danielson, Sally Gray, Don Slyman, and Linda Shambeck.