On component analyses

Principal components analysis can be redefined in terms of the regression of observed variables upon component variables. Two criteria for the adequacy of a component representation in this context are developed and are shown to lead to different component solutions. Both criteria are generalized to allow weighting, the choice of weights determining the scale invariance properties of the resulting solution. A theorem is presented giving necessary and sufficient conditions for equivalent component solutions under different choices of weighting. Applications of the theorem are discussed that involve the components analysis of linearly derived variables and of external variables.Preparation of this article was supported in part by National Institute of Aging Grant NIA-AG03164-03 to William Meredith.     

Sex-role stereotypes and clinical judgments of mental health: The Brovermans' findings reexamined

This study attempted to evaluate the progress of mental health professionals regarding sex-role stereotyping in clinical functioning, identified as a problem over 10 years ago by Broverman et al. (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1970, 34, 1–7). A comparable format and questionnaire were used in order to replicate faithfully the earlier study and facilitate past-present comparisons. One hundred four psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers were randomly assigned to three instruction-set conditions in completing the Stereotype Questionnaire: sexunspecified adult instruction set, female instruction set, and male instruction set. No significant differences were found related to sex of clinician. A significant effect (p<.001) was found for social desirability and what was judged as healthy for sex-unspecified adults. No significant relationship was found, however, for social desirability of traits and conventional sex-role stereotypes. Based on the results of this study it is possible to speculate either that the Boverman results were primarily an artifact of their forced-choice methodology or that progress has been made in a more nonsexist direction among mental health professionals. Limitations of this research are presented and considered relative to the Brovermans' study. The basically attitudinal nature of this work is noted and the question is raised as to whether nonsexist attitudes are translated into nonsexist clinical functioning.     

Sex roles,stress, and distress: A study of person by situation contingency

Literature on the relationship between sex roles and adjustment has suggested that masculine traits, rather than the androgynous interaction of masculine and feminine traits, are associated with positive adjustment. Studies with noncollege student populations, however, raise questions as to the generalizability of these findings. Suggestions that sex role traits are associated with particular defensive styles raise the possibility that the sex role-adjustment link is mediated by situational factors. The present study assessed sex role orientation, depression, hostility, and stress in 105 students of nursing. Femininity predicted positive vocational adjustment within the group, masculinity was associated with lower levels of depression, and femininity predicted lower hostility. Within the sex role orientations studied, androgynous nurses reported lower depression and vocational stress than their undifferentiated counterparts. It is suggested that feminine sex roles, promoting an internalization of threat, aid positive adjustment in settings marked by joint instrumental and interpersonal demands.     

Intensional and extensional analogy items: Differences in performance as a function of academic major and sex

Is there a relationship between academic field and ability to use different types of semantic relation? Performance on two types of analogy item in the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test was compared. Intensional relations are inherent in the meanings of the words and are based on shared or contrasting properties (e. g. farmer:person, breeze:gale, alive: dead, beggar: poor). Extensional relations reflect empirical relations between things in the world and are based on contiguity or causality (e. g.farmer:tractor, road:sidewalk, flu:headache). Performance on the two kinds of analogy items was compared for a single administration of the GRE for English and History majors (verbal group, n = 2238) and electrical engineering, computer science, and mathematics majors (practical group, n = 2143). The verbal group did better on intensional, and the practical group did better on extensional analogies. The difference was not explained by a correlated gender difference by which women did better on intensional and men did better on extensional items. Thus differences in the ability to use intensional and extensional relations was related to academic training, although the direction of this relationship was not established.     

Visual habituation in human infants: development and rearing circumstances

Summary Habituation is a type of learning that reflects changing responsiveness to repeated information. In two longitudinal studies, we examined individual differences, stability, and developmental change in the ontogeny of visual habituation in human infants across the middle of the first year of life. To study this phenomenon in breadth, we tested infants from two social classes within the same culture and infants from two different cultures. Infants demonstrated significant, but comparable, individual differences in habituation across socioeconomic and cultural variations in rearing circumstances; they showed significant, if moderate, stability in habituation; and they habituated significantly more quickly with age. These results are interpreted in terms of developing human beings' increasing efficiency in processing visual information near the beginning of extrauterine life.     

Gender differences,mediation, and disciplinary styles in children's responses to television

A sample of kindergarten and first-grade children was studied in a research center and at school to determine the extent to which family communication mediated their comprehension of television, as well as a series of cognitive skills necessary for such comprehension. Separate analyses were conducted for boys and girls, and results indicated that certain styles of family mediation facilitated comprehension more effectively for boys than for girls. Additionally, differential effects of two styles of discipline were found for each sex.This research was funded by a grant to Jerome and Dorothy Singer from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation entitled Television and Family Living Patterns.     

The subjective familiarity of English homophones

College students rated 828 homophonic words (words with the same pronunciation but different spellings) in terms of subjective familiarity. High interrater reliability was obtained, and the ratings correlated well with other published familiarity measures (r=.85). The familiarity ratings also correlated highly with log transforms of Ku?era and Francis’s (1967) printed frequency measures (r= 75). However, many words of equal log frequency varied widely in rated familiarity, and vice versa. To determine which of these two factors was the better predictor of verbal performance, we orthogonally varied the two in a lexical decision task and found that, for words of moderate frequency, rated familiarity was by far the better predictor. We conclude that even though printed frequency and rated familiarity generally covary, printed frequency is a less reliable index of the underlying psychological construct, word familiarity.