Being female and athletic: A cause for conflict?

This study examined the interrelationships among role conflict, gender role orientation, and female sport participation. One hundred six female high school athletes and nonathletes were administered the Personal Attributes Questionnaire and a role conflict inventory. Multivariate analyses revealed that athletes experienced significantly higher levels of role conflict than nonathletes, but a nonsignificant relationship was found between role conflict and gender role orientation. Role conflict was also unrelated to type of sport, although team athletes high in feminine orientation perceived higher role conflict than low feminine oriented athletes. Overall, levels of perceived and experienced role conflict were low. In sum, role conflict does not appear a major concern for adolescent female athletes nor was gender role orientation a factor related to conflict between the roles of female and athlete.     

The Composite-Stimulus Analysis and the Quantal Nature of Stimulus Control: Response and Incentive Factors

The Psychological Record -     

Parent-perceived child behavior problems: Comparison of normative and clinical factors of the Adelaide-Conners Parent Rating Scale

The Adelaide-Conners Parent Rating Scale (APRS), an instrument developed by studying a large, representative group of schoolchildren, was used with a group of psychiatry attenders. Multimethod factor analysis found satisfactory agreement between the factor structures of the clinical and the normative groups. The patterns of scores on the 12 APRS scales were also compared. Two higher-order factors (Conflict with the Environment and Conflict within the Self) were identified in the clinical sample as previously found in the normative group. Comparison of the factor solutions with previous empirical efforts to identify parent-perceived patterns of child behavior disorder showed that the APRS compares well with other instruments and supports the strategy of proceeding from the study of normative populations to the study of clinically defined groups.This work was supported in part by a grant from the Department of Health, Canberra.     

Toward a predictive model of family planning

A study of 1200 women aged 15-45 in Mexico City was conducted with the object of discovering the factors that have the greatest predictive value for attitudes, beliefs, intentions, and behavior in reference to family planning. Information was solicited by questionnaire with respect to 6 groups of variables: 1) independent variables (age, education, occupation and education of spouse, and whether the woman worked before marriage); 2) perceived value of children and family planning; 3) peer group norms; 4) marital relationship; 5) modernization; and 6) motivation. Factor analysis was applied to each of the groups ofvariables to determine which factors had the greatest impact within the group; then multiple regression analysis was applied to determine which factors had the greatest predictive value. A predictive model of family planning according to the results is illustrated and the various aspects discussed. It was found that the intention to use contraceptives and a good marital relationship (one with open communication and shared decision making) were the best predictors of effective family planning behavior.     

Discrimination training and stimulus compounding: consideration of non-reinforcement and response differentiation consequences of S

In Exp. 1, four rats were trained on a two-component multiple schedule with tone and light each associated with different variable-interval schedules. Extinction in light-out no-tone, common to previous studies reporting additive summation to compounded discriminative stimuli, was omitted from training. In testing, the simultaneous presentation of tone and light controlled a response rate intermediate between that controlled by these stimuli presented singly. In Exp. 2, animals were trained on three-ply multiple schedules. While tone and light were each associated with variable-interval schedules for both groups, light-out no-tone signalled extinction for one and differential-reinforcement-of-behavior-other-than-bar-pressing for the other. This permitted response reduction during light-out no-tone to be viewed independently of non-reinforcement. Responding of both groups showed summation to tone plus light in testing, with the effect clearly larger for extinction-trained subjects. These experiments indicate that: (1) discrimination training afforded by extinction has been integral to additive summation previously reported, (2) response differentiation and non-reinforcement consequences of extinction training contribute to the magnitude of summation, and (3) summation and peak shift might be functionally related phenomena.     

ON SCIENCE AS A GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING THE ORDER AMIDST THE DIVERSITY OF LIFE

This paper is the reprinting under a new title of the “Foreword” of Paul A. Weiss's Life, Order, and Understanding: A Theme in Three Variations, published in 1970 as volume 8 supplement of The Graduate Journal of the University of Texas (Austin, Texas, #5.00 [hardcover], #2.50 [paperback], 157 pages). We reprint this paper here for two reasons. The first is that its beautiful, scientifically grounded imagery of living systems in relation to wave dynamics provides a significant supplement to this issue of Zygon on human values in the context of thermodynamics. The second is that it is hoped this foreword will serve better than would a book review to introduce Zygon readers to the philosophical and scientific wisdom contained in Life, Order, and Understanding.–Editor.     

Overt “mediating” behavior during temporally spaced responding

A rat was trained on a schedule that programmed reinforcements only when a minimum waiting time between successive responses was exceeded (DRL schedule). It was observed to fill much of the pause between lever presses with a stereotyped behavioral chain: it would take its tail in its mouth and nibble it. This behavior was shown to be functionally related to the efficiency with which the subject spaced its responses. It is thought to have served as mediating behavior, providing discriminating stimuli for appropriate lever presses.