Two Principles of Functioning of the Affects

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING OF THE ATTITUDES TOWARD FEMINISM AND THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT (FWM) SCALE

This article outlines the development and testing of the Attitudes Toward Feminism and the Women's Movement (FWM) Scale, a brief measure of affective attitudes toward the feminist movement. Thurstone's (1959) method of equal-appearing intervals was used initially to create the final 10-item summated rating (Likert) scale. Establishment of internal consistency reliability and construct (convergent and discriminant) validity was determined on a sample of 117 female and male college students. Results suggested a highly internally consistent and valid attitudinal measure. Additional evidence for the validity of the FWM is discussed in terms of research in which it has been successfully used.     

Training letter-to-sound connections: The efficacy of tracing

There is evidence that training letter-to-sound connections can be important for future reading development. The present study involved training letter-sound connections for two groups of prereaders equivalent in their IQ, knowledge of letters and age, to examine the importance of tracing letters in order to learn such connections. All children were trained individually. Each 15-minute training session was divided into three parts. In one 5-minute part of each session, the “Letter” group pronounced a letter shown on a computer and traced it on the screen with a pen, while the “Shape” group traced non-letter shapes. In the second 5-minute part, the Shape group named letters and watched them being traced while the other group watched the program tracing non-letter shapes. Thus both groups experienced the same letter-sound training and tracing activity, but only the Letter group experienced both in conjunction with each other. In the final 5-minute session both training groups received training in phonemic awareness training for 5 minutes. It was found that both groups improved significantly on a letter-to-sound test relative to a control group not receiving such training. However, only the Shape group significantly improved in a sound-to-letter test. It is concluded that tracing vertically on a computer screen does not appear to be advantageous for teaching letter-sound connections for this age range and can even be a distraction for learning sound-letter connections.     

Systematic observation methods in the study of small groups

A comparison was made between the Bales and the Carter-Haythorn-Meirowitz-Lanzetta methods of systematic observation. The comparison was limited to the categorizing of verbal behaviour. It was found that there are several deficiencies in the latter method with respect to the classes used, and that satisfactory observer reliability could not be obtained. By using the Bales method, on the other hand, fairly high total observer reliabilities were achieved, and even the category reliabilities in various classes turned out to be satisfactory, provided the category frequencies were large enough.     

The frequency principle for comparative judgments)

This experiment supplements a recetlf study of the effects of an interpolated weight upon memory for a standard (Parducci, Marshall, & Degner, 1966). The earlier data suggested that the stimulus-averaging approach as represented by the theory of adaptation level should be modified to incorporate the principle that Ss use alternative categories with equal frequency. The present data support this modification by demonstrating that even when the stimulus mean is held constant, judgments are affected by the relative frequencies of the comparison stimuli.     

Teaching help‐seeking when lost to individuals with autism spectrum disorder

Deficits in safety skills and communication deficits place individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at an increased risk of danger. We used a multiple‐probe across‐participants design to evaluate the effects of video modeling and programming common stimuli to teach low‐ and high‐tech help‐seeking responses to children with ASD when lost. Participants acquired answering or making a FaceTime^® call and exchanging an identification card in contrived and natural settings. Responses generalized to novel community settings and maintained during a one‐ and two‐week follow‐up. Social validity measures showed that the procedures and outcomes of the study were acceptable to indirect and direct consumers, and immediate and extended community members. Implications are that children with ASD can effectively be taught both low‐ and high‐tech help‐seeking responses when lost.     

Improving Written Argumentative Synthesis by Teaching the Integration of Conflicting Information from Multiple Sources

The goal of this study was to assess the effectiveness of 2 different types of intervention aimed at improving written argumentative synthesis by integrating conflicting information from different sources. Both interventions combined the use of a guide with collaborative practice, but one of them also included explicit strategy instruction. Only students who received additional explicit instruction showed an improved ability to integrate conflicting information and increased the number of arguments they selected from the sources.