Intrafamilial Sexual Abuse: Family-of-Origin and Family-of-Procreation Characteristics of Female Adult Victims

We examined connections between incest victims' family-of-origin and family-of-procreation characteristics in a sample of 40 American women who were in treatment for childhood or adolescent experiences of victimization. Retrospective data on their families-of-origin were collected along with their perceptions of current relationships with family members in the three-generational system. Results showed a close association between family-of-origin and family-of-procreation characteristics, especially in the areas of intergenerational intimacy, intergenerational fusion/individuation, and personal authority. A number of significant correlations were also found between subjects' past and present relationships with family-of-origin members and the dimensions of moral and religious orientation, achievement, and intellectual and cultural orientation, conflict, and control in their family-of-procreation. Some aspects of individual adjustment, including alienation, emotional discomfort, and defensiveness, were strongly related to various family-of-origin and family-of-procreation characteristics.     

Proficiency and Workload in Simultaneous and Successive Proofreading Tasks

The prevalence of video display terminals (VDTs) in data processing settings has encouraged research into the factors affecting proofreading performance in electronic and hard copy formats. The present study undertook the initial investigation of the effect of side-to-side head movements on proofreading from hard copy to VDT. Subjects proofread by visually comparing two lines of alphanumeric code, which simulated original and keyed-in (processed) data, in two display configurations. Speed and accuracy were degraded in the successive (side-to-side) condition, relative to performance with a simultaneous (head-on) VDT display. Subjects' ratings of mental workload mirrored these findings, with workload rated higher in the successive condition. The results are congruent with a taxonomy of sustained attention tasks developed by Davies and Parasuraman (1982), which emphasizes a distinction between tasks requiring working memory and those that do not. Additional implications of the present results for a resource allocation model of proofreading are discussed.     

Introduction: A Festschrift in Honor of Earl A. Alluisi

A battery of 10 traditional paper-and-pencil aptitude tests and a battery of 25 cognitive-components-based tests were administered to 298 men and women to investigate the common sources of variance in those batteries. Earlier confirmatory factor analyses showed each battery to have a hierarchical structure, each with a single higher order factor. The higher order factor in the paper-and-pencil battery had previously been identified as general cognitive ability, or g. The higher order factor from the cognitive-components battery had been identified as working memory. The intercorrelation of the higher order factors from the two batteries was .994, indicating that both measured g. The proportion of common variance because of g was greater in the cognitive-components battery than in the paper-and-pencil battery. The correlations between each factor based on cognitive components and g averaged .946. Despite theoretical foundations and arguments, cognitive components tests appear to measure much the same thing as traditional paper-and-pencil tests.     

Children's and Adults’ Judgments of the Certainty of Deductive Inferences,Inductive Inferences,and Guesses

Children and adults rated their own certainty following inductive inferences, deductive inferences, and guesses. Beginning in kindergarten, participants rated deductions as more certain than weak inductions or guesses. Deductions were rated as more certain than strong inductions beginning in Grade 3, and fourth-grade children and adults differentiated strong inductions, weak inductions, and informed guesses from pure guesses. By Grade 3, participants also gave different types of explanations for their deductions and inductions. These results are discussed in relation to children's concepts of cognitive processes, logical reasoning, and epistemological development.     

The Development of Strategic Processing of Ambiguous Words: Riddles Versus Neutral Context

Children in Grades 4 and 6 read isolated target words following the auditory presentation of an ambiguous word (e.g., deck). The ambiguous word occurred as the last word in either a neutral sentence (e.g., “There is the deck”) or as the last word in a riddle (“Why couldn't anybody play poker on the ark? Because Noah sat on the deck). Related target words were consistent with either the dominant meaning (e.g., porch) or the subordinate meaning (cards) of the ambiguous word. In the neutral context, Grade 4 children showed equivalent facilitation for dominant and subordinate targets relative to unrelated target words; Grade 6 children showed facilitation only for the dominant targets. In the riddle context, both groups of children showed equivalent facilitation for the two types of related targets. The neutral context results supported the hypothesis that the two bases of context effects—automatic lexical access and selective access—develop at different rates (Simpson &; Foster, 1986). The results obtained from the riddles suggest that the selective process is strategic (Ceci, 1989).     

Factors Influencing the Selection of Toys for Handicapped and Normally Developing Preschool Children

Factors influencing the selection and purchase of toys for children's use were investigated. Subjects were 73 parents or adult friends of normally developing or handicapped preschool children. In addition to providing demographic information about themselves, the subjects rated the importance of 17 factors influencing their selection and purchase of toys. Contrary to previous research, the sex of the child was reported to be of only minor importance in toy selection, as was the picture on the toy package. Two factors, safety and teaching new skills, were rated as extremely important. There were no significant differences in ratings as a result of sex, ethnicity, or whether or not the subjects were parents of a handicapped child. The findings suggest a substantial degree of agreement among parents about what they consider important when choosing toys for children.     

Longitudinal Predictors of Alcohol‐Related Harms During the Transition to Adulthood

While a range of factors have been found to increase the likelihood of alcohol‐related harms among young people, little is known about their relative importance. This article aimed to identify the risks for alcohol‐related harms at an age when alcohol use and problems tend to peak in Australia (19–20 years). A wide range of concurrent and antecedent factors from multiple domains were examined using path analysis, including individual characteristics, family environment, and externalising and internalising problems. The sample comprised of 941 individuals from the Australian Temperament Project, a large longitudinal community‐based study. The path model controlled for current risky drinking and revealed a number of variables that were significant longitudinal predictors of alcohol‐related harms within each of the domains, including adolescent antisocial behaviour and drinking behaviour, low agreeableness, impulsivity, and paternal drinking levels. The potential for developmental prevention approaches to reduce alcohol‐related harms by targeting externalising behaviour problems, interpersonal influences, and individual characteristics is discussed.     

Matching-to-Sample and Stimulus-Pairing-Observation Procedures in Stimulus Equivalence: The Effects of Number of Trials and Stimulus Arrangement

The Psychological Record - Studies comparing the effectiveness of the stimulus-pairing-observation and matching-to-sample procedures in facilitating equivalence relations have reported conflicting...