Consistent curricular choice and congruence of subsequent changes

Curriculum choices of 324 male and 157 female liberal arts students who took the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII) during freshman orientation were classified as congruent or incongruent on the basis of rated correspondence between three-letter codes derived from (SCII) Holland theme scales and expressed curricular choice. The choices of those subjects reporting one or more changes in five semesters were examined for level of congruence using a two-way analysis of variance with repeated measures. While serious methodological limitations are noted, analysis of variance procedures indicated that congruent subjects tended to be more stable, more differentiated, and more academically oriented than incongruent subjects. Among subjects who reported one or more changes, Artistic subjects decreased in congruence while Investigative subjects showed no overall change. Results are discussed in terms of recent theory and previous research.     

Motor performance under three levels of trait anxiety and stress

In general, the interactive effects of trait anxiety and stress on motor performance have been neglected in assessing the viability of the inverted-U hypothesis. The present investigation tested the inverted-U hypothesis using three levels of trait anxiety and psychological stress. Performance results produced an inverted-U curve for the three levels of stress, with subjects in the moderate-stress condition displaying the highest performance. In addition, a significant trait anxiety x stress interaction indicated that high trait-anxious subjects performed best in the low-stress condition, while low trait-anxious subjects performed best in the high-stressed condition. The discussion concerns theories attempting to explain the relationship between anxiety and motor performance.     

Cognitive Slippage in Children Vulnerable to Schizophrenia

Psychological deficit research with adult schizophrenics has been hindered by numerous methodological problems that may be avoided by the prospective study of children vulnerable to the disorder. An object sorting task was administered to 156 children of schizophrenic patients, 102 children of depressed patients, and 139 children of normal parents. The children were between 6 and 15 years old. The children of schizophrenic parents made fewer superordinate sorting responses than those of normal parents, and more complex sorts (a category of inadequate responses) than children of either normal or depressed parents. Our analyses showed that these deficits could not be explained by differences in intelligence. These deficits in conceptual performance may reflect the genotypic predisposition to schizophrenia and/or represent an early precursor of later maladjustment.This research was supported by grant MH 21145 from the National Institutes of Mental Health and by funds from the William T. Grant Foundation. We would like to thank Linda Doll, Diane Liebert, and Jean C. Sullivan for testing the children, and Barbara Mosbacher and Rochelle Weinberger for scoring the protocols.     

On strategies for processing relative clauses: A comparison of children and adults

Adults were tested for the way in which they process four types of subject and object relative clauses. The results support an anti-interruption and anti-rearrangement constraint that has been proposed by Slobin. The reason why interruption and rearrangment of linguistic units is hard for adults is explained in terms of language-processing strategies that they are hypothesized to be using, in particular the Adjacency strategy. Adult behavior is compared to the performance of 4- and 5-year-old children in a previous study. The results of these two studies support the claim that children and adults are following the same strategies in processing these sentences, and that the difference between them is in which strategies they rely most heavily on, and, consequently, which sentences they make the most mistakes on.This research was supported by a Grant-in-Aid from the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota.This paper was presented at the Thirty-sixth Summer Meeting of the Linguistic Society of American, on July 29, 1974, in Amherst, Massachusetts.     

Reactions to pornography on a college campus: For or against?

In recent years pornography has become a controversial political/moral issue sparking intense debate among a variety of groups. The purpose of the research carried out in 1988 and reported here was to examine attitudes about and exposure to sexually explicit materials for a representative sample of predominantly Caucasian students at a state university in the Midwest. Results indicated that a majority defined pornography as media portraying explicit sexual activities, agreed that adults should have access to sexually explicit materials, and attributed both harmful and positive effects to such materials. Respondents tended to endorse either the views that sexually explicit materials are harmful, do not have positive effects, and should be restricted, or the opposite views that they are not harmful, do have positive effects, and should not be restricted. Women, more religious respondents, less sexually active respondents, and those who had never seen such materials endorsed the more negative evaluations. These students' views are compared with those of a representative sample of the county as a whole, as well as with residents of other locales in the United States. Results are also discussed with respect to four conceptually distinct positions on the pornography issue.We wish to thank Leslie Morgan and Brian Powell for their helpful comments on a draft of this paper.     

The Role of Temporal Comparison, Social Comparison, and Direct Appraisal in the Elderly's Self-Evaluations of Health

Elderly persons (n= 91) were interviewed about self- perceptions of physical health and the contribution of social comparison, temporal comparison, and direct appraisal to these judgments. Consistent with previous studies, self-assessments tended to be mainly positive (67% reported their health as “good” or “excellent”), though tempered somewhat by the individual's objective physical condition (i.e., number of chronic diseases or disabilities). Independent of objective health, respondents' ratings were more negative if they mentioned thinking about past or anticipated health. Respondents were more concerned about their health if they thought about their past or anticipated health or mentioned comparing with a specific other person. Direct feedback had no effect on health ratings. Among those who reported social comparison, ratings were more positive when worse-off others were mentioned. Temporal comparisons may be associated with more negative ratings because the elderly's past health is likely to have been better and their future (anticipated) health can be expected to become worse. If using temporal and social comparison information is associated with more negative assessments then what accounts for the generally positive self-assessments? We propose that the elderly compare themselves with a cognitively constructed stereotypical standard of the frail elderly rather than with a specific other. Because few elderly actually “fit” this stereotype, most elderly feel they are doing well.