Unemployment and its impact on adolescent work values

This study examines the impact of unemployment on the work values orientation of adolescents. Using Super's (1970) Work Values Inventory, data were collected from 187 youths residing in a large midwestern city in the United States. Youths from families where the head of household had been unemployed for more than one year prior to the time of the study were compared to youths from a working-family environment. The findings of this study show little difference between work values orientation of youths from unemployed and employed families. The only variable which did prove to be significantly different settings appear to is "esthetics" (p less than .05), i.e., youths from unemployed settings appear to value new experiences and outlets for their abilities more than do youths of the comparison group.     

ETHICS AND SOCIOBIOLOGY

Abstract. Sociobiologists make large claims for their subject. Knowing about the genetic underpinnings of human society will, they claim, enable us to understand all of human behavior and even to solve the ancient philosophical questions of how we ought to live. This essay assesses the significance of sociobiology for ethics. It argues that sociobiologists have misunderstood the relevance of facts to values and that their larger ambitions for their subject are bound to remain unfulfilled. Nevertheless, philosophers are wrong to ignore sociobiology. To give a genetic account of the existence of a widely held value does not justify that value, but it does say something of relevance to the ethical issues. The problem is to work out just what difference such an explanation makes.     

Fantasy or structural defect? The borderline dilemma as viewed from analysis of an experience of nonhumanness

The experience of nonhumanness, a crucial aspect of the phenomenal self of borderline states, is studied in two cases to test assumptions concerning the application of the classic ego-psychological or object-relations and self-psychological models. Are these experiences to be seen as fantasy and treated as manifest content, with dynamically active unconscious conflict and meaning, requiring interpretation, or as a developmental arrest in which structural disturbances are ameliorated through clarifying and empathic interventions? The first case is of a patient with a neurotic depression and hysterical and obsessional character traits, treated in a classic psychoanalysis. Even though dyadic oral and anal fantasies were strongly in evidence, the ego was well integrated. The second case is of a severe borderline patient who showed depressive panic and agoraphobia. Her major ego disturbances, poorly integrated and differentiated self- and object representations, and primitive defenses prevented effective psychoanalytically oriented treatment. Interventions were used to consolidate self-representations, internalize tension-regulating structures, promote adaptive ego functions and reality testing. These clarifications were necessary to move the patient to where she could tolerate facing unconscious dynamic conflicts. Only at that point could repression be lifted, memory emerge, and interpretation be utilized.     

IVF technology and the argument from potential

Singer and Dawson point out that two arguments against abortion, that the embryo is entitled to protection because from fertilization it is (1) a human being or (2) a potential human being, are also used by opponents of embryo experimentation. They focus on the second argument, evaluating the notion of potentiality as it applies to gametes, to the unimplanted embryo, to the implanted developing embryo, and to the embryo created by in vitro fertilization (IVF). They argue that there is a crucial distinction between natural reproduction, in which all that is needed for the embryo to have a prospect of reaching its potential is for those involved to refrain from stopping it, and IVF, in which the embryo cannot develop into a person without a deliberate human act. Reproductive techniques necessitate our rethinking of established views about potentiality, and how it should be applied to the embryo in a laboratory.     

Sensorimotor development in cocaine-exposed infants

This study investigated the effects of prenatal cocaine exposure on infant sensorimotor development. One hundred and sixty-seven12-month-olds (74 cocaine-exposed and 93 unexposed) were assessed using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID). Ninety-seven had previously been evaluated on the Movement Assessment of Infants and the Test of Sensory Functions in Infants at age 4 months. On the BSID, the cocaine-exposed infants performed less well on the Mental portion and were more frequently rated as behaviorally suspect. Cocaine-exposed infants also performed less well at four months on the motor and sensory measures. Early motor performance predicted 12 month BSID mental, motor and behavioral outcomes. Cocaine exposure had an effect independent from confounders on general cognitive and specific motor and behavioral outcomes.     

The primacyof visual information inthe analysis of letter strings

In Experiment 1, orthographic and phonetic information were separated by using artificial letters to represent English pseudowords and random letter strings. Subjects could learn to distinguish combinations of artificial letters on the basis of (1) orthographic, but not phonetic, information, (2) orthographic and phonetic information, (3) paired-associate verbal labels without orthographic information, and (4) neither orthographic nor phonetic information. By imposing a variety of response deadlines it appeared that subjects quickly exploited orthographic information without any contribution from phonetic correspondences. The only suggestion of a phonetic effect occurred in the absence of orthographic information and at longer latencies. Experiment 3 (using English letters) also suggested that phonetic information influenced the analysis of letter string pairs at only longer latencies, after visual analysis. Experiment 2 provided a demonstration that orthographic rules similar to those exploited in Experiment 1 were useful in visual discriminations regardless of the particular letter position affected by those rules. The results strain phonetic mediation models of performance in word-related tasks (e. g., Spoehr & Smith, 1975)and support models that emphasize visual analysis(Barron & Baron, 1977; Massaro, 1975; Pollatsek, Well, & Schindler, 1975).     

Similarity: Its definition and effect on the visual analysis of complex displays

Contemporary feature models of form perception have typically defined visual similarity in terms of shared (or discordant) sets of points. Two experiments tested the adequacy of this definition. In a same/different task, subjects were required to detect a single “different” form in displays of two, four, or six forms. In separate conditions, the “different” form was produced by various geometric transformations, where the number of discordant points could be held constant for some of those transformations. The first experiment compared the detectability of three transformations: deletion of an end-of-a-line segment, a break in continuity, and a mirror-image reversal. Reversals were detected most rapidly and accurately, with performance independent of display size. Although breaks and deletions produced the same number of discordant points, breaks were detected more rapidly and accurately. The second experiment tested whether the better detectability of reversals was due to a greater number of discordant points or to changes in the orientation of diagonal lines. The results indicated that entire displays can be rapidly organized (in “parallel”) on the basis of line orientations. In general, the experiments suggest that the similarity of forms may depend upon the transformations by which they are related rather than their common features.