Representing Radcliffe: Perceptions and Consequences of Social Class

Using retrospective data from a sample of women who graduated from Radcliffe College in 1964, this paper examines the perceptions (what women notice) and consequences (how it makes them feel) of social class during college in these women's lives. The majority of women acknowledged that social class was salient at Radcliffe by stating so directly, by noticing members of different class groups, and/or by mentioning their own class backgrounds. In addition, women consistently perceived two markers of social class: exclusivity and the differences between public and private high school graduates. Surprisingly, there were no differences by social class background in the rates of these perceptions; social class indicators were equally apparent to women from different social class backgrounds. However, most commonly among women from working-class backgrounds, there were psychological consequences of social class that were manifested in feeling bad about themselves. In order to understand the psychology of social class most fully, it seems important to distinguish between perception and consequence in the psychological study of social class, and to pay attention to the impact not only of people's backgrounds, but of social class cues in the environments in which they operate.     

TESTS OF THE “CARPENTERED WORLD” HYPOTHESIS BY RACE AND ENVIRONNEMENT IN AMERICA AND ZAMBIA1

La sensibilité aux illusions optico-géométriques est-elle un trait héréditaire ou dérive-t-elle de facteurs d'environnement ? Ces deux hypothèses — hypothèse physiologique de Pollack et hypothèse écologique de Segall et al. — ont été examinées à l'aide des illusions de Muller-Lyer et de Sander appliquées à un échantillon américain et cinq échantillons zambiens. Dans le premier cas, on a étudié l'effet des variations de pigmentation rétinienne en milieu constant; en Zambie, au contraire, la variable raciale étant contrôlée, on a observé l'influence de différentes écologies (degré de “charpentisation” du milieu). Les résultats ne révèlent aucun effet significatif dû à la pigmentation rétinienne et appuient l'hypothèse de l'influence écologique. l'effet de la variable âge est aussi confirmé, la suggestibilité diminuant avec l'âge, tandis qu'apparaît un effet peu remarqué jusqu'ici, celui du sexe, les femmes se montrant moins sensibles à l'illusion.     

Social control of form diversity and the emergence of new forms in children's blockbuilding

The blockbuilding behavior of three preschool girls was analyzed in terms of the forms manifest in any completed block construction, and found to contain few different forms in baseline sessions. Social reinforcement, given contingent on the production of any form not previously constructed within the current session (i.e., every first appearance of any form within a session was reinforced but no subsequent appearances of that form within that session were), increased the number of different forms built per sessions. Social reinforcement, given for all second and later appearances within the session, decreased the number of different forms built per session. Furthermore, it was found that new forms (forms never seen before in the child's total prior sequence of blockbuilding sessions) emerged at higher rates during periods of reinforcement of different forms (first appearances) than during periods of baseline or reinforcement of same forms (second and later appearances).     

The two-flash threshold: An evaluation of critical-duration and visual-persistence hypotheses

The two-flash threshold is reduced by increasing the duration of both pulses of light or light adapting the eye. Increasing the duration of the first pulse also decreases the two-flash threshold, contrary to what a critical-duration explanation of the threshold would predict. Decreasing the duration of the second pulse increases the threshold when the second pulse is very brief. Light adapting the eye under such conditions serves to increase the two-flash threshold, unlike the effect adaptation has when a long second pulse is used.