The Efficacy of the General Aptitude Test Battery in Allocating Prisoners to Work and Trade Training Courses

Ninety trainees at Deerbolt Borstal, County Durham, were randomly assigned to four groups for placement on trade training courses and work. The first group was assigned on the basis of the General Aptitude Test Battery and a brief interview about their interests; the second group on the basis of the General Aptitude Test Battery; the third group on the interview about their interests; whilst the fourth group was assigned randomly to existing vacancies. A 16-week follow-up showed significant differences across the groups in terms of successfully completing placements, the General Aptitude Test Battery being the crucial factor in allocating individuals successfully. Ratings of trainee performance from supervisors taken after two weeks did not, however, show significant differences across the groups.     

The Role of Picture Books in Children's Spiritual Development and Meaning Making [1]

This paper sets out to explore how spiritual development might be addressed through the use of picture books in the primary classroom. The working definition for what is meant by ‘spiritual development’ is drawn from a variety of sources but is principally informed by the National Curriculum Council (NCC) and Ofsted discussion papers and the work of John Hull. Thus the work centres on the aspects of spirituality that are developed through experiencing relationships with other human beings and the world in which we live. The paper draws upon original classroom based research carried out with a group of 8 year old children in an inner city school. The children's group discussions centre around the picture book ‘Dogger’ by Shirley Hughes. The paper explores how the children are able to make and negotiate meaning as they address ‘spiritual’ issues.     

The diversification of psychology: a multicultural revolution

The National Multicultural Conference and Summit was held in January 1999 in Newport Beach, California. Hosted by Divisions 17 (Counseling Psychology), 35 (Society for the Psychology of Women), and 45 (Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues), the event drew support from many American Psychological Association (APA) divisions and other major organizations and sponsors. Approximately 550 psychologists and graduate students attended the conference, which was intended to (a) examine state-of-the-art issues in ethnic minority psychology, (b) identify barriers to becoming a multicultural profession, and (c) forge alliances for political action and advocacy. The summit participants unanimously endorsed resolutions aimed at implementing cultural competence in all psychological endeavors. Multicultural themes arising from the summit included the diversification of the United States; the facilitation of difficult dialogues on race, gender, and sexual orientation; spirituality as a basic dimension of the human condition; the invisibility of monoculturalism and Whiteness; and the teaching of multiculturalism and diversity. APA was strongly encouraged to take the lead in seeing that multicultural competence becomes a defining feature of psychological practice, education and training, and research.     

Fear of failure in males: A more salient factor than fear of success in females?

Sex differences in self-attributions following winning or losing in a highly competitive achievement-type situation were investigated. Subjects competed in same- or mixed-sex pairs on an anagram task which was prearranged in difficulty so that one subject would clearly defeat his/her partner. A significant sex of subject × outcome interaction emerged. Males were more likely to attribute their successes to skill and failures to luck. Females attributed both their successes and failures to a relatively equal amount of skill. This self-defensive bias in males was interpreted as indicating a greater fear of failure in males. The relatively rational and objective attributions of females did not support a female fear of success hypothesis. No significant interactions with sex of partner on this variable were found. Finally, subjects were asked to rate their opponents on a series of personality, attractiveness, and happiness dimensions. Neither males nor females were differentially evaluated as a function of winning or losing.The research reported here was partially supported by a grant to the first author from the California State University, Fresno Foundation.     

The phonetic effect in preschool children: The influence of overt rehearsal and verbal instructions

Preschoolers' serial matching of picture lists composed of either phonetically similar or unrelated items was compared under three types of conditions. The lower retention of phonetic lists had been used as an index of verbal mediation by Conrad (1971, 1972) who found that preschoolers did not show differential retention, and hence no verbal encoding, even when they were required to label overtly. This result was replicated and also obtained in a condition which emphasized the verbal aspects of the task. However, a significant phonetic effect and higher overall retention resulted from a condition which required overt, cumulative rehearsal. Alternative interpretations of the influence of rehearsal on the phonetic effect were offered.     

Self-disclosure reciprocity,liking and the deviant

Conflicting predictions were derived from social exchange theory about the role of social attraction and the reciprocity norm on mutual self-disclosure in dyadic relationships. Sixty-six female subjects were exposed to one of three levels of disclosure input: conventional-low disclosure, conventional-high disclosure, or devianthigh disclosure. In support of the reciprocity norm prediction, willingness to disclose personal information was a positive function of the amount of disclosure input from another person, regardless of the degree of liking for the initial discloser.     

THE ROLE OF REFERENTIAL SPEECH IN SIGN LEARNING BY MENTALLY RETARDED CHILDREN: A COMPARISON OF TOTAL COMMUNICATION AND SIGN-ALONE TRAINING

We conducted two experiments to assess the role of referential speech during sign training in which the spoken words corresponding to signs were receptively known to the participants. An alternating treatments design was used to compare sign acquisition across two teaching conditions in which referents were presented either with or without the corresponding verbal label. During the first experiment, signs were taught concurrently; during the second experiment, signs within each of the respective conditions were taught in a serial fashion. In both experiments, signs taught by total communication were acquired faster than those taught by sign-alone training.     

WOMEN'S AMBITIONS: A THREE-GENERATIONAL STUDY

The purpose of this study was (a) to describe the nature of women's ambitions across three generations of women within families, (b) to assess the women's perceptions of factors influencing their ambitions, and (c) to determine their estimates of success in attaining their ambitions. In addition, influence of the generations upon each other and relative similarity of ambitions within families versus within generations was evaluated. Subjects were 10 women who were seniors at a large, midwestern state university, their mothers, and their maternal grandmothers. The most prevalent categories of ambitions across all generations were marriage/family, educational, and vocational. Change in women's roles and a trend toward greater economic affluence across generations had the greatest influence on ambition development and attainment. Influences of one generation on another were apparent for adjacent, but not for nonadjacent, generations. In general, women's ambitions were more similar within generations than within families.     

A cross-linguistic study of the processing of causative sentences

The comprehension of sentences expressing instigative causation (e.g., The horse makes the camel run) was investigated in children between the ages of 2;0 and 4;4, speaking English, Italian, Serbo-Croatian and Turkish. Cross-linguistic differences in development reveal the roles of morphological (causative particle, case inflection) and syntactic devices (periphrasis, word order) in guiding children's processing of such constructions. It is suggested that local cues (inflectional suffixes, particles, specialized causative verb forms) contribute to the more rapid development of sentence processing strategies in Serbo-Croatian and Turkish. The word order systems of English and Italian, which require that the listener hold the entire sentence pattern in mind in order to determine underlying semantic relations, contribute to slower development on this task.