Correlates of adult and child perceptions of social competency

In this study, the relationship between two commonly used measures of social competency, peer ratings of perceived status and adult ratings of assertiveness, were examined. In Phase I, high and low sociometric status children were videotaped responding to a series of role-play scenes; performance on these scenes was then rated retrospectively by adults for overall assertiveness. In Phase II, a second group of children who were unfamiliar with the videotaped children observed the taped scenes and provided ratings of likability, intelligence, working together, and attractiveness. In general, results revealed that children and adults differed in their ratings of the videotaped children. Further, boys used different cues in their ratings than did girls. More specifically, the sociometric status of girls was related to perceived attractiveness, whereas the sociometric status of boys was more closely related to perceived intelligence. Such findings suggest that children and adults look for and use different cues in their judgments. Given these differences, it is concluded that child and adult ratings should not be used interchangeably in the assessment of, and evaluation of, social competency in children.Portions of this research were supported by a grant from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services.     

References for motor tasks--gender differences across age in motor performance: a meta-analysis

In 1985 we published a meta-analysis of gender differences across age in motor performance in Psychological Bulletin, but it did not include an indexing of each motor task to the references from which it was obtained. This paper provides a table listing the 20 motor tasks and the references from which data for each task were taken. The range of tasks was from fundamental movements (e.g., catching, jumping, running, throwing) to motor fitness (e.g., agility, arm hang, balance, grip strength) to perceptual-motor abilities (e.g., anticipation timing, fine eye-motor coordination, pursuit-rotor tracking, reaction time). The arm hang was represented in the fewest papers (n = 2) while the dash and long jump were most frequently referenced (n = 21).     

Book Reviews

The Psychological Record -     

Implications of memory and language dysfunction in the naming deficit of senile dementia

Young normals, elderly normals, and patients with either mild-to-moderate or severe senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT) were administered several tests of language function and remote memory. On all of the language tests examined, elderly normals exhibited a mild, nonsignificant performance decrement relative to the young normals. Advanced SDAT patients were markedly impaired on all of the tests. Early dementia patients were most impaired, relative to aged normals, on tests of object naming, category instance fluency, and remote memory. The deficit was smaller on the WAIS vocabulary subtest, on selecting the name of a visually presented object, and on recalling the function of an object. Early SDAT patients were least impaired in selecting the picture of an object after its name had been provided and in selecting objects that belong to a specified functional category. The results are consistent with the notion that the language dysfunction in early SDAT is due to a deficit in semantic memory function in which general, categorical information remains available whereas information about specific attributes becomes less accessible. The object naming test might be useful in the assessment of treatment effects upon SDAT because of its sensitivity and specificity to dementia, its high face validity, and its independence of recent memory.     

Work site group meetings and the effectiveness of a televised smoking cessation intervention

At the work site, smoking accounts for increased health care expenses and worker absenteeism due to smoking-related illness and reduced productivity and lost wages. Developing comprehensive and accessible smoking cessation programs at the work site is an important objective for health care professionals. In this study, employees of 43 corporations participated in a televised smoking cessation program accompanied by self-help manuals. The media component involved presenting a smoking cessation program on a network television affiliate station during the 4:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. news for 20 days. Employees at half the corporations also had access to semiweekly self-help group meetings. Adding self-help support groups to a program involving self-help manuals and the media reports was found to significantly increase abstinence and its maintenance over time. The implications of using the media, self-help groups, and work site locations in large-scale community-based interventions are discussed.     

The effects of continuous phonation on Xenon-inhalation air curves (of the kind used in deriving regional cerebral blood flow)

Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) may be measured with inhalation techniques that use end-expired values of radioactivity to estimate the isotope concentration in arterial blood. These end-expired data are used as an input function in a mathematical equation to derive rCBF. End-expired air is assumed normally to be in equilibrium with the arterial blood at the alveolar surface of the lung during regular (passive) breathing; this assumption may not be valid during continuous phonation. We therefore have analyzed breathing (inhalation/exhalation) patterns and end-expired radioactivity (¹³³Xe) during (1) speaking, (2) singing, and (3) humming of the national anthem, and also during (4) passive breathing. Statistically significant differences in breathing patterns were measured between a group of nonmusicians and two groups of musicians (singers) during the phonation tasks: The nonmusicians breathed more often (and more rapidly) and exhibited less variability in their breathing patterns than did the musicians. Notwithstanding these differences, the shapes of smoothed functions derived from the end-expired values were not influenced appreciably during phonation (except possibly during talking). The latter finding suggests that estimates of rCBF derived with these data should not be confounded seriously because of the continuous phonation.     

The impact of pre-employment integrity testing on employee turnover and inventory shrinkage losses

A major home improvement chain located primarily in the western United States initiated the use of thePersonnel Selection Inventory, a written integrity test, as part of its pre-employment hiring process. For two years only, those job applicants who passed this test and other pre-employment criteria were hired by the chain. Following the introduction of the inventory, there was: (1) a 50% reduction in the number of employee terminations for theft, illegal drug use, and violence over a five year period and (2) a savings in shrinkage losses that amounted to over two million dollars over a two year period.     

The influence of alcohol and loud music on analytic and holistic processing

The influence of alcohol and loud music on analytic versus holistic processing was examined in classification, concept learning, and embedded figures tasks. In the classification task, loud music reduced analytic responding by individuals who had consumed alcohol and increased analytic responding by individuals who had received placebo drinks. Alcohol also decreased the speed with which individuals were able to generate analytic responses in the classification task and decreased analytic performance on the embedded figures test. Alcohol slowed the rate of learning in the concept-learning task but did not lead to less analytic responding in that task. The results are consistent with the idea that alcohol slows the rate of information processing, particularly in tasks requiring visual analysis of stimuli.     

TEACHING SOCIAL LANGUAGE TO MODERATELY HANDICAPPED STUDENTS

Three students with moderate handicaps were taught to initiate and expand on conversational topics. The teaching procedure used stimuli generated from actual conversations with nonhandicapped peers. Generalization was assessed by audiotaping conversations between the handicapped students and their peers in natural school contexts without adult supervision. Results indicated that training generalized to natural contexts. These results were socially validated by undergraduate special education students, who rated tapes of two of the students' conversations during training phases as more socially competent than during baseline. Results are discussed in terms of the evaluation of complex social behavior as multioperant behaviors.