New Zealand Maori and European mothers and their 3-year-old children: Interactive behaviors in pre-school settings

The interactive behaviors used by 34 indigenous Polynesian and 41 European mothers were observed during spontaneous play sessions at New Zealand pre-schools. Mothers from higher and lower education-level backgrounds were included in each of the two ethnic groups and the mothers were videotaped with their 3-year-old sons or daughters. Maternal interactive behaviors were subsequently coded using Zegiob and Forehand's (1975) measure. Overall, the incidence of maternal interactions in command form was high. Marked individual differences within groups, and some important between-group differences, were evident on several behaviors, but child gender was not associated with major variations in maternal interactive behavior. The results affirmed, in the New Zealand context, the association between mothers' education levels and their interactive behavior, and here, the control of maternal education level and type of pre-school attended worked against “deficit” interpretations.     

PARTICIPATIVE EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN: AN EFFECTIVE APPROACH TO INCREASE SAFETY BELT USE

Vehicle license plate numbers and the shoulder belt use of front-seat occupants were recorded unobtrusively when parents delivered and picked up their children at a Montessori school during 5-day baseline, intervention, and follow-up phases. Practicing and presenting a 15-min safety belt skit increased the safety belt use of those 6 kindergarten children who were not consistent belt users 82% above their preintervention baseline belt use mean of 47%. The belt use of these children's parents (who watched the skit) increased to 56% above their baseline mean of 36%. Also, mean safety belt use of 11 primary school children who watched the skit increased to 70% above their baseline of 28%. Mean safety belt use of the older children's parents (who didn't watch the skit) remained at approximately 31% for each phase, regardless of whether children were vehicle occupants. The follow-up observations, taken 3 months after the intervention, revealed 60% belt use for the kindergartners, 48% for the primary school children, and 71% for the kindergartners' parents when the children were vehicle occupants but only 30% when the parents were driving alone.     

A Psychometric Investigation of the Usefulness of the Easi-III Temperament Survey in the Australian General Population

The psychometric properties of Buss and Plomin's EASI-III Temperament Survey were examined for a random sample of 290 respondents from the Australian general population. These data support the use of the emotionality, activity and sociability scales with some minor modifications, but cast doubt on the impulsivity scale. Not only did impulsivity emerge as a multidimensional construct, but its components related to other temperaments in markedly different ways. The preliminary analyses also suggested that the EASI-III could be used to measure other constructs, the most important of which are neuroticism and extraversion. The advantages offered by the EASI-III over currently available instruments are discussed: in particular, the simplicity and clarity of the items and the well-articulated sampling framework for their selection.     

THE TRAINING AND GENERALIZATION OF SOCIAL INTERACTION SKILLS WITH AUTISTIC YOUTH

Two experiments were conducted to increase the initiations and duration of social interactions between autistic and nonhandicapped youths. Experiment 1 taught two autistic youths to initiate and elaborate social interactions with three age-appropriate and commonly used leisure objects; a radio, a video game, and gum. The students were first taught to use the objects and subsequently instructed in the related social skills. The youths generalized these social responses to other nonhandicapped peers in the same leisure setting. A second experiment trained a third autistic youth to emit similar social leisure skills. The use of the leisure objects and the related social skills were taught at the same time. The autistic youth learned these skills and generalized them to other handicapped peers in the same leisure setting. The importance of teaching generalized social responding in particular subenvironments was emphasized.     

Conformity as a function of task generalization and relative competence

Subject correctness and group agreement were varied for college subjects engaged in a light discrimination task. On another task, employing multiple-choice questions about Canada, the dependent variable of conformity was assessed to examine generalization of relative competence formed on the light discrimination task. It was seen that (1) relative competence was seen to mediate conformity for a specific task (Canadian Knowledge Inventory), but did not generalize across tasks (i.e. from the light discrimination task to the Canadian Knowledge Inventory); (2) with respect to the Canadian Knowledge Inventory, subjects who perceived themselves as more competent than the group did not conform as much as those who either perceived themselves as less competent than or as competent as the group; (3) the experimental manipulations did not affect conformity, further supporting the findings that perceived competence does not generalize across classes of tasks; (4) females conformed more than males: and (5) nonsuspicious subjects conformed more than suspicious subjects.