Comments on 'Call for a follow-up study of experiments on long-term deprivation of human infants' by Micha Razel

Razel's examination of the early work of McGraw and the Dennises puts a heavy requirement on studies of single subjects and on some possible interpretations for which, unfortunately, documentation is insufficient. Further, the Dennises placed more emphasis on the autotelic quality of motor mastery than Razel notes. Rather than looking for these persons whose behavior was studied long ago, direct study of motor mastery by systematic provision of enrichment conditions during early development is more likely to be instructive and a better use of scientific resources.     

AIDS and intimate relationships: Adolescents’ knowledge and attitudes

The knowledge level about HIV/AIDS among American adolescents aged 16 to 19 has been assessed on several occasions, showing that in recent years their knowledge base has improved. The knowledge bases of British adolescents and of adolescents younger than 16 have been largely ignored. In attempting to assess the likely impact on present or future behaviors of increasing adolescents’ knowledge base about AIDS it is important to also know something of adolescents’ attitudes to intimate relationships and to sex within those relationships. Previous studies have not linked these two aspects. In this study two hundred London schoolchildren aged 14 and 15 years completed a questionnaire tapping both their knowledge about HIV infection and its transmission and their attitudes to intimate relationships. Their answers revealed that they had absorbed the simple media messages about AIDS, that it kills and that use of a condom during sex offers protection. However they were less well informed on detailed aspects of prevention, although, worryingly, they believed that they knew all that they needed to about preventive measures. The majority had attitudes to intimate relationships that were compatible with the message of restricting their number of sexual partners; however, a significant minority did not. The latter were more likely to deny the risk associated with promiscuity. It is suggested that school-based AIDS education programs should help individuals to develop new attitudes to intimate relationships that are compatible with risk avoidance.     

Recall of autobiographical events

The clarity with which events that happened 6 years earlier can be recalled was estimated. The estimates are consistent with a gradual degradation rather than a precipitate decline of memory, and with the proposition that once an event cannot be recalled then it will remain inaccessible under similar conditions of cueing. Rare events are recalled well, suggesting that proactive interference has a strong influence on difficulty to recall. Vivid events are recalled well, also, but other dimensions such as importance of the event, its association with semantic knowledge, and the intensity of physical sensation are not related to recallability. Memory for the date of an event is poor, but for its time of day is good.     

Mobility,extraversion, and neuroticism

Mobility, a property of Pavlovian higher nervous activity, was measured using an induction task. Negative induction, following presentation of an excitatory stimulus, is an index of mobility of excitation and positive induction, following presentation of an inhibitory stimulus is an index of mobility of inhibition. Mobility scores from 27 male and 37 female first-year psychology students, age 17 to 42 years were related to extraversion and neuroticism derived from Eysenck’s Personality Inventory (Form A). Mobility of excitation and mobility of inhibition were found to be unrelated. Individual differences in the magnitude and latency of induction indicate that individuals can be typed according to low, medium, or high mobility of either nervous process. No relationship was found between neuroticism and mobility, and no relationship was found between extraversion and mobility of excitation. However, a significant negative relationship was found between extraversion and mobility of inhibition, providing a link between Pavlovian properties of the nervous system and Eysenck’s personality dimension of extraversion.     

Gender differences in leisure-need activity patterns

A gender-by-leisure choice model predicting four different leisure-choice-by-need patterns, based on gender restricted or unrestricted choice by same or different needs, is described and tested. Assessment of leisure-choice-by-need patterns was made by determining the relevance of a set of 13 need attributes for 16 different leisure activities. Gender differences in need attributes for each activity were identified using stepwise discriminant analysis. Results revealed significant discriminations for 12 of the 16 activities. Analyses further indicated that somewhat different clusters of need attributes were associated with each activity. Results provided tentative support for the proposed model, suggesting that participation in some activities is related to the same needs for males and females, while participation in other activities is related to different needs.     

Intimacy maturity and its correlates in young married couples

Intimate relationships, like the individuals who participate in them, are conceived of as following developmental processes. Five dimensions of intimacy--that is, relationship orientation, caring-concern, commitment, sexuality, and communication--are identified, and an approach to assessing relationship maturity on each of these dimensions is described. In a study of 31 young married couples, scores on each dimension of intimacy maturity were analyzed in relation to gender, gender role (as assessed through an adaptation of the Bem Sex Role Inventory; Bem, 1974), and marital adjustment. There were no significant differences between husbands and wives on any of the intimacy or marital adjustment scales and only a marginal difference on one gender role scale (agency). Patterns of correlations among intimacy, marital adjustment, and gender role scores varied by gender. Not only do there appear to be two marriages (his and hers) in every marriage, but the correlates of these marriages also vary.     

Gender differences in the perceptions of self's and others' use of power strategies

The utility of P. B. Johnson's [Women and Interpersonal Power, in D. N. Ruble & G. L. Zellman (Eds.), Women and Sex Roles, New York: W. W. Norton, 1978] framework for the sex typing of power strategies was examined. Female and male subjects rated the extent to which they used a number of power strategies in order to get their way with others. Subjects also rated their perceptions of the extent to which either men-in-general or women-in-general used the strategies. Partial support for Johnson's framework was found in that males reported greater use of masculine-typed strategies than did females, though they did not report using these strategies more than feminine-typed ones. Females did not report significantly greater use of feminine strategies than did males, though they reported using more feminine- than masculine-typed strategies. Data also indicated that both males and females held similar gender-consistent sex-stereotyped perceptions of the power strategies used by men-in-general and women-in-general. Comparison of self-report ratings with usage attributions for men-in-general and women-in-general revealed that both male and female subjects perceived themselves to use most of the strategies less often and to be more inclined to use socially desirable strategies involving reason and logic and compromise.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 29th annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, March 1983.     

Child study at Clark University: 1894-1904

A first cooperative research program in developmental psychology was established in the Clark questionnaire studies. The program was not meant to be free-standing but to elaborate an evolutionary conception of child development synthesized from findings of several scientific fields. The short-lived program had some serious faults, but an examination of its research papers suggests that it produced some worthwhile work. The child-study researchers gathered information about children's social and emotional reactions in everyday settings; one or two of their studies were replicated; they found pattern and order; they elaborated a meaningful social-biological view of child development.