From empire to democracy: effects of social progress on Turkish writers

What is the effect of a society's culture on the creative writers living there? Few cultures have had such a event as Ataturk's 1920 revolution that changed Turkey from a monarchy ruled by sultans into a republic. How would such a dramatic shift in a country's history be reflected in the accomplishments and characteristics of its writers? In this study, the authors investigated 948 eminent Turkish writers. Variables of gender, era, type of writing, education level, profession, and winning an award were all analyzed. The type of writing (fiction, poetry, plays, or nonfiction) and the era in which the writing was produced were both predictive of whether an author won a literary award. Before 1920, fiction writers received more awards than poets; after 1920, poets received more awards. In addition, professional writers were more likely to win awards than were professional politicians. Reasons for these findings are discussed with an emphasis on cultural and historical influences.     

Effects of expectations about evaluation and peer recommendations on students' ratings

Previous research on consumer satisfaction suggests that the anticipation of providing a later evaluation leads to more negative appraisals. Within the context of higher education, the current experiment focused on the evaluation of a presentation and its presenter. College students (35 men, 59 women) were randomly assigned to six conditions regarding evaluative expectations and peer recommendations. Students watched a brief video of a lecture on an educational topic and then evaluated the speaker and presentation. Anticipation of providing evaluations did not influence the subsequent evaluations; however, peers' positive recommendations led to more positive evaluations whereas negative recommendations led to more negative evaluations.     

The economics of the law of effect.

A corollary of the law of effect predicts that the larger the reinforcement, the greater the rate of responding. However, an animal must eat more small portions than large portions to obtain the same daily intake, and one would predict, therefore, that when eating smaller portions an efficient animal would eat less (conserving time and energy) and/or respond faster (conserving time). The latter of these predictions was supported by the present experiments with free-feeding rats for which portion size (pellet size or duration of feeder presentation) and portion price within meals were varied. Response rate was a function of the unit price (responses/g) of food: Rats responded faster when portions were smaller or when prices were higher. Meal size and frequency were relatively unaffected by unit price, but were influenced by the price of meal initiation. The results are discussed in relation to the economic differences between traditional operant and free-feeding paradigms and to both traditional and more recent formulations of the law of effect.     

Masculinity,femininity, and self-esteem: A multitrait-multimethod analysis

A multitrait-multimethod matrix analysis was conducted to determine (1) the degree to which self-report trait and behavior measures of sex role orientation converge, (2) the degree to which measures of masculinity and self-esteem can be discriminated, and (3) the relative degree of relationship of trait and behavior measures of sex role orientation to self-esteem. The results indicated that trait and behavior measures of masculinity and femininity showed little convergence, that trait masculinity did not meet the criteria for discrimination from self-esteem, and that trait masculinity was more strongly correlated with self-esteem than was behavior masculinity. These results were stronger for women than for men.I would like to express my appreciation to John Millar and Shauna Gatten for their assistance in data collection and coding, and to Paul Biner and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on earlier drafts of this article.     

Confirmatory analysis of simultaneous,sequential, and achievement factors on the K-ABC at 11 age levels ranging from 212 to 1212 years

The K-ABC is a recently published measure of children's intelligence based on a theoretical model of information processing. Exploratory factor analyses conducted during the scale's development supported the underlying theoretical model of sequential, simultaneous, and achievement factors. Confirmatory analysis using a Jöreskog method was carried out in the present investigation and completely supported the two-factor processing model. When the achievement measures were included, the two mental processing factors again clearly emerged, along with a third factor defined by the achievement scale subtests, but they did not fit an independent three-factor model.     

Sex-role orientation and psychological well-being: Two meta-analyses

Research on the relationship between sex-role orientation and psychological well-being has been guided by one of three models. The traditional congruence model holds that psychological well-being will be fostered only when one's sex-role orientation is congruent with one's gender; the androgyny model proposes that well-being will be maximized when one's sex-role orientation incorporates a high degree of both masculinity and femininity regardless of one's gender; the masculinity model posits that well-being is a function of the extent to which one has a masculine sex-role orientation. The adequacy of these three models was tested by means of a meta-analysis of 32 studies of the relationship between sex-role orientation and depression and general adjustment. The results of the meta-analysis provided the best support for the masculinity model, with masculinity having a moderately strong relationship to both high adjustment and lack of depression and with femininity having only a small relationship to adjustment and no relationship to depression. No support was found for the congruence model.The author would like to express his appreciation to Sanford Golin and Paul Sweeney for their helpful comments on early drafts of this article.     

Objective spatial coding by 6.5-month-old infants in a visual dishabituation task

Forty 6.5-month-old infants were tested in a visual dishabituation variation of Bremner and Bryant’s reaching task used to evaluate the spatial representations of infants. In the visual dishabituation version of this task, infants were habituated to a display in which an object held a constant position at a corner of the table. Following habituation, the object was either moved to the opposite table-corner or nothing on the table was changed. Also, the infant either remained in her starting position or she moved to the opposite side of the table. The results show that, following habituation to an object, infants dishabituated to a change in the actual location of an object and not to a change in the egocentric relationship between the infant and the object. We conclude that even in a landmark-free environment (1) 6.5-month-old infants are capable of representing space allocentrically, and (2) they have the ability to update their location during passive movement.     

Are the Tabloids Always Wrong or Is That Just What We Think? Need for Cognition and Perceptions of Articles in Print Media

This study examines how need for cognition, source credibility, and communication strength influence perceptions of a print-media communication. Participants read a strong or weak communication about an evolutionary theory, presented as an article from the Washington Post (high credibility) or the National Enquirer (low credibility). Results revealed a significant Need for Cognition × Source × Communication Strength interaction. Low-need-for-cognition participants who read the weak communication rated the article more positively when it was attributed to the high-credibility source than to the low-credibility source. Source credibility did not affect impressions of the article and theory among participants high in need for cognition or reading the strong communication. However, articles from the Washington Post were rated as more believable, factual, accurate, and true than those from the National Enquirer.     

Work motivation and job values among professional men and women: A new accounting

The professional literature is replete with theoretical examples explaining women's “lesser work commitment.” In this study of 208 accountants in one of the “big eight” international public accounting firms there were no significant differences between males and females on any of the components of work motivation measured. That is, women did not appear significantly different from men on any of the motivational variables, in the rewards they valued on the job, or on job characteristics they valued. In general, the “deficit theories” about women workers do not seem to apply to the women accountants under study.