Ethics and the Science of Animal Minds

Ethicists have commonly appealed to science to bolster their arguments for elevating the moral status of nonhuman animals. I describe a framework within which I take many ethicists to be making such appeals. I focus on an apparent gap in this framework between those properties of animals that are part of the scientific consensus, and those to which ethicists typically appeal in their arguments. I will describe two different ways of diminishing the appearance of the gap, and argue that both of them present challenges to ethicists seeking a firm scientific basis for their claims about the moral status of animals. I argue that more clarity about the role of appeals to science by applied ethicists leads to questions about the effectiveness of such appeals, and that these questions might best be pursued empirically.     

Influence of Therapist and Client Behaviors on Therapy Alliance

This study considers the combined effect of therapist behaviors and couples interaction dynamics on therapeutic alliance because it seems to be a significant predictor of successful therapy outcomes. We measured therapeutic alliance using the Working Alliance Inventory, Observer Version (WAI-O), which includes three subscales: goals, tasks, and bond. We investigated the combined effect of therapist behaviors and couples interactions on therapeutic alliance. There were three significant findings: (1) the models better predicted therapeutic alliance for men clients than women clients; (2) combined consideration of partner behaviors and therapist behaviors provided the stronger prediction of therapeutic alliance; and (3) different variables predicted alliance for women clients versus men clients.     

Everyday Marital Conflict and Child Aggression

Children's immediate aggressive responding to exposure to marital conflict was examined. Participants were 108 families with 8- to 16-year-old children (53 boys, 55 girls), with diary records of children's reactions to marital conflict in the home completed by 103 mothers (n = 578 records) and 95 fathers (n = 377 records) during a 15-day period. Child responses to analog presentations of marital conflict tactics were also obtained. Exposure to destructive conflict tactics and negative parental emotionality increased the likelihood of aggressive behavior in children when they witnessed marital conflict, whereas constructive conflict tactics and positive parental emotionality decreased the probability of aggression. Conflict topics presumed to be threatening to the child (child- or marital-related) also heightened the likelihood of aggression. Aggressive responding to conflict in both home and laboratory predicted externalizing behavior problems. Fathers' and mothers' separate diary reports, and child responses to analog presentation of conflict, provided generally consistent findings. An exposure hypothesis for marital conflict as an influence on child aggression is discussed.     

The relation of family cohesion to marital adjustment

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between family cohesion and marital adjustment. The sample consisted of 70 married graduate students from the State University of New York at Buffalo. The Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale was used to measure family cohesion. The Dyadic Adjustment Scale was used to measure marital adjustment. The Demographic Data Sheet was used for demographic characteristics. Overall, the result of ANOVA with planned comparison revealed that high marital adjustment was not only associated with a moderate level of family cohesion but also associated with a high level of family cohesion.This article is based on the first author's doctoral dissertation at State University of New York at Buffalo.     

The quantity and quality of marital interaction related to marital satisfaction: A behavioral analysis

An assessment instrument is presented for the evaluation of the quantity and quality of dyadic interaction, as well as for the daily recording of behaviors presented and omitted which influence marital satisfaction. Comparison of data from ten happy couples and from ten couples entering therapy indicated two distinct dysfunctional patterns among distressed couples, with significantly different patterns of time-together and positive/negative ratios differentiating the happy versus therapy groups. Independent behavioral recording for 14 consecutive days significantly increased husband-wife agreement on a traditional adjustment questionnaire without significantly increasing or decreasing the level of satisfaction being assessed. There was no difference between groups as to interspousal agreement on amount of time together. However, the happy couples agreed on daily quality ratings of the 72 15-minute segments significantly more often than did the distressed couples. Couples at the extremes of the happy-distressed continuum reported rewarding and punishing, respectively, in response to the partners presence, regardless of behaviors emitted. Midrange happy couples defined "pleasant" as positive behaviors presented; midrange distressed couples defined "pleasant" as negative behaviors omitted. Theoretical and clinical implications of behavioral analysis of sequential patterns are discussed.     

Stimulus generalization along a dimension based on a verbal concept

The present study examined generalization along a dimension based on a verbal concept of occupational status. The status dimension was scaled by students who placed occupation names into five status categories, Category 1 representing highest status and Category 5 the lowest status. In two experiments, key presses by students were occasionally reinforced when a slide showing an occupation name from Status Category 3 was present. For half the subjects, key presses were not reinforced during a name from Category 1; for the other half, presses were not reinforced during a name from Category 5. Occupation names from all status categories were later singly presented. In this generalization test, subjects typically divided the dimension into two parts, responding alike to all names within each part. The results suggest that generalization along a dimension in humans is mediated by a subject's verbal classifications of stimuli.     

Intergenerational relationships and marriage in China: Within-family longitudinal associations and between-family differences

Marriage is embedded in the web of spouses' broader social ties, and relationship quality with parents and parents-in-law is associated with marital quality. Guided by Family Systems theory and using three waves of dyadic data from 268 Chinese different-sex couples across the first several years of marriage, we first conducted a Random-Intercept Actor-Partner Interdependence Cross-lagged Panel Model (RI-APIM-CLPM) to examine the within-family longitudinal associations among husbands' and wives' relationship quality with parents, parents-in-law, and spouse. Then, husbands' and wives' filial obligations were added as predictors of between-family differences in their own and their partner's relationship quality in the three social ties. Among husbands, increased relationship quality in one social tie (e.g., with parents) predicted reductions in relationship quality in the other social ties (e.g., relationships with parents-in-law and marital quality). Our examination of between-family differences demonstrated that high levels of filial obligations predicted higher intergenerational relationship quality and marital quality. By simultaneously considering the within-family associations of multiple social ties and how filial obligations account for between-family differences in relationship quality, we contribute to a nuanced understanding of how Chinese couples' romantic partnerships are embedded in their broader family system.     

Who is a thinker? With age,higher SES American children increasingly associate social status with divisions in labour

This exploratory report investigates how children, aged 6- to 12-years, reason about divisions in labour. It focuses on understanding when in development children might associate higher status groups with intellectual as opposed to physical labour. It explores this question by introducing a sample of mostly mid/high-SES American children to a novel factory setting and then asking them who is likely to have one of two jobs: a ‘builder’ (physical labour), or ‘thinker’ (intellectual labour) job. Older children were more likely than younger children to associate an individual's higher social status with intellectual labour work as opposed to physical labour work. Children also explained their reasoning, and with age their explanations focused more on social factors like the role of access to ‘choices’ or opportunities in shaping the nature of others' work.