Why do people disagree with a statement they do not understand? Relations between comprehension and evaluation of a simple assertion

This article presents the results of a quasi-experimental study that examined the relation between the metacomprehension (i.e., understand/do not understand) and evaluative (i.e., agree/disagree) response to a simple one-sentence statement to compare the relative timing in which these two responses are generated in the course of sentence processing. In the study, participants were asked to provide metacomprehension and evaluative judgements to simple one-sentence assertions, and their response times were measured. Two of the main findings are: first, the response time for the evaluative judgement is faster than the response time for the metacomprehension judgement and, second, the faster response time of the evaluative judgement relative to the metacomprehension judgement is more pronounced either when they are not sure about whether they understand a statement or when they feel they do not understand a statement. The findings are analysed in relation to a multiple constraint satisfaction model of sentence comprehension to generate a possible processing model of a simple one-sentence assertion underlying the generation of metacomprehension and evaluative responses.     

Science versus orthodoxy: Anatomy of the congressional condemnation of a scientific article and reflections on remedies for future ideological attacks

In July 1999 the U.S. Congress passed a formal resolution condemning our article on child sexual abuse (CSA), an article in which we concluded, based on 59 meta-analytically reviewed studies using college samples, that the assumed harmfulness of CSA had been overstated (Rind, Tromovitch, & Bauserman, 1998). The condemnation followed months of attacks by social conservatives and by mental health professionals specializing either in curing homosexuality or in treating patients by inducing them to recover memories of CSA. In this article, we detail the chronology behind the attacks. Then we discuss the science behind our meta-analysis, showing that the attacks were specious and that our study employed sound science, advancing the field considerably by close attention to issues of external, internal, and construct validity, as well as precision and objectivity. Next, we discuss orthodoxies and moral panics more generally, arguing that our article was attacked as vehemently as it was because it collided with a powerful, but socially constructed orthodoxy that has evolved over the last quarter century. Finally, we offer reflections and recommendations for fellow researchers, lest this kind of event recur. We focus on the need for greater cognizance of historical attacks on science to anticipate and deflate future attacks. We argue that our research should stand as another reminder among many that sacred-cow issues do not belong in science. We discuss nonscientific advocacy in the social sciences and the need to recognize and counter it. We discuss the failure of psychology to adequately deal with the study of human sexuality, a problem that enabled the faulty attacks on our article, and we suggest directions for becoming more scientific in this area. And last, we raise the issue of how professional organizations might deal more effectively with such attacks in the future.     

Development Through Work and Play

Adopting a work-play framework that attends to the adaptive, self-enhancing potential of play in work and human development contributes to an enhanced conceptualization of careers, both within career theory generally and the developmental perspective on careers specifically. Such a framework also promotes investigations of the connections between these life domains. Five proposals are made to imbue the developmental perspective on careers with a work-play fusion. These proposals examine how a work-play integration in vocational development theory, research, and counseling practice can foster optimal human development and therein aim to advance a revitalized developmental paradigm of career. Ultimately, theory construction and research inquiry that comprehends and investigates an integration of life roles in the domains of work and play could foster adaptability in human life-span development.     

The trajectory of psychoanalysis: A prognosticationy3

I present an overview of the development to this point of psychoanalysis as a discipline'both as a theory of the mind and a treatment of the disorders of the mind' and offer a prediction concerning evolving development over its (near) future. My focus is on the coherence of psychoanalysis as a theoretical structure, starting with Freud's strenuous endeavours to maintain the psychoanalysis that he had single‐handedly created as a unitary and unified theory, tracing then the breakdown of this effort, even in Freud's lifetime, into the burgeoning theoretical diversity or pluralism that characterises worldwide psychoanalysis today, and then going on to the beginning appearance of evidences' not yet widely remarked' of growing convergences from within very disparate and even seemingly very opposed theoretical perspectives, at least at the level of technical interventions and experience‐near clinical theory, with implications, however, even for the level of experience‐distant general (metapsychological) theory. Such a development, if sustained, as I anticipate, would strengthen the credibility of psychoanalysis as a science of the mind, amenable to growth through empirical research in accord with the canons of scientific method.     

Development of Academic Skills from Preschool Through Second Grade: Family and Classroom Predictors of Developmental Trajectories

Children's experiences with their parents and teachers were related to the acquisition of academic skills from preschool through second grade. Individual and group growth curves were estimated, and individual patterns of change were predicted from selected demographic, family, and classroom characteristics to identify multiple pathways to early academic competence. Standardized assessments of language and academic skills and parent and teacher surveys were collected on 511 children beginning in the second-to-last year of child care through the third year of elementary school. As expected, children tended to show better academic skills across time if their parents had more education and reported more progressive parenting beliefs and practices. Statistical interactions between family background and teacher-child relationships indicated that a closer relationship with the teacher was positively related to language skills for African-American children and to reading competence for children whose parents reported more authoritarian attitudes. These results provide further evidence that social processes in classrooms are important for academic competence for children considered at risk for academic problems.     

Aggression,depression, and bullying others

A questionnaire survey of a representative sample of 2083 Norwegian pupils in Grade 8 revealed a positive and significant correlation between depressive symptoms and bullying others and a strong positive correlation between both power‐related (ProPow) and affiliation‐related (ProAff) proactive aggressiveness and bullying others among both boys and girls. We investigated whether the correlation between Depressive Symptoms and Bullying Others was spurious. For boys, a multiple‐regression analysis with Bullying Others as the dependent variable revealed that both ProPow and ProAff had strong separate effects on Bullying Others, whereas the separate effect from Depressive Symptoms was not significant. Interactions between Depressive Symptoms and ProPow and ProAff on Bullying Others were not present. It was concluded that the significant correlation between Depressive Symptoms and Bullying Others was spurious for boys. For girls, ProAff, and ProPow × Depressive Symptoms had significant and rather strong separate impacts on Bullying Others. Implications for intervention and further research were discussed. Aggr. Behav. 28:198–206, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Agonistic and sociable behaviors in the mound‐building mice,Mus spicilegus: A comparative study with Mus musculus domesticus

Present social organization and mating systems result from selective pressures and ecological conditions but also from proximate interactions between individuals. Many studies report on a polygynous mating system with a social group territoriality in commensal populations of Mus musculus domesticus. However, little is known about the social organization of other Mus species living in outdoor conditions, such as the mound‐building mouse Mus spicilegus. Comparative studies between M. m. domesticus and M. spicilegus have already shown behavioral differences in female sexual preferences and paternal care. To study agonistic and sociable interactions and gain insight into the social organization and the mating system of M. spicilegus, the present study compared intraspecific dyadic encounters between unfamiliar adults in these two species. Results demonstrated less tolerance between females and between the sexes in M. spicilegus than in M. m. domesticus unfamiliar mice. The consequences of those differences between M. spicilegus and M. m. domesticus on social organization and mating system are discussed. Aggr. Behav. 28:75–84, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Does the Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA) measure maladaptive aspects of guilt and adaptive aspects of shame? An empirical investigation

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA; Tangney, J. P., Wagner, P. E., & Gramzow, R. (1989). The Test of Self-Concious Affect. Fairfax, VA: George Mason University) measures maladaptive forms or aspects of guilt and adaptive aspects of shame that have been described in the literature. First, a judgmental and logical analysis showed that the TOSCA primarily measures mild and adaptive forms and aspects of guilt and maladaptive aspects of shame. Next, principal components analyses (PCAs) in a student (N=328) and adult (N=542) sample showed that items that had a high loading on the guilt factor primarily were items that referred to reparative behavior, while items that had high loadings on the shame factor consisted primarily of items that referred to low self-esteem. To investigate to which extent these items were responsible for correlations found with the TOSCA, we constructed a revised guilt scale containing only items that referred to reparative behavior and a revised shame scale consisting of items that only referred to negative self-esteem, and related these to indices of interpersonal and intrapersonal functioning. The revised TOSCA scales reproduced both the pattern and magnitude of correlations obtained with the original TOSCA scales. Thus, taken together, the results of this study support the interpretation of the TOSCA guilt scale as a measure of mild and adaptive forms of guilt and the TOSCA shame scale as a measure of maladaptive aspects associated with shame. Implications of these findings for further research on the nature of guilt and shame are discussed.     

Protecting God from Science and Technology: How Religious Criticisms of Biotechnologies Backfire

Many religious critics argue that biotechnology (such as cloning and genetic engineering) intrudes on God's domain, or plays God, or revolts against God. While some of these criticisms are standard complaints about human hubris, I argue that some of the recent criticism represents a "Promethean" concern, in which believers unreflectively seem to fear that science and technology are actually replicating or stealing God's special deity–defining powers. These criticisms backfire theologically, because they diminish God, portraying God as an anthropomorphic superbeing whose relevance and special nature are increasingly rivaled by human power.