An evaluation of a brief multiple-stimulus preference assessment with adolescents with emotional-behavioral disorders in an educational setting

Brief multiple-stimulus-without-replacement (MSWO) preference assessments were conducted with 3 adolescent boys with emotional-behavioral disorders in the context of their public school educational program. The reinforcing effects of stimuli identified as high, medium, and low preference were then evaluated using an alternating treatments design in which, following an initial baseline, stimuli were delivered contingent on on-task behavior. High-preference stimuli produced the highest percentages of on-task behavior for all 3 participants.     

The Effects of Commercials on Children’s Perceptions of Gender Appropriate Toy Use

Sixty-two first and second grade students (28 boys, 34 girls) were exposed to one of three commercial videotapes in which either all-boys (traditional condition) or all-girls (nontraditional) were playing with a toy. Participants in the control condition were exposed to nontoy commercials. After exposure to one of the conditions participants performed a toy sort where they were asked if six toys, including the two manipulated toys, were for boys, girls, or both boys and girls. Participants in the nontraditional condition were more likely to report that the manipulated toys were for both boys and girls than were participants in the traditional condition, who were more likely to report that the manipulated toys were for boys. This effect was stronger for boys than for girls.     

Cross-Cultural Reactions to Academic Sexual Harassment: Effects of Individualist vs. Collectivist Culture and Gender of Participants

Male and female university students from the United States, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Ecuador, Pakistan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Turkey read a standardized scenario in which a male professor was accused of sexually harassing a female graduate student. Respondents from individualist countries judged the professor to be guilty of sexual harassment more often than did those from collectivist countries. Women rendered significantly more guilty judgments and assigned more severe punishments to the accused professor than did men. Implications for the individualist–collectivist classification system and cross-cultural research are discussed.     

Conceptual versus Perceptual Priming in Incomplete Picture Identification

This paper examined conceptual versus perceptual priming in identification of incomplete pictures by using a short-term priming paradigm, in which information that may be useful in identifying a fragmented target is presented just prior to the target’s presentation. The target was a picture that slowly and continuously became complete and the participants were required to press a key as soon as they knew what it was. Each target was preceded by a visual prime. The nature of this prime varied from very conceptual (e.g., the name of the picture’s category) to very perceptual (e.g., a similar-shaped pictorial prime from a different category). Primes also included those that combined perceptual and conceptual information (e.g., names or images of the target picture). Across three experiments, conceptual primes were effective while the purely perceptual primes were not. Accordingly, we conclude that pictures in this type of task are identified primarily by conceptual processing, with perceptual processing contributing relatively little.     

Interpersonal Dependency in Child Abuse Perpetrators and Victims: A Meta-Analytic Review

Meta-analysis of studies assessing interpersonal dependency in child abuse perpetrators (N of studies = 7) and victims (N of studies = 9) indicated that perpetrators have higher dependency levels than nonabusing controls (d = 0.43), and child abuse victims have higher dependency levels in early adulthood than people who were not abused as children (d = 0.47). An array of other personality traits and disorders showed comparable associations with abuse suggesting that in both populations increased dependency reflects a generalized increase in pathology and distress. Theoretical implications of these results are discussed, and suggestions for future research on dependency and abuse are offered.     

Expectancies for Sexually Abused Children: Evidence of Perceiver Bias

We investigated perceiver bias in relation to children labeled as sexually abused. Building on recent research indicating that adults perceive children with such a label as having more behavioral problems and lower achievement, we replicated and expanded upon an earlier study. We tested undergraduate students (N = 699), who judged a six-year old child's aggressive behavior in vignettes that varied on severity of the aggressive behavior, child gender, and family history (sexually abused, mother dying of cancer, normal). Perceiver bias was related to family history label for internalizing behavior problems and competence issues and child gender for internalizing behavior problems and externalizing behavior problems. Implications for educators and practitioners are discussed as well as routes for future research.     

Liberalism and the Privatised Family: The Legacy of Rousseau

This article argues that the intellectual legacy of Rousseau is at the root of the failure of 20th century egalitarian theorists such as Rawls and Dworkin to engage intellectually with feminist theorists working within the liberal tradition. Through an extended critique of Rousseau’s delineation of the relationship between liberal citizenship and the private family, it argues that the failure of such liberal theorists to take gender hierarchy seriously is a consequence of their attempt to place the private family outside the sphere not only of politics, but also of justice.     

Religious Activity and Risk Behavior Among African American Adolescents: Concurrent and Developmental Effects

This study examines how religious activity is associated with risk behaviors, concurrently and developmentally among urban African American adolescents. Seven hundred and five African American youths were interviewed annually during high school. Retention rates for the study exceeded 90%. Frequency of religious activity, sexual intercourse, and alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use were assessed at each wave. Growth curve analyses found negative concurrent associations between religious activity and each of the four risk behaviors. The developmental effects of religious activity varied by gender. Higher levels of religious activity in 9th grade predicted smaller increases in marijuana use among males and cigarette use among females. In addition, larger decreases in religious activity during high school were associated with greater increases in alcohol use among males and sexual intercourse among females. During high school, religious activity limits the development of certain types of risk behavior among African American youth, even after controlling for reciprocal effects.     

Who's in Charge?: Coparenting in South and Southeast Asian Families

In light of the evolving roles of parents and the involvement of extended family within Asian cultures, the traditionally Western dyadic coparenting construct must be reconceptualized to include not only the coparenting relationship, but also other caregivers within the coparenting network. Theoretical and empirical evidence on coparental systems are discussed and two studies from South and Southeast Asian cultures are presented to highlight subcultural variations in cocaregiving networks. Results indicated that mothers were the primary caregivers across both cultural contexts. Extended family members assumed important coparental responsibilities in both cultural contexts. These findings highlight the need to reconceptualize and expand the dyadic coparental unit to include extended family members. We also discuss the relevance of the broader coparental network in examining the Asian childs education as well as cognitive and socioemotional development.     

Functional analysis and treatment of inappropriate sexual behavior

The results of a functional analysis showed that inappropriate sexual behaviors exhibited by a 9-year-old boy who had been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury were maintained by positive reinforcement in the form of social attention. An intervention consisting of functional communication training and extinction resulted in reduced levels of inappropriate sexual behaviors.