Values of Postpartum Women from the Inner City: An Exploratory Study

An exploratory study of the values of inner-city postpartum women was conducted. Subjects were largely single, with many on/or going on public assistance. Each subject was given the Rokeach Value Scale and asked to prioritize the terminal values (goals) in terms of herself and the instrumental values (means) in terms of what she would like to teach her child. Rankings were compared to corresponding rankings compiled by a national sample, considered a more traditional era, and by marital status within the postpartum mother sample itself. Economic values were ranked higher by inner-city mothers than by the national sample. The top terminal value was family security and the top instrumental value was responsible. When compared by marital status, the only significant difference was the higher ranking of mature love given by married women. Results suggests that the values of the inner-city single postpartum mother can be conceptualized as a mosaic incorporating values shared with the mainstream and values adapted to the conditions of poverty.     

Finite mixtures in confirmatory factor-analysis models

In this paper, various types of finite mixtures of confirmatory factor-analysis models are proposed for handling data heterogeneity. Under the proposed mixture approach, observations are assumed to be drawn from mixtures of distinct confirmatory factor-analysis models. But each observation does not need to be identified to a particular model prior to model fitting. Several classes of mixture models are proposed. These models differ by their unique representations of data heterogeneity. Three different sampling schemes for these mixture models are distinguished. A mixed type of the these three sampling schemes is considered throughout this article. The proposed mixture approach reduces to regular multiple-group confirmatory factor-analysis under a restrictive sampling scheme, in which the structural equation model for each observation is assumed to be known. By assuming a mixture of multivariate normals for the data, maximum likelihood estimation using the EM (Expectation-Maximization) algorithm and the AS (Approximate-Scoring) method are developed, respectively. Some mixture models were fitted to a real data set for illustrating the application of the theory. Although the EM algorithm and the AS method gave similar sets of parameter estimates, the AS method was found computationally more efficient than the EM algorithm. Some comments on applying the mixture approach to structural equation modeling are made.Note: This paper is one of the Psychometric Society's 1995 Dissertation Award papers.—EditorThis article is based on the dissertation of the author. The author would like to thank Peter Bentler, who was the dissertation chair, for guidance and encouragement of this work. Eric Holman, Robert Jennrich, Bengt Muthén, and Thomas Wickens, who served as the committee members for the dissertation, had been very supportive and helpful. Michael Browne is appreciated for discussing some important points about the use of the approximate information in the dissertation. Thanks also go to an anonymous associate editor, whose comments were very useful for the revision of an earlier version of this article.     

Rules of Existential Quantification into "Intensional Contexts"

Propositional and notional attitudes are construed as relations (-in-intension) between individuals and constructions (rather than propositrions etc,). The apparatus of transparent intensional logic (Tichy) is applied to derive two rules that make it possible to export existential quantifiers without conceiving attitudes as relations to expressions (sententialism).     

Latinas with Arthritis: Effects of Illness, Role Identity, and Competence on Psychological Well-Being

Tested a theoretical model on the effects of social role identity, illness intrusion, and competence on psychological well-being among 109 low-income Latinas with arthritis. All six roles studied were rated as highly important identities. Sex-role nontraditionalism was associated with less importance of the homemaker, mother, and grandmother roles. Negative affect increased as a function of intrusions into valued identities. Having important role identities contributed to feelings of competence (i.e., self-esteem and self-efficacy), which in turn, contributed to psychological well-being. Competence also mediated the effects of pain, identity, and illness intrusions on psychological well-being. Results suggest competence processes play an important role in well-being.     

计量测验效度的一种方法——测量目标结构空间的实证性因素分析

该文提出了计量测验效度的一种统一方法。首先,根据测量目标由测验编制者提出一组可能的线性拟合模型,拟合模型的集合称作“测量目标结构空间”。然后运用实证性因素分析对各个假设的拟合模型进行多方面的拟合良好性检验。若其中的某一假设模型能最优地拟合预测资料,则该模型中的公共因素的方差总贡献与观测变量的总方差的比就可定义为该测验的效度     

传统统计方法面临的挑战:元分析方法

利用计算机构造实验组和控制组总体,进行传统统计方法与元分析比较实验研究。在实验组总体高出控制组总体０．５０个标准差的提下,传统ｔ检验的统计检验能力（Ｐ）仅为为４１％;而利用元分析的方法进行统计分析,其结果与计算机构造模型有很高的一致性从而提出元分析方法在进入心理学实验研究和证实理论方面的有效性和可靠性,以及传统统计方法面临挑战的事实。     

Postmodernism: What One Needs to Know

This essay is an introduction to postmodernism and deconstruction as they relate to the special challenges of scholarship and teaching in the science and religion multidiscipline.     

DIE MARXISMUS – DEBATTE IM “SILBERNEN ZEITALTER”

Im Anfang des 20.Jahrhunderts unterzog eine Reihe von jungen, später berühmt gewordenen Philosophen den Marxismus einer tiefen Kritik. Ihnen ist es gelungen, wichtige Defekte der revolutionären Doktrinen aufzudecken und ihre verhängnivsollen Konsequenzen vorwegzunehmen. Diese Kritik ist auch für die gegenwärtige geistig-politische Situation aktuell.     

Precuing the Target Location in Visual Searching by a Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes): Effects of Precue Validity

A chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes ) performed a visual search task using a modified matching-to-sample procedure in which a sample stimulus was followed by the search display, which contained one stimulus identical to the sample (target) and several uniform stimuli different from the sample (distractors). On cued trials, while the subject was observing the sample, a white square (precue) appeared at the location where the target was to be presented (valid trials), or elsewhere (invalid trials). The validity of the precue (correspondence between the cued and the target locations) was changed from 0% to 100% across conditions. Cost-benefit analyses were performed on the difference between valid and noncued trials (benefit) and between invalid and noncued trials (cost). Under the high-validity conditions, the response times were shorter when the cued location corresponded to the target location than when the precue did not appear. When the cued location did not correspond to the target location, on the other hand, the subject took longer to select the target than on noncued trials. When the validity of the precue was relatively low, however, cost of the invalid trials disappeared, while benefit of the valid trials remained. These results confirmed the two-process (automatic and attentional) theory of priming in human information processing; the advance information had the same effects on a chimpanzee's visual search performance as on humans'.     

BEHAVIORAL CUSPS: A DEVELOPMENTAL AND PRAGMATIC CONCEPT FOR BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS

Most concepts of development explain certain behavior changes as products or markers of the invariable succession of emerging periods, stages, refinements, or achievements that define and order much of an individual's life. A different but comparable concept can be derived from the most basic mechanisms of behavior analysis, which are its environmental contingencies, and from its most basic strategy, which is to study behavior as its subject matter. From a behavior-analytic perspective, the most fundamental developmental questions are (a) whether these contingencies vary in any systematic way across the life span, and thus make behavior change in a correspondingly systematic way; and (b) whether some of these contingencies and their changes have more far-reaching consequences than others, in terms of the importance to the organism and others, of the behavior classes they change. Certain behavior changes open the door to especially broad or especially important further behavior change, leading to the concept of the behavioral cusp. A behavioral cusp, then, is any behavior change that brings the organism's behavior into contact with new contingencies that have even more far-reaching consequences. Of all the environmental contingencies that change or maintain behavior, those that accomplish cusps are developmental. Behavior change remains the fundamental phenomenon of development for a behavior-analytic view; a cusp is a special instance of behavior change, a change crucial to what can come next.