Gender-Role Attitudes in University Students in the United States, Slovenia, and Croatia

Determinants of gender-role attitudes were examined in samples of university students from Pittsburgh in the United States, Ljubljana in Slovenia, and Osijek in Croatia. Surveys including items from the Attitudes Toward Women Scale and the Neosexism Scale were administered to a total of 1,544 U.S. students, 912 Slovene students, and 996 Croatian students between the years of 1991 and 2000. As predicted, men held less egalitarian or more sexist attitudes about the appropriate roles for women and men, and those with more frequent attendance at religious services held more sexist attitudes. No changes in attitudes were found for women over time, but Slovene males were found to become more traditional over time.     

Disruptive emotions and the measurement of irrationality

The purpose of the present study was to develop an alternative paradigm for measuring irrationality and conduct a preliminary reliability and validity analysis of a self-report scale so constructed. From considering some basic theoretical assumptions in Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET), anemotive paradigm for item-construction was formulated and utilized to develop a 12-item self-report scale for measuring irrationality (SVO-12). A different scale (SVC-12), based on acontent approach, was also developed. These two irrationality scales and a scale for measuring psychopathology were then administered to a group of 199 undergraduate students. Statistical analyses provided empirical support for the reliability and validity of both approaches. Of the two irrationality scales in question, however, the one based on the emotive paradigm (SVO-12) seem to be the most promising.     

ANSEC: A BASIC package for lag sequential analysis of observational data

Three BASIC programs for processing observational, nonconcurrent sequential data are presented. The programs follow Sackett’s lag sequential analysis method and have the innovations of running on interactional microcomputers and of providing plots of results. The outcome of the analysis is stored on a magnetic disk, facilitating a further application of probabilistic models to the transformed data. The Allison-Liker correction for the comparison test between expected and observed lag probabilities is included in the programs.     

Bilinguals in a monolingual and a bilingual speech mode: The effect on lexical access

The time course of lexical access in fluent Portuguese-English bilinguals and in English speaking monolinguals was examined during the on-line processing of spoken sentences using the phoneme-triggered lexical decision task (Blank, 1980). The bilinguals were tested in two distinct speech modes: a monolingual, English or Portuguese, speech mode, and a bilingual, code-switching, speech mode. Although the bilingual’s lexical decision response times to word targets in the monolingual speech modes were identical to those of the monolingual subjects, their response times to code-switched word targets in the bilingual mode were significantly slower. In addition, the bilinguals took longer to detect nonwords in both the monolingual and bilingual modes. These results confirm that bilinguals cannot totally deactivate their other language when in a monolingual speech mode. It is hypothesized that bilinguals search both lexicons when confronted with nonwords, even when in a totally monolingual mode, and that they search the base-language lexicon before the other lexicon when in a bilingual, code-switching, speech mode.     

A systematic review of relationship sacrifices from 2002 to 2021: Moving toward inclusivity

We conducted a systematic review of research on relational sacrifices in romantic relationships from 2002 to 2021 [N = 115 studies] to answer three questions: Q1: Whose voices and vantage points are represented in the research?; Q2: What types of questions are valued?; Q3: What are the reflections and connections about relational sacrifices that were learned during the review? To address Q1, we coded sample demographics of study participants on geographical location, race/ethnicity, education/income/SES, gender (i.e., gender differences explored and beyond gender binaries), sexual orientation, age, and disability, using a coding system of 1 (exclusion/absence) to 5 (focus on context-relevant experiences for underrepresented samples). Results for Q1 showed that the most frequent codes were 1 (exclusion/absence) for information about the samples' disability status, education/income/SES, and both codes for gender (i.e., gender differences explored and beyond gender binaries); when demographic information was reported, the most frequent codes were 2 (compensatory addition) for age, sexual orientation, geographical location, and race/ethnicity. To address Q2, we coded for aspects of the study designs and conceptual dimensions of sacrifice. Results for Q2 showed that a majority of the studies in our review used quantitative and close-ended measures emphasizing behavioral frequency of sacrifice. For Q3, we include our own reflections and connections about relational sacrifices, questioning research methods, and challenging assumptions drawn from existing research to move toward a more inclusive science.     

Toward a new conceptualization and operationalization of risk perception within the genetic counseling domain

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it provides an historical overview of studies of risk, risk perception, and decision making under risk within the genetic counseling domain. Second, it proposes an alternative conceptualization and operationalization for the study of risk perception. The conceptualization involves probability, adversity, incompleteness, and ambiguity. Prior studies of risk perception focus on the recurrence risk and operationalize risk perception by asking for interpretations of the magnitude of the probability of the outcome. Their focus is on the probability of a particular outcome. We formulate the problem in terms of a gamble and suggest that risk perception be operationalized in terms of the riskiness of the gamble. Our focus is on the riskiness of a decision option which entails two or more outcomes.     

Critical Thinking and Foundational Development

Studies in Philosophy and Education - We elaborate on Israel Scheffler's claim that principles of rationality can be rationally evaluated, focusing on foundational development, by which we mean...     

Persistent crying and parenting: Search for a butterfly in a dynamic system

The risks and causes of persistent crying in early infancy are discussed on the basis of a study of 61 infants referred to the Munich Interdisciplinary Research and Intervention Program for Fussy Babies for persistent crying between 1 and 6 months of age, and of a community sample of 51 infants of the same age. Particular attention was paid to pre-verbal parent-infant communication, the development of which was interpreted in terms of a dynamic interactional system including both regulatory and communicative predispositions in infants and intuitive competence for supporting infant predispositions in parents. Neither a gut problem nor any other single causal factor was identified for persistent crying in the majority of cases. In contrast, persistent crying was significantly associated with multiple biological and psychosocial risk factors for both parents and infants. Neurological immaturity, difficult temperament and sleep problems in infants, and impaired psychological conditions, limited resources and failures of intuitive competences in mothers were found to threaten the developmental process in infants and give rise to ‘vicious circles’ which were destabilizing the interactional systems. Increased attention to intuitive parental competences is recommended as one effective model for therapeutic interventions.