TEACHING CHILD-CARE SKILLS TO MOTHERS WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES

The present study identified and remediated child-care skill deficits in parents with developmental disabilities to reduce their risk of child neglect. Eleven mothers with developmental disabilities who were considered by social service and child welfare agencies to be providing neglectful child care were found in baseline to have several important child-care skill deficits (e.g., bathing, diaper rash treatment, cleaning baby bottles) compared to nonhandicapped mothers. Parent training (consisting of verbal instructions, pictorial manuals, modeling, feedback, and reinforcement) resulted in rapid acquisition and maintenance of child-care skills in all mothers. Mean percentage correct scores increased from 58% in baseline to 90% in training and 91% in follow-up (M = 31 weeks). The latter two scores compare favorably to the mean score (87%) of 20 nonhandicapped mothers on the same skills. Where observable, parent training was associated with corresponding benefits to the children (e.g., elimination of diaper rash and cradle cap, increased weight gain, successful toilet training). These results indicate that parent training may be a viable option to the removal of the child from the home when parenting skill deficits place the child's well-being in jeopardy.     

MATHEMATICS AND SELF-ESTEEM: IMPLICATIONS FOR WOMEN'S CAREER CHOICE

The relationship of math participation and success to self-esteem and career goals is examined in a sample of 64 women and 52 men college students at the end of their sophomore year. No gender differences were found in math anxiety or perceptions of the usefulness of mathematics, but women were less likely to select a math-related career goal. Among the men students, math participation and self-assessments of math ability were positively related to more general self-estimates of competence; among women, these variables were not related significantly. Women's choices for math-related careers were more closely associated with scholastic ability and math background than were men's career choices. These results are discussed in the context of societal pressures and supports for men and women in regard to math participation.     

The influence of evaluatee's sex on evaluations of a response on a managerial selection instrument

In this study 33 male and 22 female undergraduate students were trained and then asked to evaluate an in-basket response (with either a male or female respondent) on four dimensions: sensitivity, organizing and planning, decision-making, and written communications. Results indicated that the evaluatee's sex did not influence evaluations of the in-basket response. Female in comparison to male evaluators were significantly harsher in evaluating written communications. The absence of sex discrimination which sharply differed from the findings of several previous research studies is discussed in terms of the substantial amount of managerial related data provided by the in-basket technique.This report is based on a master's thesis written by the second author under the sponsorship of the first author and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the MA degree at Florida Technological University.     

The effect of information regarding sex group performance norms on goal-setting in males and females

Female and male undergraduates were randomly assigned to either a sex-appropriate or a sex-inappropriate achievement condition. Subjects in the sex-appropriate condition received information that their sex performed better on the experimental task; subjects in the sex-inappropriate condition received information that the opposite sex performed better. It was hypothesized that the positive information regarding the performance of same-sexed others would result in higher goals in a private, noncompetitive setting. The results supported the hypothesis.     

The moderating roles of personal and social resources on the relationship between dual expectations (for instrumentality and expressiveness) and well-being

The authors examined the roles of self-esteem and perceived social support in moderating the relationship between dual social expectations (instrumentality and expressivity) and well-being. Participants were 166 female and 87 male students in an urban community in the midwestern United States. After the authors controlled for the main effects of instrumental and expressive expectations, social support, as predicted, moderated the relationship between dual expectations and well-being: With higher levels of social support, higher levels of dual expectations were associated with higher levels of well-being; with lower levels of social support, higher levels of dual expectations were associated with lower levels of well-being. Contrary to predictions, however, self-esteem did not moderate the relation between dual expectations and well-being. The discussion focuses on the importance of social resources in enhancing the potential benefits of dual expectations in interpersonal contexts.     

The relationship between puberty and social emotion processing

The social brain undergoes developmental change during adolescence, and pubertal hormones are hypothesized to contribute to this development. We used fMRI to explore how pubertal indicators (salivary concentrations of testosterone, oestradiol and DHEA; pubertal stage; menarcheal status) relate to brain activity during a social emotion task. Forty‐two females aged 11.1 to 13.7 years underwent fMRI scanning while reading scenarios pertaining either to social emotions, which require the representation of another person’s mental states, or to basic emotions, which do not. Pubertal stage and menarcheal status were used to assign girls to early or late puberty groups. Across the entire sample, the contrast between social versus basic emotion resulted in activity within the social brain network, including dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC), the posterior superior temporal sulcus, and the anterior temporal cortex (ATC) in both hemispheres. Increased hormone levels (independent of age) were associated with higher left ATC activity during social emotion processing. More advanced age (independent of hormone levels) was associated with lower DMPFC activity during social emotion processing. Our results suggest functionally dissociable effects of pubertal hormones and age on the adolescent social brain.     

Antisocial Behavior,Moral Disengagement,Empathy and Negative Emotion: A Comparison Between Disabled and Able-Bodied Athletes

Theories of morality suggest that negative emotions associated with antisocial behavior should diminish motivation for such behavior. Two reasons that have been proposed to explain why some individuals repeatedly harm others are that (a) they use mechanisms of moral disengagement to justify their actions, and (b) they may not empathize with and vicariously experience the negative emotions felt by their victims. With the aim of testing these proposals, the present study compared spinal cord injured disabled athletes and able-bodied athletes to determine the effect of reduced visceral afferent feedback caused by spinal cord injury on antisocial behavior, moral disengagement, empathy, and negative emotion (i.e., anger, anxiety, and dejection). Disabled athletes reported less frequent antisocial behavior and lower moral disengagement than able-bodied athletes. Group differences in antisocial behavior were mediated by differences in moral disengagement. The two groups did not differ in empathy or negative emotion. The findings of this study suggest that antisocial behavior may be regulated by mechanisms of moral disengagement.     

Effects of 7.5% CO2 inhalation on allocation of spatial attention to facial cues of emotional expression

Increased vigilance to threat-related stimuli is thought to be a core cognitive feature of anxiety. We sought to investigate the cognitive impact of experimentally induced anxiety, by means of a 7.5% CO₂ challenge, which acts as an unconditioned anxiogenic stimulus, on attentional bias for positive and negative facial cues of emotional expression in the dot-probe task. In two experiments we found robust physiological and subjective effects of the CO₂ inhalation consistent with the claim that the procedure reliably induces anxiety. Data from the dot-probe task demonstrated an attentional bias to emotional facial expressions compared with neutral faces regardless of valence (happy, angry, and fearful). These attentional effects, however, were entirely inconsistent in terms of their relationship with induced anxiety. We conclude that the previously reported poor reliability of this task is the most parsimonious explanation for our conflicting findings and that future research should develop a more reliable paradigm for measuring attentional bias in this field.     

The effects of age,enactment, and cue-action relatedness on memory for intentions in the Virtual Week task

ABSTRACT

The current study investigated the influence of encoding modality and cue-action relatedness on prospective memory (PM) performance in young and older adults using a modified version of the Virtual Week task. Participants encoded regular and irregular intentions either verbally or by physically performing the action during encoding. For half of the intentions there was a close semantic relation between the retrieval cue and the intended action, while for the remaining intentions the cue and action were semantically unrelated. For irregular tasks, both age groups showed superior PM for related intentions compared to unrelated intentions in both encoding conditions. While older adults retrieved fewer irregular intentions than young adults after verbal encoding, there was no age difference following enactment. Possible mechanisms of enactment and relatedness effects are discussed in the context of current theories of event-based PM.     

Inhibiting children's memory of an interactive event: the effectiveness of a cover‐up

Children are generally more susceptible than adults to suggestive interview techniques. Children's memories of an event can be altered and added to by presenting post‐event information (PEI). What is not known is whether embedding silence about a particular scene within the PEI makes that scene less likely to be reported. Children aged 5–6 years made cakes with an agent ‘Mrs Flour’. The following day they received PEI in which a target scene from the original event was omitted, resulting in children reporting the target scene significantly less often than did controls (control= 57% and omit= 23% correct responses). There was direct evidence from the children's language that the omission led to a detriment in memory for the original scene itself. Allowing children to draw during the interview did not reduce the effect. Implications are discussed in terms of child victims and witnesses particularly regarding child sexual abuse. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.