Theories About Black-White Interracial Marriage: A Clinical Perspective

Clinicians need to expose negative biases in theories about interracial relationships and direct the attention of couples and their families toward relationship strengths.     

Specific language impairment in children: A cross-linguistic study

A common profile in English-speaking specifically language-impaired children is a moderate deficit across a broad range of linguistic features and a more marked, selective impairment in using bound morphemes and components of the verb system. To gain a clearer understanding of the nature of these more serious problems, we examined the speech of monolingual Italian-speaking as well as English-speaking children with specific language impairment. The evidence suggested that phonological factors contributed significantly to these children's extraordinary problems with particular linguistic features. Contrary to expectations, other marked deficits seemed more related to the opacity of the rules involved and homonymity with other morphemes than to problems with formal grammatical devices in general or components of the verb system in particular.     

Repetition blindness and bilingual memory: Token individuation for translation equivalents

The repetition blindness effect (RB) occurs when individuals are unable to recall a repeated word relative to a nonrepeated word in a sentence or string of words presented in a rapid serial visual presentation task. This effect was explored across languages (English and Spanish) in an attempt to provide evidence for RB at a conceptual level using noncognate translation equivalents (e.g.,nephew-sobrino). In the first experiment, RB was found when a word was repeated in an English sentence but not when the two repetitions were in different languages. In the second experiment, RB was found for identical repetitions in Spanish and in English using word lists. However, the crosslanguage condition produced significant facilitation in recall, suggesting that although conceptual processing had taken place, semantic overlap was not sufficient to produce RB. The results confirm Kanwisher’s (1987) token individuation hypothesis in the case of translation equivalents.     

Expectations regarding acquaintance sexual aggression among sorority and fraternity members

Among women, college is a high risk period for sexual assault by male acquaintances. Differences in expectations held by men and women may contribute to misinterpretation of social cues and subsequent sexual aggression and may impair women's ability to respond effectively. This paper presents findings from a predominantly Caucasian sample (85.9%) of college sorority (n = 66) and fraternity (n = 34) members regarding the social context within which they interact and their expectations regarding perpetration of and response to sexual aggression. Results showed differences in men's and women's expectations and responses, and in particular highlighted how men's expectations were related to women's resistance of unwanted sex. Understanding the cognitive processes that men and women draw upon in social interactions can be useful for developing sexual aggression prevention and resistance interventions.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Council on Social Work Education Annual Program Meeting, March 1995, San Diego. The authors would like to thank Robert D. Abbott, Kelly Cue, and Virginia Senechal for their input on earlier versions of this paper.This project was jointly supported by the University of Washington Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, School of Social Work, and Addictive Behaviors Research Center. It was also supported in part by grants from NIAAA (AA05591 and AA07271) and NIMH (MH53702).     

Infants of “depressed” mothers interact better with their nondepressed fathers

To determine whether infants of “depressed” mothers interact better with their nondepressed fathers, twenty-six 3- to 6-month-old infants were videotaped during face-to-face interactions with their parents. The “depressed” mother group consisted of twelve 3- to 6-month-old infants and their “depressed” mothers and nondepressed fathers. The control group was composed of 14 nondepressed mothers and nondepressed fathers and their 3- to 6-month-old infants. In the “depressed” mother group, the nondepressed fathers received better interaction ratings than the “depressed” mothers. In turn, the infants received better interaction ratings when they interacted with their nondepressed fathers than with their “depressed” mothers. In contrast, nondepressed fathers and mothers and their infants in the control group did not differ on any of their interaction ratings. These findings suggest that infants' difficult interaction behaviors noted during interactions with their “depressed” mothers may not extend to their nondepressed fathers. The data are discussed with respect to the notion that nondepressed fathers may “buffer” the effects of maternal depression on infant interaction behavior.     

Explaining the Asian American Youth Paradox: Universal Factors versus Asian American Family Process Among Filipino and Korean American Youth

This study used longitudinal survey data of Filipino American and Korean American youth to examine ways in which universal factors (e.g., peer antisocial behaviors and parent–child conflict) and Asian American (AA) family process variables (e.g., gendered norms) independently and collectively predict grade point average (GPA), externalizing, and internalizing problems. We aimed to explain the “Asian American youth paradox” in which low externalizing problems and high GPA coexist with high internalizing problems. We found that universal factors were extensively predictive of youth problems and remained robust when AA family process was accounted for. AA family process also independently explained youth development and, in part, the AA youth paradox. For example, gendered norms increased mental distress. Academic controls did the opposite of what it is intended, that is, had a negative impact on GPA as well as other developmental domains. Family obligation, assessed by family-centered activities and helping out, was beneficial to both externalizing and internalizing youth outcomes. Parental implicit affection, one of the distinct traits of AA parenting, was beneficial, particularly for GPA. This study provided important empirical evidence that can guide cross-cultural parenting and meaningfully inform intervention programs for AA youth.     

Raters who pursue different goals give different ratings

J. N. Cleveland and K. R. Murphy (1992) suggested that phenomena such as rater errors and interrater disagreements could be understood in terms of differences in the goals pursued by various raters. We measured 19 rating goals of students at the beginning of a semester, grouped them into scales, and correlated these with teacher evaluations collected at the end of the semester. We found significant multiple correlations, both within classes and in an analysis of the pooled sample (adjusting for instructor mean differences, incremental R2 =.08). Measures of rating goals obtained after raters had observed a significant proportion of ratee performance accounted for variance (incremental R2 =.07) not accounted for by measures of goals obtained at the beginning of the semester.     

The distinctiveness of emotion concepts: a comparison between emotion, abstract, and concrete words

Are the concepts represented by emotion words different from abstract words in memory? We examined the distinct characteristics of emotion concepts in 3 separate experiments. The first demonstrated that emotion words are better recalled than both concrete and abstract words in a free recall task. In the second experiment, ratings of abstract, concrete, and emotion words were compared on concreteness, imageability, and context availability scales. Results revealed a difference between all 3 word types on each of the 3 scales. The third experiment investigated priming in a lexical decision task for homogeneous (abstract-abstract and emotion-emotion) and heterogeneous (abstract-emotion and emotion-abstract) associated word pairs. Priming occurred only for the homogeneous and heterogeneous abstract-emotion word pair conditions. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed in terms of the circumplex, hierarchical, and semantic activation models. The results are most consistent with the predictions of the semantic activation model.     

Genetic and Environmental Influences on Psychopathy Trait Dimensions in a Community Sample of Male Twins

Psychopathy appears to be comprised of two broad dimensions: impulsivity/antisocial behavior and interpersonal detachment/callousness. This study examined the extent to which variance in these 2 psychopathy trait dimensions was associated with common or unique genetic, shared, and nonshared environmental factors in two independent samples of reared together 16–18-year-old male twins. One sample included 142 monozygotic (MZ) and 70 dizygotic (DZ) pairs; the other sample included 128 MZ and 58 DZ pairs. Boys completed the Minnesota Temperament Inventory (MTI), a 19-item measure that contains separate subscales: Antisocial and Detachment. Variance in the Antisocial and Detachment scales was associated with additive genetic factors and neither scale was associated with shared environmental factors. As expected, the bivariate biometric analysis suggested genetic influence on the covariance of the scales. The results are consistent with theoretical models of psychopathy that posit some independence in the etiology of the two major trait dimensions of psychopathy.