Bingeing,purging, and estimates of parental attitudes regarding female achievement

A questionnaire measuring respondents' beliefs about the attitudes regarding female achievement held by their parents was distributed to 326 women attending a state university. Women who report frequent bingeing are more likely than other women to report that (1) their parents believed a woman's place is in the home (2) their mothers were unhappy with their own careers, (3) their fathers thought the respondents' mothers were not intelligent, and (4) their fathers treated a male as the most intelligent sibling in the family. Reports of fathers' attitudes regarding mothers' intelligence and the proper role for women are related to respondents' self-reports of purging, but only among those women who are much more concerned with academic achievement than with household skills.     

Parental preferences regarding sex education topics for sixth graders

The purpose of this study was to ascertain which sex education topics parents of preadolescents regarded as appropriate for their children. The sample was comprised of 146 respondents randomly selected from a class list of sixth graders in a suburban school district. A mailed, self-administered questionnaire listing 48 possible topics was used to elicit parental response. Pretesting found the questionnaire to be highly reliable (Cronbach's alpha = .95). Overall, parents strongly supported the inclusion of a broad range of sex education topics regardless of parental age, sex, marital status, income, education, or child's sex. Moreover, parents were largely in agreement with the inclusion of sensitive topics in addition to those which were more physiological or behavioral. Catholics more often than Protestants agreed with the inclusion of birth control, abortion, and sterilization even after controlling for income and education. Thus, the findings suggest that parents of sixth graders find a broad sex education program in the school appropriate. To this end, school officials and sex educators should not overlook the needs of preadolescents for sex education solely on the basis of perceived parental opposition.     

EXPANDING THE MOTHER-CHILD PARADIGM

Reliance on the mother–child dyad as the primary context for under–standing child development has caused fathers to be underrepresented in published research on child development and developmental psychopathology. In order to investigate whether this pattern was also evident in the work of future psychologists, we reviewed Dissertation Abstracts from 1986 through 1994. Results showed that fathers were the focus of significantly fewer dissertation studies (10.5%) than were mothers (59.5%) or both parents (30.0%). We argue that essentializing the mother–child bond is a political philosophy about the roles of men and women that places the discipline of psychology at risk for inadvertently becoming an apologist for the neoconservative political right. Specific suggestions for revising graduate training are presented. The social policy implications for continuing this trend into the next generation of psychologists are discussed.     

What policymakers need and must demand from research regarding the employment rate of persons with disabilities

Enabling persons with disabilities to prepare for and engage in gainful employment has become a priority concern in U.S. society. As a result, federal and state policymakers are adopting employment-related initiatives designed to enhance the employment rate of persons with disabilities. Policymakers need credible evidence in order to assess and reform these initiatives. This recognized need, however, begs the question of what constitutes 'credible evidence.' Of particular concern in the disability policy arena is the debate over the types of conclusion about employment rates that can and cannot be drawn from analyses of national survey data sets. This article connects standard research methodology concepts with the complexities of evaluating disability policy to help stakeholders appreciate the issues involved in this debate. This appreciation can help policymakers (1) recognize unwarranted cause-and-effect conclusions based solely on existing national survey data and (2) demand better data and stronger research designs to complement the potential over-reliance on correlational studies using problematic survey data to estimate policy impacts. To this end, the article concludes with a practical framework with a checklist for assessing the adequacy of research regarding the employment rate of persons with disabilities.     

Common and specific cognitive deficits in schizophrenia: relationships to function

The goals of the present study were to assess the interrelationships among tasks from the MATRICS and CNTRACS batteries, to determine the degree to which tasks from each battery capture unique variance in cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia, and to determine the ability of tasks from each battery to predict functional outcome. Subjects were 104 schizophrenia patients and 132 healthy control subjects recruited as part of the CNTRACS initiative. All subjects completed four CNTRACS tasks and two tasks from the MATRICS battery: Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia Symbol Coding and the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test. Functional outcome was also assessed in the schizophrenia subjects. In both the patient and control groups, we found significant intercorrelations between all higher order cognitive tasks (episodic memory, goal maintenance, processing speed, verbal learning) but minimal relationships with the visual task. For almost all tasks, scores were significantly related to measures of functional outcome, with higher associations between CNTRACS tasks and performance-based measures of function and between one of the MATRICS tasks and self-reported functioning, relative to the other functioning measures. After regressing out variance shared by other tasks, we continued to observe group differences in performance among task residuals, particularly for measures of episodic memory from both batteries, although these residuals did not correlate as robustly with functional outcome as raw test scores. These findings suggest that there exists both shared and specific variance across cognitive tasks related to cognitive and functional impairments in schizophrenia and that measures derived from cognitive neuroscience can predict functional capacity and status in schizophrenia.     

Does perceived ability to deceive = ability to deceive? Predictive validity of the perceived ability to deceive (PATD) scale

This research investigated whether the perceived ability to deceive (PATD) scale predicts ability to deceive in a vocational testing context. Using a quasi-experimental design, participants (N = 85 student and community members) completed the PATD scale and a personality measure under standard instructions before being asked to fake the personality measure as if they were applying for a job in the police force. Based on extant research, successful faking was operationalised as elevated scores on conscientiousness and extraversion and reduced scores on neuroticism. Analysis via independent t-test did not support the hypothesis that PATD predicts faking success. Future research should consider the relationship between PATD and intention to fake, as well as extend examination of PATD to other deception-related contexts.     

Still cautious: Personality characteristics of extremely low birth weight adults in their early 30s

Extremely low birth weight survivors (ELBW; <1000 g) display a personality style characterized by cautiousness, shyness, and risk aversion in their 20s. We examined whether non-impaired ELBW survivors were still more cautious than their normal birth weight (NBW) peers at ages 30–35 and assessed the stability of this personality characteristic across approximately a decade in the oldest known cohort of ELBW survivors. Of the 154 participants tested at ages 22–26, 111 (i.e., 72%) of them returned approximately 10 years later [i.e., 69% (49/71) ELBW and 75% (62/83) NBW], and once again they completed the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised (EPQ-R). We created the same theoretically and empirically derived composite measure of cautiousness at each visit by summing the EPQ-R psychoticism scale (reverse scored) and the EPQ-R lie scale. We found that ELBW adults reported higher cautiousness than their NBW counterparts at ages 30–35. We also found that levels of cautiousness remained stable over approximately 10 years in both groups. Our findings suggest that individuals born at ELBW were more cautious than NBW peers and that this personality characteristic remained stable into their early 30s. The present study appears to be the first empirical demonstration of personality stability among adult ELBW survivors.