DECONSTRUCTING THE MYTH OF THE NONAGGRESSIVE WOMAN

One of the most pervasive and undisputed gender stereotypes is that men are more aggressive than women. However, this stereotype has, until recently, led researchers to conclude that women are nonaggressive and, therefore, to ignore the topic of female aggression as a distinct phenomenon. The basis of the myth, factors supporting its maintenance, and theories of female aggression are examined. A feminist reinterpretation of aggression that views women's and men's aggressive behavior within social structural arrangements that create and sustain differential power relations is presented.     

Effects of Self-Appraisal Information, Appraisal Purpose, and Feedback Target on Performance Appraisal Ratings

This experiment investigated the effects of three factors on performance appraisal ratings: self-appraisal information, appraisal purpose, and feedback target. Two hundred and three subjects rated a subordinate's performance on a clerical task subsequent to receiving either a high or low self-assessment. They were told they would provide performance feedback either to the experimenter (organizational agent) or their subordinate, and their ratings would be used either for an administrative decision or developmental feedback. Performance ratings were significantly higher when subjects received a favorable subordinate self-assessment than when self-assessments were unfavorable. A significant interaction was found between feedback target and the appraisal purpose. Implications for the use of self-appraisals in organizations were discussed.     

Ebbinghaus illusions: Size contrast or contour interaction phenomena?

Forty-eight graduate and undergraduate students between 17 and 30 years of age judged the size of the central circle in Ebbinghaus figures presented under either simultaneous or successive viewing conditions. Successive presentation eliminated the illusion produced by the normally overestimated figure and diminished that produced by the underestimated figure. Under simultaneous viewing conditions, increasing the number of surrounding circles reduced the magnitude of the reversed illusion produced by the normally overestimated figure but had no effect on the illusion produced by the underestimated figure. Under successive viewing conditions, increasing the number of surrounding circles had no effect on the magnitude of illusion produced by the normally overestimated figure but increased the illusion produced by the underestimated figure. These data were interpreted as inconsistent with a size contrast explanation of the Ebbinghaus illusions and suggested that these illusions may be produced by a contour interaction process.     

A real-time satellite system based on UNIX

One solution to the difficulty of running real-time applications under UNIX is to develop the application programs on an available UNIX system and execute them on a dedicated satellite processor. This combines the advantages of a powerful timesharing operating system with the real-time capabilities of a single-process system. PARASITE, a real-time satellite system, provides tools for developing the application program on the host and executing it on a satellite. A host utility serves to invoke the standard UNIX C compiler and link its output with the PARASITE library. The PARASITE library consists of routines that mimic the standard library and routines that read and write the real-time peripherals. PARASITE currently supports digital inputs and outputs, asynchronous serial-line interfaces, program-mable real-time clocks, and analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters. Another PARA-SITE utility downloads the object code of the user program and PARASITE support code into the satellite, where it runs independently. Once the application routine is executing on the satellite, it controls the satellite processor at all times and is continuously available for servicing hardware-generated interrupts. When a real-time peripheral interrupt routine is invoked by a hardware interrupt, it sends a software signal to the user program, in addition to processing the interrupt. This allows the user program to perform additional tasks that are specific to the application. All data to be permanently stored must be transferred to the host. Since the satellite has no direct access to the resources of the host, a process running on the host receives the data and manages files. PARASITE provides packet driver routines on both the host and the satellite, which together handle the data transmission protocol.