Sex role stereotyping in children's television programs.

Conducted an observational analysis of the male and female role models presented on 10 popular commercially produced children's TV programs. Striking sex differences (p     

The significance for psychology of O'Connor v. Donaldson..

Recently, the US Supreme Court handed down a potentially landmark decision in the area of the right of mental patients to treatment. It is argued that there are 2 inherent flaws in the Court's holding that may significantly diminish its impact: the absence of definition of the concepts dangerous and treatment. This article (a) contends that these flaws reflect the absence of meaningful assistance from the mental health professions and (b) calls for empirical research to assist the judiciary in implementing the long-overdue humane treatment of the mentally ill. Psychiatry is seen as having failed to meet this challenge; it is observed that psychology, with its unique orientation toward scholarship and research, should meet the challenge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological evidence in Larry P. v. Wilson Riles: An evaluation by a witness for the defense.

Presents a history of the events preceding the Larry P. vs Wilson Riles litigation and the charges brought by the plaintiff in the case. Scientific evidence related to each of the plaintiff's charges is presented showing that (1) individual intelligence tests provide a fair assessment of minority children, (2) they are not the primary basis of placement in special education programs, and (3) programs for the mildly retarded do not necessarily place children at a disadvantage. (60 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive versus inference..

Expresses reservations concerning not the content but the vocabulary used by R. B. Zajonc in his article on feeling and thinking (see record 1980-09733-001). The vocabulary serves to perpetuate a pervasive confusion among several legitimate senses of the words cognitive and inference. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Supreme Court of Canada addresses admissibility of posthypnosis witness evidence: R. v. Trochym (2007).

In February of 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada issued its ruling in R. v. Trochym, a case in which the Court addressed the admissibility of posthypnosis witness testimony. The holding by a majority of five Justices establishes a presumption of inadmissibility for posthypnosis evidence that is very unlikely to be overcome. Although not a clear bar against this form of testimony, this ruling makes it extraordinarily difficult for such testimony to be admitted in the future. The authors discuss the case, the relevant empirical literature, and implications for the Canadian psychology community, including some general recommendations for improved integration of psychology and law. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

School desegregation: An evaluation of predictions made in Brown v. Board of Education..

Hypotheses concerning the effects of desegregation on prejudice, self-esteem, and achievement were derived from testimony given by social scientists in Brown v. Board of Education. The author explains evidence concerning these hypotheses from published studies of the effects of school desegregation on prejudice and on Black students' achievement, and studies using questionnaire measures of self-esteem to compare segregated Blacks and Whites. It is tentatively concluded that (a) desegregation generally does not reduce the prejudices of Whites toward Blacks, (b) the self-esteem of Blacks rarely increases in desegregated schools, (c) the achievement level of Blacks sometimes increases and rarely decreases in desegregated schools, and (d) desegregation leads to increases in Black prejudice toward Whites about as frequently as it leads to decreases. These conclusions should be regarded as tentative because (a) most of the studies have investigated only the short-term effects of desegregation, (b) the extent and type of desegregation varied greatly, (c) the studies were done in different regions with children who differed in age, (d) the studies often employed noncomparable measures of each variable, and (e) social class and IQ were typically not included as control variables. (132 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Scientific Attack on Brown v. Board of Education, 1954-1964.

Psychologists' work was cited in the Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). One criticism of the citation was that psychology could be used to overturn the Brown decision and return the country to segregation. A historical examination of such an attempt to overturn Brown in the early 1960s on the basis of new psychological knowledge shows that psychology was not persuasive in the face of the civil rights movement. The failure of segregationists to overturn Brown with psychological experts underscores how psychology is ineluctably bound to the larger society. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex bias and sex-role stereotyping in psychotherapy with women: Survey results.

192 female former clients of 49 psychotherapists responded to a 70-item questionnaire developed around 4 themes of sex bias and sex-role stereotyping in psychotherapy. Results suggest that the majority of women were treated in a sex-fair manner. Women with the least amount of formal education and women with children experienced more sex bias in therapy. When bias was noted, it was often in acts of omission in the therapy; this was particularly true for victimized women. The most bias noted was in the areas of fostering traditional roles, lack of acceptance of anger, and lack of a sociocultural context in the therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Was Walter Lippmann interested in stereotyping?: Public opinion and cognitive social psychology.

Walter Lippmann's public Opinion is much cited but little read. A review of references to Public Opinion by social psychologists over the last 20 years reveals the widespread beliefs that (1) the book focuses primarily on group stereotypes and prejudice, and (2) the concept of stereotyping originated with Lippmann. However, stereotypes, as currently conceived--as opposed to schemata more generally--do not play a central role in the book, and Lippmann did not introduce the concept (although he may have broadened it). In addition, throughout his long and distinguished career, he showed little interest in stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. Nonetheless, Public Opinion is a seminal work in the area of cognitive social psychology and (like other little read citation classics) still deserves to be read--including, ironically, by students of stereotyping and prejudice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Time discrimination in Columba livia and Homo sapiens..

Evaluates pigeons' ability to discriminate stimulus duration, focusing on stimuli less than 1 sec in duration, in 4 experiments. In Exp 1, the performances of pigeons and humans were compared with a staircase technique, and in Exp 2, the method of constant stimuli was used. Both experiments produced similar results: The pigeon and human data were well described by the generalized form of Weber's law (D. J. Getty; see record 1975-30865-001). Exp 3 demonstrated that the birds did not use perceived brightness to mediate the discrimination of brief visual durations. Exp 4 used a modified staircase procedure that yielded a continuous measure of discrimination from absolute threshold (0 sec) to about 1 sec. The difference thresholds were constant over a considerable range, similar to findings reported by A. B. Kristofferson (see record 1981-09423-001) for human timing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex role stereotyping of college professors: Bias in students' ratings of instructors.

We investigated the impact of three variables on students' ratings of instruction (SRIs): social contact between instructor and students (present vs. absent), the instructor's facial expression (smiling vs. neutral), and the instructor's sex. Subjects were presented with hypothetical scenarios in which these factors varied while behaviors directly related to teaching were held constant. Results revealed an interaction between instructor sex and both of the other two factors: Behaviors indicative of friendliness toward students elevated SRIs for female instructors but not for male instructors. In addition, subjects rated the male professors as more effective than female professors. These findings are consistent with other reports that students expect female instructors to excel in both stereotypically masculine (e.g., competence) and feminine (e.g., warmth) domains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mundus et Infans..

Discusses 3 aspects of the relationship between the infant and the world: the macrosystem, or the world's view of the infant; the microsystem of family, which concerns the infant's impact on the world; and the infant's processing of the world. Research on the history of childrearing is presented to illustrate how the current North American world view of the infant has contributed to the acceptance of erroneous theories of parent–infant bonding. The impact of new parenthood on women and men is reviewed, and ways in which infants process and make sense of the world are discussed. Research on infant visual habituation is reviewed with special attention to the prediction of childhood intelligence test scores from infant posthabituation preferences for novelty. (French abstract) (83 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Olfactory associative learning in Caenorhabditis elegans is impaired in lrn-1 and lrn-2 mutants.

The C. elegans mutants, lrn-1 and lrn-2, are impaired in associative learning using conditioned taste cues. Both mutants are defective in associative learning about appetitive and aversive events, indicating that lrn-1 and lrn-2 exert effects across motivational boundaries. In a new olfactory associative learning paradigm, in which wild type worms learn to avoid a previously attractive diacetyl odor after it has been paired with an aversive acetic acid solution, lrn-1 and lrn-2 are impaired. Although defective in associative learning using a conditioned olfactory cue, nonassociative learning (habituation and dishabituation) using this same olfactory cue is unaffected. The discovery that lrn-1 and lrn-2 are defective in associative learning with both taste and olfactory cues may suggest that associative learning in different sensory modalities converges on a common genetic pathway in C. elegans that is subserved by lrn-1 and lrn-2. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex role stereotyping and reactions to depictions of stranger versus acquaintance rape.

Tested 2 hypotheses implicit in the sex-role socialization analysis of rape: that reactions to rape may be affected (a) by the situational context in which a rape is portrayed and (b) by individual differences in sex role stereotyping. 289 male and female college students were classified as either high or low in sex-role stereotyping. They were then randomly assigned to read 1 of 3 sexual depictions (mutually consenting intercourse, stranger rape, and acquaintance rape) and were asked to indicate their sexual arousal and perceptions of the depictions. Male Ss were also asked to indicate the likelihood of their committing rape if they could be assured that no one would know. Results indicate sexual arousal and perceptual differences in reactions to the acquaintance rape vs stranger rape, and as expected, these reactions were mediated by Ss' sex-role stereotyping. High sex-role stereotyping Ss showed sexual arousal patterns like those typically found with identified rapist populations. Of the male Ss, 44% showed some likelihood of raping. (57 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The Psychology of Sex Differences.

Reviews the book, The Psychology of Sex Differences by Hilary M. Lips and Nina Lee Colwill (1978). This small book covers a lot of territory. In 300 pages Lips and Colwill, along with five collaborators, provide a broad summary of the available theory and research on the psychology of sex differences. After an introductory chapter on the problems of studying the topic, the book has orienting chapters on theories of female and male nature, sexual differentiation, hormones, the social process of learning sex roles, and the concepts of masculinity, femininity, and androgyny. Then the areas of ability, achievement, aggression and power are systematically examined for the presence and the correlates of sex differences. Finally, the issues of marriage, family and sexuality are considered. The book is an excellent starting point for the novice who is willing to give 300 pages of reading effort to the current work on sex differences. It is a good book for a psychologist or psychology student who wants a quick overview of what is being done and thought about in a rapidly expanding area of psychological research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eating disorders in the DSM-IV..

The guiding principles and operating procedures of the Eating Disorders Work Group are described. Provisional diagnostic criteria for the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) for anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are listed, together with an explanation of how and why they differ from the revised 3rd edition (DSM-III—R; American Psychiatric Association, 1987). Consideration of a possible new diagnosis is noted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Errors in 1973 Biographical Directory..

Calls for a retabulation of productivity ranks of graduate programs in psychology. W. M. Cox and V. Catt (see record 1978-21651-001) used the 1973 rather than the 1975 edition of the Biographical Directory of the American Psychological Association in their tabulation, which contained several errors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prior-residence effect in Betta splendens..

Presented male Siamese fighting fish with the visual image of an aggressive male conspecific for a 150-min test, with attack behaviors monitored continually, to examine the hypothesis that a period of residency results in relatively persistent combat. A 10-day period of residency in either the test tank or its exact replica resulted in more persistent attack than 10 min of residency. Testing in water other than that in which Ss had resided for 10 days did not produce a reduction in attack. Finally, the extent of attack behavior occurring early in testing was highly and positively correlated with subsequent attack duration; that is, at the start of an encounter, and before severe physical damage has been caused, Bettas may communicate to opponents their intention to engage in persistent, injurious aggression. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between the DSM-IV and the ICD-10..

The 10th revision of the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10; World Health Organization, 1990) and the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) will both come into use in 1993 and be much more alike than the ICD-9 (World Health Organization, 1978) and the DSM-III (American Psychiatric Association, 1980). The American Psychiatric Association's controversial decision to publish a revision of the DSM-III in 1987 before setting up the Task Force to produce the DSM-IV impaired the association's ability to influence the format of the ICD-10, because by then major decisions had already been made by the World Health Organization. The DSM-IV will be more soundly based on a wider range of empirical data than any previous classification, national or international, and should not be revised again without compelling scientific reasons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comprehensiveness of Psychological Abstracts..

Reports the results of an attempt to key 110 articles on Piaget's theory and exceptional children, published between 1967 and 1974, to abstracts in 3 information retrieval periodicals. Data indicate that any comprehensive search for topical material in psychological, special education, and therapy-type periodicals ought to include Psychological Abstracts among its sources. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)