White children's attitudes toward Blacks and the physically handicapped: A developmental study.

Children's behavior toward adults who differed from them along 2 dimensions was examined from a developmental perspective. A total of 80 White kindergartners and 4th graders were tested individually by either a Black or a White female adult who either was or was not seated in a wheelchair. Three kinds of behavior toward the adult were measured: physical distancing, imitation, and helping. On the basis of previous findings, it was predicted that children at both age levels would show more physical avoidance, less imitation, and less helping in the presence of other-race and handicap cues, as compared with own-race and nonhandicap cues. On all 3 types of behavior, the White E was favored over the Black E in both the wheelchair and nonwheelchair conditions. In addition, there were interaction effects involving race, handicap, age, and sex that suggest the operation of complex developmental processes in the formation of attitudes toward different types of stigmatized individuals. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Students' goal orientations and cognitive engagement in classroom activities.

We used structural equation analysis to test the validity of a goal mediational model for conceptualizing the influence of individual and situational variables on students' cognitive engagement in science activities. Fifth- and sixth-grade students (N?=?275) from 10 classrooms completed a set of questionnaires designed to assess their goal orientations and their use of high-level or effort-minimizing learning strategies while completing six different science activities. Results indicate that students who placed greater emphasis on task-mastery goals reported more active cognitive engagement. In contrast, students oriented toward gaining social recognition, pleasing the teacher, or avoiding work reported a lower level of cognitive engagement. The relative strength of these goals was related to differences in students' intrinsic motivation and attitudes toward science. Our analyses also suggested that these variables exerted a greater influence in small-group than in whole-class activities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's self-image disparity: The effects of age, maladjustment, and action-thought orientation.

Assessed developmental and experiential determinants of self-image disparity in 80 children. 3 groups of male 5th and 8th graders were investigated: nonmaladjusted Ss, maladjusted Ss whose primary symptomatology was in the sphere of action, and maladjusted Ss whose symptoms were in the sphere of thought. No support was obtained for the Rogerian position that maladjustment per se was related to self-image disparity. Consistent with predictions generated by developmental theory, both age and the maladjusted Ss' position on the action-thought continuum were predictive of the magnitude of self-image disparity. Emotionally disturbed Ss had more negative real-self images, and those with externalizing symptoms had lower ideal-self scores as well. Thus, children's self-images appear to be influenced by experiential factors as well as cognitive-developmental ones. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social unrest: Powerlessness and/or self-direction?

Presents a theoretical model for understanding social unrest which is based on the experience of control. It is proposed that social unrest indicates powerlessness and consequently an inability to make self-directed choices to alter one's environment. The model postulates 4 interacting components or sources of behavioral determinants: (a) control from internal organismic states (e.g., impulses), (b) control over these internal states, (c) control over the environment, and (d) control from the environment. It is argued that social unrest must be dealt with in terms of the resources of the social sciences and not in political or managerial priorities. The question of whether social unrest is the outgrowth of the effects of social systems on individuals (overemphasis of control from the environment) or enlightenment regarding the individual's self-directing potential (increased control over the environment) is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety and semantic differential responses.

50 words were rated on a 9-scale form of the semantic differential by 50 Ss. For each S the following scores were obtained: (a) response bias on the differential defined as the use of "very" and "neutral" categories, (b) discrimination on the differential defined as the tendency to use all categories equally often, (c) Scholastic Aptitude Test scores, and (d) Manifest Anxiety and Lie scores. It was hypothesized that there would be a positive correlation between anxiety and discrimination and 0 correlation between aptitude and discrimination. The results supported these hypotheses. In addition, a positive correlation between Lie score and response bias was found. It was argued that the nature of a high Lie score would tend to produce this type of correlation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex differences in validity for academic and employment criteria, and different types of predictors.

Sex differences in validity coefficients were examined for a total of 6,219 pairs of validities. Differences were also examined for subsets of predictors and criteria and a random sample of pairs of validities from independent data sets. Data were taken from studies in Educational and Psychological Measurement, the Journal of Applied Psychology, and Personnel Psychology from 1955 to the present and from the manuals of the Differential Aptitude Test Battery and the College Qualification Tests. Female validities were slightly but significantly higher than male validities for academic criteria and for all predictor subsets, with the exception of high school background and personality predictors. Female validities were also greater than male validities (.037 in correlation units) in the random sample of independent validity pairs. Male validities were slightly higher for high school background and personality predictors and for employment criteria. The generalizability of the finding concerning employment criteria and the latter 2 predictor subsets is questionable because of the small number of pairs of validities available and the nonindependence of the pairs that were available. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Path‐sensitive alias analysis for data flow testing

This paper describes a new approach to performing data flow testing in the presence of aliasing, and a tool based on this method. The technique is based on the observation that, under certain reasonable assumptions, one can statically determine which variables are aliased whenever control reaches a given program point via a particular path. Furthermore, one can group together paths that behave similarly with respect to aliasing and represent them by regular expressions. The resulting test requirements demand that the test data execute representatives of particular sets of paths between variable definitions and uses. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Biochemical and physicochemical properties of thermally treated natural actomyosin extracted from normal and PSE pork Longissimus muscle

Biochemical and physicochemical properties of thermally treated natural actomyosin (NAM) from normal and pale, soft and exudative (PSE) pork were studied. About 37% and 25% of available sulphydryl groups formed disulphide bonds or other permanent chemical bonds at 70 °C in NAM from normal and PSE pork, respectively. Surface hydrophobicities of NAM from normal and PSE pork at 70 °C were 3.6 and 2.4 times greater than that at 40 °C. About 90% of the α-helical structure of NAM was lost by heating to 70 °C. The temperature at maximum α-helical content decline of NAM was in accordance with the peak 3 thermal transition obtained by differential scanning calorimetry and the lowest storage modulus (G′) during thermal rheology. NAM from normal pork underwent aggregation with a higher extent of hydrophobic interaction and disulphide bonds, higher temperatures at maximum velocity for conformational change and unfolding than that from PSE pork. As a consequence, NAM from normal pork had superior rheological properties.