Jerome B. Dusek

Perceived parental rearing practices and styles of coping

In order to study the relation between parental rearing practices and coping dispositions, 75 females and 65 males completed the Childrens Report of Parental Behavior Inventory and the COPE, a measure of general coping dispositions. Those who reported their parents had an authoritative rearing style (warmth and nurturance coupled with close monitoring and age-appropriate demandingness) used more social support and problem-focused coping than those who reported their parents used other rearing styles. In general, perceived parental warmth was related to the greater use of social support and problemfocused coping. Parental firm control was associated with increased problemfocused and reduced emotion-focused coping. The findings are discussed in the context of parental rearing styles indirectly influencing coping dispositions through their impact on feelings of competence and personal control.

Commentary on the Special Issue: The Maturing of Self-Esteem Research with Early Adolescents

The degree to which the eight contributions to the special issue clarify four concerns raised by DuBois and Hirsch is assessed. It is concluded that the contributions make moderate inroads in the areas of (a) delineating the importance of considering selfesteem to be multidimensional, (b) investigating bidirectional relations of self-esteem to other constructs, (c) linking self-esteem to other contributors to development, and (d) investigating negative as well as positive relations of self-esteem to adjustment. In addition, issues concerning the definition and measurement of self-esteem and the importance of research conducted with special populations to fill voids in knowledge are discussed.

Self-Concept and Sex-Role Orientation: An Investigation of Multidimensional Aspects of Personality Development in Adolescence.:

A total of 354 6th through 12th grade adolescents completed both a measure of self-concept and a revised version of the Bem Sex Role Inventory in order to assess relationships between sex-role orientation and self-concept during adolescence. It was hypothesized that sex-role orientation and self-concept were systematically related multi-dimensional aspects of personality. The results confirmed the major hypotheses. Overall, Masculine and Androgynous adolescents scored significantly higher than did Feminine and Undifferentiated adolescents on the instrumental self-concept dimension of Achievement/Leadership. In contrast, Feminine and Androgynous adolescents scored significantly higher than their Masculine and Undifferentiated peers on the expressive self-concept dimension of Congeniality/Sociability. Feminine adolescents exhibited significantly higher adjustment self-concepts than did their Undifferentiated peers, but both groups scored lower on this aspect of self-concept than did Androgynous and Masculine adolescents. Finally, on the dimension of Masculinity/Femininity, Masculine adolescents scored significantly higher, and Feminine adolescents significantly lower, than did their Androgynous and Undifferentiated peers. Regression analyses indicated a significant Masculinity component for the instrumental, and a significant Femininity component for the expressive, dimension of self-concept. In addition, only Masculinity contributed significantly to the regression predicting overall Adjustment scores. No age differences emerged from any of the analyses. The results illustrate the utility of the notion that self-concept and sex-role orientation are multidimensional constructs.

The Relationship Between Sex-Role Orientation and Resolution of Eriksonian Developmental Crises.

A total of 139 female and 133 male undergraduates completed the Bem Sex-role Inventory and the Inventory of Psychosocial Development, a measure of resolution of Eriksons developmental crises, in a study designed to assess the relationship between sex roles and psychological adjustment. The results indicated that the androgynous subjects had higher adjustment scores than subjects in the other three sex-role classifications. Further analyses revealed that both the masculinity and femininity components of androgyny were significant predictors of adjustment, reinforcing the suggestion that androgyny is a more optimal sex role. It was also demonstrated that the masculine component of androgyny was associated more strongly with adjustment. The results are discussed in terms of theories of the virtue of an androgynous as opposed to sex-typed sex role.

Central/incidental recall and selective attention in young and elderly adults.

Central and incidental recall of young (Mean age=28.4) and elderly (Mean age=70.9) men and women was examined. As expected, statistically significant age differences were found for both central and incidental recall. For the eight items mean central recall (5.72) was significantly higher than mean incidental recall (2.56) at both age levels; mean incidental recall was significantly greater than chance for both age groups. Lack of an age X central/incidental interaction was interpreted as supporting a general recall deficit. No evidence was found to suggest an attentional focusing difference between young and elderly adults. Verbal labeling of the central stimuli had no effect on recall scores. Differential recall for each of eight positions of stimuli was also examined. Both age groups exhibited a spatial primacy-recency effect for central but not incidental recall. No support was obtained for an attentional interpretation of age-associated differences in learning.

An Evaluation of the Acquisition of Sexual Information through a Sex Education Class

Abstract The purpose of the experiment was to examine the acquisition of information about sexuality by 182 ninth‐grade students enrolled in a sex education course. An additional 197 ninth‐grade students in the same school served as a control group. Approximately half the subjects in each group were pretested. Following completion of the course, all subjects were posttested. The major results of the multiple regression analysis indicated that the experimental group scored higher on the posttest than the control group both for the total set of items (N = 24) and for several subscores measuring learning of sex education material. The pretest and posttest scores did not differ for control group subjects. The results indicated: (a) sex education courses can provide important information about sexuality which is not gained in other ways by ninth‐graders; (b) peers may not be important sources of sexual information when alternatives (sex education courses) to peer information are available.

The Relationship between Identity Development and Self-Esteem during the Late Adolescent Years: Sex Differences

The purpose of the two studies reported in this paper was to examine the relationship between identity and self-esteem development during the late adolescent years. Subjects in Study 1 completed the Inventory of Psychosocial Development and a semantic differential measure of four components of self-esteem. Using a backwards stepwise multiple regression procedure the IPD scales that were significant predictors of the self-esteem measures were identified for males and for females. The subjects in the second study completed the same instruments. Multiple regression analyses were used to determine if the scales found to be significant predictors of self-esteem in the first study also predicted self-esteem in the second study. This was generally found to be the case except for the Masculinity/Femininity component of self-esteem for males. The findings were interpreted as demonstrating that resolution of identity issues has important implications for self-esteem, and that identity is differentially related to self-esteem for males and females.

Perceptions of Child Rearing and Adolescent Sex Role Development

A total of 185 adolescent males and females from grades 6, 8, 10 and 12 completed the Bem Sex Role Inventory and the Childrens Report of Parental Behavior Inventory in a study aimed at relating perceptions of child rearing to sex role development. As expected, perceiving the parents as warm and accepting was associated with androgynous and feminine sex roles. Perceiving the parents as more rigidly controlling was associated with a feminine sex role. It was speculated that perceiving the parents as accepting allows the adolescent to explore a variety of aspects of self-development, including cross sex-typed behavior, and that perceiving the parents as controlling is related to a dependency oriented sex role. Grade level and gender differences in perceptions of mothers and fathers child rearing generally supported predictions that parents would be seen as more accepting by younger than older adolescents and that females would view their parents as more accepting but also as more controlling than would males. The results illustrate the utility of relating perceptions of child rearing to aspects of adolescent development and provide validity data for the CRPBI.

Informational and motivational components of social reinforcement

Abstract Thirty-six four-year-old children of each sex were tested in a two-choice marble dropping task. There were three S s in each cell of a 3 × 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design. The factors investigated were: reinforcement condition (Contingent, Yoked, Nonreinforcement), sex, base preference level (strong vs weak), Base Rate Level (high vs low). The dependent variables were: base preference ratio, base rate, preference ratio change, rate change. The contingently reinforced S s had significantly higher preference change scores than S s in the other two reinforcement conditions but only at the high base preference level. The S s in both the contingent and yoked groups had higher rate change scores than S s in the nonreinforcement group. The results were interpreted as indicating social reinforcement may have two effects, one a cue function and the other an effect on S s motivational system. The results indicate that regression effects do not operate in the two-choice task and that crossing baseline levels of performance is an effective way to control baseline differences in analyses of change in the two-choice task.

Conceptions of Learning and the Study of Life Span Development: A Symposium / Roles of the Operant Model and Its Methods in the Life Span Approach to Human Development / A Learning Theory Critique of the Operant Approach to Life Span Development / Learning and Development: Mutual Bases in a Dialectical Perspective / A Dialectic Analysis of Learning Theory Contributions to Understanding Human Development / Information Processing, Knowledge Acquisition and Learning: Developmental Perspectives

Conceptions of learning have changed considerably during the past decade of psychological research and theorizing. Similarly, conceptions of development, traditionally understood in terms of organismic (active organism) or mechanistic (reactive organism) metaphors, have also changed. Recently, dialectical and ecological approaches to psychological development have appeared. A symposium was presented at the American Psychological Association meetings on the relationship between the concepts of learning and development. The papers which follow represent the product of this symposium and subsequent interchange. Baltes and Lerner argue that three types of operant research contribute to a better understanding of developmental processes. They examine the usefulness of laboratory behavioral descriptions, descriptions of naturalistic behavior-environment interdependencies, and predictive naturalistic studies in light of the goals of life span developmental psychology. Reese criticizes the operant approach to the study of life span development from a theoretical behaviorism view. The essence of Resse’s critique is that the operant approach is not wrong, but that it is simply too limited in its scope to enhance significantly the conceptualization and understanding of life span development. Fitzgerald emphasizes the tension between being informed and being uninformed, and based on information theory a case is made for viewing both development and learning as uncertainty reduction. Dusek and Meyer provide a synthesis based on the dialectical interplay between learning and development. Hoyer provides an integration of these and other conceptualizations of the relationship between learning and life span development.