John Pierce-Jones

Social class differences in child rearing: A third community for comparison with Chicago and Newton.

mine the exact relationship. Ethnic origin of the parents likewise plays an important role. The weaknesses of our study are many and obvious. As we have pointed out, the sample is not random nor proportional; the postulates underlying the analysis are debatable, etc. Our conclusions must be accepted with all caution and we have raised more problems than we have solved. Although our findings largely confirm previous studies, certain revisions of the literature seem in order. Should our study only stimulate criticism, further research, and a few working hypotheses, we should be highly satisfied.

PERCEPTUAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NEGRO AND WHITE ADOLESCENTS OF SIMILAR SYMBOLIC BRIGHTNESS

Working from Hebbs (11) analysis of the effects of early experiential variety on perception and from Piagets (14) theorizing about the development of intelligence from the sensori-motor level, Tyler (16, pp. 298301) has developed the hypothesis that the oft-verified average inferiority of rhe American Negro in measuced intelligence may be rooted in more fundamental perceptual defects originating in experientially impoverished early childhood environments. Results obtained in diverse sorts of investigations by Eagleson (7), Clarke ( 3 ) , Machover (12) , Franklin (8), Davidson and associates ( 4 ) , Boger ( I ) , and De Stephens (5 ) have repeatedly indicated: ( a ) that Negroes show special deficiencies in perceptual functions, (b) that Negroes show specific deficiencies in numerical abilities, and (c) that controlled perceptual training experiments have produced significant increases in the IQs of Negro children. Certainly such evidence invites the sort of unifying hypothesis Tyler has offered, even though the research cited was not designed to test the hypothesis specifically. If it is m e that Negro-white differences in intellectual ability are related to deficient perceptual functioning, then it should also be true that Negroes and whites demonstrated to be of the same levels of intellectual functioning should not differ significantly in measurable perceptual behavior. The purpose of the present research was to test this reformulation of Tylers hypothesis by comparing equivalent samples of Negro and white children on four tests of perceptual closure. METHOD Ss were 168 children (84 Negroes and 84 whites) drawn from the larger sample population of approximately 1500 seventh grade pupils currently under longirudinal study in the Human Talent Research Project (6) at the University of Texas. The white Ss were chosen so as to exdude Latin Americans from the sample; Negro Ss were Identified by school records and by responses to a personal information questionnaire. The two racial samples were selected in pairs so as to be matched by stanine scores for total reading grade placement measured by the California Achievement Tests. The samples were also equated for total arithmetic grade placement measured by the California Tests. The reading score had been found in factor analyrlc srudies of the Human Talent Project battery to load ( .71)= only, and more hearrly than any other test of mental

Vocational Interest Correlates of Socio-Economic Status in Adolescence

FOR many years applied psychologists have contributed much to knowledge concerning the nature, measurement, and correlates of interests in activities related to occupations. Nevertheless, relatively little effort seems to have been devoted to systematic investigations of possible relationships between socio-economic status and interests measured by inventories. It might seem that an impediment to clean-cut research in some areas of this domain would exist if the

An Analysis of Myricks Theory of Unidimensional Subject-Stimulus Relationships

Myricks paper ( 2 ) concerning organism-stimulus relationships is s stimulating and provocative report. One facet of his general proposal-the accurate, quantitative description of the stimulus-is of particular theoretical and experimental significance and has often been ignored or carelessly handled by investigators. Myricks ideas, therefore, merit careful scrutiny. The discussion presented below is intended to be one such inspection of Myricks rationale.

Cooperative, Trusting Behavior in a “Culturally Deprived,” Mixed Ethnic-Group Population

Summary One hundred forty-four Mexican-American, Negro, and Anglo-American, five- and six-year-old “Head Start” children took part in a two-person, two-choice game in which they could cooperate or compete with another child. The 72 males and 72 females were divided into similar and dissimilar ethnic-group pairs, and immediate and delayed reward groups. The results of a series of analyses of variance indicated that (a) for females, similar ethnic pairs cooperated significantly more (p < .05) than dissimilar pairs, with the exception of Mexican-American/Negro pairs who maintained a high level of cooperation; (b) females in the three ethnic groups differed significantly (p < .01) in their amount of cooperative behavior, with Anglo-Americans competing the most; and (c) cooperative behavior was not differentially affected by the type of reinforcement used, nor did it increase as a function of trials.

Temporal Stability and Change in Attitudes toward the Kennedy Assassination

Temporal distance from a catastrophic social event, e.g., the killing of President John Kennedy, might be expected to result in a de-differentiation (simplification) of the configuration of attitudes surrounding the event. In a factor-analytic sense, this would be seen through the identification of fewer attitude dimensions a year after the killing and after the original study. Present results disconfirm the simplification hypothesis, showing instead, the same attitude factors as originally identified for Ss sampled in the same four American universities. Analyses for various subgroups of undergraduates show some interpretable changes in factor-scale profiles.