Sandra Cotton

Measures of children's sex typing in middle childhood

Abstract Measures of sex-typing suitable for use with 8to 14-year-olds are proposed. They involve interests, toys, sports, household jobs, friends, similarity to peers and personality. The measures fit conceptually into Hustons (1983) framework within the categories “Behavioural enactment or adoption” and “Identity or self-perception”. The sample comprised first and second born children from 191 families (first borns 98 males, 93 females; second borns 95 males, 96 females). They were selected using a stratified random sampling procedure involving area risk scores. The children in 161 families were assessed on a second occasion, on average 16 months after the first testing. The measures were shown to have suitable psychometric properties: sex differences in the expected directions, moderate coefficient alpha values, consistency over time in terms of moderate correlations, and few changes in means. Intercorrelations among the measures revealed little coherence either within each of the two Huston categorie...

Self disclosure between husbands and wives: Its relationship to sex roles and marital happiness

One hundred and eight married couples were administered an omnibus survey concerning various aspects of their marriages. In the present report, interest is focused on the correlates of their self-disclosure levels. Although four different areas of self disclosure were hypothesized (positive, negative, anger, sex), these were highly related to one another. Husbands and wives in general were found to disclose about the same amount of information, with individual couples showing a high degree of matching. Disclosure levels decreased with time-related factors such as age, length of the marriage and in particular, the number of children. Femininity was found to be a critical variable in the disclosure levels of both husbands and wives with both androgynous and feminine individuals disclosing most and generally being disclosed to most. Marital happiness correlated positively with all aspects of ones own self disclosure and to a lesser extent, all aspects of ones spouses disclosure level.

Noncompliance: Medical and psychological aspects

Abstract Patient noncompliance to oral medication regimens was assessed by interview in a sample of 109 private practice patients at two pharmacies in an outer western suburb of Sydney. Patients were classified into one of the five following groups on the basis of their stated degree of noncompliance to all medications taken (perfect compliance on all medications, occasional noncompliance on all medications, frequent noncompliance on all medications, occasional noncompliance on only some of the medications taken, and frequent noncompliance on only some of the medications taken). Selected medical/phnrmacological, doctor-patient relationship, attitudinal and personality variables were measured and univariate and multivariate analyses of the data undertaken. Contrary to expectations, the total number of medications reportedly taken rind complexity of the regimen were inversely related to noncompliance. Respondents reported satisfaction with the doctors consultations, skepticism of doctors, attitudes to medi...

Broken sleep, pain, disability, social activity, and depressive symptoms in rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract This study investigated the relationships of pain and sleep with depressive symptoms in women with rheumatoid arthritis. Specifically, the study aimed to replicate the findings of Nicassio and Wallston (1992), and extend their investigations by examining the hypothesised relationships over multiple time intervals. A further aim was to explore the role of social activity in predicting depressive symptoms. Subjects were 81 women with a diagnosis of definite rheumatoid arthritis. Each woman completed questionnaires 12 times, at 3-to 4-month intervals. Data from the first five time-points are used in the current analyses. At Time 1, pain was significantly associated with depressive symptoms, and there was also a trend for low social activity to be associated with concurrent depressive symptoms. Longitudinally, the interaction of either sleep with social activity or pain with social activity at Time 1 predicted depression 12 months later. When multiple time intervals were used in the analysis, disabil...

Factors influencing the labour force attachment of mothers with preschool‐aged children

This paper investigates some of the factors influencing the labour force attachment of mothers with preschool-aged children in intact families. The sample comprised 166 Sydney-area families. The variables of interest included the mothers expectations about working at the time of her marriage, her educational level, four aspects of her socialisation experiences (i.e., whether traditional or non-traditional interests and activities were encouraged during her childhood, closeness to mother and father during childhood and adolescence, and her own mothers work pattern), and family structure (i.e., number of children and age of youngest and oldest child). Considerable agreement was observed between the womens work attachment and their expectations about working at the time of their marriage. The interrelationships among education, socialisation experiences, family structure and work attachment were investigated using a series of multivariate analyses of variance and covariance. It was found that the set of variables representing socialisation experiences had a small, direct effect on work attachment; education had a direct effect, even after controlling for socialisation; and family structure exerted a strong direct effect over and above its relationships with education and socialisation experiences. The implications of these findings are discussed.