Infants' Ability to Learn Phonetically Similar Words: Effects of Age and Vocabulary Size

What do novice word learners know about the sound of words? Word‐learning tasks suggest that young infants (14 months old) confuse similar‐sounding words, whereas mispronunciation detection tasks suggest that slightly older infants (18–24 months old) correctly distinguish similar words. Here we explore whether the difficulty at 14 months stems from infants' novice status as word learners or whether it is inherent in the task demands of learning new words. Results from 3 experiments support a developmental explanation. In Experiment 1, infants of 20 months learned to pair 2 phonetically similar words to 2 different objects under precisely the same conditions that infants of 14 months (Experiment 2) failed. In Experiment 3, infants of 17 months showed intermediate, but still successful, performance in the task. Vocabulary size predicted word‐learning performance, but only in the younger, less experienced word learners. The implications of these results for theories of word learning and lexical representation are discussed.     

Characterizations of gamma,inverse Gaussian,and negative binomial distributions via their length-biased distributions

A general form for characterizing inverse Gaussian and Wald distributions, based on their respective length-biased distributions, is introduced. Further results for characterizations of the gamma distribution, the negative binomial distribution and some mixtures of them by using their lengthbiased distributions are establised.     

Betrayal and repetition: Understanding aggression in sexually abused girls

Betrayal by a significant object is seen as primary in causing behavioral and emotional disturbances in incest victims, leading to a pervasive identification with the aggressor and disturbances in object relations development. Identification with the aggressor is understood not as a uniform defense mobilized against a specific affect but as a complex compromise formation which defends against anxiety, while also providing libidinal, aggressive and superego gratifications. Far from simply attempting to overcome the past, identifications thus preserve affects that have become pleasurable and self-defining. Two case studies of adolescent girls illustrate how treatment can help victims recognize and begin to forego the sadomasochistic pleasure derived from these identifications, a relinquishment necessary for true mastery.     

MAKING MULTICULTURALISM RELEVANT FOR MAJORITY CULTURE GRADUATE STUDENTS*

The revised accreditation standards for marriage and family therapy programs (Manual on Accreditation, 1988) require that the curriculum reflect an emphasis on “issues of gender and ethnicity as they relate to marital and family therapy” (p. 13). Training approaches that are described in the professional literature tend to emphasize an understanding of ethnic minorities while deemphasizing the trainee's own ethnic and cultural roots. As such, training lacks dynamic integrity for the white, middle-class trainee. This paper describes a rationale for addressing the ethnic and cultural background of all family therapy trainees and provides training activities to accomplish this end.     

Engineered Migration and the Use of Refugees as Political Weapons: A Case Study of the 1994 Cuban Balseros Crisis

This paper presents a case study of the August 1994 Cuban balseros crisis, during which more than 35,000 fled the island and headed toward Florida in the span of a few weeks. It argues that Castro launched the crisis in an attempt to manipulate US fears of another Mariel, and in order to compel a shift in US policy, both on immigration and on a wider variety of issues. The paper further contends that from Castro’s perspective, this exercise in coercion proved a qualified success – his third such successful use of the Cuban people as an asymmetric political weapon against the US. In addition, the paper argues that Castro’s success was predicated on his ability to internationalize his own domestic crisis and transform it into an American domestic political and foreign policy crisis. Finally, it offers a novel explanation of how, why, and under what conditions, states and/or non–state actors may attempt to use refugees as coercive political weapons. Although dwarfed in size by the larger 1980 Mariel boatlift, the 1994 crisis is important for several reasons. First, despite its brevity, it had far reaching consequences for US–Cuban relations. Without warning or preamble, it catalyzed a shift in US policy vis–à–vis Cuban immigration that represented a radical departure from what it had been for the previous three decades. Second, it influenced US domestic politics on the national level, by expanding the scope and salience of the issue, and mobilizing not only Floridians, but also the larger public concerned about illegal immigration. Third, the crisis illustrated the potential potency of engineered migration as an asymmetric weapon of the weak. Finally, the brief, but significant, interactions of international and domestic actors in this case warrant examination because, although the 1994 crisis was limited, in its dynamics it resembles myriad other international refugee crises, large and small. Thus the case offers valuable lessons that may aid in dealing with future (real or threatened) crises.     

Why the TVA Remains Unique: Interest Groups and the Defeat of New Deal River Planning*

Abstract Although scholars cite the Tennessee Valley Authority as one of President Franklin Roosevelt's major reform programs, the valley authority model did not replace the limited‐purpose water programs of the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers. State‐centered theorists hold that reformers are most likely to succeed during periods such as the New Deal era, when they are supported by a democratized polity and when they dominate Congress and the administration. This paper shows that in river policy, the strength of opposing interest groups also mattered. The TVA bill was passed in 1933 because reformers skillfully coordinated action at potential choke points and weakened the already disorganized opposing lobbyists. In 1936, however, after regrouping, opposing river lobbyists and legislators took advantage of the New Dealers' spending mood by expanding the Corps' flood control program. They also helped defeat further valley authorities, the most promising of the New Deal water policy reforms.     

Acknowledgment of outside reviewers for 1994

Acknowledgment of outside reviewers for 1994     

Marital Conflict,Ineffective Parenting,and Children's and Adolescents' Maladjustment

Data from the 1988 National Survey on Families and Households were analyzed to examine the associations among marital conflict, ineffective parenting, and children's and adolescents' maladjustment. Parents' use of harsh discipline and low parental involvement helped explain the connection between marital conflict and children's maladjustment in children aged 2 through 11. Parent‐child conflict was measured only in families with a target teenager and also was a significant mediator. Although ineffective parenting explained part of the association between marital conflict and children's maladjustment, independent effects of marital conflict remained in families with target children aged 2 through 11 (but not for families with a teenager). With a few exceptions, this pattern of findings was consistent for mothers' and fathers' reports, for daughters and sons, for families with various ethnic backgrounds, and for families living in and out of poverty.     

Hearts and Minds and Morality: Analyzing Moral Vocabularies in Qualitative Studies

A strategy of analyzing the moral vocabulary of a social movement or subculture is proposed by which ethnographies and other qualitative works may place the moral and ethical concepts used by respondents into a broader sociological context. Through examining the moral resources, the status hierarchy which the specific moral resources within a given moral vocabulary form, and the historical and cultural contexts within which these moral resources exist, it is argued that it becomes possible to analyze and anticipate the moral claims and form of discourse which will be produced by a specific movement and/or subculture. It is also argued that this method may be used to predict how the opposition to a movement and/or subculture is perceived through the formation of an antithetical moral vocabulary.