Children Selectively Trust Individuals Who Have Imitated Them

We investigated the influence of being imitated on children's subsequent trust. Five‐ to six‐year‐olds interacted with one experimenter who mimicked their choices and another experimenter who made different choices. Children were then presented with two tests. In a preference test, the experimenters offered conflicting preferences for the contents of two opaque boxes, and children were asked to choose a box. In a factual claims test, the experimenters offered conflicting claims about the referent for a novel word, and children were asked to state which object the word referred to. Children were significantly more likely to endorse both the preferences and the factual claims of the experimenter who had mimicked them. These results demonstrate that imitation is a powerful means of social influence in development.     

Review

Representing reality: issues and concepts in documentary by Bill Nichols. Bloomington and Indianapolis: University of Indiana Press, 1991. $39.95 cloth. ISBN: 0–253–34060–8. $17.50 paper. ISBN: 0–253–20681–2.     

INTERVENTION STRATEGIES: PREDICTING FAMILY THERAPY OUTCOME*

A pre-defined list of family therapy intervention strategies was used to predict post-therapy perceived life happiness and marital happiness among husbands and wives. Clients presented with both child and marriage-focused problems. The data were analyzed separately for husbands and wives. In general, favorable outcome for husbands was associated with active restructuring operations on the part of the therapist. Prediction of outcome for wives was less clear. However, wives did appear to respond favorably to less active interventions such as actualizing transactional patterns and reframing.     

A Comparative Analysis of Propositions Describing Social Movement Organizations*

Natural history, observational, and interview data from a study of two anti-pornography crusades and the social movement organizations which created and directed them are used to assess nine propositions formulated by Zald and Ash (1966) concerning the structure and dynamics of social movement organizations. The Zald-Ash propositions were formulated from the literature on national, established social movement organizations. This paper explores the applicability of the propositions to those organizations which are small and emerging. The propositions are generally supported. Discrepancies are accounted for by the significant influence of leadership orientation, goal specificity, and incentive structure in determining other structural and dynamic characteristics of small or emerging social movement organizations.     

Gay youth and gay adults: bridging the generation gap

Recent discussion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) youth has included two emphases: the burgeoning trend toward youth-supportive organizations and focus on risk factors experienced by these youth. In practice, the two are intertwined: the need for youth-supportive endeavors is typically demonstrated by appeals to the risks LGBT youth face. Relatively little attention has been given to relationships between youth and adults in LGBT communities. This article employs data from a long-term qualitative study with LGBT youth, supported by information from numerous other settings to suggest that a failure on the part of both groups fully to comprehend the experience of the other hampers the optimal functioning of everyone involved. In particular, we suggest that the discourse about the dangers faced by LGBT youth, despite its being thoroughly well-intentioned. may actually place these teens at greater risk.     

Evaluating risk: global fees and episodic care

In 1999, two articles in The Physician Executive -- "Part I: Global Theory and the Nature of Risk (July-August)." and "Part II: Towards a Choice-Based Model of Managed Care (October-November)" -- outlined the flaws of orthodox managed care theory and highlighted the unique advantages of moving to a genuinely market-based model, which included the concept of direct contracting for integrated episodes of care. This follow-up focuses on comparing an episode contracting system to a traditional capitated program and outlines the features that make this approach much more attractive to physicians, payers, and most importantly patients.     

Assessing nontraditional couples: validity of the marital satisfaction inventory--revised with gay,lesbian, and cohabiting heterosexual couples

Thirty-one gay male couples and 28 lesbian couples were compared with 36 cohabiting heterosexual couples using the Marital Satisfaction Inventory-Revised (MSI-R), a multidimensional measure of relationship functioning intended for use with both traditional and nontraditional couples. Analyses of scales' internal consistency and factor structure supported the construct validity of this measure with nontraditional couples. Analyses of mean profiles on the MSI-R indicated that cohabiting opposite-gender and same-gender couples were more alike than different, and were more similar to nondistressed samples of married heterosexual couples from the general community than to couples in therapy. Implications of current findings for clinical assessment and intervention are considered, and directions for future research are proposed.