Adolescent women's developing identity: A study of self-definition in the context of family relationships

This study generated adolescent women's perception of their identity in relation to family members spanning three generations and related these perceived relationships to their sex-role orientation. Subjects were 20 firstborn university women from intact families. The methodology used multiple sources of information, including open-ended interviewing procedures, rating scales, and standard research measures of sex-role identity. Significantly more constructs empirically differentiated family by generation than by sex. Congruence of young women with both the parent and grandparent generation, relative number of masculine stereotypes produced, and personality traits of males and females were significantly influenced by the presence of a brother in the sibling generation. There was no relationship between family constellation and sex-role orientation. Feminine women were significantly more congruent with other females in their family than androgynous women. There was a linear trend for androgynous women to be increasingly individuated across the generations.Received her Ph.D. from Yale University. Research interests include observation of children and families in natural settings, longitudinal research with at-risk infants, and rural consultation.Received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Research interests include development of social competence in family, school, and community environment.Received his Ph.D. from Yale University. Research interests include the socialization of values, professional development, and studies of the family in religious and ethnic community contexts.     

A longitudinal study of ego identity development at a liberal arts college

Ego identity development in the areas of occupational choice, religion, and political ideology was studied using Marcia's categorization system. The results indicated a significant increase in the frequency of the identity achiever status for occupational choice and corresponding decreases in the frequency of the moratorium and identity diffusion statuses. A significant decrease in the frequency of foreclosures on religion was also found. In those instances where students underwent an identity crisis, the probability of resolving it successfully was very high. High scores on the Cultural Sophistication scale of the College Student Questionnaire-Part 1 were found to be associated with presence in the identity achievement status. For students not in the achiever status as freshmen, an interest in various literary and art forms was predictive of becoming an achiever while in college.Received his Ph.D. from SUNY/Buffalo. Recent research has been mainly concerned with the development of ego identity and with techniques for resolving identity crises.Received his Ph.D. from Syracuse University. Recent research has been mainly concerned with personality moderators of human judgment.     

Correlates of self-concept among black early adolescents

This study examines the self-concept of Black eighth-grade students from the Midwest in relation to Black acceptance, social intimacy, locus of control, and sex-role type. Twenty-eight students high in self-concept were compared with 31 students whose self-concept was low. As predicted, the high self-concept group scored higher than the low self-concept group in intimacy, internality, and acceptance of black identity. As also predicted, the high self-concept group had a significantly greater number of adolescents with masculine and androgynous sex roles than the low self-concept group; Black females with high self-concepts included a larger proportion of individuals with androgynous sex roles than low self-concept females. However, the prediction that high self-concept males would have a larger proportion of masculine sex roles than low self-concept males was not supported. The difficult situation of the low self-concept adolescents is discussed, along with the implications for intervention.On clinic internship at Smolian Psychiatric Clinic in Birmingham, Alabama. Major interests are clinical psychology and Black identity.Received Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Colorado. Major interests are the development of intimacy and identity in adolescence and young adulthood.     

A review of major factors contributing to errors in human hair association by microscopy.

Forensic hair examiners using traditional microscopic comparison techniques cannot state with certainty, except in extremely rare cases, that a found hair originated from a particular individual. They also cannot provide a statistical likelihood that a hair came from a certain individual and not another. There is no data available regarding the frequency of a specific microscopic hair characteristic (i.e., microtype) or trait in a particular population. Microtype is a term we use to describe certain internal characteristics and features expressed when observing hairs with unpolarized transmitted light. Courts seem to be sympathetic to lawyer's concerns that there are no accepted probability standards for human hair identification. Under Daubert, microscopic hair analysis testimony (or other scientific testimony) is allowed if the technique can be shown to have testability, peer review, general acceptance, and a known error rate. As with other forensic disciplines, laboratory error rate determination for a specific hair comparison case is not possible. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based typing of hair roots offer hair examiners an opportunity to begin cataloging data with regard to microscopic hair association error rates. This is certainly a realistic manner in which to ascertain which hair microtypes and case circumstances repeatedly cause difficulty in association. Two cases are presented in which PCR typing revealed an incorrect inclusion in one and an incorrect exclusion in another. This paper does not suggest that such limited observations define a rate of occurrence. These cases illustrate evidentiary conditions or case circumstances which may potentially contribute to microscopic hair association errors. Issues discussed in this review paper address the potential questions an expert witness may expect in a Daubert hair analysis admissibility hearing.     

Homicides in two Scandinavian capitals.

In this study we investigated homicides in the two Scandinavian capitals, Copenhagen, Denmark and Oslo, Norway, for the 10-year period from 1985 to 1994. The total number of homicides was 431; 63.8% occurred in Copenhagen and 36.2% in Oslo. The average homicide rate was 1.6/100,000 in Copenhagen and 1.8/100,000 in Oslo. Blunt force, sharp force, and strangulation were the most common methods. Firearms were also used but did not account for >20% in either of the two cities. This is probably due to strict gun laws in both countries. There was no clear difference between the homicide victim populations in the two cities with regard to age, gender, or social and marital status. The proportion of alcoholics and unemployed persons was much higher than in the background population and to a similar extent in both cities, indicating that the homicide victim populations differ from the background populations. The perpetrator knew the victim in the majority of the cases. The most frequent motives or circumstances in both cities were fights, family rows, financial controversies, or jealousy.     

Penal harm medicine: state tort remedies for delaying and denying health care to prisoners

In prison and jail subcultures, custodial personnel are committed to the penal harm movement, which seeks to inflict pain on prisoners. Conversely, correctional medical personnel are sworn to the Hippocratic Oath and are committed to alleviating prisoners' suffering. The Hippocratic Oath is violated when correctional medical workers adopt penal harm mandates and inflict pain on prisoners. By analyzing lawsuits filed by prisoners under state tort law, this article shows how the penal harm movement co-opts some correctional medical employees into abandoning their treatment and healing mission, thus causing denial or delay of medical treatment to prisoners. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

On the Object of Arrigo's Critique

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique -