Psychological factors capable of preventing the inhibition of antibody responses in separated infant monkeys

The capacity of infant squirrel monkeys to mount an antibody response to viral challenge was evaluated after removal from their mothers in several social and physical environments. Control and separated infants were injected with a benign virus, the bacteriophage X174, and levels of neutralizing antibody were assessed for 3 weeks. Infants separated alone in an unfamiliar environment showed a significant reduction in antibody levels as compared to control infants. Allowing infants to remain in the home environment, either alone or with peers, prevented this inhibition of antibody responses from occurring. Similarly, providing familiar peers in the novel environment facilitated the normal expression of antibody responses. These results indicate that the trauma of maternal separation is significantly reduced when infants are familiar with the separation environment or familiar social companions are available. The reduced antibody response was associated with the highest level of adrenal activation induced by the unfamiliar separation condition, but antibody titers and plasma cortisol levels could not be specifically correlated in individual infants.     

Are measured school effects just sorting?: Causality and correlation in the National Education Longitudinal Survey

Youth who share a school and neighborhood often show similar levels of academic achievement, but some studies find all or most of this correlation is due to sorting (not causation). We analyze the National Education Longitudinal Survey (NELS) in three ways to decompose sorting versus causality: We first control for much richer measures of family background than other analysts have used. We next use characteristics of the students’ future high school as an instrument for family background (as future high school quality is correlated with unobserved family background but cannot cause junior high test scores). Finally, we use regression and semi-nonparametric matching methods to look at changes in test score when youth change schools. The results create a collage of evidence that a significant fraction of the correlation is causal.     

Aspects and the overlap function

It is intuitively clear that putting the cart before the horse is not the same as putting the horse before the cart. It is equally clear that a history of philosophy is different from a philosophy of history. Yet there is no logical relationship, like the AND/OR/NOT functions, which would enable manipulation of these permuted, non-commutative, relationships. In this paper we present a system for automatic handling of ordered sets, states based on these sets, and of differing points of view regarding a Universe of Discourse. We call what we are dealing with aspects and we represent them by means of a new logical function called the Overlap function.     

Causal Effects of Parent Number Talk on Preschoolers’ Number Knowledge

Individual differences in children’s number knowledge arise early and are associated with variation in parents’ number talk. However, there exists little experimental evidence of a causal link between parent number talk and children’s number knowledge. Parent number talk was manipulated by creating picture books which parents were asked to read with their children every day for 4 weeks. N = 100 two- to four-year olds and their parents were randomly assigned to read either Small Number (1 – 3), Large Number (4 – 6), or Control (non-numerical) books. Small Number books were particularly effective in promoting number knowledge relative to the Control books. However, children who began the study further along in their number development also benefited from reading the Large Number Books with their parents.     

Science and sociability: women as audience at the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1831-1901

This essay recovers the experiences of women at the meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) from its founding in 1831 to the end of the Victorian era. It aims to add to research on women in science by reconsidering the traditional role of women as consumers rather than producers of knowledge and to that on science popularization by focusing on audience experience rather than on the aims and strategies of popularizers. The essay argues that, in various ways, the ubiquitous and visible female audience came to define the BAAS audience and "the public" for science more generally. The women who swelled the BAAS audiences were accepted as a social element within the meetings even as they were regarded critically as scientific participants. Portrayed as passive and nonscientific, women allowed the male scientific elites to distance themselves from their audiences. Arguing from diary and other evidence, we present examples that complicate existing notions of audiences for science as necessarily active.     

Relative Heights of Males and Females in Children's Drawings Taille Relative des Silhouettes Masculines et Fe´minines dans les Dessins d'Enfants Alturas Relativas de las Figuras Masculina y Femenina en los Dibujos de los Niños

Two studies are reported concerning the height of male and female figures in children's drawings. In Study 1, 5 and 7 year olds were asked to draw a man and a lady or a boy and a girl. Adult figures were drawn taller than child figures. For boys, the mean heights of their male and female figures were approximately the same but girls drew their females taller than their male figures. The reason for this was that more girls than boys used different structures (incorporating a skirt or trousers into the drawing) to differentiate their figures; this use of different structures results in a taller drawing of a skirted figure. This finding was replicated in Study 2 in which 7-year-olds were asked to draw a lady in a skirt and another in pyjamas: the skirted figure was taller when it had a different structure from the figure in pyjamas, whereas the mean heights of both figures were approximately the same height when the same structure had been used. Deux travaux de recherche ont étudié la taille des silhouettes masculines et féminines dans les dessins d'enfants. Dans l'étude 1, des enfants de 5 et 7 ans ont dû dessiner un homme et une femme ou un garçon et une fille. Les silhouettes adultes ont été dessinées plus grandes que les silhouettes d'enfants. Les garçons ont dessiné des silhouettes d'hommes et de femmes à peu près de la même taille en moyenne, mais les filles ont dessiné leurs femmes plus grandes que leurs hommes. La raison en est que plus de filles que de garçons utilisaient des structures différentes (en incorporant une jupe ou un pantalon dans le dessin) pour différencier leurs silhouettes; cette utilisation de structures différentes résulte en un dessin plus haut de la silhouette en jupe. Ces résultats se retrouvent dans l'étude 2, où des enfants de 7 ans ont dû dessiner une dame en jupe et une autre en pyjama: la silhouette en jupe était plus haute quand elle avait une structure différente de celle en pyjama, tandis que la hauteur moyenne des deux silhouettes était à peu près la même quand la même structure était utilisée. Se informa de dos estudios relacionados con la altura de las figuras masculina y femenina en los dibujos de los niños. En el Estudio 1, se pidió a niños de 5 y 7 años que dibujan un hombre y una mujer, o un chico y una chica. Las figuras adultas fueron dibujadas con una altura mayor que las figuras de niños. Para los niños, las alturas medias de sus figuras masculinas y femeninas fueron aproximadamente las mismas, pero las niñas dibujaron sus figuras femeninas más altas que las masculinas. La razón para esto fue que más niñas que niños usaron estructuras diferentes (incorporando una falda o pantalones en el dibujo) para diferenciar sus figuras. El uso de estas estructuras diferentes resulta en un dibujo más alto de una figura con falda. Este hallazgo se reprodujo en el Estudio 2, en el que se pidió a niños de 7 años que dibujaran una señora con una falda y otra con un pijama: la figura con falda fue más alta cuando tuvo una estructura diferente a la de la figura con pijama, mientras que las alturas medias de ambas figuras fueron aproximadamente la misma altura cuando la hizo uso de la misma estructura.     

Rethinking Sport for Development and Peace: the Capability Approach

In recent years, we have witnessed an upsurge in the attention given to Sport for Development and Peace (SDP). Yet, despite a burgeoning body of scholarship, SDP remains largely undertheorized. Emergent perspectives, however, point to the complex nature of SDP programmes. The purpose of this article is to assess how Sen’s Capability Approach – a normative framework rooted in human development – may help us better understand SDP at the conceptual level. In this paper, we analyse: (a) existing theories on SDP, (b) the Capability Approach and (c) implications of re-examining SDP through the Capability Approach. This includes an analysis of the applicability of the Capability Approach to SDP practice, policy and research. We conclude by suggesting that the Capability Approach provides a malleable normative framework that can promote conceptual clarity of SDP across a multitude of epistemological, theoretical and methodological perspectives.     

Methodological considerations regarding the evaluation of maintenance of gains due to token programs

The issue of maintenance of changes in behavior produced by token programs is unquestionably important. The present paper raises methodological considerations relating to the evaluation of such maintenance and offers suggestions for appropriate methodology.