The Museum and Its Relationships as a Loosely Coupled System

Abstract Currently dominant ideas about the social accountability of museums demand that museums produce “intended outcomes”: positive changes to visitors. Proponents commonly depict this process as a “logic model,” a tightly controlled sequence of events that moves from goal to intended outcome. A tightly coupled system obliges all elements to work toward a common goal. But studies in a variety of fields have shown that tightly coupled systems are achievable only under specific environmental conditions, which are not met within the network of relationships in which museums work. Instead, this article views the museum and its relationships as a loosely coupled system. Each element has its own purposes, and strives to maintain its own autonomy. Interests overlap, but are not identical. In the loosely coupled system, encounters generate a wide and unpredictable range of events. This approach offers advantages for the long‐term sustainability of museums.     

Interactional Synchrony and the Origins of Infant-Mother Attachment: A Replication Study

This study sought to replicate previous work in testing the hypothesis that interactions of dyads developing secure attachment relationships would be characterized by disproportionately synchronous and those of dyads developing insecure relationships by disproportionately asynchronous exchanges. Additionally, a priori hypotheses were tested regarding expected differences in the interactional histories of dyads developing insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant attachments. Results supported the study's predictions in all cases. Dyads developing secure attachments were observed at 3 and 9 months to interact in a disproportionately well-timed, reciprocal, and mutually rewarding manner; dyads developing insecure relationships were disproportionately characterized by interactions in which mothers were minimally involved, unresponsive to infant signals, or intrusive. Within the insecure group, as predicted, 3- and 9-month interactions of avoidant dyads were characterized by maternal intrusiveness and overstimulation; resistant dyads were characterized at both ages by poorly coordinated interactions in which mothers were underinvolved and inconsistent. These findings are discussed as they lend to a growing body of evidence concerning associations between differential interactional histories and attachment quality.     

The Determinants of Coparenting in Families with Toddler Boys: Spousal Differences and Daily Hassles

In order to advance understanding of the phenomenon of coparenting, naturalistic observations of firstborn sons were undertaken when they were 15 months of age at a time when both parents were home and family life was demanding. Narrative records of coparenting events were scored to determine the frequency with which parents supported and undermined each other and to test two hypotheses pertaining to individual differences in coparenting: that greater differences between spouses in demographic factors, personality, styles of relatedness and child-rearing attitudes would forecast more unsupportive and less supportive coparenting; and that the adverse effects of such spousal differences would be amplified by high levels of family stress, as indexed by frequency and intensity of daily hassles. Both hypotheses received support and are discussed in turn.     

Anticipatory appetitive behavior of adrenalectomized rats under circadian salt-access schedules

Salt-hungry rats fail to develop anticipatory wheel-running activity when maintained under schedules of limited daily access to salt, in marked contrast to the robust anticipatory activity seen under food-access schedules. This suggests that the circadian oscillator underlying food-anticipatory activity is specifically related to food access and does not readily generalize to other scheduled resources. However, an alternative hypothesis is that rats are capable of anticipating daily salt-access periods, but that this anticipation is not manifest in wheel-running activity. In the present study, we maintained adrenalectomized rats under schedules of limited daily access to salt in which all salt was obtained by leverpressing. The results indicate that rats are capable of anticipating daily salt access by reference to an endogenous circadian timing mechanism. However, this behavior differs in several respects from that seen under food-access schedules.     

The Dishes I Cook that Will Never Let Me Down

我家厨房的一角,有一整排的书架,上面摆满各形各色的菜谱,而哪一本也不是只摆摆样子用的。每一本菜谱,都被我翻得起了卷角,还难免带着各种酱汁的污渍,仿佛它们曾经历某家番茄调味酱工厂煤气大爆炸后的酱的洗礼。     

Exploring Effects of Developmentally Appropriate Practices in Cyprus

Research Findings: This study, undertaken in Nicosia, Cyprus, sought to evaluate some of the hypothesized developmental benefits of developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) by investigating how the pedagogical attitudes and practices of Greek/Cypriot parents (n = 142) and teachers (n = 16) relate to 4- to 7-year-olds' (n = 142) social–emotional functioning at the end of the academic year. After taking into account potentially confounding effects of parenting attitudes and practices, only a few classroom–environment effects were detected; virtually all of these proved inconsistent with theoretical expectations, though upon reflection they proved less surprising than first imagined. Practice or Policy: Results are discussed in terms of the evidence base of DAP.     

Political diversify is alive in TV and newspaper rooms

Journalists and broadcasters at small, medium, and large newspapers and television stations were compared on their political views, using a 45‐card Q‐deck containing liberal, conservative, and pragmatic statements. Results indicate widespread political diversity among reporters with broadcasters exhibiting more conservative viewpoints.     

Broadcasting

Jay Hoffer's Organization and Operation of Broadcast Stations (Blue Ridge Summit, Pa., TAB Books, $12.95)

Neil Terrell's The Power Technique of Radio-TV Copywriting (same source, $9.95)

Lincoln Diamant's Television's Classic Commercials: The Golden Years, 1948-1958 (Hastings House, $14.50)

Schools and Cable Television (National Education Association, Division of Educational Technology—Sales Section, 1201 Sixteenth St., N.W, Washington D.C. 20036, $2.25)

Television: The Business Behind the Box (Harcourt, Brace Javonovich, $8.95)

Ron Lackmann's Remember Television (Putnam, $7.95)

Don R. Le Duc and Thomas A. McCain's The F.R.C. in Federal Court: A Guide to Original Source Decisions (University of Wisconsin Department of Communication Arts, free on request)

Hal Kanter's Snake in the Grass (Delacorte, $6.95)

The Video Cassette: Looking for a Home (Quantum Science Corporation, $275.00)     

Rush,Rachel, and Rx: Modeling Partisan Media's Influence on Structural Knowledge of Healthcare Policy

Examining the impact of various media sources on knowledge has a long tradition in political communication. Although much of the extant research focuses on the impact of traditional media on factual knowledge, research is expanding to include a variety of media sources and multiple dimensions of knowledge, in addition to understanding processes that better explain these relationships. Using a nationwide, opt-in online survey (n = 993), we examine the relationship between partisan media and structural knowledge, which assess how interconnected people see political concepts. Utilizing understanding of the Affordable Care Act as the content area of interest, we examine whether exposure to partisan media has differential effects on attitudinal ambivalence—holding both positive and negative attitudes toward an object—based on the political ideology of the respondent, and whether this impact of ambivalence influenced structural knowledge. Our results show that exposure to attitude-consistent media decreased attitudinal ambivalence. This exposure to attitude-consistent media results in a positive indirect effect on structural knowledge through this decrease in ambivalence. We find the reverse effect for use of attitude-inconsistent media.