This is the last issue of Volume 24. Title page and Contents for the Volume appear herein.

No abstract

Preliminary evidence indicates that effects of a physical attractiveness stereotype may be present at an early childhood developmental level. Several of the mediating processes that may be hypothesized to be responsible for these effects presuppose that adults display differential treatment toward attractive and unattractive children in circumstances in which their behavior is identical. The present study is addressed to the tenability of this assumption in a situation integral to the socialization process, that in which the child has committed a transgression and the socializing adult must evaluate the child's behavior. Within a 2X2X2X2 design (Attractiveness of Child X Severity of Transgression X Sex of Child X Type of Transgression), support was found for the hypothesis that the severe transgression of an attractive child is less likely to be seen as reflecting an enduring disposition toward antisocial behavior than that of an unattractive child. In addition, the transgression itself tends to be evaluated less negatively when committed by an attractive child. No differences in intensity of advocated punishment were found. These and additional findings are discussed.

The study of immigration and immigrants’ experiences benefits from examining the contribution of gender. In this article, we focus on the importance of gender for understanding different aspects of family functioning. Conditions associated with immigration and settlement in the receiving society may challenge expectations about gender‐related roles, resulting in the renegotiation of these roles in immigrant families. Also, there is evidence of different socialization demands on daughters compared to sons in immigrant families, a difference that has potential implications not only for parent‐child relationships, but also for the development of ethnocultural identity among adolescents and young adults.

Individualism and collectivism help explain culture‐related differences in romantic love and in the importance of emotional intimacy in marriage. Three propositions are suggested: (a) Romantic love is more likely to be an important basis for marriage in individualistic than in collectivistic societies; (b) psychological intimacy in marriage is more important for marital satisfaction and personal well‐being in individualistic than in collectivistic societies; and (c) although individualism fosters the valuing of romantic love, certain aspects of individualism at the psychological level make developing intimacy problematic. Evidence pertaining to these propositions is considered based on conceptual and empirical accounts of romantic love and psychological intimacy in marriage in two individualistic societies (Canada and the United States) and three collectivistic societies (China, India, and Japan). In addition, we suggest that consideration of individualism and collectivism as these constructs pertain to gender provides a framework for interpreting gender differences in the reported experience of love and intimacy in North American society.