"In general, as women get older, they become more instrumental and task-oriented. As men get older, they become more nurturing."
--Ross Parke, psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside, and author of "Throwaway Dads: The Myths and Barriers That Keep Men from Being the Fathers They Want to Be," on personality changes with age, Washington Post, June 6.
"They can't dance, and they can't tell the difference between consonance [harmony] and dissonance either. They all appear to have been born without the wiring necessary to process music."
--Isabelle Peretz, psychologist at the University of Montreal, on those who suffer from amusia, or true tone deafness, Time, June 5.
"When the intellectual progress of singleton children is tracked over time, it is easy to link developmental changes with experiential events. Twins add a new take to this enterprise: more coordinated 'spurts' that may not be simple to change."
--Nancy Segal, professor of psychology at California State University, Fullerton, and director of the Twin Studies Center, on why twins matter to research, Psychwatch Record, June 2000.
"The mothers feel that they are helping their children. They miss part of the picture, which is that the children don't have the conditions the parents think they do."
--Gordon Harper, psychology professor at Harvard University, on a study of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a condition that causes parents hungry for attention or sympathy to abuse their children, Miami Herald, June 6.
"Rural folk often have a self-reliant backbone and maybe they're not so inclined to admit that they have an emotional or behavioral problem that they need to do something about."
--Katherine Nordal, chair of the APA Committee for Rural Health, on one of the problems of serving rural populations, Excite.News, June 2.
