Word: pettigrews
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...problem is not so easy to solve as the statistics imply. "What we're really bickering about is a few intelligence points which don't really make much difference," Thomas F. Pettigrew, Assistant Professor of Social Psychology, points out. Almost all students at the two colleges are on the same high plane of scholastic ability, and each sex seems to have a particular arete in some field...
Scientific proof, according to Pettigrew, has demonstrated that girls tend to be more proficient in verbal skills, whereas boy's abilities tend toward quantitative aptitudes. This "genuine difference" results from "reinforcement." From earliest childhood, girls are "reinforced" in clear writing and expression; boys, on the other hand, are often directed toward more quantitative problems. This difference also helps to explain the girls' complaints that boys' interest are "profane"; boys tend to go into fields like math, chemistry, or psychology instead of more culturally oriented subjects like Fine Arts or Literature. "In the long run, however, this all works...
Morris also suggests that this compulsive "conscientiousness" among Radcliffe students also causes a dearth of "imagination" among female students. Evidence from different fields seems to indicate just the opposite, however. Pettigrew notes that girls in his course, Soc. Rel. 134, which concerns modern social problems such as integration, are more willing to take an "adventurous stand" than their Harvard colleagues. This might well be true, he says, because girls will never have to take the responsibility for their radical opinions after college. Nevertheless, the girls' approach toward the course, "irresponsible" or not, does lead to top grades. Each year...
Compulsory Junior non-Honors tutorials will be abandoned, a policy followed by all other Departments, Thomas F. Pettigrew, assistant professor of Social Psychology, said yesterday. For non-Honors Seniors, tutorial groups without course credit will be organized in each House and at Radcliffe during the Spring, in preparation for General Examinations...
Although there are not many mixed Sophomore groups this year, Pettigrew said a straw poll taken among Harvard Sophomores indicated a willingness to include girls in House tutorial sessions...