Geophysical variables and behavior: LXVIII. Distal and lunar variables and traffic accidents in Saskatchewan 1984-1989.

The daily total number of traffic accidents and traffic accident severity for the years 1984 to 1989 in Saskatchewan were analyzed to estimate relationships with day of the week, season of the year, and various lunar variables (lunar phase, distance of the moon from the earth, and moon-sun tidal index). A regression model with both a linear term and a trigonometric term was fitted to the data. No relationship between lunar cycles and total accidents or severity of accident was found. A larger number of total accidents was found during the winter months and weekends; however, more severe accidents tended to occur during the summer months. A slight linear trend was uncovered for total accidents over the time period under consideration.     

Lunar association with suicide

Suicides in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, for 1972--1975 are tabulated by year, month of year, day of week, lunar phase, and holiday occurrence. Only lunar phase demonstrates a significant (p less than .01) variation in suicide rate; an increase is observed in this sample with respect to new moon phase but not for full moon phase. Explanations for this finding are considered, but the precise reasons remain unknown.     

PLACING PREMENSTRUAL SYNDROME IN PERSPECTIVE

In a longitudinal prospective study, mood fluctuations were assessed for evidence of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) as well as other menstrual, day of week, and lunar cyclicity. Volunteer participants from the community (60 women and 10 men) provided daily data for 12 to 18 weeks. Significant mood fluctuation was determined by a new nonparametric method using each individual's own standard deviation as a measure of "marked" change. Cyclicity was the norm; two thirds of both the women and men had one or more menstrual or lunar phases or days of the week that were markedly positive and/or negative, relative to their own range, but few experienced stereotypical cyclicity (PMS, Monday blues, full moon). About half the women whose prospective data met conservative criteria for PMS, met liberal criteria, or met neither criteria said they had PMS, and half in each group said they did not.     

Variation in suicide occurrence by time of day, day of the week, month, and lunar phase

Previous studies suggest that suicide occurrence varies by month and day of the week, but not by lunar phase. Variation by time of day has never before been adequately examined; to our knowledge, all previous studies have failed to obtain time-of-death information for a large percentage of cases. We examined suicide occurrence among residents of Sacramento County, CA, during the period from 1925 to 1983. Data were abstracted from coroner's autopsy and investigative reports. In contrast to previous studies, data on time of death were available for a large percentage of cases. 4,190 suicide deaths were identified during the study period. Suicide occurrence varied substantially by time of day; for both sexes and for ages under 65 years, the fewest suicide deaths occurred during the early morning hours, from 0401 to 0800. For recent years of the study, suicides occurred most frequently on Monday for both males and females and for most age groups. Variation by month followed no consistent pattern by gender, age, years of the study, or combinations of these factors. Contrary to popular belief, suicide occurrence did not vary by lunar phase.     

Moon and Media: Lunar Cycles and Television Viewing

A review of the literature reveals that the possibility of lunar influence on various aspects of human health and behavior has long been taken seriously in established scientific journals. The purpose of this article is to extend this perspective to media research by focusing on the relation between lunar cycles and television viewing behavior. In preliminary analyses performed on a data set containing daily television viewing figures and moon and weather information for Flanders in 1993 (over a 12-month period), a weak but significant positive relation between "the amount of television viewing" and "the percentage of the moon illuminated" was found. However, subsequent analyses of a data set containing daily television viewing figures and moon information for Flanders, Denmark, Norway, and The Netherlands in 2002 (over a 12-month period), revealed a weak positive correlation between "television viewing time" and "percentage of the moon surface illuminated" only in Denmark. Given these inconsistent results, it is concluded that further investigation is needed. Future studies should investigate data over a longer period of time, include additional moon variables (i.e., amount of moonlight), explicitly test the moon-sleep deprivation-television viewing hypothesis, control for other environmental factors (e.g., weather conditions), and search for alternative explanations for a possible relation between amount of television viewing and the moon cycle.     

Bender-Gestalt emotional indicators and acting-out behavior in young children.

This study was designed to investigate the relationship between 15 emotional indicators on the Bender-Gestalt Test and acting-out behavior in young children. The subjects were 93 children ranging in age from five to 12 years. Each was administered the Bender. A measure of each subject's overt acting-out behavior was then obtained by having teachers rate each student on a Behavioral Rating Scale. Subjects' records were then divided into groups on the basis of both sex and age. Results indicated that neither the total number of Bender indicators nor any of the individual Bender indicators were correlated significantly with total scores on the rating scale. Use of the Bender as a projective device to measure acting-out behavior was seriously questioned.     

MMPI validity scales and behavioral disturbance in psychiatric inpatients.

Sixty psychiatric inpatients were assigned to one of three groups on the basis of F and K MMPI validity scales. Staff ratings of patient behavior and recorded incidents of "acting-out" behavior were obtained for patients with: (a) "plea for help" validity profiles, (b) hyper-defensive profiles, and (c) average profiles. Patients with "plea for help" profiles were perceived as "acting-out" more frequently and engendering more feelings of frustration than patients in the other groups. These patients account for 77% of the incidents of inappropriate, destructive behavior and 83% of the seclusions in the patients sampled. Although the "plea for help" profile is considered invalid in some scoring systems, results suggest that this validity profile may be useful in treatment planning.     

The influence of children's facial maturity on parental expectations and punishments.

It was hypothesized that the perception of maturefaced children as more able to follow complicated instructions, more likely to know right from wrong, more shrewd, and physically stronger than their babyfaced peers would lead parents to assign more demanding tasks to these children and to judge their misbehavior more harshly. Study 1 revealed that parents allocated more cognitively demanding, but not more physically demanding, chores to maturefaced 11 year old depicted in photographs than to babyfaced children of the same age and attractiveness. Study 2 revealed that parents perceived the misbehaviors of maturefaced 4- and 11-year-old children as more intentional than those of their babyfaced peers, an effect that was significant only when parents judged children of the opposite sex. Study 2 further revealed that, with perceived intentionality held constant, a babyface mitigated the severity of punishment recommended for relatively serious infractions by preschoolers, while increasing it for older children. The latter finding was discussed in light of other evidence that people react negatively to the disconfirmation of their benign expectations regarding babyfaced individuals, and that parents perceived the misbehaviors as more unexpected for 11 year olds than 4 year olds.     

Memory for Orientation in the Natural Environment

Previous work has demonstrated that memory for information to which people have been exposed for a prolonged period in everyday life may be very poor. One interpretation of such findings is that we tend to remember only information that is likely to be of future functional relevance. However, it is also noticeable that previous investigations have in general studied memory concerning artefacts of arbitrary design rather than the natural environment. As the product of an evolutionary process, it is possible that memory is in general adapted towards dealing with the natural rather than the artificial. For example, in the case of one frequently encountered artefact it has been shown that people retain little information as to whether the head on a coin faces to left or right. The present study probed a naturally occurring counterpart to this, by examining recall of the orientation of the crescent moon. For a new moon it is the right-hand side of the moon that is illuminated whereas for an old moon it is the left-hand side, in the northern hemisphere. The results of Experiment 1 indicated no retention of this information by participants (though, as the results of Experiment 4 confirmed, participants did remember that the new and old moons have opposite orientations). The results of Experiments 2 and 3 confirmed the absence of retention when recall was cued by reference to the solar cycle rather than the lunar cycle, either singly or in combination. It is concluded that, contrary to expectation, memory for the natural environment is in this case no better than memory for the artificial environment, consistent with the primary role in determining the content of everyday memory being taken by functional relevance. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An approach to families of acting-out adolescents--a case study.

Certain types of acting-out in the adolescent express the feelings of deprivation of the parental pair in a maladaptive aggressive way. Family therapists have attempted to convert the acting-out behavioral disorders into an effective state, i.e., make the family aware of their feelings of deprivation by focusing on the aggressive component. In many instances, the family becomes depressed and then interrupts or terminates treatment. The authors feel that this is due to the therapist's interpretations which bring about the depressive state via guilt provocation. The family understands the interpretations as meaning "You are bad to have your adolescent offspring behave in such a way". The therapist is thus seen as the family's collective super-ego. In order to prevent premature termination, the therapist should instead help the members of the family to become more conscious of their loving, "welfare" feelings for one another. In this way the self-esteem of the family is increased, which then permits more verbal action of aggressive feelings--thus a decrease in the acting-out, and ultimately an increase in the capacity to mourn. It should be pointed out, however, that in certain families, the technique described is not applicable. In these cases, although there is acting-out, the families are unable to draw on sufficient good experiences together which are necessary to elicit positive feeling for one another. The absence of readily available "welfare" feelings is of diagnostic and prognostic significance and differentiates the disorganized, sociopathic or schizophrenic family from the acting-out of parental deprivation as illustrated in this paper.     

Early rejected status and later social adjustment: A 3-year follow-up

Sociometric measures and rates of social interaction were obtained from 186 kindergarten children. Subjects were classified into popular, rejected, and average status groups on the basis of sociometric data. Teachers' ratings on the Bristol Social Adjustment Guides were obtained when the children were in grade 2 and again in grade 3. Analyses of variance showed rejected children to be significantly more acting-out than popular or average children by grade 3. Rejected children were rated as less physically attractive, doing less well in reading and in arithmetic. Negative peer nomination in kindergarten was more predictive of later acting-out in grades 2 and 3 than rate of interaction.Research was funded by Alberta Mental Health Advisory Council, and Alberta Advisory Committee for Educational Studies. I wish to thank Steven Asher for his helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.     

The Daily Stress Inventory: Validity and effect of repeated administration

The Daily Stress Inventory (DSI) is a self-report measure of minor stressors which is administered daily. One test of the validity of a measure of daily stress is its sensitivity to the difference between the stressors of workdays and those of weekends. A second concern in establishing the validity of a test administered repeatedly is that self-monitoring may influence the obtained scores. The present study investigated these two issues using a sample of 70 community adults who reported full-time employment. These subjects provided a week of self-monitoring with the DSI. The results indicated that the DSI was sensitive to the difference between weekends and weekdays. The analyses of the effect of repeated administration suggested that the first day of self-monitoring may differ from the other days of self-monitoring. When the first day was eliminated, there was no significant difference among the days of self-monitoring, and the difference between the weekdays and the weekends remained. The data suggest that the DSI is a valid measure of the construct of daily stress and that any influence of repeated self-monitoring with the scale may be easily resolved.     

Simulating night visual conditions during the day with light attenuating filters

This paper describes a research technique used to simulate night visual conditions during the day with light-attenuating filters. Some of the considerations in choosing light-attenuating techniques such as attenuation of infrared and ultraviolet illumination, neutrality, and clarity are discussed. A dual density filter with less attenuation in the lower field was chosen for aviation applications so that the major instruments would be available. This dual density concept was found to be more successful for piloting than for navigation. A density of 5.1 was shown to simulate a bright clear night with a full moon; a density of 5.5 simulated a much darker night with no moon.     

Foreseeability and self-interest as moral judgment factors with normal and acting-out adolescent boys

Thirty-two male adolescents participated in a study of moral judgment and its relationship to social functioning. Half of the subjects were selected for frequent acting-out, aggressive behavior, and half were selected from regular eighth-grade classes and matched for intelligence. The moral stories featured good intentions with bad outcomes and varied as to whether or not the outcome was foreseeable and in the actor's self-interest. Subjects judged the actor, attributed judgments to adults, and casually explained the outcome. The difference in judgments between foreseeable and nonforeseeable actions was greater for “normal” subjects. Furthermore, although normal subjects judged foreseeable actions more harshly than acting-out subjects, the reverse was true for nonforeseeable actions. Judgments attributed to adults were harsher than subjects' own judgments, and this difference was greater for acting-out subjects. Causal attributions (personal vs. situational) and other reasoning related strongly to the foreseeability and self-interest factors but not to subject group.     

Child‐directed teaching and social learning at 18 months of age: evidence from Yucatec Mayan and US infants

In several previous studies, 18‐month‐old infants who were directly addressed demonstrated more robust imitative behaviors than infants who simply observed another's actions, leading theorists to suggest that child‐directed interactions carried unique informational value. However, these data came exclusively from cultural communities where direct teaching is commonplace, raising the possibility that the findings reflect regularities in infants' social experiences rather than responses to innate or a priori learning mechanisms. The current studies consider infants' imitative learning from child‐directed teaching and observed interaction in two cultural communities, a Yucatec Mayan village where infants have been described as experiencing relatively limited direct instruction (Study 1) and a US city where infants are regularly directly engaged (Study 2). Eighteen‐month‐old infants from each community participated in a within‐subjects study design where they were directly taught to use novel objects on one day and observed actors using different objects on another day. Mayan infants showed relative increases in imitative behaviors on their second visit to the lab as compared to their first visit, but there was no effect of condition. US infants showed no difference in imitative behavior in the child‐directed vs. observed conditions; however, infants who were directly addressed on their first visit showed significantly higher overall imitation rates than infants who observed on their first visit. Together, these findings call into question the idea that child‐directed teaching holds automatic or universal informational value.     

Caring for infant daughters and sons in dual‐earner households: maternal reports of father involvement in weekday time and tasks

This study focused on maternal reports of gender differences in weekday father involvement with 12‐month‐olds in 47 dual‐earner households utilizing full time infant day care. Three involvement variables were considered: father's time alone with the infant; father's time available to the infant; and father participation in caregiving tasks. The results showed fathers to be available to sons significantly more than daughters. Fathers were also significantly more involved in caregiving tasks with sons than with daughters. There was no difference in father time alone with sons and daughters. Examination of these three involvement measures in relation to demographic, family environment, and infant temperament measures revealed that mothers' reported fathers as being available more to sons than to daughters. In addition, mothers reported fathers to be more available to temperamentally easy sons than to temperamentally difficult sons. Recommendations are made for future research. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Help-agents' views about clinical interactions with acting-out children

A scale to measure nonprofessional child-aides' views about, and practices in, working primarily with acting-out children is described. The scale was used as part of an overall evaluation of a program to teach the aides Ginottian limit-setting approaches for work with such children. A prior study had shown that the training was followed by significantly more favorable treatment outcomes. Compared to 44 nontrained child-aides, the 19 trained aides had significantly higher postprogram scale scores on opinions and beliefs about acting-out children, changes in feeling about working with them, and actual observed changes in their playroom behaviors. Item analysis indicated that, following training, aides felt more comfortable with and had a richer repertoire of techniques for dealing with acting-out children. Specifically, they found it easier to set limits and to deal with overtly aggressive behaviors. Those changes may be key factors in explaining the significantly greater effectiveness of the trained aides working with acting-out children.This study was supported by a grant (MH-11427-02) from the NIMH Experimental and Special Training Branch, for which the authors express sincere appreciation. Thanks also to Mary Boike, Michael A. DeStefano, and Alice B. Wilson for their contributions to the data analyses.     

Life Balance and Well‐Being: Testing a Novel Conceptual and Measurement Approach

ABSTRACT Although a balanced life has always been viewed as desirable, there are problems with extant conceptualizations and measures of this construct. Here we introduce 2 new life‐balance measures, based on time‐use profiles, that address these problems. One defines life balance as objectively equitable time use across multiple life domains, and the other defines life balance as low subjective discrepancy between actual and ideal time‐use profiles. Study 1 finds that both measures predict concurrent well‐being, in both U.S. and Indian samples. Study 2 shows that fluctuations in balance predict fluctuations in well‐being over a 3‐week period. Study 3 replicates the Study 1 findings using a different time assessment technique, based on the Day Reconstruction Method. Study 4 assigns participants the month‐long goal of enhancing their life balance, finding that those who achieve this goal enhance their well‐being. In all 4 studies, the balance effects on well‐being were mediated by psychological need satisfaction associated with balance.     

Daily School Context of Adolescents' Single Best Friendship and Adjustment

Research on adolescent best friendships typically focuses on school-based friendships, ignoring important differences between classroom-based and out-of-school friendships. With data from 156 ninth-grade students, many of whom named more than 1 best friend across the 14-day period, the authors examined associations between the daily school context of one's best friendship and adjustment. Benefits of in-grade best friendships were found in academic engagement when a composite was assessed across the 2-week period. Daily findings were more complex and were different between weekends and school days. Out-of-grade best friends were named more frequently on weekends, and on weekend days in which they named an out-of-school best friend participants spent more time with that friend but felt like less of a good student. Implications for our understanding of friendship context and for the measurement of friendship itself are discussed.