Relationship between visual orientation and susceptibility to motion sickness.

24 male subjects were divided into 3 groups, on the basis of their susceptibility to motion sickness. All subjects were then required to set a luminous line in an apparently vertical position while viewing the line from a body position which was deviated 70 degrees laterally from the upright. No visible frame of reference was available. A significant relationship between motion sickness susceptibility and errors in judging the vertical was discovered, the "intermediate" susceptibility group making the greatest errors. The role of the vestibular system in visual orientation and motion sickness is discussed. The result also indicates the potential value of using perceptual performance as a tool in the study of motion sickness and its correlates.     

From egocentric to exocentric spatial orientation: development of posture control in bimanual and trunk inclination tasks

The authors investigated the emergence of independent control of body segments in bimanual tasks involving either voluntary or involuntary trunk motion by tracking the transition from an ego- to an exocentric mode of postural control during childhood (i.e., from body-referenced orientation to externally referenced action). A paradigm combining a seated manual task and various trunk manipulations described the coordination strategies used by 24 children at different ages (2 to 9 years) and by adults. The following questions were asked: (a) When do children begin to dissociate upper limb movements from those of the trunk? (b) What segmental strategies are exhibited by each age group (2-3, 4-6, and 7-9 years, and adults)? Kinematic analyses revealed that younger children (2-6 years) used either the trunk or the support surface as reference to orient the limbs. Older children (7-9 years) began to use a gravitational reference frame similar to that of adults; they uncoupled upper limb motion from the trunk in either voluntary or imposed conditions. Young children patterned the forearm trajectory after the initiating segment (support surface or the trunk), thus reducing the degrees of freedom during the dual task. Echoing previous reports, 7-9 years of age appears to be a critical period in which children master postural control and develop an internal representation of body scheme.     

Impulsiveness, attitude to authority, and gender.

This article examined the relationship between impulsiveness and attitudes toward institutional authority among Australian secondary school students. Reliable questionnaire measures of these constructs were completed by 48 boys and 57 girls, about 14 years of age. Correlations between impulsiveness and attitude to authority differed between the sexes, with a significant negative correlation of -.43 being obtained for boys only.     

Relationship of religiosity to mental health literacy,stigma, social distance,and occupational restrictiveness in Ningxia Province,China

Little research has assessed the relationship between religiosity and mental health awareness in low- and middle-income countries. This study identified a representative sample of 2,425 community-dwelling adults in Ningxia, China and administered the Duke University Religion Index, the Mental Health Knowledge Questionnaire, the Mental Health Attitude Questionnaire, the Social Distance – Personal Questionnaire and the Social Restrictiveness – Occupational Questionnaire. Religious affiliation per se was not associated with mental health literacy or attitudes, but higher levels of religiosity were associated with better awareness of mental health issues and less social distance and occupational restrictiveness of those with mental health conditions. However, these relationships were substantially different in Hui ethnicity respondents (85% of whom were practicing Islam) and Han ethnicity respondents (15% of whom practiced Buddhism, Taoism or Confucianism).     

Relationship orientation, quality of prior relationship, and distress among caregivers of Alzheimer's patients

Communal orientation and closeness of the caregiver-patient relationship were investigated as predictors of distress among caregivers of Alzheimer's patients. Persons high in communal orientation were less depressed than those low in communal orientation. Caregivers reporting a close relationship with the patient before illness onset felt less burdened than those whose relationship had not been close. Communal orientation interacted with closeness when data were analyzed separately for men and women. Among men, being low in communal orientation and having a relatively poor prior relationship were associated with the highest levels of depression, levels that put them at risk for clinical depression. Among women low in communal orientation, higher levels of depression were related to having a close prior relationship with the patient.     

Categorization,attitude and memory for the source of attitude statements

In a study of factors influencing recognition-memory for the sources of attitude statements, a final sample of 107 subjects, aged 15–16, first rated their agreement with 24 statements concerning drug-use, 12 of which were attributed to one, and 12 to another, fictitiously named newspaper. Later, the statements were re shown to subjects with half the names altered, and subjects had to indicate which names were correct (i.e., unaltered). Discrimination sensitivity was very significantly higher in a condition where the initial relationship between the sources and the statements was systematic, so that the 12 most pro-drug statements were attributed to one newspaper and the 12 most anti-drug statements to the other, than in two conditions where the initial relationship was random, in which discrimination was at chance level. In the first of these conditions, subjects were also more likely to claim that the attributed source was correct if they had previously agreed with the statement. overall, subjects were more accurate in discriminating correct and incorrect sources for statements to which they had previously given a more moderate, or a more negative response on the agreement scale.     

Expect the unexpected: ability, attitude, and responsiveness to hypnosis

Participants' expectancies and hypnotic performance throughout the course of a standardized, individually administered hypnotic protocol were analyzed with a structural equation model that integrated underlying ability, expectancy, and hypnotic response. The model examined expectancies and ability as simultaneous predictors of hypnotic responses as well as hypnotic responses as an influence on subsequent expectancies. Results of the proposed model, which fit very well, supported each of the 4 major hypothesized effects: Expectancies showed significant stability across the course of the hypnosis protocol; expectancies influenced subsequent hypnotic responses, controlling for latent ability; hypnotic responses, in turn, affected subsequent expectancies; and a latent trait underlay hypnotic responses, controlling for expectancies. Although expectancies had a significant effect on hypnotic responsiveness, there was an abundance of variance in hypnotic performance unexplained by the direct or indirect influence of expectation and compatible with the presence of an underlying cognitive ability.     

Self-esteem, attitude similarity, and attraction

Subjects evaluated three stimulus persons on several rating scales who were either 10%, 50%, or 90% similar to themselves in attitudes Subjects were divided into low, moderate, and high self-esteem groups on the basis of an earlier Q sort The results showed a strong positive relation between perceived similarity and positive attribution for each of the dependent variables, including liking, sophisticated, intelligent, sincere, happy, and a social distance scale A negative relation was obtained for two undesirable traits, arrogant and cynical Self-esteem interacted with similarity on several of the measures The difference between self-esteem groups was largely restricted to highly dissimilar stimulus persons Moderate esteem subjects were more favorable toward dissimilar persons than either of the other two groups, and the high and low groups tended to resemble each other more than either group resembled the moderate esteem group These results were discussed in terms of the relation between self-esteem and adjustment, and in terms of McGuire's (1968) theory that predicts a nonmonotonic relation between self-esteem and attitudes.     

Aging and susceptibility to attitude change

Two hypotheses about the relation between age and susceptibility to attitude change were tested. The impressionable years hypothesis proposes that individuals are highly susceptible to attitude change during late adolescence and early adulthood and that susceptibility drops precipitously immediately thereafter and remains low throughout the rest of the life cycle. The increasing persistence hypothesis proposes that people become gradually more resistant to change throughout their lives. Structural equation models were applied to data from the 1956-1960, 1972-1976, and 1980 National Election Panel Studies in order to estimate the stability of political attitudes and unreliability in measures of them. The results support the impressionable years hypothesis and disconfirm the increasing persistence hypothesis. A decrease in the over-time consistency of attitude reports among 66- to 83-year-olds was found to be due to increased random measurement error in their reports, not to increased attitude change.     

Salience of initial attitude,magnitude of incentive,and attitude change in a forced compliance paradigm

To examine the application of interpersonal simulation findings to cognitive dissonance and incentive theories of attitude change in the forced compliance paradigm, 60 Ss were paid 50 cents or $2.50 to write counterattitudinal essays with salient or nonsalient initial attitudes. Findings showed that the larger incentive yielded greater change for salient pretest attitudes but that the smaller incentive led to more change of nonsalient pretest attitudes. Measures of error in attitude recall and a correlational analysis between pretest, posttest, and recalled attitudes were also consistent with Bem's (1967) hypothesis of isomorphism between the attributions of Ss and observers. It is proposed that remaining simulation data reported in the cognitive dissonance/self-perception controversy may identify additional parameters of attitude changes in forced compliance experiments.     

Relationship between perceived health care quality and attitude toward substance abuse treatment

Despite the considerable investment made in recent years in Spain in substance abuse care, treatment adherence remains one of the aspects that determine the effectiveness of programs. Several authors have noted the importance of perceived service quality in this context. This paper is presented with dual purpose of highlighting the role that management of the quality of care for drug addicts has, both as a modulator of users' attitudes and perceptions about the treatment, and as a work philosophy, typical of an organization committed to continuous improvement. Conducting personal interviews with 670 users of drug abuse care services in Galicia and through the application of covariance structure analysis, the close relationship between two factors (perceived quality and attitude toward treatment) was revealed. This research also provides professionals and researchers with a new scale for service evaluation that is short, easy to use and with adequate psychometric properties.     

Relation of attitude toward body elimination to parenting style and attitude toward the body

The purpose was to estimate the relation of attitude toward body elimination in 93 college students (27 men and 66 women), to authoritarian personality features, participants' perception of their mothers' parenting style, and attitudes toward cleanliness, sex, and family nudity. Subjects were administered the Body Elimination Attitude Scale, the Four-item F Scale, the Parental Authority Questionnaire Pertaining to Mothers, and the items "Sex is dirty," "Cleanliness is next to godliness," and "Children should never see other family members nude." Larger scores for disgust toward body elimination were associated with authoritarian personality characteristics, being less likely to describe mother's parenting style as authoritative (open communication) and more likely to describe it as authoritarian and lower scores for tolerance for family nudity. Implications for further research were suggested.