Disconfirmed expectancies and imagined distress in a role-play of a visit to the dentist

A modified role-playing technique was employed to examine the effects of no information, misinformation, and correct information on discomfort during imagined dental treatment. After listening to relaxation instructions, subjects read a scenario in which they were given no expectancy, led to expect a filling replacement (mild threat), or led to expect an extraction (severe threat). Subsequently they were told to imagine the occurrence of either the filling or the extraction treatment. For the mild stressor, different expectancies had no effects. When the actual treatment was an extraction, subjects given an inaccurate expectancy reported more pain and shock than those given accurate information. Compared to no information, inaccurate information resulted in more fear and helplessness. Males rated themselves as less distressed than females. The data compare favorably with findings from studies of actual patients and suggest that misinformation minimizing the severity of treatment increases distress upon receipt of treatment.The author wishes to thank Dr. J. Luginbuhl for preparing the tape recording used in this experiment.     

Patient-oriented interventions to improve communication in a medical office visit

Examined a simple intervention to improve the patient's contribution to communication in a medical office visit. In the first study, women awaiting a medical appointment were randomly assigned either to a group that was asked to list three questions to ask their physician or to a control group. Women who listed questions asked more questions in the visit and reported being less anxious. In the second study, a third group that received a message from their physician encouraging question asking was added. Both experimental groups asked more of the questions they had wished to, had greater feelings of control, and were more satisfied with the visit in general and with the information they received. The two experimental groups did not differ significantly, suggesting that the effect may be attributed either to thinking one's questions out ahead of time or to the perception that one's physician is open to questions.     

日语译《中国佛教的印象》序

铃木大拙是闻名世界的禅佛教思想家,在日本被称为“世界的禅者”,从而成为日本人引以自豪的人物。不过,恐怕大多数日本人把这位“世界的禅者”的世界理解得过于狭隘,也就是说,在他们的眼中,大拙的世界似乎只限于欧美和日本,而与中国没什么关系。     

Impressions formed in response to public self-evaluation maintenance strategies

Two studies examined the impressions formed in response to public self-evaluation maintenance strategies. According to Tesser’s (1988) self-evaluation maintenance (SEM) model, a person who has been outperformed by a close other perceives the field of performance as less relevant to preserve self-evaluation. Tesser and Paulhus (1983) showed that this same strategy is used for the purpose of impression management, or public self-evaluation maintenance. The present research examined the SEM model variables from the view of impression formation. In the first study, information regarding field relevance and psychological closeness was conveyed by the experimenter. In this context, field relevance had a significant impact on perception of competence. In the other study, in which the information was conveyed by the target person, relevance and closeness influenced the perception of manipulativeness and sociability. The results are discussed in terms of the importance of investigating the SEM processes from the impression formation perspective.     

Motivations for adolescents' first visit to a family planning clinic

Although family planning clinics routinely gather data on referral sources and primary reasons for visits, little is known about the "precipitating events" which motivate young women to make an appointment or show up at a clinic on a given day. In this study, 150 new patients at a large urban clinic were interviewed to determine what events or advice specifically led to their decision to approach a family planning clinic for the first time. The roles of pregnancy scares, advice from significant others, and situational factors in motivating service use are presented along with a discussion of the program implications of these findings.     

A visit from the Candy Witch: factors influencing young children's belief in a novel fantastical being

Factors hypothesized to affect beliefs in fantastical beings were examined by introducing children to a novel fantastical entity, the Candy Witch. Results revealed that among older preschoolers, children who were visited by the Candy Witch exhibited stronger beliefs in the Candy Witch than did those who were not. Among children who were visited, older children had stronger beliefs than did younger children. Among children who were not visited, those with a high Fantasy Orientation believed more strongly than did those with a low Fantasy Orientation. Belief remained high one year later. At both time points, the number of other fantastical beings in which a child believed was significantly related to belief in the Candy Witch.     

The Receiver's Dilemma: Impressions Formed in Response to Impression Management

Two studies examined the extent to which individuals' racial attitudes are influenced more by interdependent others' attitudes than people with whom they do not mutually depend. Study 1 demonstrated that participants significantly changed their racial attitudes when they received disagreement feedback from an ingroup friend, whereas there was no change in attitudes when participants received disagreement feedback from an ingroup stranger, agreement feedback, or no feedback. Furthermore, feelings of interdependence mediated the relationship between feedback from a friend versus stranger and changes in racial attitudes. In Study 2, we manipulated interdependence and found that interdependent partners altered their racial attitudes after receiving disagreement information, whereas independent partners did not. The importance of interdependent others' attitudes in reducing prejudice is discussed.     

Choice in a variable environment: visit patterns in the dynamics of choice

Molar and molecular views of behavior imply different approaches to data analysis. The molecular view privileges moment-to-moment analyses, whereas the molar view supports analysis of more and less extended activities. In concurrent performance, the molar view supports study of both extended patterns of choice and more local patterns of visiting the choice alternatives. Analysis of the present data illustrated the usefulness of investigating order at various levels of extendedness. Seven different reinforcer ratios were presented within each session, without cues to identify them, and pigeons pecked at two response keys that delivered food on variable-interval schedules. Choice changed rapidly within components as reinforcers were delivered and, following each reinforcer, shifted toward the alternative that produced it. If several reinforcers were delivered consecutively by one alternative, choice favored that alternative, but shifted more slowly with each new reinforcer. A discontinuation of such a series of reinforcers by the delivery of a reinforcer by the other alternative resulted in a large shift of choice toward that alternative. These effects were illuminated by analysis of visits to the two alternatives. Changes in visit length occurred primarily in the first postreinforcer visit to the repeatedly reinforced alternative. All other visits tended to be brief and equal. Performance showed multiple signs of moving in the direction of a fix-and-sample pattern that characterized steady-state performance in earlier experiments with many sessions of maintaining each schedule pair. The analyses of extended and local patterns illustrate the flexibility of a molar view of behavior.     

Some characteristics of inmates transferred from prison to a state mental hospital

Forty-four inmates transferred to a state mental hospital from a maximum-security prison and its adjacent trusty unit were compared with a randomly selected group of thirty-seven inmates from the same prison. Transferred inmates were found over-represented in terms of assignment to restrictive housing units, sentences of life or some form of life imprisonment, prior hospitalization in a state mental hospital, and conviction for murder. The two groups were not statistically different in terms of age, race, conduct, or prior incarcerations. Implications for planning psychological services in prisons are discussed.     

Training School Counselors in Singapore: First Impressions of a Multicultural Challenge

Since the publication of 2 important articles, by E. Tan (2002) on career counseling and by W. H. Chong (2005) on group counseling in schools, changes have taken place in the school counseling field in Singapore. In this article, the authors review these articles and describe the development of the school counseling profession in Singapore based on the American model of counseling.     

由凉亭古训所想到的……

广东省委党校图书馆前面有一古老的凉亭。凉亭斑驳陈旧 ,圆顶上长满了青苔。它虽不起眼 ,但显得古朴庄重 ,特别引人注意的是那柱子上镌刻着的五条古训 ,它那娟秀有力的隶体字透出中国传统美德固有的生命力。“仲尼之言曰自古皆有死民无信不立”。“仲尼”是孔子的字。这句话来自《论语·颜渊》。春秋之时 ,孔子目睹礼乐废弛 ,世风日下 ,一些士人蝇营狗苟 ,朝秦暮楚。他认为 :“人而无信 ,不知其可也。”(《论语·为政》)指出“主忠信”,“敬事而信”,“谨而信”,“言而有信”(《论语·学而》)。他强调 ,一个人有“信”,才能得到别人的任用 ,…     

Crossing the Threshold: First Impressions in Psychoanalysis and Negotiation

This paper explores the role that first impressions play in two different relational contexts: psychodynamic treatment and negotiation. Although the goals of therapy and negotiation are very different, both endeavors rest on the capacity of the participants to engage in a process of constructive dialogue, and to get things done via a relationship. We argue for the utility of an interdisciplinary conversation between psychoanalysis and negotiation, and specifically suggest that exploring these similarities and differences about first steps in building a working relationship may be instructive for practitioners in both professions.     

Ulama, the state, & war: community Islamic leaders in the Aceh conflict

In recent years, much has been said of the relationship between the headmasters of Islamic boarding schools (ulama), the state, and war. Hoping to clarify how ulama behave in times of war and why they react as they do, I look to the recent secessionist conflict in Aceh, Indonesia. Based on extensive village fieldwork, I find that in response to the conflict, Aceh’s ulama were divided; some supported the rebels, some supported the state, and some remained neutral. These positions were largely predicted by combatant control, a pragmatic response to conflict dynamics. Sub-regional comparisons, temporal comparisons, and interviews suggest that while many ulama sided with power, they also sided against human rights abuses, a concern for social justice which may be rooted in religious sentiment after all.     

From Maternal Impressions to Eugenics: Pregnancy and Inheritance in the Nineteenth-Century U.S.

This essay examines the theory of maternal impressions, the belief that a woman’s experiences or emotions during pregnancy could explain congenital disability or emotional/ behavior differences in her child and asks why this theory circulated as an explanation for disability seen at birth by both medical doctors and in literature for far longer than it did across the Atlantic. By presenting examples from nineteenth-century medical literature, popular fiction, maternal handbooks, and two canonical works of literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave, I argue that maternal impressions worked to maintain anxiety for women, and particular white women, to ensure they felt responsible if anything was “wrong” with their child. Ultimately, I show how maternal impressions was both an ableist and racialized understanding of inheritance that wouldn’t be discarded until the emergence of eugenics in the early twentieth century.

     

ADHD outside the laboratory: boys' executive function performance on tasks in videogame play and on a visit to the zoo

One current theory of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) proposes that a primary deficit in behavioral inhibition gives rise to secondary deficits in 4 executive functions and motor control. To date, empirical support for this model is based primarily on laboratory-based cognitive methods. This study assessed behavioral inhibition and executive functioning in children with ADHD in 2 real-life contexts: videogames (motor-skill target game, cognitively demanding adventure game) and an outing at the zoo (route tasks). Participants were a community sample of 57 boys diagnosed with ADHD (20 inattentive, 37 combined type) and 57 normally developing control boys, matched individually for age and nonverbal IQ. Operationally defined measures of behavioral inhibition and specific executive functions were derived from these activities and assessed under contrasting conditions of low or high working memory and distractor loads. There were no group differences in basic motor skills on the target game, nor in terms of the ability to inhibit a prepotent or ongoing response in the adventure videogame. However, boys with ADHD exhibited more self-talk, more effortful response preparation, and completed fewer challenges in the latter videogame. Also, they manifested inhibition deficits in terms of interference control during the route task at the zoo and took longer to complete the tasks. Typically, these differences were greatest under conditions of high working memory and distractor loads. Findings from this study suggest that cognitive difficulties in ADHD may be context dependent and that ADHD is associated with deficits in some but not all aspects of behavioral inhibition.