A preliminary investigation of multicultural perspective and life satisfaction

The present study represents a preliminary investigation of Ramirez' contention that developing a multicultural identity would lead to better mental health and more life satisfaction. Using a tentative index of a multicultural perspective analysis indicated that, although a multicultural perspective is associated with more life satisfaction, it accounts for only 8% of the variance. Further, one of the measures used by Ramirez to measure an aspect of a multicultural perspective was not correlated with life satisfaction, and another correlated negatively. This latter measure accounts for only 6% of the variance in life satisfaction. Combined, these findings provide limited support for Ramirez perspective by explaining 14% of the overall variance in life satisfaction.     

A preliminary study of the comfort of paced respiration

In order to obtain basal information about what type of externally paced respiration is comfortable, 25 male and 25 female undergraduate students were asked to practice self‐paced respiration. After a 1‐min rehearsal following instructions on comfortable self‐paced respiration, subjects carried out 2 min of self‐paced respiration and rated their level of comfort on a scale of 1–5. This was repeated (up to a maximum of seven times) until the subject recorded a high rating. Results indicated that self‐paced respiration was most comfortable, irrespective of sex, when a respiratory pattern was attained of half the respiratory rate and nearly twice the tidal volume of the trainee's resting condition. Although respiratory sinus arrhythmia and heart rate were indicative of a decrease in cardiac vagal activity and end‐tidal PCO₂ was suggestive of a reduction in anxiety, these effects were small. The results have implications for the utilization of externally paced respiration.     

Reconstructing Indian feminine self: A case study of Devaki

This essay addresses the applicability of life history as a genre and method to explore culture and self. It looks at how various aspects of culture and society contribute actively to emergence of cultural self, social self and psychological self. The psychological biography of child widow, Devaki from Banaras explores these concerns. A Hindu widow is known for the traumatic rites of passage she goes through from marriage to widowhood. In the case of child widow her adolescence gets enmeshed, with that of the rites of widowhood. She experiences embodiment of shame and ritual pollution along with economic hardships and social marginality. Devaki’s efforts are steered in the direction of releasing herself from the shame that, envelopes her being, and then her emergence as an independent self. The essay also explores possibility of multiple selves.     

Selecting trainee conference interpreters: A preliminary study

This study developed and assessed a set of psychometric tests to aid selection of candidate simultaneous and consecutive interpreter trainees. Three kinds of test were used based either on text materials, linguistic subskills or speed stress Twelve tests in all were administered to 29 trainees beginning an intensive course. The test scores were correlated with judges' ratings in the final interpreting examination. Students who passed the examination had higher mean scores on all tests than those who failed (significant for seven tests). Test scores were positively inter-correlated. Of the two factors characterizing the pattern of correlations, the first loaded highly on completion/detection tests and simultaneous examination ratings; the second loaded highly on recall tests and consecutive examination ratings. Text-based tests were more predictive than subskills or speed stress tests. It is concluded that tests would aid candidate selection, and estimates of improved selection are given. The relationship between test type and interpreting is discussed together with possible reasons underlying differential performance on tests of the same kind.     

A preliminary phenomenological study of being hypnotized and hypnotizing

This paper presents phenomenological research conducted following Woodard's phenomenological and perceptual research methodology for understanding hypnotic experiencing. The research emphasizes examining the internal experiencings of individuals involved in hypnotic experiencing. Examples are presented of Individual Situated Structures and the General Structures from both a group of 8 participants who hypnotized their clients and another group of 17 individuals who volunteered to be hypnotized. The explicated themes identified in hypnotic experiencing (the hypnotic relationship, phenomenology of trance, use of imagination, problem with psychic energy, a gestalt of experiencing, and linear-nonlinear experiencing) are discussed. The author discusses limitations of this study and suggestions for further work.     

A preliminary study of a traumatic injury prevention program

Abstract

This study examined the long-term impact of a five component spinal cord injury prevention program presented to adolescents. A sample of 445 teenagers who attended a junior high school in which an educational intervention was presented three years earlier and a control group of 379 students who had not been exposed to the intervention completed a questionnaire assessing their safety knowledge, attitudes, and self-reported behaviors. Total scores on the questionnaire between treatment and control groups differed significantly. Students in the treatment group reported significantly more frequent seat belt use, stronger belief that seat belts were important to their safety, lower likelihood of riding with friends who had been drinking, higher rates of friends' use of seat belts, greater awareness of the age group most likely to be injured, and increased knowledge that they could prevent spinal cord injury.     

A preliminary study of distinctive features in problem solving

The abstract logical structure of family relationship problems, such as, “What relationship to a man is his mother's father?” was described in terms of a “distinctive-feature-transition count (dft)”, where the answer to the problem was characterized in terms of the distinctive features of descendancy, co-linearity, and sex. On average, it proved possible to predict the difficulty of such problems from such a count; thus tending to support the idea of a relational rather than an associative memory structure.     

Personality characteristics of Divorce-Prone individuals: A preliminary clinical study

This study focuses on Divorce-Prone individuals and the question of why some persons fail in one marriage after another. The authors studied 12 individuals who had each been divorced two or more times. They found that the cases fell into one of three broad and overlapping groups. The groups have been called the Self-Involved Narcissists, the Compliant Depressed, and the Casualties of Life's Vicissitudes. The individuals and the groups demonstrate a different etiology, different treatment problems, and a very different prognosis.     

The effects of rational-emotive therapy and relaxation training on premenstrual syndrome: A preliminary study

Six female subjects who were between 31 and 44 years of age attended a premenstrual syndrome (PMS) clinic and participated in a group therapy program designed to alleviate their premenstrual symptoms. Rational-emotive therapy (RET) and relaxation training were offered in addition to ongoing progesterone treatment in an effort to alleviate severe psychological symptoms thought to be occasioned by the hormonal changes occurring during the premenstrual week. Pre-treatment assessments were carried out using Moos' Menstrual Distress Questionnaire, Broadbent's Cognitive Failures Questionnaire, and Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire. Additionally, levels of self-reported psychological and physical menstrual distress symptoms were estimated by the subjects at each premenstruum throughout the ten-week therapy program. At the end of the ten week therapy program hormone treatment was discontinued. Significant pre-test to post-test differences were found in a number of psychological and physical symptoms of menstrual distress, in cognitive functioning and neuroticism, following the combined group treatment. Improvements in psychological functioning during premenstruum were observed at a one-year follow-up. RET and relaxation together with hormonal therapy produced a substantial reduction in PMS symptoms in comparison with drug treatment alone.