Genes and human behavior: the emerging paradigm

The physical properties of human beings and other organisms as well as their social behavioral traits are manifestations of both genetic inheritance and environment. Recent behavioral research has indicated that certain characteristics or behaviors—such as schizophrenia, divorce, and homosexuality—are highly heritable and are not governed exclusively by social environment. A balanced view of human behavior includes the effects of social learning as well as of genetically determined behavior. A new paradigm promotes enhanced understanding and acceptance of human diversity, be it cultural, racial, or sexual, and has the potential to unite scientists and theologians by creating common grounds of understanding.     

Behavioral assessment and treatment of acquired visuoperceptual disorders

Visuoperceptual deficits are common sequelae of damage to either hemisphere of the brain, but are typically more pronounced following injuries involving the right cerebral hemisphere. Common visuoperceptual disorders include visual field cuts, hemi-inattention and hemi-spatial neglect, hemi-perceptual deficits, and gaze and visual pursuit disturbances. A number of behavioral interventions have been developed to teach patients to compensate for acquired visual deficits. Studies addressing assessment and treatment issues in this area are reviewed, and future directions for research are outlined.     

Temporal specificity of extinction in autoshaping

Three experiments investigated the effects of varying the conditioned stimulus (CS) duration between training and extinction. Ring doves (Streptopelia risoria) were autoshaped on a fixed CS-unconditioned stimulus (US) interval and extinguished with CS presentations that were longer, shorter, or the same as the training duration. During a subsequent test session, the training CS duration was reintroduced. Results suggest that the cessation of responding during an extinction session is controlled by generalization of excitation between the training and extinction CSs and by the number of nonreinforced CS presentations. Transfer of extinction to the training CS is controlled by the similarity between the extinction and training CSs. Extinction learning is temporally specific.     

Assessing personality disorders using a systematic clinical interview: evaluation of an alternative to structured interviews

The aim of this study was to assess interrater reliability and provide initial data bearing on the validity of a method of assessing personality disorders (PDs) that does not presume that patients can accurately self-report personality pathology. In a sample of 24 outpatients, two clinician-judges independently applied the Shedler-Westen Assessment Procedure-200 (SWAP-200; Westen & Shedler, 1999a, 2000), a 200-item Q-sort procedure for assessing personality pathology, to data from the Clinical Diagnostic Interview (Westen, 2002), a systematic clinical interview that mirrors and standardizes methods used by experienced clinicians to diagnose personality. In 16 of the 24 cases, the treating clinician also independently described the patient using the SWAP-200 Q-sort, based on longitudinal knowledge of the patient over the course of treatment, blind to the interview data. Interrater reliability was uniformly high, with median correlations between interviewers at r > .80. Interviewer-treating clinician correlations were also high, with median convergent validity coefficients at r > .80. Diagnostic overlap (discriminant validity) was moderate for dimensional DSM-IV diagnoses, reflecting extensive comorbidity among disorders, but minimal for empirically derived diagnoses identified in prior research. Treating clinicians' dimensional PD diagnoses using this method also strongly predicted interviewer-rated measures of adaptive functioning. The findings provide preliminary support for the reliability and validity of an alternative to structured interviews for diagnosing personality pathology, and suggest that the way to improve validity of personality diagnosis may not be to minimize clinical inference but to quantify it using psychometric instruments.     

The Development of the Universal Ethnic Identity Scale (UEIS) for use in an Australian context

The aim of the present research was to develop a measure that assessed the level of ethnic identification of adults from diverse ethnic backgrounds, as well as individuals' level of ethnic identification with a host culture following migration. In the first study, an ethnically diverse sample of 275 people (138 males and 137 females) responded to a range of new items, as well as items drawn from related scales. Factor analysis revealed three dimensions of ethnic identity that were labelled, “Pride in Ethnic Background and Language,”“Liking for Traditional and Social Activities of my Ethnic Group,” and “Sense of Belonging to This (host) Country.” This factor structure was evaluated in a second study with 1,007 (552 males, 455 females) adults from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. A two‐factor structure provided the most parsimonious fit to the data but further investigation of the factor structure within ethnically diverse samples was recommended. The results are discussed in relation to theories of social identity as well as research on ethnic identification and adaptation.