Learned resourcefulness, drinking, and smoking in young adults

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between learned resourcefulness and two common addictive behaviors, namely, drinking and smoking. Male and female college students (N = 175) completed the Self-Control Schedule (SCS), the Quantity-Frequency-Variability questionnaire, and a smoking history form. Learned resourcefulness was related to self-reported patterns of alcohol consumption; specifically, heavy drinking subjects were lower in learned resourcefulness than were light and moderate drinkers who, in turn, were lower in learned resourcefulness than were infrequent drinkers and abstainers. Learned resourcefulness was only modestly related to smoking, with students who had never smoked evidencing somewhat higher learned resourcefulness than ex-smokers and current smokers. Overall, these data provide correlational support for the notion that learned resourcefulness may protect young adults against substance abuse.     

Content analysis of sexual fantasies of males and females

Content analysis of the sexual fantasies of 87 community college and university students revealed no significant sex differences in the content of sexual fantasies. Both men and women preferred traditional and facilitative fantasies. Because this study was explorative, however, further research is required to validate the suggested scale and replicate these results.     

Religious self and secular self: Clinical transitions

Clerical people, returning to secular life, may undergo shifts in self-experience, including alterations in internal object relations. Self-psychology, positing the importance to health of cohesion of all aspects of self, provides a theoretical model for exploring such shifts and their facilitation through psychoanalytic psychotherapy. A case of a released Roman Catholic priest is discussed to illustrate dynamic processes. Emphasis is on a clinical approach that does not require conversion of religious and spiritual self-experience into drive derivative formulations     

Assertiveness and social anxiety in Chinese-American women

The notion that Chinese Americans, compared to Caucasian Americans, are passive and nonassertive was examined with self-report and behavioral measures. Chinese-Americans (n = 36) and Caucasian (n = 19) female college students were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: role-playing a series of 13 situations requiring assertion with an Asian experimenter or role-playing the same situations with a Caucasian experimenter. The Chinese-American students were as assertive as the Caucasian subjects on all behavioral measures. Only one self-report measure, the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (Watson & Friend, 1968), revealed a significant difference between the two groups; Chinese-American students were more apprehensive about social situations than Caucasian students.     

An asymmetry in transmodal perceptual learning

Transmodal perceptual learning was examined in a canonical same/different paradigm. Subjects naive to vibrotactile stimulation and unfamiliar with the task were asked to discriminate sequentially presented shapes moving laterally across an aperture. On all trials, the shapes were presented either visually and then vibrotactually or in the opposite modality order, and on all trials the shapes moved in opposite directions. Analyses of the data revealed that although perceptual learning was evident in both groups, the rate of the learning was more rapid in the visual-vibrotactile group. This interaction of modality order and practice was significant and was considered in terms of E.J. Gibson's theory of perceptual learning and in terms of the constructs, suggested by J.J. Gibson, of available and accessible information-in-stimulation and the education of attention.     

Mental retardation and perception of global motion

We have found that mildly mentally retarded adults are impaired in their perception of global stereoscopic forms (Fox & Oross, 1988) in ways that cannot be attributed to peripheral visual deficits or failures to comprehend. To assess the generality of that result, we measured the ability of mentally retarded adults to perceive kinematographic forms. Mentally retarded and nonretarded adults were presented with a two-choice, forced-choice detection task requiring the location of a target's spatial position. The discriminability of the forms was varied by systematic reductions in both element density and temporal correlation. We found that, relative to nonretarded adults, mentally retarded adults exhibited large qualitative deficits in their ability to discriminate these kinematographic forms when either density or correlation was reduced. After considering a number of alternative interpretations of these data based on factors such as peripheral visual impairment and a failure to attend, we could find none more compelling than a perceptual interpretation, which posits a deficit within the short-range motion system.     

Stochastic analysis of the duration of the speaker role in psychotherapy

An analysis has been undertaken of the stochastic behavior of the time series which defines the duration of utterances exchanged by patients and therapists in six recorded sessions of psychotherapy. Each series followed a Box-Jenkins time series model of order (1, 0, 0): that is, each behaved as a first-order autoregressive process, sensitive to the prior state of the system. The confidences associated with the parameters of the autoregressive models were very high. In addition, the histograms of length of each utterance indicated an underlying Poisson model for the emergence of speech. The parameters of the Poisson and autoregressive models varied with each patient/therapist pair. Signatures for the process dynamics of the speaker-role variable were obtained. The two analyses suggest fundamental structures within the psychotherapeutic dialogue. The Box-Jenkins results provide a global summary of the inner structure of the series and its progression, while the Poisson results describe its instantaneous behavior. This work is offered as a part of new efforts to apply scientific and mathematical methods to the psychotherapeutic domain.     

Information-processing differences and laterality of students from different colleges and disciplines

1023 college students were assessed for hemispheric brain dominance using the paper-and-pencil test, the Human Information Processing Survey. Analysis of scores of students majoring in Advertising, Interior Design, Music, Journalism, Art, Oral Communication, and Architecture suggested a preference for right-brain hemispheric processing, while scores of students majoring in Accounting, Management, Finance, Computer Science, Mathematics, Nursing, Funeral Service, Criminal Justice, and Elementary Education suggested a preference for left-hemispheric strategies for processing information. The differential effects of hemispheric processing in an educational system emphasizing the left-hemispheric activities of structured logic and sequential processing suggests repression of the intellectual development of those students who may be genetically favorable to right-hemispheric processing.     

Effect of visuomotor rehearsal with videotaped modeling on racquetball performance of beginning players

This investigation was designed to assess the effect of visuomotor behavior rehearsal (VMBR) with videotaped modeling on racquetball performance of beginning players. 24 male students in beginning racquetball class were randomly assigned to either VMBR with videotape modeling or relaxation and imagery (no modeling) condition for a 2-wk. training period. All subjects were pre- and posttested on forehand and backhand racquetball skill tests. Analysis indicated an effect for forehand shooting, with those given visuomotor behavior rehearsal with videotaped model exhibiting better performance than the relaxation and imagery group, but no effect for backhand shooting.