Contextual conditional discriminations

Three experiments used a discriminated operant procedure to study conditional discrimination learning in rats. The first experiment showed that rats were capable of learning a biconditional discrimination in which two contexts served as conditional cues signalling the reinforcement contingencies associated with two discriminative stimuli. The discrimination was learned equally well when one discriminative stimulus signalled food, the other its absence, and when one stimulus signalled food, the other extinction plus mild footshock.

In Experiment 2 it was shown that prior training on such a conditional discrimination enhanced the subsequent context specificity of simple conditioning relative to control groups of animals for whom the prior training had not been conditional. Experiment 3 showed that a reversal of the significance of one pair of discriminative stimuli produced no spontaneous reversal in performance to a second, target, pair.

The pattern of results is best accounted for by an analysis of contextual conditional discrimination learning in terms of stimulus configurations and offers no support for the notion that rats may learn a general conditional rule or set.     

The role of self-esteem in the experience of envy

It is the thesis of this paper that although analysts have always recognized that narcissistic injury may trigger envious feelings, the significance of self-esteem as both a motivator and response to envious feelings has not yet been sufficiently explored. Traditional drive-defense or object instinctual explanations tend to diminish awareness of the importance of self-esteem in the experience of envy. The focus on drives or repetition of early patterns of object relations does not always take into account the significance of the cycle in which damaged self-esteem leads to envy, the component parts of which may cause further damage to self-esteem, leading to more envy, and so on. I am suggesting that it is often an attempt to avoid painful injury to one's self-esteem, as well as the related attempt to maintain a positively colored sense of self, and not a repression of drives or a repetition of some aspect of early object relationships which must be understood in order to fully comprehend both feelings of envy and the need to keep such feelings out of conscious awareness.     

Characteristics of adolescents at risk for compulsive overeating on a brief screening test

As part of a large survey of addictive behavior in high school students, 43% of a sample of 278 (26% of the males, 57% of the females) scored above the cutoff point set by Overeaters Anonymous on their scale for assessing compulsive overeating. While this at-risk group did not report poorer general adjustment, health, or school achievement than did the students not at risk, they did significantly more often perceive their life quality and relationship with the person closest to them as less positive. The at-risk subsample indicated the defensive effectiveness of overeating in their significantly more frequent report of dissociative experiences while eating, and less severe ratings of insecurity, worrying, and daydreaming. One of the most salient findings was the at-risk students' more frequent report of addictive problems in their parents (overeating, alcohol and drug use, and gambling).