Induction of depressive affect after prolonged exposure to a mildly depressed individual

Scores on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) were periodically obtained from the roommates of college students who exhibited a persistent mild depression over a 3-month period. For comparative purposes, BDI scores were also obtained from roommates of individuals who were transiently depressed and from subjects with nondepressed roommates. In comparison with control subjects, the roommates of persistently depressed persons displayed a progressive increase in BDI score over the course of the study.     

"Your feet's too big": an inquiry into psychological and symbolic meanings of the foot

The foot is a highly cathected appendage that is commonly singled out as the brunt of humorous or derisive remarks, as if it embodies repugnance and disgust. Attitudes toward the foot are overdetermined, bearing the imprint of man's early linguistic patterns and individual dynamics. This article suggests that feet are symbolic because they bear the feelings derived from earlier separations, good and bad object representations, collective memories, and genital representations. The foot's role as symbol of both the male and female genitals, repository of badness, symbol of passivity, initiator of movement, and site of self-mutilation have been briefly reviewed. As Fats Waller rhapsodizes that the "feet's too big," he finds a convenient way to displace his symbiotic and erotic anxieties vis-à-vis women. Similarly, patients who come for psychiatric treatment and psychotherapy frequently make references to their feet or use them in specific ways. An understanding of this type of communication can often provide insight into individual dynamics and enhance treatment. The weight placed on these communications depends, of course, on the vicissitudes of the previous therapeutic work as well as on the particular problems of the patient.     

Preschool children's comprehension and production of directive forms

Thirty preschool children, 10 each at the 3-,4-, and 5-year-old levels, participated in two structured tasks designed to assess both comprehension and production of a full range of directive forms. In contrast to previous reports, the results indicated no significant differences in directive comprehension or production as a function of age; children in all age groups demonstrated the ability to understand and verbally encode the intent of most types of directive forms. However, the two most implicit forms, Question Directives and Hints, were complied with significantly less frequently than the more explicit forms, and were uused less often in the production task. The present findings indicate the importance of analyzing directive forms along a continuum of explicitness rather than dichotomizing them as direct versus indirect. Finally, the results are interpreted as providing indirect support for the general notion that mastery of some implicit forms may be achieved later than the acquisition of more explicit forms.     

Studying speech perception in adolescent school-age children by utilizing primary color perception

Since both speech and color have perceptual ramifications in language, the present study was developed to study speech perception through color perception. With the recent advances in perception generally and color perception specifically, this nontraditional approach to studying speech perception appeared reasonable. The 12 consonants utilized in this study generated 144 pairs of nonsense CV-syllables. The consonant ensemble was selected because it accommodated a maximum number of phonological features with a minimum number of phonemes. The 46 subjects, who were in junior high school with an age range of 11 through 14 years, responded to each of the stimulus pairs by assigning (associating) to it one of the six primary colors. Because of the perceptual orderliness associated with subjects' judgments, the results indicated that color can be used to study speech perception. Specific findings included the retrieval of sameness, fronting (or place), and voicing.This study is based on a master's thesis presented to the Graduate School, Tennessee State University in Nashville. The authors gratefully acknowledge the cooperation and assistance of the Speech and Hearing Institute at the University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston.     

The perceived support network inventory

The development and psychometric investigation of the Perceived Support Network Inventory (PSNI), a measure of perceived social support, is described. A group of 146 introductory psychology students participated in a test-retest study design that collected reliability, internal consistency, and construct, convergent, and discriminant validity data on the scale. In addition, a contrast group of 28 Counseling Center clients was administered the PSNI. Test-retest reliability of the PSNI total score and subscale scores ranged from .72 to .88. Internal consistency for the PSNI was .77. Construct validity estimates ranged from .21 to .57. Convergent validity estimates varied from -.25 to .20. Discriminant validity estimates varied from -.11 to .19. Sample differences between introductory psychology student mean PSNI total and subscale scores and Counseling Center client mean PSNI total and subscale scores proved significant. Recommendations for subsequent research and future application are offered.