Causal attributions, perceived consequences of unemployment, and perceptions of employment prospects among adolescents in New Zealand

The present study investigated the causal attributions and perceived consequences of unemployment, as well as perceptions of employment prospects, among high school students in New Zealand. A sample of Form 4 (Grade 9) boys (M age 14.3 years) and girls (14.4 years) and a sample of Form 6 and 7 (Grades 11 and 12) boys (16.9 years) and girls (16.6 years) were tested. No sex or age differences were found in students' causal attributions about unemployment. Societal factors were judged as the most important cause for unemployment. Luck was considered the least important reason. Form 4 students placed a greater emphasis on economic consequences, whereas Form 6 and 7 students regarded social consequences as more important. The consistency in the present findings and those from studies in other countries suggests that cross-cultural similarities do exist in adolescents' perceptions of unemployment.     

Processes of inference during sentence encoding

Four experiments were designed to determine whether implicit instruments are “computed” and stored during sentence encoding. Subjects read pairs of related sentences and indicated when they understood the second member of each pair. In Experiment 1, response times were longer for test sentences that, relative to the antecedent, mentioned implicit rather than explicit instruments. Experiment 2 revealed this difference to be stable over a range of reading times and two phases of practice. The results were interpreted as suggesting that the inferences in question are not computed, or at most, are partially drawn during encoding In Experiment 3, the procedure was employed to distinghish four degrees of relation between propositions and the inferences they permit. Experiment 4 examined the agent, patient, and instrument cases. It was shown that subjects need more time to verify both true and false inference tests than to verify their direct counterparts.     

Motivation effects of attributions, expectancy, and achievement motivation during the learning of a novel motor task

Several cognitive motivational theories including achievement motivation, attribution theory, and a test of expectancy for future success were linked to explain and predict psychomotor performance. Sixty high- and 60 low-need-achieving male high school students were randomly placed into success and failure feedback conditions, and performance scores on a lever-positioning apparatus were assessed. Following each block of performance trials, fictitious feedback in the form of success and failure information was given, and then each subject rated attribution and expectancy questionnaires. Expectancies for future performance improved more following success than after failure and were generally predicted by attributions to stable elements. Although trends were present, performance scores were unaffected by these cognitive beliefs. However, a significant prediction of performance was obtained when stepwise multiple regression procedures were used with constant error as the criterion variable. The factors of expectancy and luck significantly predicted performance.     

Infant temperament and performance on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development at 4, 8, and 12 months of age

Infants were assessed with the Rothbart Infant Behavior Questionnaire (an objective measure of infant temperament based on maternal reports) and the complete Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID) at 4, 8, and 12 months of age. Activity level was related to BSID performance at each age with babies who obtained higher scores rated as more active. Activity level was also related to the infants' behavior during the test administration at 8 and 12 months. A negative relation was found between smiling and laughter and the mental development index at 8 and 12 months. These data suggest that aspects of infant temperament as assessed by maternal report share a small amount of variance with BSID performance and the amount of shared variance increases with age.     

All Things Possible

Noa Bar-Haim’s thoughtful and impressively comprehensive paper deftly focuses on the complicated relationship between psychotherapy and psychopharmacologic treatments, and the dyadic and triadic dynamics inherent to the relationships that exist between psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and patients in the context of shared clinical work. I applaud Dr. Bar-Haim for bringing these important issues to bear. These are prodigious topics about which much can be said, and for which historically, in my estimation, not enough has been said. I am appreciative that this journal is open to including them in its scope by welcoming her thoughts and this discussion to its highly esteemed and well-respected pages. Given the vast range of topics that Dr. Bar-Haim admirably presents in her paper, and the extensive nature of what these issues encompass, this discussion addresses a selection of the many concepts she raises. It is my hope that my thoughts will serve to amplify some of hers, provide some additional and related perspectives, and mostly, have a generative effect that will promote further awareness of these issues and a continuing discussion about them within our field.     

Feeling of knowing and duration of unsuccessful memory search

Five experiments examined the impact of feeling of knowing on decisions to continue or to terminate the search of memory in question answering. First, two pairs of experiments respectively scrutinized knowledge about (1) ordinary facts and (2) national capitals. The first experiment of each pair extracted normative data: The participants indicated whether they had probably once known the answer to a question (once-knew-it scale), supplied the answer if they knew it, and either judged the likelihood of their recognizing the answer or made other pertinent metacognitive judgments. In these norming experiments, recognition ratings were highly correlated with once-knew-it responses, and both measures were highly predictive of performance. Thisindicated that both measures reflect feeling of knowing judgments. In the second experiment of each pair, different participants were timed as they indicated whether they knew the answer to the same questions. Responselatencies for responding "don't know" were strongly positively correlated with the once-knew-it judgments made by the norming participants. This relationship was corroborated by Experiment 5, which compared the crucial measures within participants. These outcomes suggest that, in this context, feeling of knowing judgments are predictive of how long people will search memory for requested information.     

Onkologisch Kranke als Patienten der psychotherapeutischen Praxis

Background

The high prevalence of cancer and the considerable psychological comorbidity is a challenge for psychotherapists. There are, however, relatively few patients in outpatient psychotherapy. Aim of the study was to survey outpatient psychotherapists concerning this issue and their attitudes towards the treatment of cancer patients.

Methods

All outpatient psychotherapists of an East-German city were surveyed using semi-structured interviews.

Methods

There are various reasons for the relatively rare visits of cancer patients in psychotherapeutic practices: For instance the subjective lack of specific competence, the fear of many psychotherapists to treat physically ill people, insufficient fitting of the relatively inflexible organization structure of psychotherapeutic settings with the vicissitudes of life among physically ill people, e.g. long waiting periods until the begin of treatment, furthermore the psychotherapeutic training focuses on psychosomatic and not so much on somatopsychic perspectives. A further problem is the widespread attitude about psychic causation of cancer, which is contradictory to scientific evidence.

Conclusions

Psychotherapists who want to treat cancer patients need specific and in-depth training in psychooncology.