Cognitive specificity and positive-negative affectivity: complementary or contradictory views on anxiety and depression?

A principal factor analysis, conducted on a mixed psychiatric outpatient sample (N = 470), identified both common and specific dimensions underlying anxiety and depression. Although an initial single-factor extraction accounted for a significant proportion of variance in cognitive and symptom measures of anxiety and depression, a two-factor solution, in which anxiety and depression formed separate dimensions, proved to be the better solution. MANOVAS performed on pure depressed, pure anxious, and mixed anxious/depressed subgroups provided evidence of a specific cognitive profile for anxiety and depression. The mixed subsample evidenced greater severity, a mixed cognitive and symptom profile, and character traits that may indicate increased vulnerability to psychological disturbance. Results are discussed in terms of Beck's (1976) cognitive content-specificity hypothesis and the positive-negative affect model (Watson & Tellegen, 1985).     

The conjunction fallacy?

Tversky and Kahneman (1983) showed that when subjects are asked to rate the likelihood of several alternatives, including single and joint events, they often make a "conjunction fallacy." That is, they rate the conjunction of two events as being more likely than one of the constituent events. This, they claim, is a fallacy, since the conjunction of two events can never be more probable than either of the component events. In addition, they found that prior training in probability theory does not decrease the likelihood of making this fallacy. We argue that in some contexts, an alternative that contains the conjunction of two events can be more probable than an alternative that contains only one of the conjunction's constituent events. We carried out four experiments in which we manipulated this context. The frequency of making a conjunction fallacy was affected by the manipulation of context. Furthermore, when the context was clearly specified, prior training in statistics influenced the ratings.     

Tracking a group's focus on normative-organizational or personal exploration issues

Group - This last paper in the series on group development and emergent leaders presents a process analysis variable designed to track the group's focus on either normative and organizational...     

A comparative outcome study of behavioral social-skills training, interpersonal-problem-solving and non-directive control treatments with child psychiatric outpatients

The purpose of the present study was to compare the short- and long-term efficacy of behavioral social-skills training and interpersonal-problem-solving with a control condition (non-directive treatment) with a clinical population of 61 socially-maladjusted outpatient boys. Treatment consisted of 12 weekly 1-hr sessions, with follow-up conducted at 12 months. A comprehensive assessment strategy was employed which included direct behavioral observations, parent, teacher, peer, self-report and academic performance measures. The results of this social-skills comparative outcome study indicated that the behavioral and interpersonal treatments resulted in changes on parent, teacher, self-report and peer sociometric ratings at post-treatment. At the 1-yr follow-up, the behavioral treatment maintained it's gains and continued to show modest improvement. Conversely, the interpersonal treatment manifested significant declines, as did the control group. These findings and implications for future research are discussed.     

An aftereffect to discrete stimuli producing apparent movement and succession

After observing the sequential flashing of two lights that produced either the perception of apparent movement or the perception of the succession of two stationary lights, the presentation of the lights in the opposite direction produced the perception of a more rapid apparent movement or of a more rapid succession of the light flashes. These aftereffects suggest the presence of neural structures for the discrimination of sequential changes in spatial position which are subject to adaptation and respond with decreased sensitivity to the repetitive presentation of the two lights in a given spatial direction. The results are interpreted to support the hypothesis that the perception of apparent movement involves the excitation of specific neural mechanisms selectively responsive to sequential changes in stimulus position. An alternative hypothesis is that the perception of apparent movement involves an inference based on the separate registrations of the position of a stimulus at one point in time and the position of that stimulus at an earlier point in time.