Integration of intention and outcome in moral judgment

This experiment studied how the intention of an actor affected moral judgment. Subjects received information about the intention of an actor, and about the value of the outcome of his action to a used as stimuli, and both gave similar results. The main data followed the parallelism prediction, evidence for the operation of some simple integration model. Auxiliary data provided a critical test that eliminated the adding rule and supported the averaging rule. These results suggest that previous work on the cognitive algebra of human judgment may generalize to the moral realm. These results also illustrate how information integration theory can provide a significant advance upon phenomenonological approaches to moral judgment such as have been used by Heider and Piaget.     

Pauses and syntax in American sign language

Research on spoken languages has shown that the durations of silent pauses in a sentence are strongly related to the syntactic structure of the sentence. A similar analysis of the pauses (holds) in a passage in American Sign Language reveals that sequences of signs are also interspersed with holds of different lengths: long holds appear to indicate the ends of sentences; shorter holds, the break between two conjoined sentences; and the shortest holds, breaks between internal constituents. Thus, pausal analysis is a guide to parsing sentences in ASL.     

Differential reinforcement of vocal duration

The effects of differential reinforcement of vocal duration were examined in a series of experiments in which each of 28 subjects (Ss) emitted a vowel whenever a light was flashed. In the first phase of each experiment, a penny was dispensed after each of 20 responses. In the second and subsequent phases, only those responses whose durations exceeded a criterion were reinforced; when 10 successive reinforcements were presented, one phase was terminated and the next begun. The criterion for reinforcement in each phase was determined by a different schedule in each of six experiments; it ranged from 80 to 120 per cent of the mean duration of the 10 terminal responses in the prior phase. Differential reinforcement effected a large and systematic change in the duration of vocal responses as long as the responses selected for reinforcement had a sufficiently high probability of occurrence. This requirement was formulated as the difference between the criterion duration and the mean duration of the terminal responses in the prior phase, divided by their standard deviation. This statistic, named the shaping index, was correlated with the number of responses emitted before each phase was terminated. It was found to be large whenever the shaping process failed. Many Ss failed to tact the reinforcement contingency despite marked changes in their vocal behavior and extensive probing by a questionnaire, administered at the end of each session.     

Divine timelessness and personhood

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Divergent Views in Psychodynamic Supervision

This paper surveys the supervisory process with emphasis on the diverging views that have emerged. Countertransference, parallel process, and the role of the supervisor in supervision are highlighted. Other factors affecting the supervisory experience including the selection of which patients to present and the choice of supervisor are also discussed. The paper raises and attempts to answer a number of questions that elicit divergent viewpoints, and these divergent issues are then summarized.     

Memoirs of a drug-abusing prostitute: Dynamics and treatment considerations in a case of intergenerational child abuse

This paper examines the dynamics of a 26-year-old prostitute who entered psychotherapy with a number of symptoms. The patient had undergone a series of traumas in her life and was reenacting them in her present behavior. Repetition compulsion, as described by Freud, was a primary form of resistance manifested by this patient. The repetition of the sexual trauma reenacted itself in her choice of profession; namely, prostitution. Additionally, this woman had lived her early years falsely believing that her parents were caring for her, when in fact, they were her grandparents. This early family secret led to the development of a false self within the patient, as well as a strong sense of entitlement, greed, and need for revenge.     

The development and evaluation of a computer-administered measure of cognitive complexity

The present study presents and evaluates the Computer-Administered Rep Test (CART). The CART is a micro computer program that automates both the administration and scoring of a repertory grid based measure of cognitive complexity. Preliminary evaluation of the CART indicates that it provides a useful alternative to traditional paper-and-pencil administered repertory grid measures of cognitive complexity. We also examine the effect of an alternative scoring approach on the reliability of scores derived from role repertory grid measures of cognitive complexity. Results indicate that this scoring approach substantially enhances the reliability of cognitive complexity scores derived from both the paper-and-pencil and computer-administered measures.     

Spatial ability and handedness

The relationship between preferred handedness and spatial visualization was examined for 124 female and 229 male undergraduate students. Handedness and spatial ability were used in the design as continuous variables. Other variables examined were sex of subject and family history of sinistrality. Spatial ability was found to be systematically related to measured handedness, familial left-handedness, and sex of subject. Males outperformed females at all levels of handedness. The lowest performance was obtained by subjects who were either extremely left-handed or extremely right-handed. The highest scores were obtained by individuals with left-handed relatives and whose handedness scores were in the range considered mixed or slightly right-handed. The results suggest that decreased hemispheric specialization is associated with increased spatial ability.