Effects of Viewing “Holocaust” on Germans and Americans: A Just-World Analysis1

This study examines attributions of blame to the Nazis and the Jews for the events of the holocaust. The sample consisted of Germans and Americans who had viewed the television series “Holocaust” and comparison groups who had not seen the program. It was found that among viewers who identified with the Nazis, attributions of blame to the Jews were higher than among nonviewers or viewers who identified with the Jews. Attributions of blame to the Nazis did not vary as a function of viewing the television series. However, people who identified with the Nazis blamed the Nazis less for the holocaust than people who identified with the Jews. These results are discussed in terms of the justworld hypothesis (Lerner & Miller, 1978) and their implications for media presentations on the victims of oppression.     

The neural pathways mediating quiet-biting attack behavior from the hypothalamus in the cat: A functional autoradiographic study

Electrical stimulation of the region of the lateral hypothalamus produced a consistent form of quiet-biting attack behavior in cats. In one series of experiments, cats, implanted with electrodes from which attack had been elicited, were anesthetized and then were injected with a bolus of ¹⁴C-2-deoxyglucose at the same time as electrical stimulation was delivered through the attack electrodes. Brains prepared for X-ray autoradiography revealed that lateral hypothalamic stimulation activated the classical medial forebrain bundle pathway supplying the septal region, diagonal band, lateral preoptic area, and ventral tegmental region. Stimulation of quiet-attack sites in perifornical hypothalamus resulted in the activation of a much more extensive projection system which included the central and lateral tegmental fields of the midbrain and pons, and central gray region, as well as the structures described above. In a second series of experiments, ³H-leucine was placed into the region of the electrode tip from which attack was elicited in order to identify more precisely the pathways arising from that site. In general, tritiated amino acid radioautography replicated the ¹⁴C-2-deoxyglucose findings. In addition, the amino acid radioautographic data revealed the presence of extensive projections from perifornical hypothalamus to such pontine structures as the nucleus locus coeruleus, motor nucleus of NV , and the lateral pontine tegmental field. The functional connections between the lateral hypothalamic “attack region” and lateral preoptic zone were also confirmed by electrophysiological methods.     

The perceived social status of husbands and wives in dual-work families as a function of achieved and derived occupational status

The perception of the general social standing of husbands and wives in dual-work families as a function of their respective achieved and derived occupational statuses was examined experimentally. The results indicated that both the wife's and husband's general social status was a function only of the husband's occupational status; the wife's occupational status had no effect on either her general social status or that of her husband. The one exception to this was the case of the high achieved occupational status wife depressing the social status of the low occupational status husband. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for recent critiques of male-determined stratification models.     

Letter familiarity does not aid feature extraction

Summary Familiarity effects in visual letter processing were examined by means of a mutilation detection task. The uppercase E was used as the non-mutilated letter. One or two horizontal bars of the E were delected, to produce an upright or inverted F or L. These four mutilations of the E were assigned to the same response. In Experiment 1, brief exposure of the stimuli was followed by a backward mask. Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1, except that the display duration of the stimulus was increased and the backward mask was omitted. In Experiment 3, the overall luminance of the stimuli (luminance per point times length of the constituent line segments) was held constant. In Experiment 4, the upright and inverted non-E letter occurred in different blocks to encourage a normal (upright) letter processing strategy in the upright letter blocks. Accuracy (Experiment 1) and mean correct response times (all experiments) were not different for the upright and inverted F or for the upright and inverted L. These findings and converging results from other studies indicate that the higher familiarity of the upright letters did not aid feature extraction.     

Impulsivity and paced tapping

The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that impulsivity is positively related to both the intraindividual variability and the rate of performance of a paced tapping task. The independent variable in the tapping task were: feedback vs. no feedback; tempo; concurrent cognitive task (counting) vs. no concurrent cognitive task. Three measures of tapping performance were computed: absolute or total error of tapping, tapping rate, and the intraindividual variability of tapping. The results confirm the hypothesis that impulsivity is positively related to rate of paced tapping, although the degree of relationship varied under different experimental conditions within the paced tapping task. Intraindividual variability of tapping was not significantly related to impulsivity, but the results were suggestive of a positive relationship.     

The treatment of epilepsies with Convulsofin

The testing of Convulsofin carried out in 220 patients at 14 clinics over a period of six months confirms the international experience gained with valproic acid and sodium valproinate. The main field of application of Convulsofin according to the experience gained will again be the treatment of fits in generalised primary epilepsy for which it permits to carry out a monotherapy to a remarkable extent. The favourable effect of the preparation in photosensitivity could be confirmed. Also in generalised secondary epilepsy and in fits of partial epilepsy. Convulsofin is partly effective, so that it can recommended as a co-medication in the treatment of therapy-resistant forms of these epilepsies which are difficult to treat. Decrease in thrombocytes, transient increase in serum transaminases, gastrointestinal disorders, loss of hair and undesired increases in body-weight were the more frequently occurring side-effects.     

Personality and mood: State-trait relationships

The scores of 33 subjects of the neuroticism scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire correlated more highly with mood levels averaged over the 12 occasions studied than, on average, with mood scores on single occasions, and more highly with mood described in global terms than with scores on each of the original 18 mood scales. Subjects with high neuroticism scores had poorer mood on average and showed greater variation in mood pattern from one occasion to another than did more stable subjects. It is suggested that forms of relatively poor mood may be more varied than forms of good mood, and that, although neuroticism makes a poor mood more likely, the precise composition of this mood on any occasion may be determined by the combination of situation characteristics and person variables. Psychoticism scores correlated significantly, though weakly, with the average scores for some mood scales independently of neuroticism.