Personality profiles at various levels of athletic participation

Various grades of athletes (265 male and 134 female) were administered the German version of the EPQ. The entire group was characterized by being more extraverted and less neurotic (compared to population norms); sex differences were exhibited, female profiles being higher on emotionality and lower on Psychoticism (tough-mindedness) with no significant difference being observed in mean Extraversion scores. When grouped in terms of ‘level of competitive involvement’, top-class male athletes were shown to be significantly more tough-minded and less stable than middle- or lower-class participants, an almost opposite trend being found in females, where top athletes were liable to be more extraverted, less neurotic and less aggressive and tough-minded than the other classes.     

The importance of home practice for progressive relaxation training

The efficacy of home practice assignments was evaluated as a component of standardized progressive relaxation training. Subjects reporting general anxiety and tension problems were assigned to either a home practice relaxation, no home practice relaxation or wait-list control condition. Treatment was conducted for 10 sessions over a 5-week period. In addition, subjects in both conditions engaged in in-vivo application of their relaxation skills during a final 2-week application period. Group comparisons showed that both progressive relaxation conditions significantly improved on daily self-monitored general anxiety and tension levels relative to the wait-list control condition. Group analyses of percent subject improvements supported the effectiveness of home practice assignments, especially during the application period. No systematic differences between groups, on physiological and self-report variables, were found during several laboratory relaxation evaluation sessions. This study supports the contribution of home practice assignments to progressive relaxation training.     

The dimensions of tonal experience: A nonmetric multidimensional scaling approach

Subjects were required in each trial to directly compare two pairs of tones and indicate which pair of tones had the greater subjective difference or dissimilarity. Eleven tones differing in both intensity and frequency were employed. Subjects made binary comparisons among the 55 tone pairs which can be formed from the set of 11 tones. These paired comparisons of tonal intervals were used to determine a two-dimensional Euclidean representation for tonal experience. Loudness and pitch appeared as orthogonal dimensions in this representation. However, a 45-deg rotation of loudness and pitch axes produced axes which could be identified as volume and density. This relationship suggested that volume and density were simple functions of pitch and loudness. Volume and density predictions based on this two-dimensional representation were shown to provide a good account of the data from three experiments on volume and density.     

Randomization tests in single-subject designs: Illustrative examples

Randomization tests have recently been adapted for use in the analysis of single-subject data. The advantages of these tests lie in their ease of implementation and interpretation as well as their freedom from underlying distributions. Even though numerous articles and books have explicated randomization test procedures, due to the lack of appropriate examples, very little use of these procedures has been made by applied behavior analysts. Data sets reported in a prominent applied behavior journal are used to demonstrate the application of randomization tests to the following three single-subject design models: (a) two-phase random intervention point, (b) multiple phase, and (c) multiple phase with a predicted order of effect size.     

Attitudes of school psychologists toward the role of the secondary school counselor

The responses of school psychologists concerning the secondary school counselor's role differ from those of counselor educators and counselors in many respects and seem to reflect a tendency toward role differentiation. In the actual school situation, the roles of these two groups overlap in some areas. The tendency of school psychologists was to emphasize activities of counselors which did not overlap with theirs and to define the counselor's role in these terms. If school counselors were polled concerning their attitudes toward the role of the school psychologist, it is probably that the same tendency toward role differentiation would be found.

These results point to the possibility that friction between these two groups may stem from difficulties in role perception. To improve communication, the unique contributions of both groups should be stressed. On the other hand, where activities overlap, it should not be assumed that the performance of such activities by one group excludes the other group from making a contribution in similar activities.     

Gender Role of Male Therapists in Both Professional and Personal Life

This study's purpose was to extend the distantresearch on gender roles. The specific objective was tobetter understand the gender role of male psychologists.It was hypothesized that male psychologists would exhibit an androgynous gender role.Gender role styles in professional work and in thepersonal realm were assessed. Questionnaire packets weremailed to 300 male clinical psychologists affiliated with the American Psychological Associationacross six regions within the United States. Sixty ofthe 61 participants reported being Caucasian and 1reported being Native American. Being that the sample was that of practicing psychologists, all withdoctorate degrees, the social class is presumed to be atleast upper middle class. The packets contained ademographics questionnaire and two Personal Attributes Questionnaires. Results suggest that malepsychologists do exhibit an androgynous gender role inboth professional and personal realms. A great deal ofthe prior literature indicates that androgynoustherapists have more adaptive communication skills and arebetter at assessing and treating their clients. Thisresult is therefore advantageous to therapeuticoutcomes.     

A System for Relational Reasoning in Human Prefrontal Cortex

The integration of multiple relations between mental representations is critical for higher level cognition. For both deductive- and inductive-reasoning tasks, patients with prefrontal damage exhibited a selective and catastrophic deficit in the integration of relations, whereas patients with anterior temporal lobe damage, matched for overall IQ but with intact prefrontal cortex, exhibited normal relational integration. In contrast, prefrontal patients performed more accurately than temporal patients on tests of both episodic memory and semantic knowledge. These double dissociations suggest that integration of relations is a specific source of cognitive complexity for which intact prefrontal cortex is essential. The integration of relations may be the fundamental common factor linking the diverse abilities that depend on prefrontal function, such as planning, problem solving, and fluid intelligence.