A Field Experiment Demonstrates Near Peer Mentorship as an Effective Support for Student Persistence

The attitudes and behaviors of peers can predict an individual’s own behaviors, particularly during adolescence. However experimental studies have not demonstrated how slightly older near peers can exert a positive influence on important aspects of school motivation that predict student academic achievement over time. We designed and evaluated the effects of a randomized controlled field experiment where 8th-grade participants were randomly assigned to either a mentoring treatment group or a tutoring control group, both led by randomly selected and trained high school students. As predicted, participants in the treatment group increased in their tendency to value and persist through academic difficulty compared to those in the control group, with important potential implications for academic achievement and peer mentoring programs.     

Processing of “unattended” threat-related information: Role of emotional content and context

Unpleasant, pleasant, or neutral visual scenes served as a context for the presentation of threat-related, positive, and neutral words. On each trial, 2 simultaneous prime words (one foveal, i.e., at fixation, and one parafoveal, i.e., 2.2° apart) appeared for 150 ms, followed by a foveally presented probe word in a lexical decision task. Results showed facilitation in response times for probe threat words when primed by an identical parafoveal word, in comparison with priming by an unrelated parafoveal word, and this effect was enhanced in an emotionally congruent unpleasant context. In contrast, no parafoveal effect appeared for positive words, even in a pleasant context. This reveals parallel processing of threat-related words outside the focus of attention.     

Psychometric properties of scales of professional competence and treatment by health personnel in outpatient hospital surgeries

The aim of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of two scales that assess the perceived quality and patient satisfaction with outpatient surgery in the Health Service of Murcia. These scales assess the degree of Professional Competence (PC) and Personnel Treatment (PT). The scales were administered to a sample of 2017 users of outpatient surgery in the Health Service of Murcia during the years 2008 and 2009. Exploratory factor analysis indicates a unidimensional structure for each scale. Internal consistency was adequate: .68 for PC and .75 for PT. The correlation between the PC scale and patients' global satisfaction was positive and statistically significant. The correlation between the PT scale and patients' global satisfaction was also statistically significant. The scales have shown their utility to detect areas of improvement and to plan intervention strategies.     

Mutuality: Clinical and Metapsychological Potentials of a Failed Experiment

Ferenczi's experiments with mutual analysis are often dismissed, without acknowledging the results obtained from them and his own cautionary remarks about their limits. Though ultimately failed, Ferenczi's experiments with mutual analysis were a source of clinical and metapsychological knowledge, despite the fact that he was unable to elaborate them in his lifetime. In this paper I connect mutuality to the development of the psyche, especially to the constitutive core of the intrapsychic. To understand the latter, it is necessary to take into account, among others, issues such as the common attribute, the mutual flux between the unconsciouses, the dialogue of unconsciouses, the maternal profundity, the primal relationship with the mother, and, above all, the primal unity between mother and child, which are fundamental for the emergence and development of the primary psychic forces. Incidences of rupture, distortion of the core of mutuality in the psychic life, its loss and disadjustment, by means of external traumatizing forces, and some clinical implications are described.     

The ontogeny of defensive reactions in the rat: Influence of the monoamine transmission systems

The effects of neonatal treatment of rats with the neurotoxins 5,7-dihydroxytryptamine and 6-hydroxydopamine on the ontogeny of the ultra sound vocalization and the immobility response were studied. The 5,7-dihydroxytryptamine treated rats showed reduced strength of both reactions indicating involvement of the serotonin system in their ontogeny. This hypothesis was supported by experiments with depletion of serotonin by para-chlorophenylalanine followed by replenishment with 5-hydroxytryptophan. The 6-hydroxydopamine treated rats showed normal defensive reactions, but displayed hyperactivity from their second week of age. The role of the dopamine system in the defensive reactions was studied by variations of the dopamine activity level by traditional tools: depletion by α-methyl-tyrosin followed by replenishment by l -DOPA; stimulation or inhibition of the dopamine receptors by apomorphine or haloperidol. The results suggested an inhibitory function of the dopamine system in both defensive reactions, antagonistic to that of the serotonin system.     

Scientology and its ‘clear’ business

The Church of Scientology (COS) has been the center of controversy and moral panics around the world. Many of its critics, including government and professional bodies suggest that it is a “destructive cult” with values in conflict with society. Against such views, it is argued that the CoS both reflects and relies on conventional values. The CoS is analyzed as a successful commercial enterprise which, seeking to achieve its goals, occasionally adopts illicit means. The CoS's business is also deviant in that it denies its commercial structure. Ironically, it is this very denial, this very deviance that helps explain its survival and success.     

A HyperCard program to track information-search strategies

In many decision-making studies, subjects are given a body of material to review and then their search strategies are assessed. Research paradigms in such studies exhibit varying degrees of artificiality and obtrusiveness, and data collection is often cumbersome. The present paper describes a Macintosh application using the Hyper-Card program that tracks subjects’ search strategies in a less obtrusive and artificial manner than those used in previous studies. The program records the order in which the material is reviewed as well as the duration of subjects’ access to each part of the material. Data collection is also greatly simplified by the program. An experiment using the program is described and suggestions for other uses of the program are discussed.     

The accuracy-confidence correlation in eyewitness testimony: limits and extensions of the retrospective self-awareness effect.

This research extended Kassin's (1985) finding that retrospective self-awareness (RSA) increases the correlation between eyewitness accuracy and confidence. In Experiment 1, 91 mock witnesses saw a crime, answered questions, made an identification decision, and rated their confidence. RSA increased the accuracy-confidence correlation for witnesses who made an identification and for those who were high but not low in public self-consciousness. A 2nd experiment varied accountability and revealed that high accountability increased the accuracy-confidence correlation but that the RSA effect occurred even under low-accountability conditions. In both studies, observers could not distinguish between accurate and inaccurate witnesses. Together, these findings define the limits of the RSA effect and provide mixed support for a self-perception account of this effect.     

Creators' intentions bias judgments of function independently from causal inferences

Participants learned about novel artifacts that were created for function X, but later used for function Y. When asked to rate the extent to which X and Y were a given artifact's function, participants consistently rated X higher than Y. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were also asked to rate artifacts' efficiency to perform X and Y. This allowed us to test if participants' preference for X was mediated by causal inferences. Experiment 1 showed that participants did not infer intentionally created artifacts performed X more efficiently than Y. Experiment 2 showed participants did not infer that only an efficient (but not an inefficient) artifact provided evidence of intentional creation. Causal inferences involving efficiency, did not account for participants' preferences. In Experiment 3, in contrast, when the creator changed her mind about an artifact's function (i.e., from X to Y), the preference for the original function tended to disappear. Creators' intentions were the basis for participants' preference. Results are discussed relative to essentialist theories.