Coping with a major stressor: differences between habitual short- and longer-sleepers.

We compared the coping strategies of 39 short-sleepers and 33 longer-sleepers to the stresses associated with the October 17, 1989 San Francisco Bay Area earthquake using their responses to the eight scales of the Ways of Coping Questionnaire. Over-all, the short-sleepers scored significantly higher on this questionnaire and in general, the pattern of their responses was consistent with inferences that could be drawn from a 1972 paper by Hartmann, Baekeland, and Zwilling.     

A comparative evaluation of parent-training interventions for families of chronic delinquents

Fifty-five families of chronically offending delinquents were randomly assigned to parent-training treatment or to service traditionally provided by the juvenile court and community. The families in the parent-training group received an average of 44.8 hours of professional contact (23.3 hours of which were phone contacts), and each control group family received treatment estimated at more than 50 hours on the average. Comparisons of police contact data at baseline and subsequent years for the two groups showed that subjects in both groups demonstrated reduced rates of offending during the followup years. The finding most relevant was significant treatment-by-time effect for offense rates, with most of this effect accounted for by a greater reduction in serious crimes for the experimental group during the treatment year, and a similar reduction of the community control group occurring in the first of three followup years. These early decrements in offense rates persisted during followup for both groups. Throughout the study, boys in the experimental group spent significantly less time in institutional settings than did boys in the control group. Parent training had a significant impact, but the reduction in offending was produced at very high emotional cost to staff. Although it is clear that this population requires substantial treatment resources, this study underscores the need for more work on prevention.Research for this paper was supported by grant MH 37938 from the Center for Studies of Antisocial and Violent Behavior, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), U.S. Public Health Service (PHS). The writing was supported in part by grants MH 17126 and MH 37940 from the same Center, grant DA 05304 from the National Institute of Drug Abuse, U.S. PHS., and grant MH 38730 from the Child and Adolescent Disorders Research Branch, NIMH, U.S. PHS. The authors gratefully acknowledge the enduring commitment of the treatment staff that made this study possible: Patricia Chamberlain, Marion Forgatch, and Kate Kavanagh.     

Use of the family adaptability and cohesion evaluation scales in child clinical research

Although the FACES has become a widely used instrument for assessing children's family relations, the possible linearity vs. curvilinearity of its cohesion and adaptability scales has been treated inconsistently by investigators. This study evaluated whether samples of adolescent repeat offenders, young adult prisoners, and adolescent nonoffenders were discriminated better by a linear or curvilinear treatment of the FACES scores. Between-groups comparisons showed that significant effects were observed for each of the three curvilinear measures (cohesion-curvilinear, adaptability-curvilinear, distance-from-center) and only one of the two linear measures (cohesionlinear). These findings support the superiority of a curvilinear treatment of the FACES. In light of these findings, it is suggested that investigators who use FACES evaluate the linearity of the scales and determine whether a linear or curvilinear treatment of the data produces more meaningful results.     

Adaptation to context

Argument theorists often stress the idea of adaptation to context as an alternative to seeing argument as linked propositions. But adaptation is not a clear idea. It is in fact a complicated puzzle. Though many aspects of this puzzle are obscure, one clear conclusion is that the question-answer pair is not a good way to conceptualize adaptation to situation.     

Finding stable support for computing in psychology: Lessons from innovation diffusion in organizations

We present the steps that the Psychology Department, the Academic Computing Center (ACC), and the central administration at St. Olaf College have taken to integrate computing support into the operating budget of the college. In hindsight, we also propose a model of the diffusion of innovations into an organization as a theoretical guide to stabilizing support for computing in academic departments. The theoretical framework highlights the commonality between our particular adaptations and those that would most help at other institutions.     

Second-order conditioning of the rabbit’s nictitating membrane response

Second-order conditioning of the rabbit’s nictitating membrane response (NMR) was investigated when second-order trials (CS1-CS2) were intermixed with first-order trials (CS2-US) from the outset of training. Experiment 1 showed that CR acquisition to CS1 was inversely related to the CS1-CS2 interval but nevertheless extended to an interval of 8,400 ms. Experiment 2 revealed that CR acquisition of CS1 was an inverted-U function of the number of CS1-CS2 trials relative to a fixed number of CS2-US trials. Experiment 3 directly contrasted second-order conditioning with a reinforced serial compound procedure (CS1-CS2-US) and a mixed procedure in which second-order trials were intermixed with the reinforced serial compound. Second-order conditioning was about half the strength of either the reinforced serial compound or the mixed procedure, which were similar. The present results are discussed with respect to the relative strength of excitatory and inhibitory processes in second-order conditioning.     

The influence of positive and negative reinforcement on selective attention in the rat

In Experiments 1 and 2 rats were trained under two multiple schedules of reinforcement. In one, bar pressing during a tone-light compound stimulus was reinforced under a variable-interval food reinforcement schedule. In the other multiple schedule, bar pressing avoided grid shock on a free-operant schedule. In both multiple schedules, a discrimination was maintained by an extinction schedule that was operative during the absence of the tone-light compound. In Experiments 1 and 2 the intensity of the tone-light compound was manipulated over three levels. Subsequent extinction tests revealed that light was attended to, almost exclusively of the tone, when food reinforcement had maintained bar pressing. On the other hand, the tone gained considerable attentional control under the shock avoidance schedule. This stimulus-reinforcer interaction was maintained for all three levels of the compound intensity. In Experiment 3 it was investigated whether this interaction was associative by presenting shock during the absence of the tone-light compound when food reinforcement maintained responding, and food during the absence of the compound when shock avoidance maintained responding. Since both food and shock were presented during a single session for both schedules, nonassociative effects of the reinforcing stimuli were equivalent across the schedules. Nevertheless, the stimulus-reinforcer interaction was maintained, indicating that the interaction was an associative effect.