High-Trait and Low-Trait Angry College Students: A Comparison of Family Environments

In this study the authors investigated differences in the family environments of high- and low-trait angry college students. High-trait angry students described their family environments as significantly less cohesive, less emotionally expressive, more conflictual, and more disorganized than did their low-trait angry counterparts. Implications of the findings to the counseling of students with anger-related problems are discussed.     

Tensorial basis to the constancy of perceived object extent over variations of dynamic touch

Subjects wielded occluded rods, with or without attached masses, and reported the distances reachable with their distal tips. Experiments 1–3 compared wielding about the wrist, the elbow, and the shoulder. Experiments 4 and 5 compared free wielding, using the whole arm, with wielding only about the wrist. The two comparisons, respectively, were of spatial and temporal variations in the rod’s rotational inertia. Perceived extent was found to be constant in both comparisons. This constancy was tied to the inertia tensorI _ij defined about a point that remains a fixed distance from the object during wielding—an invariant of the spatially and temporally dependent patterning of mechanical energy impressed upon the tissues of the body. Discussion focused on the reciprocal action and perception capabilities of multisegmented limbs, the tensorial relations in the neurobiology of dynamic touch, and the strategy of understanding perceptual constancy through invariants.     

Proximal and Distal Predictors of Homophobia: Framing the Multivariate Roots of Outgroup Rejection1

A proximal-distal theoretical framework was developed to examine the multivariate roots of homophobia. Using data from a sample of 288 undergraduates who had participated in a computer-assisted panel study over a three-year period, the effects on homophobia of distal and proximal family factors (e. g., parental education and family environment), distal and proximal individual factors (e. g., personality constructs and current beliefs), and proximal individual-situational factors (e. g., acquaintance with homosexuals) were tested in regression analyses. Both analyses employing sets of variables varying in proximity to the homophobic attitude and hierarchical regression employing variables contributing significantly in each set supported the proposed framework. All sets predicted significantly when regressed separately on homophobia; the sets containing the distal factors contributed most weakly, and the sets containing the proximal factors contributed most strongly. In hierarchical regression analysis, this pattern maintained such that the incremental increase in r² decreased with the addition of each more distal set, with the most distal factors failing to contribute significantly to the prediction. The importance of study findings for attitude change efforts is discussed.     

Comprehension and expression of affect in language-impaired children

Eight children with developmental language impairment (LI) and eight age-, sex-, socioeconomic-status-, and I.Q.-matched controls were given tests of comprehension and expression of affective intent in spoken language and through facial expression. The LI children performed significantly more poorly than did controls in both comprehension and spontaneous expression of vocal affect. On tasks involving emotional facial expression, the opposite results were observed: The LI children were more dramatic in their expression of facial affect than were the controls. Children with language impairment appear to have a deficit in affective comprehension and expression that is modality-specific, i.e., limited to vocal affect. The heightened range of affective facial expression that they demonstrate may be a compensatory mechanism to offset their difficulties with vocal affect.This work was supported by grant 12-203 from the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation, and by NINDS grant NS22343 for the Center for the Study of the Neurological Basis of Language.     

An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Self-Efficacy as a Predictor of Trainees' Counselling Skills Performance

The value of self-efficacy as a predictor of counselling skills performance in a graduate counselling class was evaluated with 31 trainee counsellors. Three measurements of self-efficacy were taken: before, midway through, and at the end of a microcounselling skills training programme which was taught over six weekly three-hour sessions. Although there was a wide distribution of self-efficacy reports, none of the estimates of grade were significantly positively associated with counselling skills. Implications for counsellor educators are discussed.     

Grading the ‘cultural literacy’ project

The essay examines the argument advanced by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., for instituting ‘cultural literacy’ as a fundamental priority of schools. A number of confusions and equivocations in Hirsch's reasoning are identified, and the propensity of his project to indoctrinate is exposed. Among the features of Hirsch's argument shown to be troubling are his shifting construal of ‘language’, his inconsistency about the requirements of cultural literacy, and his uncritical relation to traditional images of the American past and present. The upshot is to raise the question why Hirsch's project has elicited wide support and praise.     

Some hypotheses concerning the evolution of polysemous words

The evolution of polysemous words is examined in three studies. Study 1 indicates that older words are more polysemous than recent words, and that frequently used words are more polysemous than infrequently used words. These effects were replicated, controlling for word concreteness (Study 2) and evaluation (Study 3), using two other samples of words. If words evolve additional meanings through metaphor (MacCormac, 1985), then variables (such as concreteness and evaluation) that play a role in metaphor may mediate the evolution of polysemy. The correlation between concreteness and polysemy was negligible (Study 2). As hypothesized, evaluation is a significant predictor of polysemy: Negative words are more polysemous than positive words, and relatively neutral words are more polysemous than evaluatively extreme words. These findings are consistent with the notion that polysemous words evolve, in part, through metaphor.     

Family therapy with problem drinkers and drug takers: A pilot follow-up study

We report a retrospective outcome study of 36 problem drinkers and/or drug takers, treated with structural-strategic family therapy. The interval between treatment and follow-up varied from six months to two years. Follow-up data was available on 34 cases. Twenty had a pure alcohol problem and of these 18 had a good outcome at follow up. Five had a mixed drug/alcohol problem; of these all were free from problem drinking and four had become abstinent from drugs at follow-up. Of the nine patients with a pure drug problems, eight were abstinent from drugs at follow-up. Given the retrospective nature of this study and the lack of control data, these results must remain impressionistic but the implications of the findings are discussed.     

Ratings of Emotional Response to Pictorial Stimuli: Positive and Negative Affect Dimensions

The purpose of this study was to investigate the structure of emotional responses to pictorial stimuli within the affective space defined by orthogonal dimensions of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA). College student participants (N = 151) viewed 60 color photographic slides from the International Affective Picture System (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1995) and rated their emotional responses to each slide using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). Consistent with prediction, affective reactions to pleasant slides were characterized as high in PA, and low in NA. Unpleasant slides produced elevations on the NA scale, but contrary to expectation, also produced elevated ratings of PA, with the magnitude of PA scale scores increasing systematically with NA scale scores. The results suggest an interesting divergence between the structure of pictorially elicited affective reactions and that of ad hoc mood states. Directions for future research are discussed in relation to the unique properties of the slide viewing paradigm.     

The effects of polydrug use with and without cocaine on mother-infant interaction at 3 and 6 months

The face-to-face interactions of 43 polydrug-with-cocaine-using mothers and their infants at 3 and 6 months were compared to 17 non-cocaine-but other-drug-using mothers and 21 mothers who used no drugs during their pregnancy. Coders blind to mothers' drug use status scored 3 min of face-to-face interactions for 16 measures of maternal and infant interactive behaviors. A principal component of 7 behaviors formed a measure of maternal attentiveness; a principal component of 5 behaviors formed a measure of mother-infant dyadic organization; and a principal component of 4 behaviors formed a measure of infant readiness to interact. A measure of maternal interruption was computed as the mean standard score of 3 additional interruptive behaviors. At 3 and 6 months, polydrug-with-cocaine-using mothers were less attentive to interactions, and polydrug-with-cocaine-using mothers and their infants engaged in fewer dyadic interactions than either non-cocaine or non-drug-using mothers. Compared to 3 months, polydrug-with-cocaine-using mothers at 6 months were less attentive to interactions and more frequently interrupted interactions by looking away, redirecting the infant, or withdrawing, whereas non-cocaine-using and non-drug- using mothers showed no change or an improvement in attentiveness to interactions and a decrease in interruptions. No differences emerged in the interactive behaviors of the infants of polydrug- with-cocaine-using, non-cocaine-using, or non-drug-using mothers. Cocaine use represents a significant risk for diminished parental attentiveness and responsiveness to infants and for diminished interactiveness in infants.