Normative values on the marks and mathews fear questionnaire: A comparison as a function of age and sex

While the Marks and Mathews Fear Questionnaire (1979) has gained widespread use, little information on its psychometric characteristics has been reported. Thus, one purpose of this investigation was to provide normative information on this device. A second purpose was to examine differences in reported fears as a function of age and sex. Fear Questionnaires were administered to a large sample of high-school students, college students, and adults. Means and standard deviations on the Fear Questionnaire are reported for the various groups. Significant differences were found between groups, with college and high-school women reporting more fears than corresponding men, college and high-school women reporting more fears than adult women, and college men showing a trend toward more fears than other men.Portions of this paper were presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, November 1985, Houston, Texas.     

A dictionary of rational-emotive feelings and behaviors

Rational-emotive therapy (RET) hypothesizes that people mainly make themselves emotionally disturbed and dysfunctional in their behavior by starting with rational Beliefs (rBs) about their Goals (G) and then by consciously or unconsciously converting these into irrational Beliefs (iBs) or dogmatic, absolutistic musts and commands. To help clients and others to clearly see the differences between their rational Beliefs and their irrational Beliefs, to understand the disordered feelings and behaviors to which the latter lead, and to help them become more rational, less disturbed, and less dysfunctional in their activities, the authors have constructed and herewith present a dictionary of rational-emotive equivalents.Ted Crawford is a Consultant on Communication and Group Processes in Santa Barbara, California. Albert Ellis, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy in New York City.     

Transient positive and negative experiences accompanying stage hypnosis.

Frequency of positive and negative experiences accompanying stage hypnosis was assessed in follow-up interviews with 22 participants of university-sponsored performances. Most subjects described their experience positively (relaxing, interesting, exciting, satisfying, illuminating, and pleasurable), but some described it negatively (confusing, silly, annoying, and frightening). Five subjects (22.7%) reported partial or complete amnesia; all were highly responsive to the stage hypnosis suggestions. One subject was completely unable to breach amnesia and felt annoyed and frightened. Five subjects (22.7%) believed the hypnotist had control over their behavior. Participants (n = 15) tested subsequently on the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form C (Weitzenhoffer & Hilgard, 1962) were mostly moderately to highly hypnotizable (M = 7.07), and the scores correlated significantly (r = .68) with the percentage of passed stage hypnosis suggestions.     

Traditional attitudes and teacher consistency in producing student learning gains in the early elementary grades

Questionnaire responses of second- and third-grade teachers specially selected because of their relatively high consistency in producing student learning gains on standardized achievement tests (N =30) were compared with responses of other teachers working in the same school system at the same grade levels (N = 38). Due to sample selection procedures, the highly consistent teachers were older and averaged more years of teaching experience than the teachers in the comparison group. In order to see whether the consistent teachers differed in any other ways from the teachers in the comparison group, the teachers in each group were administered a 495-item questionnaire. Group difference analyses revealed 57 items showing differences beyond the .05 level of significance, when only about 25 would have been expected by chance. For the most part, the items showing group differences did not form interpretable patterns. However, a subset of 10 items emerged from a factor analysis to form a traditionalism factor. Further analyses revealed that the highly consistent teachers were more traditional in their attitudes and beliefs than the teachers in the comparison group, and that this difference was not related to teacher age or years of experience. Thus, traditionalism in beliefs and attitudes was related to consistency in relative success in producing student learning gains. Possible reasons for this puzzling finding are discussed.     

The meanings of marital surnames

Sex Roles - To assess the meanings attached to marital surnames a younger group of adults (56 unmarried college students) and an older group (209 married and unmarried graduate students, members of...     

BINGE DRINKING AMONG AMERICAN COLLEGE WOMEN

This study examines data from questionnaires to establish the prevalence and correlates of women's binge drinking, defined as four or more drinks per episode, at women's colleges ( n = 508) and at coeducational colleges ( n = 9,624). Results showed that women at women's colleges binged less frequently, had fewer alcohol-related problems, experienced fewer negative effects of others' drinking, and were less likely to drink and drive. The correlates of binge drinking were similar for the two groups of women. The differences appear to be related not to the quantity or amount of socializing but to its quality. The absence of fraternities and coeducational dormitories, the reduced likelihood of a party-centered lifestyle, and self-selection factors at women's colleges all may contribute to a healthier environment for women. Interventions designed to lower the risk of college binge drinking should further explore the peer-group contexts in which problem drinking is reduced.     

Self-reference and emotional memory effects in older adults at increased genetic risk of Alzheimer’s disease

The present study investigated whether cognitively healthy older adults who are carriers of the ε4 allele of apolipoprotein E, the most prevalent genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, benefit from self-referential processing and emotional processing to the same degree as noncarriers of this gene. Participants encoded emotional and nonemotional narratives using a baseline-orienting task, semantic elaboration, or imagination-based self-referential processing and then completed a recognition memory test. Both groups of older adults showed enhanced recognition memory for narrative information following self-referential processing relative to semantic elaboration, and the magnitude of this memory effect was not affected by ε4 status. However, older adult ε4 carriers did not show an emotional enhancement effect, whereas older adult ε4 noncarriers did. These results indicate that whereas the self-reference effect is not attenuated in cognitively healthy older adults ε4 carriers, deficits in emotional memory may be an early cognitive marker of abnormal decline.