The Cost of Client Transfer

Clients undergoing transfer from one counselor to another were compared on the Generalized Contentment Scale and a DSM-III-R measure with clients staying with the same counselor over the same length of treatment. In three 12-week blocks, the clients with the same counselor made the greatest progress in the first 12 weeks, making less progress in each successive block. The clients who were transferred in the middle of the second 12-week block also made the greatest progress in the first time block, lost some of the progress in the transfer block, and made significant progress with the new counselor in the third time block, ending with no significant differences in either generalized contentment or DSM-III-R outcome from clients who had not been transferred.     

Gender-related assessment of childhood play

Parent-report based scales for the assessment of sex-dimorphic behavior are an important tool in research on psychosexual differentiation and its disorders. This paper presents the factor analysis and corresponding scale development for the slightly expanded Child Game Participation Questionnaire (Bates & Bentler, 1973), based on the parents of a demographically diverse school sample of 355 girls and 333 boys aged 6 to 10 years. Evidence supporting each of three theoretical positions in gender assessment — unidimensional bipolar, two-dimensional unipolar, and multidimensional — was provided. Effect sizes were unusually large for gender, but small for age, socioeconomic level, and race/ethnicity.This research was supported in part by a NICHD postdoctoral fellowship (NRSA HD06726; sponsor: Dr. Meyer-Bahlburg) awarded to Dr. Sandberg, by grants to Dr. Ehrhardt and Dr. Meyer-Bahlburg from the Spencer Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and NIMH (center grant 2-P50-MH43520, Anke A. Ehrhardt, Ph.D., Principal Investigator), and by the NIMH Clinical Research Center grant MH-30906.We thank the children and parents who participated in the study. Dr. Jacob Cohen consulted on statistical matters. Ms. Patricia Connolly provided word processing services. A portion of this work was presented as a poster at the XIth Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, Minneapolis, Minnesota, July 3–7, 1991 (Abstracts, p. 285).     

What shall we do with Norman? An experiment in communal discernment.

We were a group of Christian friends searching for affirmations that lay at the heart of our faith and reached to the limits of our existence and moral authority. As we have reflected on our role in deciding whether and to what extent we could assist in allowing our terminally ill friend, seventy-nine-year-old, Norman to die, we were deeply troubled by the moral ambiguity of our involvement. Through a careful process of authority through communal discernment, our responsibility for Norman became clear: we were to assist him in living the life he embraced in baptism -- a life which included a destiny that was conformed to the crucified and risen one. That was not the destiny we chose for Norman; it was the destiny he owned. We recognized with Norman that our lives are not our own to be guided by autonomy and liberty, but rather to be lived for the glory of Jesus the Christ.     

Judgments of average lightness and darkness: A further consideration of inverse attributes

Twenty subjects judged the average lightness and darkness of paired Munsell gray papers according to magnitude estimation and category rating instructions. The data from category rating were approximately consistent with an averaging model but those from magnitude estimation were not. An analysis in terms of a two-stage model suggested that category ratings and magnitude estimates of each attribute were produced on the basis of the same composition rule, but implicated different output transformations. In judging darkness, subjects appeared to have reversed the scales employed in judging lightness, by a linear transformation in the case of category rating and by a reciprocal transformation in the case of magnitude estimation. However, differences between the input parameters obtained from judgments of lightness and darkness suggested that the scales of these attributes constructed from judgments of average magnitude may be biased.     

Fechner’s paradox reflects a nonmonotone relation between binocular brightness and luminance

Twenty subjects judged the brightness of binocularly fused targets whose monocular luminances were varied independently. On each trial, the left eye was presented with one of two relatively high luminances and the right eye was presented with one of 15 luminances from the range in which Fechner’s paradox is effective. The objective of the experiment was to determine whether the psychophysical function over this range was nonmonotonic and Ll-shaped, as implied by several models of binocular brightness, or monotone increasing, but discontinuous at zero right-eye luminance. The functions associated with both left-eye intensities were found to be nonmonotone. Both minima were near the upper bound of the mesopic range.     

Gait patterns during free choice ladder ascents

Twenty two male subjects each performed five climbing trials of a portable straight ladder. Each subject was instructed to ascend the ladder at a “comfortable” pace using only the rungs for support. For the first, third and fifth trials, the temporal and movement characteristics of the performances were recorded using capacitive touch sensors mounted on each of the rungs and high-speed cinematographical techniques. The results revealed little evidence to suggest a preferred climbing gait. The two most commonly utilized methods of ascent for all trials were the lateral and four-beat lateral gaits. Only 31.8% of the subjects adopted the same gait pattern during each of the three trials. The temporal characteristics of each gait pattern showed a relatively longer time for each segment contact phase than for the corresponding airborne phase. The shortest average period was found for the four-beat diagonal gait followed, in order, by the lateral, diagonal and four beat lateral gaits. Variability measures assumed the same ranking in reverse order with the four-beat diagonal gait producing the most variable period times.     

Race,Sex, and Helping in the Marketplace1

In a field study of helping behavior carried out in 48 “convenience” grocery stores, customers tried to purchase for $1.00 a product clearly labeled as costing from $1.15 to $1.50. Amount of help by white clerks (allowing the purchase for $1.00) varied as a function of sex of customer and race of customer. Black male customers were helped least often. Neither the dress of the customers (casually-dressed or well-dressed) nor the racial makeup of the store's clientele was significantly related to helping. Implications of these findings for concepts of same-race bias and “reverse discrimination” in helping are discussed.     

Generalized and specific expectancies: Sequential mediators of interpersonal behavior1

Two experiments confirmed sequential mediation of social interaction by investigating the effects of generalized expectancies on specific expectancies and the effects of specific expectancies on performance. Both experiments used a simulated tutoring task in which the subject took the role of tutor while a confederate took the role of student. In Experiment 1 subjects combined generalized expectancies about the effectiveness of certain tutoring responses with specific situational information to produce specific expectancies about the results of the tutoring responses under the experimental circumstances. Experiment 2 replicated this finding and showed that specific expectancies of the relative effectiveness of different responses influenced which response was performed more. Results were discussed in terms of cognitive motivation theory and social learning theory.