Recipient's mood, relationship type, and helping

We conducted two studies to examine how a potential helper is affected by having a communal orientation toward a relationship with a potential recipient and by the potential recipient's sadness. We hypothesized that (a) having a communal orientation would increase helping and that (b) people high in communal orientation, but not others, would respond to a potential recipient's sadness by increasing helping. These hypotheses were tested in two studies. In Study 1, individual differences in communal orientation toward relationships were measured by using a new communal orientation scale reported for the first time in this article. In Study 2, manipulations were used to lead subjects to desire either a communal or an exchange relationship with another person. In both studies, subjects were exposed to a sad person or to a person in a neutral mood whom they were given a chance to help. As hypothesized, in both studies communally oriented subjects helped the other significantly more than did others. Also as hypothesized, in both studies communally oriented subjects but not others, increased helping in response to the other person's sadness although this effect reached statistical significance only in the second study.     

A short-form measure of loneliness

The revised UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS-20) and a four-item short form (ULS-4) are widely used in personality research (Russell, Peplau, & Cutrona, 1980). In an exploratory factor analysis of the ULS-20, we identified eight items that loaded substantially on the first factor. These items were combined to form an alternative short-form measure, the ULS-8. The results of this study indicate that the ULS-8 is reliable, valid, and a better substitute for the ULS-20 than is the ULS-4. Consistent with the previous research, the loneliness measures (ULS-20, ULS-8, ULS-4) were strongly related to socially undesirable personality characteristics, but loneliness was uncorrelated with the six different health-related behaviors (exercise, meal regularity, alcohol use, hard drug use, smoking, and hours of sleep) assessed in this study.     

Alcoholism: A conflict of models

Adherents to the traditional model of alcoholism explain alcoholic behavior as a consequence of alcoholism. Alcoholism is identified as an unseen, unmeasured entity inherent in alcoholics. This concept parallels the thinking of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton, who believed in an unseen, unmeasurable creator behind the physical world. These traditional approaches contrast with the emergent model of alcoholism and twentieth-century scientific thought. Emergent scientific model adherents explain alcoholic behavior without resort to unseen factors. Since the traditional and emergent scientific models begin with different assumptions, model adherents experience communication difficulties. Future developments with determine which model will dominate the field of alcohol studies and treatment.     

The interaction of stimulus and reinforcer control in complex temporal discrimination.

Six pigeons were trained in a discrete-trials signal-detection procedure to discriminate between a fixed-duration stimulus (5 s or 20 s) and a set of variable durations ranging from 2.5 s to 57.5 s in steps of 5 s. For each fixed-duration stimulus, the ratio of reinforcer frequencies contingent upon reporting the fixed versus the variable stimulus was systematically manipulated. Detection performance was well controlled by both the stimulus value and the reinforcer ratio. Both the discriminability between the fixed duration and the set of variable durations, and the discriminability between the fixed duration and each of the variable durations, were independent of the reinforcer-frequency ratio when discriminability was measured as log d. The sensitivity of response bias to reinforcement-ratio changes was independent of the value of the fixed duration, but was not independent of the discriminability of the variable durations from the fixed durations. Under current models, discriminability measures in complex temporal discrimination may be independent of biasing manipulations, but bias measures are not independent of stimulus values.     

Skid-row rescue missions: A religious approach to alcoholism

The focus of this study is on the religious service at which many skid-row rescue missions require attendance to receive benefits. Data were obtained from an observation study of thirty-seven skid-row rescue missions in Los Angeles and Seattle, interviews with ten mission directors, and mission newsletters. The missions use material benefits to attract potential converts. The theme of spiritual conversion is predominant in the mission service (sermons, songs, testimonies). Mission personnel feel they have been called by God, often have backgrounds similar to the people they serve, and view the skid rowers' problems as primarily personal and spiritual. Skid rowers resent the use of religion as bait, view their problems as primarily structural, and use the missions only as a last resort. The missions need to be compared to other alcoholism rehabilitation and religious institutions. A key component to their continued existence is outside Christian supporters.     

Spiritual issues in mental health care

Religious and spiritual issues in mental health are explored in the context of four conceptual models: the medical, the nursing, the humanistic, and the pastoral. This is done by looking at each model in terms of content, diagnostic focus, language and treatment goals, and primary qualities in the health provider.The models are illustrated by case studies gathered from a multidisciplinary setting. The discovery that each model can incorporate the religious and spiritual dimension in mental health care, but that each model does this in distinctive ways, is a key point.     

Physicians and clergy in dialogue

The goals and ends of contemporary medicine are often unclear. An explicit inquiry into the religious dimensions of healing offers an important perspective from which to evaluate the potential capabilities of the medical profession. This paper describes a course in which medical students joined divinity students to explore areas of mutual intellectual, professional, and personal interest. Students and faculty examined in depth three broad areas in which medicine and religion share common ground: concepts of health and illness from the religious perspective, approaches to the understanding of suffering and meaning, and the shared professional stresses of physician and clergy.This paper comes from the Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Hospital, and the Division on Aging and the Program for the Analysis of Clinical Strategies, Harvard Medical School, and the West Roxbury-Brockton Veterans Administration Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center, Boston.