Psychosocial functioning of children: Relations between personality subtypes and academic achievement

Five hundred children from ages 6 to 12 who had been referred for neuropsychological assessment were clustered into six subtypes using a kmeans technique applied to 10 PIC scales. Five of the six subtypes were virtually identical to subtypes identified in previous research (viz., normal, somatic concern, mild anxiety, externalized psychopathology, and internalized psychopathology). A sixth subtype (conduct disorder) was also found. Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT) Reading and Spelling scores discriminated between normal, somatic concern, and conduct disorder subtypes on the one hand vs. the more disturbed externalized and internalized psychopathology subtypes on the other;the latter groups scored higher on these measures. The internalized psychopathology subtype also showed large discrepancies between reading vs. arithmetic and spelling vs. arithmetic. The results support the view that psychosocial functioning is related to assets and deficits in cognitive/academic functioning in children, and that particular patterns of such assets and deficits are related to particular forms of psychopathology.     

Implicit Learning in a Simple Cued Reaction-Time Task

Implicit learning tasks usually involve the learning of complex rules. While this does reduce the likelihood of subjects becoming aware of the relationship to be learned, it also raises the possibility of explaining improved performance in terms of explicit processes. The current experiments are an attempt to develop a task which shows evidence of implicit learning, but which involves the learning of a very simple rule and so avoids these alternative explanations. In two experiments, we exposed subjects to learning trials in which a target letter (or shape) was immediately preceded by a cue letter (or shape) in otherwise random nine-letter (or 15-shape) sequences. In a test phase, subjects responded more quickly to cued than uncued targets if the learning phase had involved reliable cue–target pairings, but not following random control pairings. This was true of subjects who were classified as aware and those classified as unaware of the cue–target relationship.     

Changes in Feeling States Following Aquatic Exercise During Pregnancy

Forty-four pregnant women participated in water aerobics 2 times per week for a period of 6 weeks, with each session lasting approximately 45 min. The hypothesis that participants would report greater feelings of positive well-being and less psychological distress and fatigue during the 6-week program as compared to preprogram reports was supported. Also supporting our hypothesis, similar improvements were noted following a single bout of exercise during each week of the program. Taken together, the results of the present study suggest that regular engagement in an aquatic exercise program is associated with improvements in positive feeling states and reductions in negative feeling states and fatigue for women during pregnancy.     

The effect of name category and discriminability on the search characteristics of colour sets

Within (and between) cultures, people tend to agree on which parts of colour space are easiest to name and what the names for these regions are. Therefore it is likely that the manipulation of ease of naming (nameability) of colours should change performance in tasks where categorisation by colour name is important. More specifically? highly 'nameable' colour sets should lead to better performance than metrically equivalent but less categorically distinct sets, when the task requires categorisation. This hypothesis was investigated by testing observers on a name-based task, the naming and subsequent identification by name of colour sets with up to sixteen members. These sets were designed to be easy to name (nameable), maximally discriminable, or matched discriminable. The first were derived from previously generated data, the second by a standard algorithm to space colours widely in colour space, and the latter by closely matching their metric characteristics to those of an easy-to-name colour set. This final condition was metrically (but not categorically) equivalent to the nameable set. It was found that sets designed to be nameable did indeed lead to superior performance as measured by response times, confidence ratings, and response accuracy. Perceptual colour similarity, measured by a AE metric, did not predict errors. Nameability may thus be a valid, manipulable, aspect of sets of colours, and one which is not otherwise duplicated in the metric characteristics of such sets.     

Perceived Sources of Happiness: A Network Analysis

This study investigated the perceived sources of happiness among young men and women. Rank scores of the perceived reasons for happiness were compared between the two groups and seven significant differences were discerned. Men ranked “sexual activity”, “sports”, being “liked” and having a “good social life” significantly higher than women. Women ranked “helping others”, having a “close family” and being “loved by loved ones” significantly higher than men. A modified form of network analysis was also conducted. Both networks demonstrated similar core representations of happiness with a focus on self-confidence, being free of stress, occupational and social factors, family support and personal relationships. However, the networks show an association between sexual activity and male personal relationships, whereas emotional factors are associated with female personal relationships. The male network also demonstrates the importance of sports and physical activity in male happiness. Despite some gender differences, it is suggested that the similarities within the mean rank scores and networks form the core elements of a shared social representation of happiness.     

Moral Testimony and its Authority

A person sometimes forms moral beliefs by relying on another person's moral testimony. In this paper I advance a cognitivist normative account of this phenomenon. I argue that for a person's actions to be morally good, they must be based on a recognition of the moral reasons bearing on action. Morality requires people to act from an understanding of moral claims, and consequently to have an understanding of moral claims relevant to action. A person sometimes fails to meet this requirement when she relies on another person's moral testimony, and so there are moral limits on such reliance.     

The relationship between reduplicated babble onset and laterality biases in infant rhythmic arm movements

This study examined changes in rhythmic arm shaking and laterality biases in infants observed longitudinally at three points: just prior to, at, and just following reduplicated babble onset. Infants (ranging in age from 4 to 9 months at babble onset) were videotaped at home as they played with two visually identical audible and silent rattles presented at midline for 1.5 min each. Rate of rattle shaking increased sharply from the pre-babble to the babble onset session; but there was no indication that this increase was specific to the right arm. This finding suggests that the link between babble onset and increased rhythmic arm activity may not be the product of language-specific mechanisms, but is rather part of a broader developmental process that is also perceptual and motor.     

On the uniqueness of attentional capture by uninformative gaze cues: facilitation interacts with the Simon effect and is rarely followed by IOR.

Orienting to an uninformative peripheral cue is characterized by a brief facilitation followed by a long-lasting inhibition once attention is removed from the cued location. Although central gaze cues cause reflexive orienting, the inhibitory effect that is relatively ubiquitous following exogenous orienting to uninformative peripheral cues has been relatively rare. We hypothesized that IOR might be seen following gaze-induced orienting if attention were effectively returned to centre by a return gaze or return flash. The timecourse of gaze-directed orienting was measured by varying the interval between the gaze cue and a peripheral target requiring an orientation discrimination (permitting measurement of the Simon effect). Significant facilitation was observed at all but the longest SOA tested, 2,880 ms, by which time the facilitation had disappeared with no evidence of IOR. Gaze-induced cuing (which was unaffected by return cue condition) interacted with the Simon effect, decreasing it at the gazed-at location, a pattern that is not seen with more typical endogenous and exogenous cuing.     

Pastoral theory and practice in the team approach to treatment of scrupulosity as a component of obsessive compulsive disorder

The statistical estimates of the prevalence of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in the general population have increased dramatically in recent years. "Blasphemous" obsessions and religious compulsions dominate the clinical picture of many sufferers of OCD. Freud proposed that religion might be a contributing factor for many patients with mental illness. He hedged, however, that observation--something that many of his followers have not done. Others have noted the pathoplasticity of strict religious upbringing and images of God as vindictive or otherwise harsh. Only recently--since the 1970s--has much clinical attention been focused on this disorder by the other disciplines within the mental health community. The church, however, is ahead of the curve in diagnosis and treatment of scrupulosity. It has long been a concern for pastoral counselors--particularly pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic priests. Pathological religion influences OCD and pastoral counseling, the author proposes, can contributes to recovery.     

Crossed categorization beyond the two-group model

Four studies examined processing of in-group and out-group information with stimuli that are more complex than those used in previous crossed categorization studies. A diverse set of predictions is generated by previous theoretical work to account for how participants will integrate information stemming from multiple group memberships. Heuristic, threshold-based processing of information was supported over algebraic processing. Participants appeared to divide stimuli into "in-grouplike" and "out-grouplike" metacategories. However, the threshold at which this distinction was made, and whether it was based on in-group favoritism or out-group derogation, was influenced by the nature of the situation and the task participants performed. Advantages of crossed categorization research that moves beyond the traditional two-group model are discussed.