Social Perceptions of Termination of Medical Treatment: Suicide or Rational Decision?

In two studies, college students read about a critically ill patient who died after CPR attempts failed, CPR was not attempted pursuant to a "Do-Not-Resuscitate" (DNR) order, he terminated all medical treatment, or he self-administered a lethal injection. Death resulting from treatment termination was perceived as significantly more unconventional than were death by CPR failure or DNR order. Ending treatment and lethal injection were perceived as equivalent acts of suicide, and resulted in the patient's being seen as less rational and less capable of making health care decisions. Timing of the patient's decisions regarding treatment, as indicated by the presence or absence of Living Will information, did not alter these perceptions. Results are discussed in light of opposing hypotheses regarding views of "naive" social perceivers toward actions with identical outcomes: that acts of commission are perceived as causal and rated more negatively than acts of omission (Spranca, Minsk, & Baron, 1991), and that acts seen as abnormal are attributed greater causal impact (Hilton & Slugoski, 1986).     

The Importance of Attitudes in the Prediction of College Students' Intentions to Drink

Fishbein's (1967, 1980) theory of reasoned action was used to test the relative importance of attitudes and subjective norms in predicting undergraduate students' intentions to perform 3 different types of social drinking actions: avoiding drinking, drinking enough to get a slight buzz, and drinking enough to get drunk. A multiple regression paradigm was used to determine the relative effectiveness of attitudes and subjective norms in predicting intentions to perform each of the 3 drinking behaviors. Although attitudes were consistently found to be better predictors of intentions than were subjective norms, the strength of the attitude-intention relation varied widely across the 3 actions. In particular, the attitude-intention correlation was strongest for "drinking enough to get drunk." Findings also suggest that subjective norms, previous behavior, and perceived behavioral control are not important variables for predicting this behavior.     

CHOICE-MAKING TREATMENT OF YOUNG CHILDREN'S SEVERE BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS

The choice-making behavior of 5 young children with developmental disabilities who engaged in aberrant behavior was studied within a concurrent operants framework. Experimental analyses were conducted to identify reinforcers that maintained aberrant behavior, and functional communication training packages were implemented to teach the participants to gain reinforcement using mands. Next, a choice-making analysis, in which the participants chose one of two responses (either a mand or an alternative neutral response) to obtain different durations and qualities of reinforcement, was conducted. Finally, treatment packages involving choice making via manding were implemented to decrease inappropriate behavior and to increase mands. The results extended previous applications of choice making to severe behavior disorders and across behaviors maintained by positive and negative reinforcement.     

Parental Smoking and the “Epidemic” Spread of Cigarette Smoking1

“Epidemic” models of transitions between stages of cigarette smoking describe the spread of smoking behavior through face-to-face encounters. An epidemic model was successfully fitted that allowed epidemic parameters to be conditioned on the smoking status of adolescents' parents. Model comparisons supported the conclusion that the transition from nonsmoker to trier involved social contacts, whereas the transition from trier to regular smoker was best modeled as a constant rate (i.e., did not depend on the population prevalence of smokers). The transition rate from nonsmoker to trier was more rapid in children of smoking parents than in children of nonsmoking parents. Adolescents with and without smoking parents did not differ in the rate of transition from trier to regular smoking.     

Personality and Coping: Three Generations of Research

ABSTRACT This article introduces the Journal of Personality 's special issue on coping and personality. It first presents a historical overview of the psychological study of how people cope with stress and identifies three generations of theory and research: (a) the psychoanalysts and the ego development school, which tended to equate personality and coping strategies; (b) the transactional approach, which appeared in the 1960s and emphasized situational and cognitive influences on coping while downplaying the role of individual differences; and (c) the most recent, "third generation," whose work is represented in this special issue and focuses on the role of personality in coping while maintaining strong operational distinctions among coping, personality, appraisal, and adaptational outcomes. This introduction concludes with a discussion of unresolved conceptual and methodological issues and a brief orientation to the third-generation articles that follow in this special issue.     

Coping and Personality: Third Time's the Charm?

ABSTRACT In this special issue, a third generation of research is represented which recognizes and demonstrates that individual differences in personality play an important role in the coping process. Although progress is apparent, there are several unresolved issues, including the best way to measure coping and whether "type of coping" matters in naturalistic settings. Three potentially important parameters of coping—range, patterning, and competence—are described, but only the first has received systematic empirical attention. The study of coping might also be advanced by researchers giving more attention to the differences between problem situations in which traits are more easily expressed ("weak" situations) versus those where normative criteria and constraints are explicit ("strong" situations).     

The dilemma of conscience in Christian belief: A pastoral perspective

This article describes the crisis of integrity experienced by a trinitarian Christian attempting to take seriously the results of current Jesus scholarship. It explores a number of traditional methods for reconciling the Jesus of history with the Christ of faith, and proposes a different paradigm, based on the structure of kairos time and the psychological dynamics of friendship.     

Features Resembling Tourette''s Syndrome in Developmental Stutterers

Developmental stuttering (DS) may be related to the extrapyramidal motor system and shares many clinical similarities with Tourette's syndrome (TS), which is widely believed to be associated with extrapyramidal dysfunction. Twenty-two stutterers were examined for neuropsychiatric features commonly seen in TS, including tics, obsessive-compulsive behaviors (OCB), and attention deficit disorders. Eleven stutterers displayed motor tics, and symptoms of OCB were observed at rates similar to those seen in persons with TS. Few stutterers demonstrated significant attentional deficits. Findings are consistent with models suggesting extrapyramidal involvement in DS and raise the possibility that DS and TS are pathogenetically related.