Plekhanov on the role of the individual in history

This essay critically assesses Plekhanov's famous article on the role of the individual in history. Part I explicates his treatment of the problem of free will and determinism and argues that it is unsatisfactory. The whole issue, however, is held to be largely irrelevant to Marxism. Part II then turns to the question of the explanatory weight given to individual action by historical materialism. Plekhanov's discussion of this issue is more insightful, and the essay endeavors to distinguish between the strong and weak points of his analysis in order to lay the foundations for a more adequate handling of the subject.     

Absence of age-related proneness to short-term retroactive interference in the absence of rehearsal

Age differences in short-term retroactive interference, unconfounded with age differences in rehearsal in the retention interval of the Brown-Peterson Task, were not found in a cross-sectional study of adults 18-32 and 64-78 years of age. Degree of retroactive interference was manipulated conjointly with distractor interval length (0-15 s). Individual memory span was assessed and used as the list length in order to achieve stimulus equivalence of memory loads across individuals and age groups. An attention-demanding matching task that adjusted itself in difficulty to the individual's attentional capacity was used as the distractor activity. Covert rehearsal during the retention interval was inferred using several measures, including a comparison of distractor task performance in the presence and in the absence of a memory load, and rehearsers were excluded from the primary analyses. We conclude that there is no interference proneness with increasing age in the present study.     

Evaluation of a mutual help network for the elderly residents of planned housing

We set up a mutual help network among the elderly residents of a government-subsidized apartment building and evaluated its impact on their social ties, social support satisfaction, and depression. A quasi-experimental design was used, with the residents of a similar building located in the same neighborhood serving as the control group. A total of 230 individual services were exchanged, and 28 group activities were organized during the study period. There was almost no difference between experimental and control groups with respect to the change over the study period in the number of social ties with other residents of the building. Support satisfaction decreased in both groups, but the decrease was larger in the experimental group. The control group had a slight decrease in the frequency of their depressive symptoms, whereas the experimental group had a moderate increase. More research is needed on the ability of social support interventions to produce beneficial effects on mental health among individuals who are not experiencing a particular life stress.     

Continuity in intellectual functioning: the role of self-reported health

Surviving members of the Berkeley Older Generation Study were interviewed and tested with the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale in 1969-1970 and again in 1983-1984, when subjects' ages ranged from 73 to 93. Health was assessed by self-reports at both measurement periods. Although many individuals showed some decline in intellectual functioning, substantial individual differences were apparent at all age levels. More than one half of the subjects showed no reliable change, and a minority showed a reliable increase in verbal scores. The role of self-reported health has increasing importance in the maintenance of intellectual functioning in advanced old age.     

Factor invariance of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory

Several factor analyses of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) have resulted in very similar solutions. Interpretation of this consistency is hampered by the fact that the 20 scales of the inventory share items. Overlapping items cause the scales to be linearly dependent and may create structure in the interscale correlation matrix which is separate from the subject response patterns. A factor analysis was performed on the matrix of item-overlap coefficients which describes the underlying artifactual structure of the instrument. Data from two new subject samples were factor analyzed and compared to previously published studies. Similarity coefficients among factors across studies were calculated.     

A content analysis of the conversational behavior of accepted and rejected children

The present study was designed to assess whether the conversational behavior of children separated into accepted, rejected, and mixed-status dyads differed along the dimensions of listening to, paying attention to, and indicating interest in their dyadic partner. Conversations of 40 third-grade dyads were analyzed as they occurred in a 2- min waiting period and a 4- min conversation period. Seventeen categories of verbal behaviors that indexed these dimensions were used as content codes. Multivariate analyses of variance performed on the observational data yielded significant main effects for status, sex, and experimental condition. Results are interpreted in terms of previous social skills research, and suggestions for future research are offered.     

Many stimuli are frightening,but some are more frightening than others: The contributions of preparedness,dangerousness, and unpredictability to making a stimulus fearful

The nonrandom distribution of situational fears has been explained by evolutionary survival relevance of specific fears. Thirty-eight stimuli were taken from the literature on preparedness and were scored on fearfulness, objective dangerousness, and spatiotemporal unpredictability by three separate groups of students. The same items were scored on survival relevance by 15 biologists. Fearfulness of cues significantly correlated not only with survival relevance but also, and even more strongly, with dangerousness and unpredictability. While the fear/survival relevance association virtually disappeared when the unpredictability contribution was partialed out, the fear/unpredictability correlation was only marginally affected when controlling for survival relevance. This suggests that nonrandomness of feared stimuli may result from the spatiotemporal unpredictability that is attributed to these stimuli. The current practice of using snakes and spiders as phobia-relevant, and flowers and mushrooms as neutral, cues was not justified by the ratings of the 15 independent experts.This study was supported in part by a grant from the Dutch Organization for Fundamental Research (ZWO/Psychon, 560-268-001).     

Advancing knowledge about delinquency and crime: The need for a coordinated program of longitudinal research

Past research on delinquency and crime has provided convincing data about correlates but not about causes, because it has been largely cross-sectional in design. Whereas cross-sectional research focuses on variations between subjects, longitudinal research can provide information about changes within subjects, which are more important for causes, prevention, and treatment. Many of the most important results in criminology have been obtained in longitudinal or experimental studies, and the major studies of these types are reviewed here. It is now desirable to combine the two methods in a new coordinated program of longitudinal studies including experimental interventions or quasi-experimental analyses. Such projects could study several overlapping cohorts, extend from birth to adulthood, have frequent data collection, and obtain data from a variety of sources about many different types of antisocial behavior.     

MMPI profiles of adolescents charged with homicide

Study of adolescent violence has been impeded by failure to distinguish among the circumstances in which youth engage in violent behavior. The present study investigated MMPI profiles of 36 adolescent murderers and a control group of 18 adolescents charged with larceny. Homicide cases were subgrouped into those who committed homicide secondary to another crime (e.g., robbery or rape) and those who acted in the context of interpersonal conflict with the victim. While there were no significant differences between homicide and larceny groups, crime and conflict subgroups were significantly different on scales F, Hs, Hy, and Sc.