Murders and suicide: Are they polar opposites

This article explores the relationship between suicidal and murderous desires. Freud's psychological theory and Henry and Short's sociological theory are reviewed, and empirical studies that bear on the issue are examined. There is not sufficient information as yet to confirm or disconfirm that murder and suicide are polar opposites, but suggestions are made for future research needed to answer this question.     

Family therapy with Spanish-heritage immigrant families in cultural transition

Increasing numbers of Spanish-heritage immigrant families in the United States are beginning to seek therapy for family conflicts related to their adapation to the new country/culture. This paper focuses on the difficulties experienced by these families and presents issues specific to therapy with them. Effective therapy with these families requires that therapists focus on clarification of the differential adaptation rates of family members and facilitate a resolution of the family's transitional conflicts(s). Six cases involving such families are presented.David A. Baptiste, Jr., PhD, is a Psychologist and Marital and Family therapist in the counseling center at New Mexico State University and in private practice, Las Cruce, NM.Revision of a paper presented to the International Round Table for the Advancement of Counseling, Annual Conference, Utrech, The Netherlands, July, 1985. The author expresses appreciation to Judith Landau-Stanton for her helpful review of an earlier draft of this paper.     

A structural model for postpartum responses to the somatic and cognitive items on the Beck Depression Inventory

A distinction can be drawn between those items on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) that reflect mainly cognitive and emotional symptoms and those that reflect somatic symptoms. Responses to the BDI were obtained from women at 3, 6, 9, and 24 weeks postpartum. The covariances of cognitive and somatic symptom scores across the four time points were closely fit by a structural equations model referred to as the simplex. The modeling indicates that earlier cognitive scores directly predict later somatic scores but that early somatic scores do not directly predict later cognitive scores. Other data confirm the results.Much of this research was supported while the first author was an NIMH Fellow at the University of Iowa (MH15168).     

On structural equation modeling with data that are not missing completely at random

A general latent variable model is given which includes the specification of a missing data mechanism. This framework allows for an elucidating discussion of existing general multivariate theory bearing on maximum likelihood estimation with missing data. Here, missing completely at random is not a prerequisite for unbiased estimation in large samples, as when using the traditional listwise or pairwise present data approaches. The theory is connected with old and new results in the area of selection and factorial invariance. It is pointed out that in many applications, maximum likelihood estimation with missing data may be carried out by existing structural equation modeling software, such as LISREL and LISCOMP. Several sets of artifical data are generated within the general model framework. The proposed estimator is compared to the two traditional ones and found superior.The research of the first author was supported by grant No. SES-8312583 from the National Science Foundation and by a Spencer Foundation grant. We wish to thank Chuen-Rong Chan for drawing the path diagram.     

The influence of individual and family characteristics upon career aspirations of girls during childhood and adolescence

The term pioneer is used for girls aspiring to male-dominated careers. This longitudinal study assesses the career choices of 68 middle-class girls during childhood (8–13 years, Phase I) and again during adolescence (13–18 years, Phase II), and investigates the relation between pioneering career choice and personal and family characteristics. Subjects were originally selected for exposure vs nonexposure to exogenous hormones during pregnancy. In childhood, pioneers were somewhat older, were more often persistent tomboys, had higher IQs, and had parents with higher educational attainment. In adolescence, paternal education was the only variable that showed the same relation to career choice. Adolescent girls who had wanted to get married at the time of the childhood assessment were now less likely to choose pioneering careers. Adolescent pioneers also had higher educational aspirations than nonpioneers and less likely anticipated being married within ten years than nonpioneers. A number of statistically borderline relationships were also observed: pioneers had somewhat fewer older brothers than nonpioneers, less often came from homes in which traditional femininity was stressed, and more frequently had mothers who had worked outside the home throughout their daughters' school years than mothers of nonpioneers. Prenatal exposure to exogenous sex hormones was not related to career choice during either childhood or adolescence.     

Characteristics of residential retarded clients as predictors of staff expectations and frustrations

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of four client characteristics—functioning level, aggressive behavior, self-injurious behavior, and attractiveness—with staff expectations of and frustration with clients. Forty staff members who worked with severely and profoundly retarded individuals served as participants. Staff members rated each client with whom they worked on the extent to which the client could behave better and learn faster as well as the level of frustration experienced in working with the client. A client's functioning level was related to staff perceptions such that the higher the functioning level, the more the client was seen as having the potential to behave better or learn faster than (s)he was presently demonstrating. Staff frustration was related to client aggression indicating that as aggression increased so did staff frustration in working with that client. Implications of the results are discussed.     

Learning and motivation: Computer simulations of the Rescorla-Wagner,Solomon-Corbit,and Schull models

A suite of programs is described for simulating the Rescorla-Wagner (1972) model of associative learning, the Solomon and Corbit (1974) opponent-process theory, and Schull’s (1979) extension of the latter. The programs are written for the Commodore 64 computer.     

Recognizing people seen in events via dynamic "mug shots"

This study examined effects of an event and dynamic mug shots on facial recognition. Witnesses saw either a film of a liquor store holdup staged by six perpetrators, slides of the same targets, or freeze-framed views from the filmed event. Slides of different facial views of targets among 12 foils, or dynamic 180 degrees mug shots of the same men, or multiple static views were administered 24 hr later in yes-no recognition tests. Recognition (d') was poorer for the same men seen in the event than in slides, but better for dynamic than for static mug shots. Nondynamic event characteristics were responsible for poor recognition of people seen in events, whereas dynamic aspects of facial transformations, not multiple views, seemed responsible for the superiority of dynamic mug shots. The implications of these results for issues of ecological validity of traditional face recognition methodology and for static feature models vs. dynamic transformation models of face recognition are discussed.