Anxiety and the spelling and use in sentences of threat/neutral homophones

The disambiguation of threat/neutral homophones was investigated in high- and low-trait anxiety subjects who had been exposed to either a positive or a negative mood manipulation procedure. Subjects were required first to spell each auditorily presented word and second, to generate and speak a sentence using the word. Difference indices were calculated for the spelling and the sentence usage data, i.e. the number of threat minus neutral interpretations. Examination of these indices revealed that subjects exposed to the negative mood manipulation procedure produced relatively more threat than neutral interpretations (for both spelling and sentence usage) than did subjects exposed to the positive mood manipulation procedure. Multiple regression analyses revealed that both the trait anxiety and mood manipulation variables contributed significantly to the prediction of the difference index on the spelling task. In the analysis of the use of homophones in sentences, only the mood manipulation variable contributed significantly to the prediction of the difference index on the sentence usage task.     

Family psychopathology: Cross training graduate marital and family therapy students in family assessment and psychiatric nosology

The structure of a course entitled Family Therapy with Major Psychopathology taught annually in the Mercer University Graduate Marriage and Family Therapy Program is presented. An epistemological presentation regarding the interface of psychiatric nosology and family systems assessment is discussed. Methods of diagnosing and assessing dysfunctional family systems are presented and training in individual psychiatric nosology is discussed, with particular attention given to family systems dysfunction as an etiological factor in the development of individual psychopathology. Learning techniques are discussed including lecture, discussion, case presentations, readings, and testing methods.     

INCREASING CALORIE CONSUMPTION IN CHILDREN WITH CYSTIC FIBROSIS: REPLICATION WITH 2-YEAR FOLLOW-UP

Three mildly malnourished children with cystic fibrosis and their parents participated in a behavioral group-treatment program that focused on promoting and maintaining increased calorie consumption. Treatment included nutritional education, gradually increasing calorie goals, contingency management, and relaxation training, and was evaluated in a multiple baseline design across four meals. Children's calorie intake increased across meals, and total calorie intake was 32% to 60% above baseline at posttreatment. Increased calorie consumption was maintained at the 96-week follow-up (2 years posttreatment). The children's growth rates in weight and height were greater during the 2 years following treatment than the year prior to treatment. Increases in pace of eating and calories consumed per minute were also observed 1 year posttreatment. These findings replicated and extended earlier research supporting the efficacy of behavioral intervention in the treatment of malnutrition in children with cystic fibrosis.     

Orientation-invariant transfer of training in the identification of rotated natural objects

The effects of stimulus orientation on naming were examined in two experiments in which subjects identified line drawings of natural objects following practice with the objects at the same or different orientations. Half the rotated objects were viewed in the orientation that matched the earlier presentations, and half were viewed at an orientation that mismatched the earlier presentations. Systematic effects of orientation on naming time were found during the early presentations. These effects were reduced during later presentations, and the size of this reduction did not depend on the orientation in which the object had been seen originally. The results are consistent with a dual-systems model of object identification in which initially large effects of disorientation are the result of a normalization process such as mental rotation, and in which attenuation of the effects is due to a shift from the normalization system to a feature/part-based     

The role of observer attitudes in judgments of blame in cases of wife assault

This study examines the importance of observer characteristics in determining blame in cases of wife assault. Four independent variables (observer's attitudes toward sex roles, observer sex and age, and victim behavior) were assessed for their influence on the blaming judgments of 128 participants. Subjects completed a questionnaire that contained demographic items and six wife assault vignettes that varied in level of victim provocation (low or high). Questions about blame of the husband and wife followed each vignette. An attitudes toward women scale (AWS-B) was then administered. The main hypothesis, that subjects with traditional attitudes would blame the victim more and the perpetrator less for the assault than their egalitarian counterparts, was supported, as was the prediction of an interaction between provocation and AWS-B. The results are discussed in light of the role of observer attitudes in attribution models.     

Minority influence and social categorization

In this article, a theoretical distinction is proposed between representative outgroup minorities (representative of a minority category in the society, e.g. gays) and dissident outgroup minorities (defined as a minority subgroup within a larger outgroup category). Two studies are reported comparing the social influence of dissident outgroup minorities with that of ingroup minorities (belonging to the subject's own social category). It was predicted that a position advocated by a dissident outgroup minority would be more readily accepted than that of an ingroup minority, but that the ingroup minority would be more likely to elicit the generation of new, alternative solutions. A first experiment in which subjects were either exposed to an ingroup minority, an outgroup minority, or no influence source confirmed these predictions. In a second experiment, subjects were either exposed to a majority or to a minority source either belonging to the subject's own social category or to the outgroup. The results indicate that the position of an ingroup majority was readily accepted whereas the otherwise identical message of an outgroup majority was rejected; neither ingroup nor outgroup majority stimulated the development of alternative proposals. Again, in line with Nemeth' (1986a) theory, the position of an ingroup minority was rejected but stimulated the generation of new, alternative proposals. The differential role of social category membership in minority and majority influence and the applicability of Nemeth' (1986a) theory to the attitude change area are discussed.     

Acquisition of spatial knowledge under conditions of temporospatial discontinuity in young and elderly adults

Summary Young and elderly adults acquired route information from a sequence of slides depicting a walk through an actual environment. The accuracy of their distance knowledge after viewing the slides was compared for a normal presentation and a presentation with temporospatial discontinuity. No differences between age groups were noted under normal presentation conditions, but young adults were more accurate under conditions of temporospatial discontinuity. Results were interpreted in terms of an age-related decrement in the operational capacity of working memory. They were also viewed as supportive of a constructivist-representational theory of spatial learning.This research was conducted while the senior author served as Principal Investigator for National Institute on Aging Grant No. 1 ROI AG05169, Aging and Spatial Cognition, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA     

Group Wrongs and Guilt Feelings

Can it ever be appropriate to feel guilt just because one's group has acted badly? Some say no, citing supposed features of guilt feelings as such. If one understands group action according to my plural subject account of groups, however, one can argue for the appropriateness of feeling guilt just because one's group has acted badly - a feeling that often occurs. In so arguing I sketch the plural subject account of groups, group intentions and group actions: for a group to intend (in the relevant sense) is for its members to be jointly committed to intend that such-and-such as a body. Individual group members need not be directly involved in the formation of the intention in order to participate in such a joint commitment. The core concept of joint commitment is in an important way holistic, not being reducible to a set of personal commitments over which each party holds sway. Parties to a group intention so understood can reasonably see the resulting action as "ours" as opposed to "theirs" and thus appropriately respond to the action's badness with a feeling of guilt, even when they themselves are morally innocent in the matter. I label the feeling in question a feeling of "membership guilt." A number of standard philosophical claims about the nature of guilt feelings are thrown into question by my argument.