A family/systems approach to illness-maintaining behaviors in chronically ill adolescents

A distressingly significant number of chronic, seriously ill adolescents demonstrate poor medical management of their illnesses through "illness-maintaining behaviors." These behaviors are defined in this article as any action that compromises chronically ill adolescents' care and prevents them from functioning optimally. Current conceptualizations of illness-maintaining behaviors offer explanations that view these behaviors as individually focused, using either psychodynamic or behavioral models. This article, however, presents a family systems model of illness-maintaining behaviors. A therapeutic framework leading to specific intervention strategies is also developed.     

Life history correlates of ministerial success

Life history or biodata correlates of ministerial success were investigated for a group of 92 Seventh-Day Adventist ministers. The criterion data reflected their current level of success and the predictors reflected their status as seminarians between the years 1940 to 1950. Two significant bivariate correlations indicated that successful ministers chose their career later than less successful ones and that earning college expenses was predictive of success. A stepwise multiple regression process was used to develop a weighted prediction model, but the model did not hold when cross-validated.     

Recall memory for visually presented chess positions

A series of three experiments replicated and extended earlier research reported by Chase and Simon (1973), de Groot (1965), and Charness (Note 1). The first experiment demonstrated that the relationship between memory for chess positions and chess skill varies directly with the amount of chess-specific information in the stimulus display. The second experiment employed tachistoscopic displays to incrementally "build" tournament chess positions by meaningful or nonmeaningful chunks and demonstrated that meaningful piece groupings during presentation markedly enhance subsequent recall performance. The third experiment tested memory for one of two positions presented in immediate sequence and demonstrated that explanations based on a limited-capacity short-term memory (Chase & Simon, 1973) are not adequate for explaining performance on this memory task.     

Unconditional stimulus characteristics in rabbit eyelid conditioning.

Three experiments employed aversive or positive subcortical electrical stimulation in an unconditional stimulus (US) role in rabbit eyelid conditioning. Conditional response (CR) development to a tonal conditional stimulus (CS) was examined when the intracranial stimulation was combined with a conventional cheek-shock US (Experiment 1) or with a lightflash US (Experiment 2). Our findings were consistent with previus observations that the affective impact of the US is important in the development of an overt motor CR. The complex pattern of our results, however, implies that intracranial stimulation has multiple effects on conditioning and argues against any unidimensional interpretation of these outcomes. Our analysis of CR-contingent intracranial stimulation presentation in Experiment 3 indicated that such stimulation does not act as a Thorndikian reward or punishment in rabbit eyelid conditioning.     

Conditioned suppression in the gerbil

The present report describes apparatus and procedures for investigating conditioned suppression of a running response in the gerbil. Data are presented which demonstrate that the conditioned suppression observed in this situation is not an artifact of alpha responses, pseudoconditioning, or sensitization. An analysis of differential conditioning indicated that cue similarity and US intensity are negatively related to cue-specific differential responding.     

On counteradaptation

Often adaptation to artificially altered stimulation takes place because veridical stimulation that produces the same perceptual property that is produced by the altered stimulation is also received. In these cases, an assimilation of the two perceptual processes produced by the two different stimulations (the altered and the veridical) is supposed to be responsible for the adaptation that is achieved. This hypothesis, which was formulated by Wallach and Karsh (1963), would be confirmed by demonstrating a modification of the perceptual process produced by veridical stimulation rather than the one produced by the altered stimulation. We demonstrated this by having S observe in the dark for 20 min a luminous figure that objectively expanded as it moved toward S and contracted as it moved away. But instead of testing for changes in size perception as such, we tested for a change in the relation between accommodation and convergence on the one hand and registered distance on the other. In one experiment, such a change was measured by obtaining estimates of perceived size and depth before and after the adaptation period. Highly significant changes of size and significantly greater changes of stereoscopic depth were obtained. Inasmuch as stereoscopic vision was totally absent from the adaptation conditions, the change in stereoscopic depth that was larger than the size change can only be ascribed to a change in registered distance. In another experiment, we tested for a change in distance by having S point from the side to a vertical line, before and again after the adaptation period, under conditions where only accommodation and convergence could serve as distance cues. Significant changes in the pointing distance were measured, indicating more directly a change in the relation between these oculomotor adjustments and perceived distance. We propose the term counteradaptation for such modification of a perceptual process away from veridicality.     

Life History Correlates Of a Career Commitment To School Counseling

This study sought to explore the use of the scored life history as a predictive index of a career commitment to school counseling. Hypotheses concerning the relationship between life history data and a career commitment to teaching and administration were also investigated. Multiple regression analysis was used to obtain validity coefficients estimating the relationship between weighted linear combinations of life history data and the career commitment criteria. The regression weights obtained for the most promising biographical predictors were used to predict current occupational titles for a cross-validation sample. Statistical analysis of the data indicated that selected and empirically weighted life history materials are valid indices of counselor career commitment. For practical purposes, life history data for teaching and administration demonstrated a lack of consistent predictive power. The content of the most promising predictors for the three occupational groups was logically examined.     

What children say when the teacher is not around: conflicting goals in social comparison and performance assessment in the classroom

Naturalistic observations and interviews with children in kindergarten, first, second, and fourth grades were used to examine developmental shifts in the focus of social comparison and the expression of comparative and evaluative interests in relation to possibly conflicting goals. First, observers coded the content of peer exchanges and direction of visual gaze during class work times. Children were then interviewed about help seeking and reading performance in the classroom. Classroom observations revealed that comparisons related to personal aspects of peers declined with age, whereas evaluative comments and comparisons related to performance assessment increased sharply in first grade. In the higher grades, blatantly evaluative and comparative statements decreased, whereas more subtle and functional performance-related exchanges continued to increase. Interviews showed that differences in classroom behaviors were associated with knowledge of classroom performance hierarchies, the salience of general ability, and self-evaluation. The data patterns are interpreted in terms of two converging processes: self-socialization and goal conflict. Implications for social comparison theory are also discussed.