The animacy advantage for free-recall performance is not attributable to greater mental arousal

People often demonstrate better memory for animate concepts (e.g., lion and sailor) than for inanimate concepts (e.g., hammer and mountain). Researchers have attributed this effect to an adaptive memory mechanism that favours information relevant for survival, including information about living things. In the present experiment, we examined the hypothesis that people demonstrate better free-recall performance for animate than inanimate words because animate words tend to be associated with greater mental arousal than inanimate words, a factor that was not controlled for in previous experiments on this topic. To this end, we matched animate and inanimate word lists on mental arousal (and several other factors), and compared participants’ free-recall performance for the two word types. We were able to replicate past findings that participants’ free-recall of animate words exceeds their free-recall of inanimate words, but we found no support for the possibility that the effect stems from differences in mental arousal between animate and inanimate concepts, as this effect maintained even when the word lists were matched on mental arousal. The present results therefore indicate that mental arousal cannot explain the effects of animacy on free-recall performance.     

MMPI--2 Code-Type Congruence of Injured Workers

In this study, the authors examined the stability of Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory--2 (J. N. Butcher, W. G. Dahlstrom, J. R. Graham, A. Tellegen, & B. Kaemmer, 1989) code types in a sample of 94 injured workers with a mean test-retest interval of 21.3 months (SD = 14.1). Congruence rates for undefined code types were 34% for high-point codes, 22% for 2-point codes, and 22% for 3-point codes. The data provide tentative evidence suggesting that defined code types are more stable than undefined code types. Cohen's kappa, a statistic that controls for chance agreement, was calculated for each clinical scale for both 2-point and 3-point code types. Only 2 of the 20 kappa coefficients were not significant at the p = .05 level.     

The ethic of “responsible drinking”

Age‐specific prohibition of drinking has made possible the study of the conditions under which agents of control enforce an unpopular rule. This study examined enforcement of drinking rules at a large urban university. Research in three freshman residence halls over 3 academic years revealed a situational ethic of “responsible drinking.” Residential assistants (RAs) initially enforced the rule against drinking in the residence halls strictly. Then, in time, RAs devised three personal styles of enforcement of the ethic of responsible drinking. They were either “by‐the‐book,” “laid‐back,” or “in‐between.” RAs were less apt to report freshman residents who did not come to their attention, who drank quietly behind closed doors. Periodically, RAs patrolled all floors in the building. RAs were more apt to write up residents of floors other than their own for violation of the no‐drinking rule. Thus, “patterned evasion” outside residence halls recurred inside. The extent to which RAs evaded the norms of their position varied with their interests in enforcement and the degree to which they were able to manage the “friend‐RA” role conflict.     

Journal of Counseling & Development (JCD) and Counseling's Interwoven Nature: Achieving a More Complete Understanding of the Present Through “Historization” (Musings of an Exiting Editor—An Editorial Postscript)

In this brief opinion piece, the author retraces the relationship of JCD and the history of counseling to isolate essential elements of counseling's unique approach. The author contends that to overlook the role of past events and past contributors deprives one of a more complete professional understanding of counseling, because each passing moment is largely a creation of those past events that possess a dynamic, systemic nature that has become actualized in present time.