Measurement of sexual arousal in several paraphilias: The effects of stimulus modality,instructional set and stimulus content on the objective

The effects of instructional set (become aroused or suppress arousal), stimulus modality (videotape, audiotape, slides, free fantasy) and stimulus content (paraphilic or non-paraphilic) on sexual arousal, as measured by penile plethysmograph, of six different groups of paraphilics, pedophiles, rapists, exhibitionists, homosexuals, sado-masochists and fetishists, were determined. The results showed significant main effects of instructional set and of stimulus modality (videotape was clearly more arousing) as well as several complex interactions of diagnostic group with the other independent variables.     

Interactive effects of generalized and situational expectancies on the arousal of cognitive and emotional components of social anxiety

This study examined the arousal of social anxiety in an interview setting as a function of anticipated self-disclosure. Of 88 college students who completed the Social Avoidance and Distress (SAD) scale and other measures of social anxiety, self-disclosure, need to affiliate, and interpersonal trust, 24 volunteered for the interview. During the interview, both components of anxiety (worry and emotionality) were affected by expectancy conditions, and emotionality was higher for high- than for low-SAD subjects. The prediction of an interaction between SAD level and expectancy condition on worry was confirmed: only high-SAD subjects exposed to the negative-expectancy condition experienced significant elevations in worry. Though social anxiety and self-disclosure measures correlated negatively, anxiety did not affect self-disclosure during the interview.     

Retention of verbal information by rehearsal in relation to the fluency of verbal output in aphasia

The purpose of the present study was to determine if aphasic subject groups differentiated by the fluency of their verbal output employed rehearsal as a strategy for maintaining verbally coded information in primary memory. A task based upon the Brown-Peterson paradigm was administered to 10 fluent aphasic patients, 10 nonfluent aphasic patients, 10 right-brain-damaged patients, and 10 nonneurological patients. The findings indicate that the nonfluent aphasic patients did not rehearse the verbal information while the fluent aphasic, right-brain-damaged, and nonneurological patients did rehearse. In addition, both fluent and nonfluent aphasic patients encoded significantly less information into the memory system initially and performed worse on the task overall than right-brain-damaged and nonneurological patients.     

The inferiority game: Perceptions and behavior

Other-sex perceptions and actual reported behavior of 318 college males and 287 college females were compared for four dating situations. The average degree of inaccuracy (disregarding direction) for males was 29.0%, while for women it was 12.5%. Conclusions support other research indicating superior role-taking ability on the part of females. The issues of cultural transmission and pluralistic ignorance are discussed as they affect male and female interaction. Important research implications for human relations and the family in particular are noted.     

Comparative psychology returns: A review of Hulse, Fowler, and Honig's Cognitive Processes in Animal Behavior

Especially remarkable seems the rarity of efforts to trace the evolution of the human intellect from that of the lower animals. Since Darwin's discovery, the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea have been examined with infinite pains by hundreds of workers in the effort to trace our physical genealogy, and with consummate success; yet few and far between have been the efforts to find the origins of intellect and trace its progress up to human faculty. And none of them has achieved any sure success. (Thorndike, 1911, p. 282)     

Tests for stability in linear structural equation systems

Interpretations regarding the effects of exogenous and endogenous variables on endogenous variables in linear structural equation systems depend upon the convergence of a matrix power series. Convergence depends upon the eigenvalues of the structural coefficient matrix. The test for convergence developed by Jöreskog and Sörbom is shown to be only sufficient, not necessary and sufficient.     

Task-specific strategies of mental “rotation” of facial representations

The effects of task demands on the visual comparison of facial patterns and of comparable nonfacial patterns were explored in two studies. The studies yielded two primary findings. First, faces, despite their holistic properties, are not rotated faster than comparable non-face-like patterns, although subjects’ judgments of them were uniformly more rapid than judgments for nonfaces. Second, the nature of the same-different judgment task required of subjects had a large effect on the pattern of results obtained: When stimuli were compared to their mirror images, results indicative of mental “rotation” were obtained. When stimuli were compared on the basis of similarity of individual features, the pattern of results was very different. This one manipulation produced effects that exceeded those of all of the other manipulations, including that of rotation.     

A Social Learning Approach to Increasing Blood Donations1

A field experiment conducted in high schools throughout the country was aimed at increasing the number of high school students who donate blood. Special interventions that emphasized psychological or educational approaches to heightening motivation to donate, as well as a combined intervention, were compared with the usual approach taken at blood drives. Psychological interventions in which social learning principles (modeling, perceptions of social norms) played important roles either alone or in combination with an educational (informational) approach were more successful in stimulating blood donations than either an educational approach alone or the approaches traditionally followed by the participating local blood centers. The results demonstrated that use of social learning principles in designing interventions to strengthen socially relevant altruistic behavior could be valuable both practically and theoretically.