Task analysis,correspondence training,and general case instruction for teaching personal hygiene skills

The effect of a 10‐step task analysis, general case instruction, and correspondence training was evaluated for teaching appropriate personal hygiene following bowel movements. Correspondence training maintained a central role in this study. According to Israel (1978), the relationship between an individual's verbal and nonverbal behaviors is influential in self‐instruction training. Essentially, correspondence training encourages an individual to generate his or her own instructional cues; in consequence, the procedure can be instrumental in ensuring the maintenance and generalization of important verbal and nonverbal behavior. Three adults with developmental disabilities participated in this study. The dependent variables included the level of assistance required on each step of the task analysis and an end of sequence rating on a three‐point Likert‐type cleanliness scale. Results showed that all three participants learned to care for themselves appropriately following bowel movements. Moreover, the skills generalized to other settings and were maintained over a nine‐month period. The target skill was evaluated against the five criteria for a behavioral cusp and met the criteria for ‘an important behavior change’ (Bosch & Fuqua, 2001, p. 123). Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of practice on variability, effects of variability on transfer

Five experiments examined how practice early in skill acquisition affected variability and accuracy during skill retention (Experiments 1-5) and skill transfer (Experiments 3, 4, 5). Lag constraints required that each path from apex to base of a computer-generated pyramid display differ from some number (the lag) of immediately prior paths. Location constraints specified end points at which paths must exit the pyramid. In all experiments, an early optimal period for acquiring a variability level was identified. Both low and high levels of variability were sustained during retention; high levels facilitated transfer. The results suggest that (a) early practice that requires high variability sensitizes learners to changes in condition and (b) such perception-performance links facilitate transfer by activating appropriate alternative strategies/schema or initiating their construction.     

Kierkegaardian vision and the concrete other

The ethics expressed in Kierkegaard’s Works of Love has been subject to persistent criticism for its perceived indifference to concrete persons and failure to attend to the other in their individual specificity. Recent defenses of Works of Love have focused in large part on the role of vision in the text, showing the supposed “blind” empty formalism of the emphasis on the category of “the neighbor” to serve a normative model of seeing the other correctly. However, when this problem is viewed in the broader context of Kierkegaard’s phenomenology of moral vision, two further, thus far unanswered, problems emerge: How can we see the other and the moral demand they represent at the same time, and how can we see the other and our own condition at the same time? This paper draws on other Kierkegaardian texts to show how Kierkegaard’s model of moral vision allows for the simultaneity in vision necessary to overcome these challenges.     

Van Inwagen and the Quine-Putnam indispensability argument

In this paper I do two things: (1) I support the claim that there is still some confusion about just what the Quine-Putnam indispensability argument is and the way it employs Quinean meta-ontology and (2) I try to dispel some of this confusion by presenting the argument in a way which reveals its important meta-ontological features, and include these features explicitly as premises. As a means to these ends, I compare Peter van Inwagen’s argument for the existence of properties with Putnam’s presentation of the indispensability argument. Van Inwagen’s argument is a classic exercise in Quinean meta-ontology and yet he claims – despite his argument’s conspicuous similarities to the Quine-Putnam argument – that his own has a substantially different form. I argue, however, that there is no such difference between these two arguments even at a very high level of specificity; I show that there is a detailed generic indispensability argument that captures the single form of both. The arguments are identical in every way except for the kind of objects they argue for – an irrelevant difference for my purposes. Furthermore, Putnam’s and van Inwagen’s presentations make an assumption that is often mistakenly taken to be an important feature of the Quine-Putnam argument. Yet this assumption is only the implicit backdrop against which the argument is typically presented. This last point is brought into sharper relief by the fact that van Inwagen’s list of the four nominalistic responses to his argument is too short. His list is missing an important – and historically popular – fifth option.

The Influence of Cancer-related Distress and Sense of Coherence on Anxiety and Depression in Patients with Hereditary Cancer

This study examines the association between Sense of Coherence and anxiety and depression amongst patients at risk of hereditary cancer receiving genetic counseling. When writing this article, 144 patients referred for genetic counseling due to a suspicion of hereditary cancer in the family were recruited for this multicentered longitudinal study on the psychosocial aspects of genetic counseling in Norway. A total of 96 (66%) patients responded to the follow-up survey distributed 6 months after genetic counseling. This survey included the Sense of Coherence-29 Scale, Impact of Event Scale, and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Multiple regression analyses were applied. Our results show association between cancer-related distress and symptoms of anxiety and depression. Sense of Coherence is significantly associated with both anxiety and depression. The hypothesis of Sense of Coherence buffering cancer-related distress and the possible impact of these findings for genetic counseling are discussed.     

Subjective Wellbeing as an Affective-Cognitive Construct

The affective content of Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) was investigated in two separate studies. Study 1 involved a representative sample of 478 participants from across Australia aged between 18 and 72 years. This study tested the circumplex model of affect and then determined the minimum set of affects that explain variance in SWB. The model was supported, with most affects congregated around the valence axis. Overall, 64% of the variance in SWB was explained by six Core Affects, indicating that SWB is a highly affective construct. Study 2 tested the relative strength of Core Affect (content, happy and excited), in three separate models of SWB incorporating cognition (seven discrepancies) and all five factors of personality. Using a sample of 854 participants aged been 18–86 years, structural equation modeling was used to compare an affective-cognitive driven model of SWB, with a personality driven model of SWB and a discrepancy driven model of SWB. The results provide support for an affective-cognitive model which explained 90 percent of the variance in SWB. All models confirm that the relationship between SWB, Core Affect and Discrepancies is far stronger than the relationship between personality and SWB. It is proposed that Core Affect and Discrepancies comprise the essence of SWB. Moreover, Core Affect is the driving force behind individual set-point levels in SWB homeostasis.     

Attitudinal differences between full-time homemakers and women who work outside the home

Data from a national probability sample were used to examine differences in attitudinal variables and self-concept between full-time homemakers (N=485) and women employed outside of the home (N=354). The homemakers held more conservative values and a more traditional view of women's roles, reported experiencing a more supportive family life, expressed lower self-esteem, and were less dissatisfied than women who work outside the home. Women who are employed outside the home rated themselves as more aggressive, ambitious, and intelligent than did homemakers. The discussion focuses on the surprising finding that the women who work outside the home were more dissatisfied than homemakers. Crosby's (Relative Deprivation and Working Women, New York: Oxford University Press, 1982) model of relative deprivation, which emphasizes wanting and deserving as preconditions of felt deprivation, helps explain the dissatisfaction among women employed outside the home.We thank the research department of Leo Burnett Company, especially Melody Douglas-Tate, vice-president and group research director, for making this project possible. Thanks also to an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments and suggestions.     

An examination of the relation of individual difference variables to loneliness

This study investigated the relation of five individual difference variables (extroversion, depression, self-esteem, neuroticism, and attitude toward others) to loneliness. The relative contributions of two different models that might explain these relations were examined. One model suggests that individual difference variables are related to loneliness through the mediation of social network variables; that is, individual difference variables may reduce people's motivation and/or ability to build and maintain social relationships, which in turn leads to loneliness. The second model, the cognitive bias model, states that both the individual difference variables and loneliness are influenced by the same intrapersonal, cognitive processes. Some people are prone to negative affect and tend to evaluate themselves and their relationships negatively. The relations of self-esteem, neuroticism, and depression to loneliness were hypothesized to reflect the cognitive bias model, while extroversion and attitudes toward others were hypothesized to be related to loneliness through the mediation of social network variables. Eighty-two female and 42 male adults completed measures of loneliness and the five individual difference variables, as well as an instrument assessing their social networks. The results indicated partial support for both models for each of the individual difference variables. Together, the two models did a good job of explaining the correlations of the individual difference variables and loneliness. The implications of these findings, as well as their relation to previous research, are discussed.