The behavioural treatment of obsessional-compulsive disorders, with and without clomipramine

The effects of behavioural treatment alone, and in combination with clomipramine, were assessed on 40 patients with chronic obsessional-compulsive disorders, using a 2 × 2 factorial design. These effects were assessed by behavioural measures and mood measures.The behavioural treatment was followed by significant improvements on most behavioural measures. Clomipramine administration was followed by significant improvements on mood scales and some behavioural measures. There were no significant interactions between these two experimental conditions.     

Effects of Technology on Attributions of Performance and Employee Evaluation1

This study examines the effects of technological automation on explanations of why a person failed or succeeded at a task, and on evaluations of the user of technology. Subjects were presented with scenarios involving a photographer on an assignment. The scenarios manipulated 3 variables: (a) whether the camera was automatic or required skill, (b) experience level, and (c) whether the picture was a success or a failure. Subjects rated the picture's success or failure on attributions of ability and the technology. They also evaluated the photographer. Internal attribution was associated with technological devices requiring a greater amount of skill, while external attribution was associated with technological devices requiring less skill. When the picture was a success, ratings of internal attributions correlated positively with evaluations. When the picture was a failure, ratings of internal attributions correlated negatively with evaluations.     

Disruption and reconstruction: narrative insights into the experience of family members caring for a relative diagnosed with serious mental illness.

The findings of a study investigating carers' accounts about serious mental illness occurring in their family are presented. The narrative form is a primary means of ordering, structuring, and communicating illness experiences, reflecting some of the processes that carers intend to master and understand. Psychotic episodes entail a frightening disruption that forces carers to face fundamental existential, moral, and psychological issues because they call into question the continuity of lives and life-projects. This study has explored how carers articulate the consequences of a devastating experience and turn it into a meaningful event that can in some way be incorporated into the course of their life. Two types of narrative structure were identified. In stories of restitution or reparation, the experience of the event is transformed into phenomena having meaning, occupying a place in carers' lives. In chaotic and frozen narratives, the illness remains a series of random events. The effects on coping of these two narrative types were explored, as well as gender-related themes and beliefs about mastery and control. Therapeutic implications are discussed and also possible connections to other research constructs (for example, Expressed Emotion). It is argued that the concept of illness must be approached from a systemic, multidetermined perspective that includes our narrative constructions.     

Dos-based exercises that demonstrate classic studies in human memory

Ten exercises are described that demonstrate some classic experiments in human memory and cognition. The studies, prepared in MEL Professional V1.0, have been incorporated in an undergraduate class taught by the author for a number of years. Survey data from students completing the course indicate that the exercises promote understanding of class material. Availability of the programs is described.     

Technology in Everyday Life and Perceptions of Competence1

Studies of technology in the workplace generally report that the use of de-skilling technology results in dissatisfied and alienated employees. To determine whether this relation existed in nonworkplace settings, a series of surveys were conducted to assess the relation between the kind of technologies people use and feelings of competence. In three separate surveys of cooking, photography, and driving cars, a positive relation was found between the skill requirements of the technology that people use and their assessment of their ability and level of enjoyment in these activities.     

Letter to the editor

Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science -     

Schelling on freedom,evil and imputation: A puzzle

This paper is focused on F. W. J. Schelling's view of freedom during the period of the Freiheitsschrift (1809) and related works. It is argued that the standard way this has been understood may be too simplistic. On this standard interpretation of his view, evil is made a matter of free choice by the agent, but where the choice does not concern individual actions, but the choice of the agent's essence in an atemporal act. As a result of this choice, it is argued, Schelling can then make evil imputable. By contrast, I argue that for Schelling freedom does not involve choice, but necessity, but in a way that is still internal to the agent and hence non-coercive, and thus in a way that remains free and makes evil imputable. How Schelling comes to have this view is considered, and some responses are given to ways it might be challenged both interpretatively and philosophically.     

Brief Behavioral Knowledge Questionnaire: Measuring Change in Caregiver's Knowledge Following Participation in a Brief Behavioral Training

Behavioral caregiver training programs are extensively used interventions, based on empirical research and applied concepts of behavior. As these interventions become more widespread in use across settings for various populations, the availability of efficient methods to evaluate program effectiveness is crucial. Currently, there is a lack of widely used and psychometrically sound measurement tools to assess change in caregivers' knowledge of behavioral principles following participation in such training. In the current study, we assessed change in caregivers' knowledge of behavioral principles following participation in a caregiver training based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis. Twenty caregivers participated in the evaluation, which included pre‐ and post‐Brief Behavioral Knowledge Questionnaire (BBKQ) completed before and after participation in a brief behavioral training (BBT). The measurement was found to have good internal consistency. Results also show that following participation in the BBT, caregivers' initial knowledge of behavioral principles increased significantly. The results suggest that the BBKQ may be a useful tool in detecting changes in caregiver's knowledge of behavior principles following BBT. Limitation and future directions are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Causal concepts and temporal ordering

Though common sense says that causes must temporally precede their effects, the hugely influential interventionist account of causation makes no reference to temporal precedence. Does common sense lead us astray? In this paper, I evaluate the power of the commonsense assumption from within the interventionist approach to causal modeling. I first argue that if causes temporally precede their effects, then one need not consider the outcomes of interventions in order to infer causal relevance, and that one can instead use temporal and probabilistic information to infer exactly when X is causally relevant to Y in each of the senses captured by Woodward’s interventionist treatment. Then, I consider the upshot of these findings for causal decision theory, and argue that the commonsense assumption is especially powerful when an agent seeks to determine whether so-called “dominance reasoning” is applicable.