STRESS, SOCIAL SUPPORT, AND HEALTH IN MARRIED PROFESSIONAL WOMEN WITH SMALL CHILDREN

Two hundred married professional women with small children were surveyed to investigate what types of occupational and role-conflict stresses are associated with physical and depressive symptoms, and whether social support could protect individuals from the negative health effects of stress. Six stress indices predicted physical and depressive symptoms, both Concurrently and 1 year later. These stresses reflected perceptions of lack of authority and influence on the job, sex discrimination, a heavy work load, work imposing on relaxation, family imposing on relaxation, and overall suffering from role conflict. Social support yielded no stress-buffering effects.     

Spatial and fixation conditions affecting the temporal course of changes in perceived relative distance

The results of two experiments are reported in which the change over time in the perceived depth location of a monocular, luminous test object with respect to two binocular luminous stimuli located at different distances was measured. It was found that: 1) The test object receded perceptually in depth over time achieving a stable location in space after 4 min of viewing. 2) The initial perceived location in depth of the test object depended upon which of the two binocular objects was fixated. When the farther binocular object was fixated the test object appeared further away than when the nearer one was fixated. 3) The size of the further binocular object also affected the initial perceived location of the test object. When it was larger, the test object appeared further away than when it was smaller. 4) There was an interaction between the binocular object fixated upon and the lateral separation between it and the test object: the smaller the separation, the greater the fixation effect.These results were accounted for in terms of the equidistance tendency, the depth adjacency principle, and a possible attentional factor. Taken together the results indicate that while reduced viewing conditions reduce the available stimulus information, they do not reduce the organizational options of the visual system.     

Some conditions for the dissociation of consummatory and instrumental behavior in rats

To investigate whether consummatory and instrumental behavior depend upon different motivational factors, rats were trained to press a bar for saccharin solution, then given various treatments designed to reduce the palatability of saccharin, and finally tested for bar-pressing in extinction and for free intake of saccharin. Prefeeding with dextrose, prefeeding with saccharin, and association of saccharin with injections of lithium chloride all reduced intake of saccharin compared to control treatments, but only prefeeding with dextrose also reduced barpressing in extinction. Thus, performance of an instrumental response may depend upon need for food rather than appetite for it.     

Time reproductions by H.M

Time reproductions by a subject with a severe memory loss were normal only for intervals less than 20 sec. For longer intervals, the reproduced intervals were roughly proportional to the square root of the standard intervals, plus 20 sec.     

A multidimensional scaling analysis of judged similarity of complex forms from two task situations

Ss provided judgments of pairwise stimulus similarities for 21 12-turn random forms in two experimental tasks: a scaling task, involving a variant of the method of graded dichotomies, and a sorting task, which simply required Ss to categorize the forms. The grouped data from both tasks, when analyzed using nonmetric multidimensional scaling techniques, yielded five-dimensional configurations with euclidean distances. The correspondence of these two spaces, assessed using canonical correlations, was extremely good. The psychological dimensions derived from both tasks were related to two sets of physical measures on the forms: the factor space suggested by Brown and Owen and a set of more basic physical measures. Physical cues of greatest importance involved size, dispersion, angularity, and rotation measures. The value of the tasks and the utility of the Brown and Owen measures were discussed.     

Reinforcement delay: some effects on behavioral contrast

Thirty five White Carneaux pigeons first received 20 sessions of non-delayed reinforcement according to a multiple variable-interval 1-min variable-interval 1-min schedule. For the remaining 15 sessions, subjects were assigned to one of five groups, with seven subjects per group. Four of these groups involved reinforcement according to the same multiple schedule as before, but reinforcement during one of the components was delayed for either 2.5, 5, 10, or 120 sec. The schedule for the fifth group was changed to multiple variable-interval 1-min extinction schedule of reinforcement. While some subjects in all groups showed behavioral contrast, it occurred more consistently in the groups involving extinction or the longer delays of reinforcement. Groups involving the various durations of delayed reinforcement or even extinction during the altered component did not, however, show a statistically significant difference in the amount of behavioral contrast. It was suggested that neither a reduction in reinforcement frequency nor response rate during the altered component is necessary to the production of behavioral contrast.     

Aversive aspects of a fixed-interval schedule of food reinforcement

The key pecking of pigeons was reinforced according to a fixed-interval schedule of reinforcement. The pigeons were also given the opportunity to attack a restrained target pigeon. The attack rates during the sessions of fixed-interval reinforcement were higher than during the operant level sessions in four of the five pigeons. Most attack occurred during the post-reinforcement pause in key pecking. It was suggested that a fixed-interval schedule of positive reinforcement possesses aversive properties, the most aversive of which are located during the post-reinforcement pause.     

A longitudinal study in a national sample of young farmers in the United States

This study is based on Project TALENT data collected in the last year of high school and five years beyond high school. Young men were classified as persisters in, dropouts from, and recruits to farming as a career. Those groups were compared with each other and with students in general. The most outstanding characteristic of young farmers in the United States is their relatively extensive background in agriculture, including father's occupation, high school curriculum, extracurricular activities in high school, work experience, and college major. Five years after high school, young fanners are more likely than students in general to have embarked on their life work and to have established their family. Differences in college attendance are consistent with this pattern. Despite incomes that are often relatively low, young farmers are not more dissatisfied with their work. The characteristics tapped by psychological tests appear to have few strong relationships to choice, satisfaction, and success in farming as a career.