An Interactional Approach for Pharmacopsychologists and Psychologists: Gender Concerns

A knowledge base of culturally sensitive psychotropic pharmacotherapy is encouraged to help patients receive accurate diagnoses and beneficial treatment. Research is best informed if the complexity of individuals is directly addressed beyond main effects in research designs. The interactions of age, sex/gender, race/ethnicity, and cultural practices, as well as medication effects, need to be studied. Reporting data with distinctive characteristics exhibited by different ethnic-gender subgroups provides rich information with which psychologists can treat patients more effectively as well as ethically. Conceptual models of prescribing need to include perspectives of the whole person. An interactional model is one model that would address physiological, psychological, and sociocultural dimensions.     

Attitudes of adolescents toward adolescent psychiatric treatment

Perceptions held by adolescents about the value and social stigma of both psychiatric hospitalization and outpatient therapy for adolescents are examined. Perceptions about preferred forms of treatment for specific adolescent problems are also analyzed. The results indicate that attitudes are significantly influenced by proximity to treatment setting, i.e., adolescents currently being treated are more positive than adolescents who have been previously or never treated. Contextual and attributional explanations are considered.     

The Don D. Jackson Memorial Conference

On the 29th of January, 1968 Don De Avila Jackson died at the age of 48. His death was both expected and unexpected. For some time rumors of his ill health had been circulating among concerned colleagues; his incredible vitality and enduring youthfulness made the rumors seem incredible. One year after his death a Memorial Conference honoring him was held at the Conference Center in Asilomar, California. The Conference was sponsored by the Mental Research Institute and organized by Jay Haley, then the Editor of FAMILY PROCESS, with the collaboration of the MRI staff. It was attended by the Advisory Editors of this Journal, co-founded in 1961 by Jackson and Nathan W. Ackerman. The Conference lasted four days; there were only two prepared addresses which are printed here. Ackerman's Eulogy and Review opened the meeting; Bell's Prospectus closed it.     

Allocentric versus idiocentric tendencies: Convergent and discriminant validation

Allocentric tendencies were studied with a multimethod questionnaire and Illinois undergraduates. Nine scales measuring different aspects of allocentrism were shown to have good reliability and to be intercorrelated, thus showing convergent validity. Factor analysis identified three aspects: subordination of personal to group goals, the ingroup as extension of the self, and ingroup identity. The scales also had satisfactory discriminant validity. Those high on idiocentric tendencies used equity and those high in allocentric tendencies used equality and need in distributing rewards. A second study found that those who are allocentric are more likely to emphasize the values of cooperation, equality, and honesty, and those who are idiocentric to emphasize the values of comfortable life, competition, pleasure, and social recognition. Those who were allocentric reported receiving more social support and a better quality of social support; those who were idiocentric were higher in achievement motivation, alienation, anomie, and reported greater loneliness.     

Form and function in children's understanding of ironic utterances

Children's use of contextual discrepancy and stressed intonation to interpret literal form and illocutionary function in the use of ironic utterances was examined in two experiments. First and third grade children (6 and 8 years of age, respectively) and college adults were read short stories consisting of an utterance by a speaker and contextual information that was either neutral or that biased an ironic or literal interpretation of the utterance. The intonation of the utterance was either stressed or unstressed. Questions were asked about the literal form of the utterance, and the speaker's attitude in using the utterance. The results suggest that evaluation of the literal form and inference to the speaker's intended use of an utterance are independent components of irony comprehension in children: that contextual discrepancy and intonation function differently in cueing these processes; and that children and adults differ both in accomplishing these processes and in the use of these cues.     

Retrieval variability: The inefficient use of retrieval cues by young children

The hypothesis of this study is that the inefficient use of retrieval cues by young children is due to retrieval variability: the variable encoding of semantic information in cue stimuli at input and retrieval and the inability to reinterpret cue information to ensure cue-trace compatibility. The critical manipulations involved the use of semantic orienting questions at both input and retrieval. Second and fourth graders and college adults were given moderately associated word pairs (Knife-Axe). Encoding was constrained or free between groups at both input and retrieval. The retrieval questions biased the Same interpretation of the cue as at input (weapon), a uniquely Different interpretation (utensil), or an inappropriate Negative interpretation. Both cued recall and recognition of the target items was tested. The results showed systematic developmental increases both in the distinctiveness of the semantic encoding of stimulus information, and in the ability to reinterpret cue information to ensure cue-trace compatibility. The second graders encoded more variably than the older subjects, and were less able to shift from an incompatible encoding of cue information.     

The effects of encoding distinctiveness on retrieval variability in children and adults

To what extent are developmental differences in encoding distinctiveness responsible for differences in retrieval variability? This study examined this question by comparing the effects of different kinds of encoding distinctiveness on the ability of children and adults to reinstate the input environment at retrieval. The critical manipulations involved the use of semantic orienting questions at both encoding and retrieval. Second and fourth (Experiment 1) or fifth (Experiment 2) graders and college adults were given moderately associated word pairs (Knife-Axe) at input. Encoding was free or constrained at input and retrieval. The retrieval questions biased the Same interpretation of the cue as at input (weapon), a uniquely Different interpretation (utensil), or an inappropriate Negative interpretation. Encoding distinctiveness was varied by crossing these manipulations with either picture or word input (Experiment 1) or general or distinctive orienting questions (Experiment 2). The results suggested that encoding distinctiveness and retrieval variability contribute independently to developmental differences in recall.     

Predicting individual differences in complex skill acquisition: dynamics of ability determinants.

Substantial controversy exists about ability determinants of individual differences in performance during and subsequent to skill acquisition. This investigation addresses the controversy. An information-processing examination of ability-performance relations during complex task acquisition is described. Included are ability testing (including general, reasoning, spatial, perceptual speed, and perceptual/psychomotor abilities) and skill acquisition over practice on the terminal radar approach controller simulation. Results validate and extend Ackerman's (1988) theory of cognitive ability determinants of individual differences in skill acquisition. Benefits of ability component and task component analyses over global analyses of ability-skill relations are demonstrated. Implications are discussed for selection instruments to predict air traffic controller success and for other tasks with inconsistent information-processing demands.