The impact of confederate responsivity on social skills assessment

The current investigation examined the degree to which judges' ratings of skill, anxiety, and attractiveness are influenced by the responsivity of the confederate. High-, medium-, and low-skilled subject-pool groupings, as well as self-referred clinical groups, were exposed to either a moderately or a minimally responsive confederate. Results indicated that subjects were rated as more skillful when interacting with a moderately responsive confederate than when interacting with a minimally responsive confederate. Further, there was a groups × condition interaction for anxiety ratings such that both the high- and the medium-skilled groups appeared more anxious under the minimal condition, whereas the low-skilled and self-referred groups did not. Self-referred subjects received significantly lower attractiveness ratings than did the high- or medium-skilled groups. Implications of these results and future directions for research are discussed.This research is based on a M.S. thesis carried out by the first author under direction of the second author.     

The pain behavior scale: Modification and validation for outpatient use

The present study investigated the validity of an inpatient pain behavior rating scale modified for outpatient use. A series of 43 consecutive outpatients referred for evaluation of chronic pain was examined using the Pain Behavior Scale (PBS) and other psychometric instruments. Analyses revealed significantly higher Pain Behavior Scale scores for low back and multiple pain-site groups. The results also indicated a high degree of internal consistency of the scale. A multiple regression analysis, predicting observed pain behavior from reported pain behavior, indicated that decreased activity accounted for 32% of the variance in the PBS score. A similar regression for pain experience found that the pain level and the sensory scale score on the McGill Pain Questionnaire accounted for 39% of the PBS variance. Psychological characteristics including disease conviction, self-control, depression, and anxiety explained 45% of the variability in the PBS score. Thus, the scale is related to pain intensity, interference with activities, and a variety of psychological characteristics. The scale provides a measure of observable pain behavior that is also relatively independent of these clinical data sources. The Pain Behavior Scale as modified for outpatient use provides a brief index of pain behavior with potential use in the comprehensive evaluation of the pain patient.     

On doing research: the dream and the reality

The principal concern of this essay is to offer practical and personal guidance to professional therapists who wish to engage in research in family therapy. It is not a paper about research design or experimental/observational/survey methods; rather the focus is upon the experience of engaging in research. It attempts to destroy a few common myths about researchers, research, and the motives of researchers and those whom they research. Research is seen as a continuing and evolving process (rather than a product) which can intrude in many aspects of the individual's life; it can affect motives, working relationships, organizational composure, personal family life, and personal self-esteem. Research is thus like most other forms of employment. Research, as an activity, must be seen in terms of systems dynamics, resistance to change, and hopefully, in terms also, of self-actualization and the refreshment of professional parts that other addictions cannot reach.
Recommendations are made for the structuring of research activity, in the light of the research model presented.     

Learned helplessness deficits: Uncontrollable outcomes or perceived failure?

An experiment is described showing that learned helplessness deficits are produced by prior exposure to uncontrollable outcomes rather than perceived failure. Although the controllability manipulation did produce differences in perceived success or failure, similar differences were also induced by means of instructional feedback. These latter differences, within the controllable and uncontrollable groups, were not associated with poorer performance by subjects given failure feedback. Moreover, the instructional feedback did not influence subjects' perceptions of controllability or uncontrollability. The results confirm that helplessness deficits cannot be explained as reactions to task failure.This research was supported by Research Grant A28015473 from the Australian Research Grants Scheme.     

Circadian factors during sustained performance: Background and methodology

Cornell University Medical College, Westchester Division, The New York Hospital, White Plains, New York It is well established that there is a complex timekeeping mechanism in the human brain. This mechanism is associated with a variety of physiological and psychological rhythms having a period of about a day, and thus referred to as circadian rhythms. The circadian system has recently been modeled in terms of two underlying oscillators, one much more resistant to changes in routine than the other. These oscillators are considered to be endogenous, that is, internal to the organism, and not reliant for their existence upon changes in the person’s environment or general behavior. They thus continue to run even when the sleep/wake cycle is suspended, as in sustained operations. Thus, by their very nature, sustained operations require the individual to override the inputs that are coming from his or her circadian system (especially the indication that sleep is required). The aim of this paper is to provide a background to the area of circadian rhythms research, including a section on the methodology, so that the impact of the circadian system on sustained operations can be better understood.     

Effects of implementing (APA) ethical principles in collecting classroom data

The study examined the effects of providing six levels of research information to 270 classroom subjects on the data obtained from three different cognitive tasks. The effects of the three tasks on the subjects' academic self-concepts were also investigated. No significant differences were found among the six levels of information for each of the three tasks. On the logical task a significant linear relationship was found supporting previous research which indicates that the more information that is given to research subjects, the more negative the results. There were no significant differences on self-concept scores across the three tasks used. Overall, the implementation of ethical principles had little effect on data collected in classroom settings, indicating support for implementation. This data did indicate, however, that providing more information than required under the ethical principles can result in data bias on a specific task.