Social support as a multifaceted concept: Examination of important dimensions for adjustment

Four commonly used operationalizations of the social support concept: network contact frequency, satisfaction with support (including nine dimensions), perceived availability of support, and use of support, were related to two measures of psychological adjustment (Beck Depression Inventory and Symptom Checklist-90) and to one measure of physical adjustment (Cornell Medical Index). Subjects were 68 45- to 85-year-old, highly stressed care-givers to spouses with Alzheimer's disease. Results indicate that of the four operationalizations, Satisfaction with Support was the only significant predictor of depression and general psychopathology. The set of four support variables showed the strongest relationship to depression level, next strongest to general psychopathology, and least to physical health. The satisfaction with nine social support dimensions related differentially to the types of adjustment. Results suggest the importance of specificity (sample, support operationalization, dimensions, adjustment measures) in social support research.     

ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIOR AND SELF-RESTRAINT

Many individuals who exhibit self-injurious behavior (SIB) also exhibit self-restraint. Three hypotheses about the determinants of self-restraint have been suggested: (a) Self-restraint is maintained by escape from or avoidance of aversive aspects of SIB, (b) self-restraint and SIB are members of the same functional class, and (c) self-restraint and SIB are functionally independent. This study examined a method by which the relationship between self-restraint and SIB may be investigated using functional analysis. Data were collected on the self-restraint and SIB exhibited by 5 mentally retarded males, while conditions suspected to maintain SIB were manipulated. Results suggested that self-restraint, like SIB, may be maintained by idiosyncratic contingencies. Implications of an understanding of self-restraint for the analysis and treatment of SIB are discussed, as are some general possibilities for future research.     

A Test of Voir Dire as a Remedy for the Prejudicial Effects of Pretrial Publicity1

The present experiment asked two questions: Does prejudicial pretrial publicity produce bias that may impair juror objectivity and, if it does, can extended, defense attorney-conducted voir dire (jury examination procedure) remedy its untoward effects? Subjects were 68 college undergraduates who had or had not read pretrial publicity one week before viewing a mock murder trial. Just prior to viewing the trial, subjects experienced either minimal or extended voir dire. Both pretrial publicity and voir dire produced significant main effects on subjects' perceptions of defendant culpability. Subjects exposed to pretrial publicity perceived the defendant as more culpable than subjects not exposed to pretrial publicity. Subjects who experienced extended voir dire perceived the defendant as less culpable than subjects who experienced minimal voir dire. The interaction between pretrial publicity and voir dire was nonsignificant, indicating that, contrary to our hypothesis, voir dire did not reduce the impact of pretrial publicity.     

Linking empirically based theory and evaluation: The family bereavement program

Conclusion We have illustrated how our small theory (Lipsey, 1990) of bereavement guided the development and evaluation of a preventive intervention for bereaved children. Our small theory, based on prior empirical research, enabled us to identify family processes that appeared to mediate the effects of parental death on child mental health. Our intervention was designed to attempt to change these processes. The evaluation of our experimental trial of the intervention assessed changes on these processes as well as the more distal mental health outcomes. The experimental trial showed some-what encouraging results, in terms of the program's ability to modify the warmth of the parent–child relationship and to decrease symptomatology in the adolescent children. We also obtained further empirical support for our underlying theoretical model. Finally, implications for redesign of the program were derived from assessing the adequacy of the program components to change each of the mediators in the theoretical model.Support for this research was provided by NIMH grant P5OMH39246 which is gratefully acknowledged. David R. Pillow is now at Western Psychiatric Institute, Pittsburgh; Fred Rogosch is at the University of Rochester; Janette Beals is now at University of Colorado Health Sciences Center; Kim D. Reynolds is now at the University of Alabama, Birmingham; Carl Kallgren is now at the Pennsylvania State University, at Erie; and Rafael Ramirez is now at the University of Puerto Rico.     

Eye movement control in reading and visual search: Effects of word frequency

Eye movements were recorded as subjects either read text or searched through texts for a target word. In the reading task, there was a robust word frequency effect wherein readers looked longer at low-frequency words than at high-frequency words. However, there was no frequency effect in the search task. The results suggest that decisions to move the eyes during reading are made on a different basis than they are during visual search. Implications for current models of eye movement control in reading are discussed.     

The price of information

In this paper I apply an old problem of Quine's (the inscrutability of reference in translation) to a new style of theory about mental content (causal/nomological/informational accounts of meaning) and conclude that no naturalization of content of the sort currently popular can solve Quine's gavagai enigma. I show how failure to solve the problem leads to absurd conclusions not about one's own mental life, but about the nonmental world. I discuss various ways of attempting to remedy the accounts so as to avoid the problem and explain why each attempt at solving the problem would take the information theorists further from their self-assigned task of naturalizing semantics.     

The Effects of Selective Cholinergic Basal Forebrain Lesions and Aging upon Expectancy in the Rat

The effects of selective cholinergic cell loss within the basal forebrain (BF) were determined using a task that requires shifting of attention between two visual stimuli. Discriminability between two stimuli and response bias were determined in young and old F-344 rats given BF injections of IgG-192 saporin (100 ng). The lesion reduced ChAT activity in the frontal and parietal cortices, hippocampus, and olfactory bulbs. The lesion did not significantly alter Na⁺/K⁺-ATPase activity in cortex, hippocampus, or olfactory bulbs, or endogenous levels of neuropeptide Y and neurokinin B within the BF. The BF lesions impaired both stimulus discriminability and response bias in young and old rats. The BF lesions had a significantly greater effect upon stimulus discriminability and response bias in aged rats, compared to young rats, only when the stimulus duration was very brief, i.e., when the task was most difficult to solve. At longer stimulus durations, aging and lesions showed no interaction. The results suggest that the selective loss of cholinergic cells in the BF, but not normal aging, impairs the ability to discriminate between independent sensory stimuli. The loss of these cells confers a response bias in simple operant tasks involving motor responses to reward-related visual stimuli.     

Adult Children of Alcoholics In and Out of Psychotherapy: Issues of Intimacy and Interpersonal Relationships1

We examined differences between treatment-seeking and nontreatment-seeking adult children of alcoholics (ACOAs) and adult children of nonalcoholics (ACONAs) in regard to numerous aspects of interpersonal and intimate relationships. The subjects were 278 college students, aged 18 to 34. Consistent with many other studies, there were numerous differences between ACOAs in treatment and ACONAs not in treatment, although further analyses confirmed the methodological flaw and confound in such comparisons. There were no significant interactions between ACOA and treatment status, nor between ACOAs and ACONAs, regardless of treatment status, with only one likely chance exception of self-regard (ACONAs not in treatment reported higher self-regard than did ACOAs not in treatment). Finally, those seeking treatment reported significantly less affectional expression, lower self-regard, more depressive traits, and less dating competence and assertiveness compared to those not in treatment regardless of ACOA status. Therefore, treatment-seeking status and not ACOA status account for intimacy and interpersonal problems in this study and probably many others.     

Multiple Identities and the Integration of Personality

ABSTRACT Life-history interviews show narrators to shift among multiple, often contradictory self-representations. This article outlines a model that accounts for how a relatively small set of self-symbols and metaphors can form a grammar-like system that simultaneously defines and integrates multiple identities. Drawing on generative theories from linguistics, anthropology, and music, the model proposes that this system provides a unitary deep structure that can be configured in various arrangements to yield multiple surface structures. Each “surface” identity constructs an individual's emotions and social relations–and what he or she accepts as “Me” and rejects as “not-Me”—into a distinct pattern, with identity per se appearing as a dialogic or fugue-like structure of opposed voices. Study-of-lives interviews conducted by the author in urban America and rural Morocco are used to present the model and to demonstrate the pivotal role played by multistable or “structurally ambiguous” symbols in anchoring reversible self-representations which integrate personality as a system of organized contradiction. The musical analogy is emphasized in order to build a bridge toward current research in cognitive science and toward efforts to formulate a “state integration” theory of personality development.