Family–oriented treatment for people with alcohol problems in Ireland: a comparison of the effectiveness of residential and community–based programmes

Using a naturalistic design involving consecutive referrals self–selected for family–oriented treatment, forty–two participants from a residential programme and twenty–five participants from a community–based programme were assessed on a range of alcohol–use and psychosocial measures before treatment. A proportion of these cases were assessed after treatment and at six months'follow–up. At six months' follow–up 79 per cent of both the residential and community groups were either abstinent or drinking moderately. However, more members of the residential group (75 per cent) were abstinent at follow–up compared with the community group (36 per cent). In contrast, more members of the community group were moderate drinkers (43 per cent) at follow–up compared with the residential group (4 per cent). At six months' follow–up, compared with the community group, more members of the residential group showed a clinically significant reduction in recent negative consequences of drinking and psychological adjustment problems. Both groups made significant mean gains on indices of alcohol abuse and psychosocial adjustment but there were important intergroup differences. The residential group showed a greater mean reduction in recent negative consequences from drinking but the community group showed a greater mean reduction in the percentage of days' heavy drinking.     

The role of individual differences in the accuracy of confidence judgments

Generally, self-assessment of accuracy in the cognitive domain produces overconfidence, whereas self-assessment of visual perceptual judgments results in underconfidence. Despite contrary empirical evidence, in models attempting to explain those phenomena, individual differences have often been disregarded. The authors report on 2 studies in which that shortcoming was addressed. In Experiment 1, participants (N= 520) completed a large number of cognitive-ability tests. Results indicated that individual differences provide a meaningful source of overconfidence and that a metacognitive trait might mediate that effect. In further analysis, there was only a relatively small correlation between test accuracy and confidence bias. In Experiment 2 (N = 107 participants), both perceptual and cognitive ability tests were included, along with measures of personality. Results again indicated the presence of a confidence factor that transcended the nature of the testing vehicle. Furthermore, a small relationship was found between that factor and some self-reported personality measures. Thus, personality traits and cognitive ability appeared to play only a small role in determining the accuracy of self-assessment. Collectively, the present results suggest that there are multiple causes of miscalibration, which current models of over- and underconfidence fail to encompass.     

Investigating individual differences in children's real-time sentence comprehension using language-mediated eye movements

Individual differences in children's online language processing were explored by monitoring their eye movements to objects in a visual scene as they listened to spoken sentences. Eleven skilled and 11 less-skilled comprehenders were presented with sentences containing verbs that were either neutral with respect to the visual context (e.g., Jane watched her mother choose the cake, where all of the objects in the scene were choosable) or supportive (e.g., Jane watched her mother eat the cake, where the cake was the only edible object). On hearing the supportive verb, the children made fast anticipatory eye movements to the target object (e.g., the cake), suggesting that children extract information from the language they hear and use this to direct ongoing processing. Less-skilled comprehenders did not differ from controls in the speed of their anticipatory eye movements, suggesting normal sensitivity to linguistic constraints. However, less-skilled comprehenders made a greater number of fixations to target objects, and these fixations were of a duration shorter than those observed in the skilled comprehenders, especially in the supportive condition. This pattern of results is discussed in terms of possible processing limitations, including difficulties with memory, attention, or suppressing irrelevant information.     

Interaction with context during human sentence processing

Psychological theories of natural language processing have usually assumed that the sentence processor resolves local syntactic ambiguities by selecting a single analysis on the basis of structural criteria such as Frazier's (1978) “minimal attachment.” According to such theories, alternative analyses will only be attempted if the initial analysis subsequently proves inconsistent with the context. (See also Ferreira & Clifton, 1986; Ford, Bresnan, & Kaplan, 1982; Rayner, Carlson, & Frazier, 1983). An alternative hypothesis exists, however: If sentences are understood incrementally, more or less word-by-word (Marlsen-Wilson, 1973, 1975), then syntactic processing can in principle exploit the fact that interpretations are available, using them “interactively” to select among alternative syntactic analyses on the basis of their plausibility with respect to the context. The present paper considers possible architectures for such incremental and interactive sentence processors, and argues for an architecture     

Generalization of self-instruction training

Forty-eight preoperational and concrete operational first and second graders performed on a training task (Matching Familiar Figures Test) and a generalization task (a perceptual perspective taking task) prior to, and after serving in, one of two instructional groups. The instructional groups were: a no-training control group and a group which received general content self-instructions delivered through a directed discovery procedure. Both preoperational and concrete operational children in the self-instruction group improved significantly at posttest on the training task. On the generalization task only the concrete operational children in the directed discovery group performed significantly better following training. These findings are discussed in terms of the dynamic relationship between an individual's cognitive ability and the format of instructions. The need for provoking the cognitive involvement of the child on the basis of this relationship is stressed.     

Female participation rates and the occupational prestige of the professions: Are they inversely related?

Contradictory empirical evidence concerning the impact of increasing numbers of women on the prestige and desirability of selected high-status professions is examined. It is concluded that, when alternative methodological issues are considered, the existing empirical literature does not definitively address the question of whether or not an increasing female participation rate in high-status professions will erode the prestige and desirebility of those professions. A 2 × 2 × 3 factorial design was used to control for the sex of the subjects (132 males, 132 females) and simultaneously manipulate the professions studied and the participation rate of women in those professions (constant, significant increase). The results indicate that the prospect of increasing numbers of women entering high-status professions does not result in a decline in either the prestige or desirability of those professions for the sample used in this study.     

Frequency and nature of rumination in chronic depression: a preliminary study

This study explores the phenomenological experience of rumination in a sample of 22 chronically depressed people and looks at the extent to which it is consistent with theoretical ideas. The findings indicate that, on average, depressed people ruminate about at least two different topics, and that there is wide variability in how long each episode lasts. Rumination is a complex process frequently involving imagery as well as verbal thoughts and is almost invariably associated with multiple emotions. Although there was some evidence for stop rules being involved, most individuals attributed ending a period of rumination to distraction, whether external or internally generated.     

The genetic basis of entrepreneurship: Effects of gender and personality

Extending previous research on the genetic underpinnings of entrepreneurship, we investigate gender differences in the genetic influences on the tendency of people to become entrepreneurs. We also examined two mediating variables through which genetic factors may impact this tendency: extraversion and neuroticism. Based on 1285 pairs of identical twins (449 male and 836 female pairs) and 849 pairs of same-sex fraternal twins (283 male and 566 female pairs), we found that females have a strong genetic influence and zero shared-environmental influences on their tendency to become entrepreneurs. In contrast, males show zero genetic influence, but a large shared-environmental influence. Extraversion and neuroticism mediate the genetic influences on women’s tendency to become entrepreneurs, whereas extraversion mediates shared-environmental influences on men’s tendency to become entrepreneurs. We discuss this sharp difference in genetic influences on entrepreneurship across gender groups and highlight the different challenges that men and women face in their entrepreneurial endeavors.