Tolerance of ambiguity: A review of the concept, its measurement and applications

This paper reviews the scattered and diffuse literature on the tolerance of ambiguity construct (AT). The work by Frenkel-Brunswik (1948) is considered in some detail to help explain the origin of the concept as well as its diffusion to many areas of psychology. Second, thirty years of correlational research, which looks at the studies correlating AT measures with a variety of psychological variables, are reviewed. Third, evidence for the differential distribution of AT among particular groups is reviewed. Fourth, the psychometric properties of the various self-report AT measures are considered in some detail. The two final sections look at organizational and cultural correlates of AT (the areas currently most interested in the AT concept). The conclusion attempts to explain varying patterns of interest in the AT construct and its current status.     

Factors associated with respite care use by families with a child with disabilities

This paper reviews the literature on respite care utilization, describes a respite care program in Arkansas, and reports on a study of utilization initiated by the Arkansas Division of Mental Health Services (DMHS). Among the 89 families qualifying for respite services, 70 consented to participate, and 66 were surveyed in a phone interview. Users (n=54) and non-users (n=12) were compared relative to a variety of staff, child, geographic, and budget differences. Also, respite use was examined relative, to the aforementioned variables based on level of use, (i.e., none, low, moderate, high). There were no differences in use according to age, the number of family members, family income, or needs of the child. A larger percentage of non-use and low use of respite care was evident among those families receiving Tax Equity Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA) benefits. There were no significant differences between races related to perceived barriers to care. Differences in expectations/experiences with respite care among rural and urban groups were limited with rural respondents expressing, concern about travel/distance issues. Overall, the program as a whole received positive ratings by parents, and no clear factors were found to be related to non-use in the small sample (n=12) who did not take advantage of respite services.     

Speed of Lexical Activation in Nonfluent Broca''s Aphasia and Fluent Wernicke''s Aphasia

Rapid, automatic access to lexical/semantic knowledge is critical in supporting the tight temporal constraints of on-line sentence comprehension. Based on findings of “abnormal” lexical priming in nonfluent aphasics, the question of disrupted automatic lexical activation has been the focus of many recent efforts to understand their impaired sentence comprehension capabilities. The picture that emerges from this literature is, however, unclear. Nonfluent Broca's aphasic patients showinconsistent,notabsent,lexical priming, and there is little consensus about the conditions under which they do and do not prime. The most parsimonious explanation for the variable findings from priming studies to date is that the primary disturbance in Broca's lexical activation has something to do withspeedof activation. Broca's aphasic patients prime when sufficient time is allowed for activation to spread among associates. To examine this “slowed activation” hypothesis, the time course of lexical activation was examined using a list priming paradigm. Temporal delays between successive words ranged from 300 to 2100 msec. One nonfluent Broca's aphasic patient and one fluent Wernicke's patient were tested. Both patients displayed abnormal priming patterns, though of different sorts. In contrast to elderly subjects, who prime at relatively short interstimulus intervals (ISIs) beginning at 500 msec, the Broca's aphasic subject showed reliable automatic priming but only at a long ISI of 1500 msec. That is, this subject retained the ability to access lexical information automatically if allowed sufficient time to do so, a finding that may help explain disrupted comprehension of normally rapid conversational speech. The Wernicke's aphasic subject, in contrast, showed normally rapid initial activation but continued to show priming over an abnormally long range of delays, from 300 msec through 1100 msec. This protracted priming suggests failure to dampen activation and might explain the semantic confusion exhibited by fluent Wernicke's patients.     

Toys,spatial ability,and science and mathematics achievement: Are they related?

This review of research examines the possible relationships among children's toy playing habits, spatial abilities, and their science and mathematics achievements. Only studies that made use of United States subjects, aged 3- through 13-years-old, are included in the review. Toy playing habits, spatial ability, and science and mathematical achievement appear sex typed. Males and/or children who maintain a masculine sex role orientation tend to play with a wider variety of toys, exhibit superior spatial skills, and maintain greater science and mathematics achievement scores than females and/or children with feminine sex role orientations.     

Whither the Epidemic? Psychoactive Drug-Use Career Patterns of College Students1

Reported nonmedical use and intentions for future use of eight groups of psychoactive drugs were conceptualized and arrayed to represent a person's usage career. Intentions closely predicted usage eight months later. Changes in careers were analyzed from data obtained in surveys of all students at a univeristy in 1968 and three follow-up surveys of the class of 1972. In 1968, the most common order of extent of use of the drug groups was: beer, hard liquor, tobacco, cannabis, depressants, amphetamines, hallucinogens, and narcotics. Students' starting, usage, and intent patterns for the drugs displayed hierarchical, Guttman-like, scalability in approximately this order. Intentions to progress to new drugs on the scale were strong in all classes in 1968. In the class of 1972, however, despite growing experience with the less common drugs as they went through college, intentions to return to more common drugs grew and intentions to progress to new ones decreased, relative to both themselves as freshmen and to equivalent level classes in 1968. The pattern of these changes suggests that it is hazardous to extrapolate from early usage and intent data in predicting the long-term course of usage.     

Anger control in response to verbal provocation: Effects of stimulant medication for boys with ADHD

Although stimulant medication reduces hyperactive children's aggression in naturalistic settings, stimulant effects on anger control have not been demonstrated. We therefore assessed the role of methylphenidate in enhancing response to verbal provocation from familiar peers and from role-playing adults. Twenty-four boys with attention deficithyperactivity disorder (ADHD), aged 6–12, received small-group cognitivebehavioral intervention in anger management skills. During posttraining assessments, the children were randomly assigned to placebo versus. 6 mg/kg of methylphenidate. In the peer provocations, methylphenidate enhanced self-control, decreased physical retaliation, and marginally increased the display of coping strategies. Medication and prompting were minimally beneficial in the delayed, adult-administered generalization assessments. Among the issues discussed are (a) differences between peer and adult provocation and (b) the roles of medication dosage and multimodality intervention for promoting socially competent behavior in children with ADHD.We gratefully acknowledge the Fernald Child Study Center of the University of California, Los Angeles, which provided major support for this research. In addition, we acknowledge the dedication of the small-group trainers, too numerous to mention individually, who led the intervention procedures for the children, and the experimenters who performed the individual provocation assessments. The careful behavior observations of Linda Douglas, Rebecca Eiser, Deborah Gibson, Mike Glenn, Melissa Michaelson, Jon Rafuse, Fauzia Simjee, Leslie Sherman, and Madelin Tundidor were central to the study. Finally, our colleagues Barbara Henker and Carol K. Whalen were instrumental in facilitating all aspects of this investigation.     

The number of paths and cycles in a digraph

An algorithm is presented for constructing from the adjacency matrix of a digraph the matrix of its simplen-sequences. In this matrix, thei, j entry,i j, gives the number of paths of lengthn from a pointv _i to a pointv _j ; the diagonal entryi, i gives the number of cycles of lengthn containingv _i . The method is then generalized to networks—that is, digraphs in which some value is assigned to each line. With this generalized algorithm it is possible, for a variety of value systems, to calculate the values of the paths and cycles of lengthn in a network and to construct its value matrix of simplen-sequences. The procedures for obtaining the two algorithms make use of properties of a line digraph—that is, a derived digraph whose points and lines represent the lines and adjacency of lines of the given digraph.The research reported here was supported by Grant NSF-G-17771 from the National Science Foundation. We wish to thank Professor Frank Harary for suggesting certain ways of improving an earlier draft of this paper.     

A note on a matrix criterion for unique colorability of a signed graph

A signed graph,S, is colorable if its point set can be partitioned into subsets such that all positive lines join points of the same subset and all negative lines join points of different subsets.S is uniquely colorable if there is only one such partition. Developed in this note is a new matrix, called thetype matrix ofS, which provides a classification of the way pairs of points are joined inS. Such a classification yields a criterion for colorability and unique colorability.The work reported here was supported by Grant MH 10834 from the National Institute of Mental Health.