Rorschach responses in healthy, community dwelling older adults

Five predicted relationships between age and intellectual level and 16 Rorschach variables were examined through a cross-sectional analysis of 47 healthy, community-dwelling elderly men and women. Subjects were compared by age and intellectual level using gender, level of medication, and scores on the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and the Geriatric Social Readjustment Questionnaire (GSRQ) as covariates. Screening tests for psychiatric and physical illness, recent life events, and hearing and vision loss were administered. In contrast to prior research suggesting changes in Rorschach scores with differences in age and intellectual level, only one significant difference was found for these variables. The data suggest that age and intellectual level may contribute less to Rorschach responses than was previously thought.     

Programming in natural language: A descriptive analysis

This study investigated the utility of natural language in specifying procedures. Performance of programmers was compared with that of nonprogrammers on two types of problems: a “real-world” ordering task and a computer like database search task. Programmers performed better than nonprogrammers in general, although overall differences between the groups were greater for the real-world problem domain. Analyses of protocols suggest that an unconstrained natural language programming environment is presently infeasible. Although constraints imposed in the problem specification do appear to improve performance, they alone are not sufficient to produce efficient natural language programming. It is argued that programming requires general problem solving strategies and that at least some aspects of such strategies may be dependent upon the specific language in which they are implemented.     

The Challenger Disaster And The Revival Of Rhetoric In Organizational Life

Explanations of the cause of the Challenger disaster by the Presidential Commission and by communication scholars are flawed. These explanations are characterized by a common tendency to emphasize the technical and procedural aspects of organizational life at the expense of the cognitive and ethical. Rightly construed, the Challenger disaster illustrates both the need for a revived art of rhetoric and the importance of putting in place the political and social conditions that make this art efficacious in furthering cognitive understanding and ethical conduct.     

Need for achievement and performance on measures of behavioral fluency.

This investigation was designed to assess the relationship between a validated personality characteristic, need for achievement (nAch), and performance on measures of behavioral fluency. To infer this relationship, 50 neurologically intact college undergraduates were administered a questionnaire assessing nAch and a battery of tests including a short form of the WAIS and measures of behavioral fluency (i.e., verbal fluency). Statistical analysis indicated that subjects high on nAch obtained higher scores than subjects low on nAch on the measures of figural fluency and the WAIS Verbal Scale. No significant difference on verbal fluency was seen between the two groups. Secondly, the group high on nAch also had a higher mean Verbal IQ but not a higher mean Performance IQ as measured by a short form of the WAIS than did subjects scoring low on nAch.     

Optimistic Bias Among Cigarette Smokers1

Smokers, unlike other populations engaging in risky behavior, readily acknowledge that tobacco use increases their susceptibility to smoking-related illness. This study used data from the Adult Use of Tobacco Survey to demonstrate that smokers, while acknowledging increased risk for illness, still show evidence of an optimistic bias in their perception of the hazards of their usual brand of cigarette. Optimism was assessed, first, by grouping respondents by perceived cigarette hazards (higher, lower, or about the same as others), and, second, by comparing Federal Trade Comission (FTC)-calculated and respondent-estimated cigarette tar levels. An optimistic bias was observed in all assessments. Perceived cigarette risk was not related to desire to stop smoking, if an easy way to do so were available, nor was it related to the number of previous quit attempts lasting one week or longer.     

Delineating generalized anxiety: A preliminary investigation

The present study examined the nature of generalized anxiety, which was defined as the constellation of symptoms listed as diagnostic criteria for generalized anxiety disorder in DSM-III-R. Generalized anxiety was assessed by means of a questionnaire that was especially constructed for this study. Although multidimensional scaling of symptoms reported by a clinically anxious sample produced orthogonal anxiety and panic dimensions, many symptoms were common to both dimensions. Whereas worry was found to be the cardinal feature of generalized anxiety, respiratory symptoms were found to associate closely with panic. These dimensions were replicated in a student sample. It is argued that while generalized anxiety symptoms constitute a unique dimension in the field of anxiety disorders, both panic and generalized anxiety may be linked with a basic anxiety response system. The findings also indicated that worry associated more closely with generalized anxiety than did apprehensive expectations. The heuristic value of the findings are discussed in light of the issue relating to an anxiety-panic continuum.     

Perceptual similarity of mirror images in infancy

Perception of mirror images by three-to four-month infants was studied in five experiments using habituation paradigms. In the first experiment, babies discriminated right profiles of two different faces but not the left and right profile of the same face. In the second, babies discriminated a 45° oblique from a vertical line, but not the oblique from its mirror image. In the third, babies discriminated oblique lines that differed by 50° and were not mirror images. In the final experiments. 90° rotations of a ?-shape were discriminated but not 180° rotations that formed lateral or vertical mirror images. These results demonstrated that although babies were able to discriminate differences in orientation (even among obliques) they tended to view mirror images, especially lateral mirror images, as equivalent stimuli. We propose that the perceptual equivalence of mirror images reflects an adaptive mode of visual processing; mirror images in nature are almost always aspects of the same object, and they usually need not be discriminated. The relations of the perceptual similarity of mirror images to the ontogeny of the object concept and to the development of reading are discussed.     

Evaluations of Presidential Campaign Speakers as a Function of Similarity and Expectancy Disconfirmation

During the week prior to the November 1972 U.S. Presidential election, 249 college students heard a young, "freaky"-appearing or an old, "straight"-appearing speaker—corresponding to a stereotyped McGovern or Nilon advocate—deliver a speech for either the expected or unexpected candidate. Espectancy had little effect on speaker ratings, but speakers were rated more positively by subjects who were similar to them in age. appearance, and (especially) candidate preference. Similarity, particularly in regard to preferred presidential candidate, affected the ratings of the speaker made by pro-McGovern subjects to a greater degree than the ratings made by pro-Nixon subjects. These data suggested that college-aged Nixon supporters may have experienced an identification conflict.