Inhibition of return can be associated with object identity but not with object category

In this study, pre-schoolers and a comparison sample of fifth graders and high school students were presented with prediction tasks that varied by content of the base rate information (perceptual vs semantic) either presented alone (simple task) or accompanied by individuating data (complex task). Base rate choices, confidence scores, and explanations of the choices were registered. It is assumed that the presence of content effects in the processing of the base rates is in favour of a mental model account. Results indicated that pre-schoolers are able to build one-dimensional models with perceptual base rates in simple tasks. Fifth graders and high school students are able to build one-dimensional models with both types of content in simple tasks, as well as two-dimensional models in complex tasks. There is a local facilitation effect of semantic contents for fifth graders that disappears for high-school students. Consistency between subjects' choices, confidence scores and rationales depends on the subjects' grade, the number of sources involved, and the base rate content. Developmental trends are discussed in the light of previous research within formal, heuristic, and mental model approaches.     

A naturalistic longitudinal evaluation of counselling in primary care

This study evaluated the effectiveness of generic counselling in a primary healthcare setting during three months of counselling and followed up the patients' progress after counselling had finished for the next twenty-one months. Questionnaires were completed by patients within the Dorset Primary Care counselling service on referral to counselling and at set points afterwards. A naturally occurring waiting-list group was compared with patients receiving counselling at baseline and three months. Measurements were taken of patients' psychiatric symptomatology, quality of life (QOL) and self-esteem. Patients who received counselling made highly significant improvements compared with those on the waiting list. These improvements were maintained throughout the long-term follow-up. This would indicate that generic counselling has positive effects that can be maintained for a long period of time after counselling has been completed.     

Maintaining Life Satisfaction: The Role of Positive Cognitive Bias

Recent research into population standards of life satisfaction has revealed a remarkable level of uniformity, with the mean values for Western populations clustering at around three-quarters of the measurement scale maximum. While this seems to suggest the presence of a homeostatic mechanism for life satisfaction, the character of such a hypothetical device is uncertain. This paper proposes that well-being homeostasis is controlled by positive cognitive biases pertaining to the self. Most particular in this regard are the positive biases in relation to self-esteem, control and optimism. Past controversies in relation to this proposition are reviewed and resolved in favour of the proposed mechanism. The empirical data to support this hypothesis are discussed in the context of perceived well-being as an adaptive human attribute.     

Women in the draft resistance movement

Why has the position of the sexes become an issue in some social movements and not in others? Under what conditions has feminism emerged out of movements devoted to other causes? Starting with these general questions, this case study, based on participant observation, explores the factors which led women in the draft resistance movement in Boston in the late 1960s to turn toward, and help found, a Women's Liberation group. The strategies and tactics of the Resistance (more explicitly than other New Left movements) differentiated male from female participants. The segregation and subordination of women within the Resistance drew them into awareness of themselves as a distinct group; the Resistance ideology, which had strong egalitarian themes, contradicted their subordination and could be extended to define sexual inequality as a political issue. Contact with outside feminists helped precipitate the shift from draft resistance to Women's Liberation.     

Infantile stimulation and its effects on frustration- and fear-motivated behavior in rats

Infant rats that were either removed from the nest each day (handled) or left undisturbed (nonhandled) were, in adulthood, given 72 food-reinforced runway acquisition trials followed by 24 trials of extinction training with or without shock. Handled and nonhandled control animals were given runway training without food reinforcement. Reinforced rats ran faster than nonreinforced rats, and handled rats ran faster than nonhandled rats during the initial trials of runway acquisition irrespective of the reinforcement condition. Nonhadled rats stopped running sooner than handled rats when shock was introduced in the goalbox, but differences between handled and nonhandled rats given extinction training without shock were small. Results of a second experiment showed no differences between handled and non-handled rats in the magnitude of the depression effect after an incentive shift. It was concluded that infantile handling had little effect on frustration-motivated behavior, but did affect fear-motivated behavior.     

The Marriage Contract

This article is intended to serve as an introduction to the concept of the marriage contract, which has proved to be a useful clinical tool for clarification and treatment of troubled marriages. Transactional as well as intrapsychic factors are important aspects of marital dynamics. The contract concept employs both these behavioral parameters and facilitates therapeutic intervention at both levels.     

Children's interpretation of adult nonreaction: A trial-by-trial self-report assessment and evidence for contrast effects in an observational context

The study investigated children's interpretation of blank reaction (nonreaction) from one adult to another as a function of its pairing with positive or negative overt feedback. Each child watched through a one-way mirror as an evaluating adult provided feedback to a second adult who was performing on a two-choice discrimination task. After six initial blank reaction trials, children observed one of four types of feedback combinations over 60 experimental trials: (a) right feedback on some trials and blank reactions on others, (b) wrong feedback on some trials and blank reactions on others, (c) right, wrong, and nonreaction on different trials, or (d) nonreaction on all trials. There was little evidence that children consistently interpreted blank reaction as meaning right independent of feedback combination. In contrast, in the Right-Blank and Wrong-Blank feedback combinations, children interpreted blank as meaning the opposite of the overt feedback it was paired with on over two-thirds of the trials, with no sex differences or test anxiety effects.