MMPI profiles of adolescents charged with homicide

Study of adolescent violence has been impeded by failure to distinguish among the circumstances in which youth engage in violent behavior. The present study investigated MMPI profiles of 36 adolescent murderers and a control group of 18 adolescents charged with larceny. Homicide cases were subgrouped into those who committed homicide secondary to another crime (e.g., robbery or rape) and those who acted in the context of interpersonal conflict with the victim. While there were no significant differences between homicide and larceny groups, crime and conflict subgroups were significantly different on scales F, Hs, Hy, and Sc.     

Forgetting of pictures over a long retention interval in young and older adults

Young and older adults were presented with pictures for study. Their recognition of the information was tested at five retention intervals: immediately, and 48 hr, 1 week, 2 weeks, and 4 weeks later. The main finding of interest was that picture recognition did not show an age-related decline until the 1-week retention interval.     

Counseling Child Sexual Abuse Victims: Myths and Realities

The goal of the authors is to (a) create an awareness among counselors about the nature and prevalence of child sexual abuse, (b) examine myths and realities about the topic, and (c) present recommendations for interviewing suspected victims of child sexual abuse.     

An experimental analysis of the civil commitment recommendations of psychologists and psychiatrists

Legal and nonlegal factors influencing the civil commitment recommendations of psychologists and psychiatrists separately and as a whole were investigated using an experimental design. One hundred and seventy-six psychologists and psychiatrists made recommendations for or against commitment for a series of clinical vignettes wherein the five facets of commitment criterion, legal committability, clinical treatability, alternative resources and presence of psychosis were systematically varied. Results revealed that all facets contributed independently and in combination to the commitment decisions of participants as a whole. It was concluded that mental health professionals may utilize a variety of types of information, beyond the relevant legal criteria, in making actual decisions to initiate civil commitments.     

Cognitive processes and computerized personality assessment

Several implications of the cognitive viewpoint on personality are tested and the predictive validity of cognitive processing variables is assessed with judgements of parents and friends as a criterion measure. Free recall of items was related to cognitive schemas but reaction time during score recall was not. Ease of faking as well as response latency during faking were not related to cognitive schemas. Intra-individual analysis revealed a consistent non-linear relationship between response latency and item score in all conditions of the experiment. Although some cognitive process variables were correlated with the criterion measures, adding these variables to item scores did not always increase the predictive validity.     

Measurement of activity in small animals using a microcomputer-controlled system

A computer-controlled system that detects spontaneous activity (locomotion and rearing) and diurnal activity rhythms in small animals is described. Automatic recording of subtotals during test periods provides data about habituation (nonassociative learning). The system is relatively inexpensive to construct. Fabricated from highly reliable circuit components, it provides replicable measures that enable comparisons between different experimental treatments to be made using parametric statistics.     

Effects of observing competitive and violent versions of a sport

Males were randomly assigned to view either (1) a film clip featuring hockey fights or (2) a film of nonaggressive hockey action or (3) a no-film control condition after having first been angered or treated politely by an experimental confederate. The dependent variable was represented by a measure of aggressive mood and a behavioral measure of retaliatory aggression. Analyses revealed that both angered and nonangered subjects exhibited an increase in aggressive mood following exposure to the fight film. However, the analysis involving retaliatory aggression against the confederate yielded an anger x film interaction. While angered subjects were more aggressive than nonangered, only angered subjects retaliated against the confederate after viewing the fight film. The results were discussed in terms of Berkowitz’s (1974) aggressive cue theory. A version of this paper was presented at the meeting of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, Edmonton, Canada, November 1987.     

A rapid and sensitive method for measuring the conditional emotional response II: On-the-baseline excitatory conditioning and extinction

The present study outlines a rapid and sensitive on-the-baseline conditional emotional response (CER) procedure. Using rats as the experimental subject, the method detects delay conditioning, incubation, extinction and spontaneous recovery. In addition, the method detects conditional responding using electric shock ranging from 0.23 to 0.50 mA as the unconditional stimulus. Because of its speed and sensitivity, the method shelters the subject from unnecessary long-term deprivation and pain.     

Paranoid character and the intolerance of indifference.

This paper suggests that aspects of paranoid character are structured around fantasies of magical and concrete connectedness to objects; these fantasies serve to avoid the terrors of object inconstancy. The authors describe how these fantasies are expressed in the psychoanalytic situation and explore their relation to common paranoid phenomena. The paranoid person must maintain these fantasies of connectedness at all cost or risk experiencing unbearable indifference between self and object. Paradoxically, the sacrifice of self and object boundaries inherent in these fantasies makes object constancy even more difficult to achieve because of the secondary defensive use of anger mobilized to protect the boundaries of the self.