Stereotypical beliefs about overweight and smoking and decision-making in assignments to sales territories

This study examined job bias associated with business students' role-playing as sales managers who assigned trainees to sales territories. Personal characteristics of being extremely overweight and being a heavy smoker were studied. Research participants were given a personnel record (training record) of a sales trainee and asked to make a sales territory assignment decision; three vacant territories were also described. The participants were told to assign the trainee to one of the territories or to indicate a preference to not have the recruit assigned to any territory within the role-playing manager's region. Analysis indicates that a sales recruit described as extremely overweight was less likely to be assigned to an important or desirable sales territory and more likely to be assigned to an undesirable territory or not selected at all for an assignment within a sales region. Those described as heavy smokers were similarly treated but to a lesser degree. Overweight saleswomen were discriminated against more than overweight salesmen.     

Free visual imagery sequences in reactors and nonreactors

The technique of Free Visual Imagery Sequences was used with 32 outpatients, M age of 33.9, to determine the differences between Visual Imagery Reactors and Nonreactors as defined in previous studies. Reactors showed significantly more responses associated with Affect/Conflict material, frequently including bizarre and distorted images. The Affect/Conflict responses occurred earlier and had longer duration spans in Reactors. Neutral content was more prevalent in Nonreactors. An interpretive approach involving a regulatory processing system is proposed. Free Visual Imagery Sequences appears to be a simple and efficient clinical technique which can contribute data useful in determining the extent to which imagery techniques could be employed in certain forms of psychotherapy.     

Effects of Fluprazine Hydrochloride on Three Aversively Motivated Tasks

The Psychological Record - Treatment with 8.0 mg/kg fluprazine hydrochloride had no effect on the acquisition of a step-down avoidance response but retarded its extinction. The drug also impaired...     

Psychologists and alcoholic women

Alcoholism among women often has been treated using a model based on research with alcoholic men. Women react differently to alcohol than men both physiologically and psychologically and their drinking patterns are different from men's. Treatment facilities for alcoholism have not been as available for women as for men and treatment must be individualized for the differences between men and women problem drinkers and for the differences among alcoholic women.     

Intercorrelations among general arousability, emerging and current sexual desire, and severity of sexual dysfunction in women

Intercorrelations among general trait arousability, emerging sexual desire, current sexual desire, lack of sexual desire perceived as a problem, and sexual dysfunction were assessed in 65 women currently involved in marital or de facto heterosexual relationships. The Stimulus Screening Test was used to measure general arousability and the Assessment of Sexual Function and Dysfunction Questionnaire was used to measure emerging sexual desire, current sexual desire lack of sexual desire, and sexual dysfunction. Analysis showed that arousability was positively associated with current levels of sexual desire which was negatively associated with sexual dysfunction. There was a curvilinear relationship between arousability and sexual dysfunction, with women experiencing both high and low levels of arousability being more likely to score higher on measures of sexual dysfunction than those experiencing medium levels of arousal. The possible implications of these results are discussed.     

The naturalistic fallacy: moral inferences drawn from research with children versus adults

The naturalistic fallacy occurs when a person reads a report of scientific research and concludes that the moral implication of the research was included in the article when, in fact, it was not. For example, the fallacy is committed when a study contains the conclusion that TV advertising increases preference for sugar-based foods, but the reader later believes that the study concluded that TV advertising should be controlled. Previous research indicates that the commission of the fallacy was strong when memory for social research was tested. The present study showed that the commission of the fallacy was stronger when the research which was read involved children as subjects compared to adult subjects. Increased empathy for the subjects of a research article strengthens commission of the fallacy.     

Length of survival and lymphocyte percentage in women with mammary cancer as a function of psychotherapy

50 patients suffering from terminal mammary cancer and visceral metastases received chemotherapy, and in addition half of them received psychotherapy, while half did not. A lymphocyte count was undertaken seven times in all, once before initiation of chemotherapy, the others after six applications of the therapy. As hypothesized, the 25 women who received psychotherapy lived longer and had significantly higher lymphocyte counts on Occasions 5, 6 and 7 than did the 25 women who did not receive psychotherapy. Of the types of psychotherapy employed, a specially designed form of behaviour therapy was significantly more helpful than dynamic psychotherapy in prolonging life.