The first 900: a nine-year longitudinal analysis of consecutive adolescent inpatients

Data for the presenting complaints, average age and sex distribution, average length of stay and the discharge diagnosis for 900 consecutive adolescents treated at the Adolescent Center of Houston International Hospital between 1974 and 1982 were reviewed. The number of cases remained fairly constant over the 9 years. As the males and females showed an increase in age, the increase in age for males (13.4 years to 15.2 years) was greater than that for females (14.4 years to 15.0 years). The average age for male admissions during 1974-1976 was significantly lower than 1980-1982 (p less than 0.03). The average length of stay for males during 1980-1982 was significantly greater than 1974-1976 (p less than 0.05). The most frequent presenting symptoms in decreasing order for 1974-1982 were depression, school problems, family problems, threatening behavior, runaway behavior, and suicidal ideation. Depression increased from 15.6% in 1974-1976 to 29.6% of presenting symptoms. Substance abuse increased from 4% (1974-1976) to 8.8% (1980-1982). Suicidal ideation increased three-fold over the same period (3.3% to 10.6%). A significantly greater number of males presented with 1) impulsivity, 2) aggressiveness, 3) withdrawal behavior, 4) stealing, and 5) disruptive behavior. A significantly greater number of females presented with 1) runaway behavior, and 2) suicidal ideation. The 10 most frequent discharge diagnoses are listed. Depression as a diagnosis increased almost four-fold between 1977-1979 and 1980-1982 (7.6% versus 27.5%).     

"Mom and dad": views on the relationship between direct-care staff and therapists in residential, adolescent treatment facilities

Some of the common conflicts that occur between therapists and direct-care staff in residential, adolescent treatment facilities are highlighted. These conflicts often parallel those occurring between an adolescent's parents. Common issues include the amount of time spent with the adolescent patient, questions of authority, and communication difficulties. These conflicts can have positive consequences, if each party recognizes that the other brings a needed perspective to adolescent treatment.     

Pursuing and distancing: the construct and its measurement

Although the concept of interpersonal pursuing and distancing has been introduced and used clinically, the lack of a reliable and valid measure has deterred its more formal investigation and relevance to personality theory. The Pursuing-Distancing (P-D) Scale, a 92-item measure of the behavioral expression of these characteristics, was developed. Evidence for internal consistency as well as internal support of construct validity is presented and discussed. An 80-item revised scale is available from the authors and is currently being evaluated in a variety of external validation settings.     

Response to two presentations of the Sentence Completion Test of ego development

This was a study of the differences among individuals on their performance on oral and written versions of the Washington University Sentence Completion Test of ego development. The study included 192 subjects from three age groups: College age, community residents, and retired people. No oral versus written differences were found in scores. Gender was the only factor to exhibit a consistently significant effect on Sentence Completion Test score differences.     

Another look at sex stereotypes and social judgments: an analysis of the social perceiver's use of subjective probabilities

Locksley, Borgida, Brekke, and Hepburn (1980) assert that subjects fall prey to the base-rate fallacy when they make stereotype-related trait judgments. They found that subjects ignored their stereotypes when trait judgments were made in the presence of trait-related behavioral information. The present article reexamines those findings with respect to two issues: (a) the use of a normative criterion in comparison with subjects' judgments and (b) the level of analysis (group vs. individual) of subjects' judgments. We conducted a replication of the Locksley et al. (1980) Study 2, and the results were examined with respect to these two issues. We found no support for the base-rate fallacy. When a Bayesian normative criterion was constructed for each subject based on the subject's own stereotype judgments and was compared with assertiveness judgments made in the presence of individuating information, there was no evidence that subjects ignored or underused their stereotypes as the base-rate fallacy predicts.     

Effect of alcoholic intoxication on the appreciation of different types of humor

Male subjects were placed into one of three intoxication conditions (no ethanol, low dose, high dose) and were exposed to humorous segments from television programs. During manifest intoxication or the corresponding period in the no-intoxication control condition, they were exposed, in a balanced order, to a segment containing blunt (i.e., unsophisticated, raw) humor and to a segment containing subtle (i.e., sophisticated, refined) humor. Subjects' facial reactions to the humorous stimuli were unobtrusively recorded and later analyzed by judges who were naive about the experimental conditions. Subjects also rated the funniness of the segments. The perceived funniness of blunt humor was found to increase with ethanol intoxication. For subtle humor, in contrast, perceived funniness was found to decrease with intoxication. This divergent interaction of reported humor appreciation was less apparent in the analysis of facial expressiveness. Although correlations between ratings and aspects of facial expression were generally positive, clearly corroborative support for the humor appraisals was found only in the frequency of smiles in response to subtle humor.     

Evaluation of the BSRI masculine and feminine items using desirability and stereotype ratings

This study empirically tested Bem's (1974) assumption that the BSRI Masculinity and Femininity scales measure sex-typed standards of desirable behavior for men and women in American society. The adequacy of items in the two scales was evaluated by Bem's (1974) criteria using two types of desirability and stereotype ratings. Results obtained in all the experimental conditions except one involving Bem's desirability instructions and Bem's rating scale did not support the tested assumption. Implications of these results for revising the BSRI scales were discussed.     

Components of reward in social dilemmas

A social dilemma (Dawes, 1980) may be defined as a situation in which a collection of individuals is faced with a conflict between maximizing selfish interests and maximizing collective interests. The dilemma is based on the fact that if all choose to maximize selfish interests, all are worse off than if all choose to maximize collective interests. In a decomposed social dilemma (Pruitt, 1967), the outcomes are divided into two components: one component is based on one's own choice and the second component is based on the choices made by the others. Using 3-person decomposed games, two types of incentives were contrasted: a positive incentive (bonus) for cooperative choices and a negative incentive (penalty) for noncooperative choices. Two experiments were conducted using male college students. The results of both experiments showed that the positive incentive evoked a higher level of cooperation than the negative incentive. The results are discussed in terms of nonadditive utility components, Pruitt's motivational interpretation, and Kelley and Thibaut's (1978) theory of interdependence.