The commodore 64 and an interface system for controlling operant chambers

This article describes the interfacing of a Commodore 64 computer with an operant chamber. Advantages of the Commodore 64 over the VIC-20 as a controller are listed, and a sample program using dual response levers is given.     

Nomothetic and idiothetic measurement in personality

Lamiell (1981, 1982a) has recently advanced an idiographic approach to the measurement of personality that he has labeled “idiothetic” In contrast to classical nomothetic strategies, the idiothetic method of scaling personality traits discounts normative transformations of attribute scores and, according to Lamiell, provides the basis for a useful index of cross–situational behavior consistency An analysis of Lamiell's procedures indicates several problems with the idiothetic approach to personality assessment and with the proposed measure of behavior consistency Notable is the fact that the method does not account for base rates of behavior in situations and, therefore, may suggest anomalous interpretations of personality characteristics and of behavior consistencies It is argued that conventional nomothetic methods are sufficient for the goals of explaining and predicting behavior     

Implications of an Africentric Worldview in Reducing Stress for African American Women

Despite the extensive research on stress in recent decades, including the emphasis on stress mediation and reduction, epidemiological studies indicate that African American women continue to experience high rates of morbidity and mortality because of stress and stress-related diseases. With growth in the conceptualization and articulation of an Africentric perspective for defining the functioning of African American people, in this article the authors explore the idea of an Africentric worldview as a means for reducing stress among African American women. Considering that cognitive appraisals define the situations that individuals experience and considering that worldview is the lens through which experience is viewed, restructuring worldview can alter the cognitive appraisals of potential stressful situations. Africentric worldview provides a framework for affirming African American and women's beliefs and behaviors. The authors propose that the framework has the potential to counter the negative images that often result in stressful appraisals of an oppressive and hostile environment.     

Criterion validation of two approaches to performance appraisal: The behavioral observation scale and the relative percentile method

We compared the criterion validity of a new relative performance appraisal format (percentile-based ranking) to that of an absolute format (BOS) in a sample of 88 unit managers. Overall, our results suggest that the relative format has higher criterion-related validity than does the absolute format. These findings contradict conventional wisdom that format-related differences in measures of performance are minimal and that relative approaches to performance appraisal are inferior.This research was supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) to Richard D. Goffin, Douglas N. Jackson, John P. Meyer, Sampo V. Paunonen, and Mitchell G. Rothstein. Additional funding provided by a research grant from Imperial Oil Ltd. to Douglas N. Jackson.A version of these results was presented at the 7th Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Montreal, Canada, May, 1992. Limited portions of these data, addressing distinctly different research issues, were published in Gellatly, Paunonen, Meyer, Jackson, & Goffin (1991) and Meyer, Paunonen, Gellatly, Goffin, & Jackson (1989).     

Visual control of hand action

Recent investigations in normal and brain-damaged individuals have begun to identify the types of visual information used to plan and guide reaches. Binocular visual cues have been shown to be important for both movement planning and on-line guidance of hand movements, while emerging evidence suggests that dynamic visual analysis of the moving limb may provide a rich source of information for precise control of the hand in flight. Reaching movements appear to be planned to follow what is perceived to be a straight trajectory in peripersonal space. Furthermore, the process of selecting visual targets appears to influence hand trajectories, with hand movements curving away from non-target objects. This behaviour may be explained most effectively by a dynamic representation of space which is sculpted by attentional mechanisms into selected (target) and inhibited (non-target) regions. The role of attention in movement planning in individuals with attentional disorders is controversial. Patients with visual neglect have impairments of visuomotor control including reaches that, under certain conditions, are significantly more curved than those of normal individuals. The representations of space that neglect patients use to plan reaches may be distorted by impairments in the mechanisms that normally act to select target regions and inhibit non-target zones.     

Gender, object, and humor

Male and female respondents rated jokes with either a female initiator/male target of joke or vice versa. For male respondents, the gender of the joke target made no difference. For female respondents, however, jokes with males as the target received significantly higher ratings than jokes with females as the target.