Personality characteristics of the users of corporal punishment in the schools

The Rokeach Dogmatism Scale and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire were correlated with educator-reported use of corporal punishment. Respondents were from a medium-size school system in Tennessee. Results indicated that closed-mindedness, as measured by the Rokeach scale, and Neuroticism, as measured by the Eysenck Scale, were highly correlated with reported use of corporal punishment. Of the remaining two dimensions of personality measured by the Eysenck questionnaire, Extraversion was found to be moderately correlated with reported use of corporal punishment while Psychoticism showed no significant relationship. A significant negative correlation was found between years of experience in teaching and use of corporal punishment. Frequency of physical punishment used on an educator when he/she was in grades K-12 was positively correlated with reported use of corporal punishment. Heavy users of corporal punishment tended to be relatively inexperienced, close-minded, neurotic, and impulsive as compared to their peers who did not use corporal punishment.     

The SOMPA: A brief examination of technical considerations,philosophical rationale,and implications for practice

The SOMPA is examined in terms of the multicultural model and Mercer's justification for multiple normal distributions within that model. The philosophical basis of the approach and the environments in which any assessment strategy must function are also examined. It is concluded that multiple normal distributions are not justified based on the variance accounted for in WISC-R scores by the Sociocultural Scales of the SOMPA. The pholosophical basis of the SOMPA, the sociology of knowledge, is not considered helpful or useful in the assessment process because of internal logic problems associated with the paradigm and because it creates an artificial separation of populations. Some of the components which influence education are examined in an effort to place the SOMPA in a realistic operational environment and to contrast the complexity of that environment with the oversimplified view offered by the SOMPA.     

Accommodation fatigue and dark focus: The effects of accommodation-free visual work as assessed by two psychophysical methods

Past studies of accommodation fatigue have yielded inconsistent results, partly because they have not used direct measures of accommodation, and partly because they may have been based on a misleading conception of the nature of accommodation. The dual-innervation theory of accommodation suggests that the resting position of accommodation may be neuromuscular rather than just muscular, and that it lies not at optical infinity, as assumed by older conceptions, but at some intermediate position (dark focus). Among the predictions that may be deduced from this theory is that long-term visual work not requiring active accommodation will not induce fatigue. The present study involved continuous measurements of dark focus for 10 young adults over a 3-h period, using the laser optometer with two psychophysical procedures Ibracketing and staircase. Consistent with the prediction, no changes in dark focus were found, in spite of the demanding visual task. Furthermore, it was found that both psychophysical methods yielded essentially identical results. The practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed, and recommendations are given regarding situations in which each of the psychophysical methods is likely to be most useful.     

Reflex inhibition in humans: Sensitivity to brief silent periods in white noise

A white noise (60 dB SPL) was always present except for brief silent periods (“gaps”) which occurred just before an eyelid reflex was elicited in human volunteers by a brief innocuous shock to the forehead. In Experiment 1 (n=8), 10-msec gaps (“S1”) were given 40, 80, 120, 160, or 200 msec before the shock (“S2”). Compared with S2-alone trials, the reflex was inhibited by about 50% at intervals of 80 msec and beyond. Experiment 2 (n=12) first provided detection thresholds for gaps using a simple version of the method of limits: on average a gap of 5.4 msec duration was just detected. Then gaps of 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 msec were given in random order, each 100 msec before S2. The 4-msec stimulus was an effective inhibitor of the reflex, and inhibition further increased on to 6- and then to 8-msec durations. A comparison of the values obtained on reflex inhibition with the 5.4-msec threshold obtained with the conventional psycho-physical test reveals that in humans reflex inhibition provides an objective index of stimulus detection that is at least of sufficient sensitivity to warrant its clinical application. The steady increase in reflex inhibition as gap duration increased from 2 to 8 msec may be of significance for tracing the rate of decay of afferent stimulation following noise offset, as it presumably reflects the growing sensitivity to the resumption of the noise as the duration of the silent period is increased.     

The rubber pencil illusion

When a straight, rigid line segment is put into certain types of motion, it appears to an observer to lose its rigidity and become rubbery, as in the well-known “rubber pencil illusion.“ The factors controlling this illusion were examined, including the nature of the motion employed (harmonic or linear oscillation), the amplitudes of the translational and rotational components of the motion, and the phase relationship between these two components. The effect is shown to be due to visual persistence. The status of the illusion as a potential counterexample to the rigidity principle (that moving, two-dimensional arrays will be perceived as rigid) is discussed.     

Attending to different levels of structure in a visual image

Two experiments are reported in which observers had to utilize information from one of two structural levels of visual stimulus patterns (large letters composed of smaller ones). They could utilize information more rapidly form one level only at the cost of slower utilization from the other. This trade off defines an empirical attention operating characteristic (AOC) which is consistent with a simple mathematical model of the perceptual process: when viewing a stimulus, the observer selects one of two alternative “attentional” strategies, where each strategy is optimal for utilizing information from one structural level, but less than optimal for the other.     

An awareness approach to the covert symptoms of stuttering

Speech-language clinicians working with the confirmed stuttering client are often faced with the clinical management of the covert symptoms of stuttering in addition to the more observable and measurable overt symptoms. The authors report the successful use of awareness techniques to exaggerate the subjective experience of these covert symptoms and encourage the use of these techniques as an adjunct to the counseling and desensitization procedures traditionally employed. A transcribed clinical management session in which several awareness techniques are used to aid the client in an introspective examination of “anticipation of stuttering,” is analyzed in order to reach some specific recommendations for using awareness techniques in the clinical management of the covert symptoms of stuttering.     

Age and cohort effects on personality factor scores across sexes and racial/ethnic groups

Substantial differences exist across ethnic groups and sexes in generational changes in status among groups residing in Hawaii. Despite these generational differences across groups, age differences in personality are remarkably consistent across sexes and racial/ethnic groups, and the few Sex x Age, Ethnicity x Age or Sex x Ethnicity x Age interactions account for little variance in scores. It is concluded that age/generational differences in personality factor scores in these populations result from age and not, to any major degree, from cohort effects.     

Post traumatic stress disorders

A clinical overview of the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD) is presented emphasizing altered qualities of experience and behavior. A schema of human psychological responses to stressful life events is reviewed as an introduction to the extensive development of concepts of pathological stress response syndromes: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders; post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic type; delayed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. An illustrative case history is presented. The potential development of PTSD in individuals experiencing less than overwhelming stressors is conceptualized.