The impact of spouse monitoring on target behavior and recorder satisfaction

The objectives of this study were (a) to determine the impact of a spouse monitoring procedure on the target's (husband's) behavior and the recorder (wife's) view of the marriage and (b) to assess the relationship between the target's positive behaviors and the recorder's marital satisfaction rating. In one condition, husbands were informed that their behavior was being observed, whereas in a comparison group, husbands were kept unaware of the observation procedure. In both conditions, wives kept daily recordings of (a) positive behaviors emitted by their husbands and (b) perceptions of their marital relationships. No differences were found in rates of husbands' behavior or in wives' perceptions of their marriages as a function of the awareness manipulation. Analyses examining the relationship between spouse behavior and daily satisfaction ratings indicated a statistically reliable association, although the majority of variance in satisfaction ratings was attributable to unique subject variables.This article is based on a thesis submitted by the first author to the Department of Psychology of the University of Pittsburgh. The described research was supported in part by a Faculty Research Grant from the University of Pittsburgh awarded to the second author.     

The effects of confederate prompt delivery style in a standardized social simulation test

Role plays or social simulations are presently one of the most common methods for assessing social skills. Although social simulation techniques have become quite popular, little is known about the psychometric adequacy of many of the role-play instruments which have been developed. This investigation was an attempt to determine certain properties of one particular social skills assessment instrument: the Simulated Social Interaction Test. The effects of various confederate prompt delivery styles on the judged social competency level of subjects in the Simulated Social Interaction Test were examined. Two confederates, one male and one female, were trained to portray three confederate prompt delivery styles: (a) unreceptive, (b) neutral, and (c) receptive. In order to determine if judges would compensate for the different confederate prompt delivery styles, two sets of trained judges rated the levels of skill and anxiety generated by the 30 subjects tested. One set of judges was screened from the confererate delivery while observing the simulation; the other set of judges followed the more common rating procedure (i.e., they were not screened from the confederates' deliveries). Data analysis examined variation in subject performance under each condition and according to each set of judges for both overall social skills and anxiety ratings. Confederate prompt delivery style was found to affect subjects' rated performance. There was also suggestive evidence that judges were sometimes able to compensate for different confederate delivery styles. The practical and theoretical implications of the results are discussed.This study was funded in part by a research grant from the Veterans Administration.     

The interfering effect of word perception on letter identification

Subjects identified a single lowercase letter in a visual display by pressing one of two buttons. Two letters were assigned to each response. Groups received one of three context conditions: word, nonword, or single-letter displays. In words and nonwords, the flanking letters adjacent to the target varied as to whether they were response compatible or incompatible with the target. Single letters produced faster response latencies than either multi-letter condition, and words yielded slower latencies than did nonwords. Items Containing an incompatible-response flanking letter produced longer latencies than items containing a compatible flanking letter. Subgroups of subjects with different characteristic processing patterns were identified with a separate test. These subgroups were differentially affected by the context conditions in the letter-identification task. A greater subgroup difference was found in nonwords than in words.     

Correctional Literature and Other Resources

The preceding articles offer many new and exciting ideas in the field of corrections. As counselors, community workers, and educators, you may now have more specific questions regarding an area that is of particular interest to you. There are many new-approaches in penology and widespread manifestations of the old. Presented here is a wide cross section of some of the newest and boldest thinking in the correctional field.     

Effects of antipsychotic medication on discrimination learning for institutionalized adults who have mental retardation

Reduction in medication levels of drugs used to suppress inappropriate behavior (chlorpromazine, thioridazine and haloperidol) resulted in increases in performance on a discrimination learning task for seven residents of a state institution who are mentally retarded. After training to criterion on a matching-to-sample task, these participants experienced reductions in medication in an N of 1 AB replication paradigm. Two controls were medication free, and one remained on a stable dosage throughout. Improvement of performance on the first dependent variable (number of trials needed to meet criterion) ranged from 13.8% to 53.3% for the seven participants, while the three controls improved less than 1%. Improvement of performance on the second dependent variable (percentage of correct responses) ranged from 2.7% to 19.7% for experimental subjects; five of the seven subjects exhibited a minimum improvement of 8%. The change in percentage of correct responses for the three controls ranged from ?4.9 to 1.3. Treatment implications are discussed.     

Stress-related immune changes in middle-aged and older women: 1-year consistency of individual differences.

This study reviews prior research and reports longer-term consistency of stress-related immune variables in middle-aged and older women who performed mental math and speech tasks 2 times 1 year apart. Leukocyte subsets, mitogen-induced lymphocyte proliferation, and natural killer cell activity were measured at baseline, after tasks, and after 30-min recovery. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) antibody titers were assessed at baseline. Pearson coefficients and standardized maximum-likelihood estimates of year-to-year covariances for leukocyte subsets and EBV titers showed moderately high to high baseline and posttask consistency and lower recovery consistency; consistency for other functional immune assays and reactivity scores for all variables was moderate to low. Results support longitudinal study of psychosocial context effects on tonic immune function and posttask scores.