Agoraphobia and Locus of Control

This study investigated whether external locus of control, as measured with the Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale, is a specific feature of agoraphobia or whether it characterizes neurosis in general. Forty agoraphobic patients, 81 nonagoraphobic neurotic controls, and 49 normal controls completed the Dutch version of the Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale. Agoraphobic patients were found to have a more external orientation as compared to the normal controls, but as a group, they could not be identified as being different from neurotic controls.This study was supported in part by a grant from the Dutch Organization for Fundamental Research (ZWO/Psychon 560-268-001).     

Are prepared fears less severe, but more resistant to treatment?

In order to investigate the relationship between the extent to which clinical fears are prepared and clinically relevant characteristics of these fears (i.e. severity, age of onset and treatment outcome). the records of 63 obsessional and phobic patients were examined. Four independent raters scored the usable records (N = 55) on preparedness. The preparedness scores were combined and related to objective indices of severity (patients' scores on the Fear Survey Schedule, the Zung Depression Scale and the Maudsley Obsessional-Compulsive Inventory, as well as the treatment duration), onset ages and treatment outcomes (pre-treatment minus post-treatment MOCI scores, for a subsample of obsessional patients only). In contrast to earlier studies, it was found that product-moment correlations among preparedness ratings were relatively low and that prepared fears did not make up a majority in the sample. Indices of severity either did not correlate at all or correlated negatively with preparedness ratings. The positive correlation between preparedness and onset ages reached borderline significance. Evidence suggestive of a resistance to treatment of prepared fears was obtained.     

The relationship between quality of attachment in infancy and IQ in kindergarten

In this study, we hypothesized that securely attached infants would in kindergarten perform better on an intelligence test than anxiously attached children. No difference was expected between children of working mothers (working more than 15 hours outside the home) and children of full-time homemakers. Mother-child pairs (N = 77; average age of child was 24 months) were observed during the Strange Situation procedure; three years later, 65 children completed the Leiden Diagnostic Test for measuring intelligence level. Results showed that the securely attached reference group attained the highest IQ. The working status of the mother did not appear to make a difference.     

Some properties of two measures of multivariate association

Two kinds of measures of multivariate association, based on Wilks' and the Bartlett-Nanda-Pillai trace criterionV, respectively, are compared in terms of properties of the univariateR ² which they generalize. A unified set of derivations of the properties is provided which are self-contained and not restricted to decompositions in canonical variates. One conclusion is that asymmetric index based on allows generalization of the multiplicative decomposition ofR ² in terms of squared partial correlations, but not the additive decomposition in terms of squared semipartial correlations, while the reverse is true for anasymmetric index based onV.We are indebted to Jos M. F. ten Berge for some fruitful discussions.     

Correspondence analysis of incomplete contingency tables

Correspondence analysis can be described as a technique which decomposes the departure from independence in a two-way contingency table. In this paper a form of correspondence analysis is proposed which decomposes the departure from the quasi-independence model. This form seems to be a good alternative to ordinary correspondence analysis in cases where the use of the latter is either impossible or not recommended, for example, in case of missing data or structural zeros. It is shown that Nora's reconstitution of order zero, a procedure well-known in the French literature, is formally identical to our correspondence analysis of incomplete tables. Therefore, reconstitution of order zero can also be interpreted as providing a decomposition of the residuals from the quasi-independence model. Furthermore, correspondence analysis of incomplete tables can be performed using existing programs for ordinary correspondence analysis.     

Zinc-induced peripheral anosmia and behavioral responses to novelty in mice: a quantitative-genetic analysis

Adult male mice were made anosmic by intranasal flushing with a 5% zinc sulfate solution. Twelve behavioral variables were measured in treated as well as saline-irrigated control animals placed in a novel environment. The genetic underpinnings and the genotype-treatment interactions with regard to these behaviors were analyzed in a classical Mendelian cross between the inbred strains C57BL/6 and DBA/2 and in a full 4 X 4 diallel cross, replicated five times, between these strains and strains C3H/St an CPB-K. Based on the hypothesis of an evolutionary history of directional selection for a well-balanced information-processing system, one might expect directional dominance for decrease in exploration after anosmization. Although decreases were found for several behavioral phenotypes, only few and relatively unimportant genotype-treatment interactions were present. This absence of any kind of genetic variation for behavioral change after anosmization points to an extremely strong directional selection which has eliminated all less favorable alleles. The findings support the hypothesis of directional selection for an efficient olfactory information-processing system.