Anxiety and the spelling and use in sentences of threat/neutral homophones

The disambiguation of threat/neutral homophones was investigated in high- and low-trait anxiety subjects who had been exposed to either a positive or a negative mood manipulation procedure. Subjects were required first to spell each auditorily presented word and second, to generate and speak a sentence using the word. Difference indices were calculated for the spelling and the sentence usage data, i.e. the number of threat minus neutral interpretations. Examination of these indices revealed that subjects exposed to the negative mood manipulation procedure produced relatively more threat than neutral interpretations (for both spelling and sentence usage) than did subjects exposed to the positive mood manipulation procedure. Multiple regression analyses revealed that both the trait anxiety and mood manipulation variables contributed significantly to the prediction of the difference index on the spelling task. In the analysis of the use of homophones in sentences, only the mood manipulation variable contributed significantly to the prediction of the difference index on the sentence usage task.     

Employment and Roles of Counselors in Employee Assistance Programs

The authors studied employment and roles of master's-level counselors in employee assistance programs (EAPs) and the services offered by different types of EAP organizations. The study focused on programs, workshops and seminars: assessment; counseling; consultation; and evaluation and marketing services offered by EAPs. Master's-level counselors were found to be similar to those with Master's of Social Work (MSW) degrees in employment rate and percentage of EAP staff. Both groups were the most frequently employed and constitute the greatest percentage of the professional mental health staff in EAPs. Also, counselors were found to be involved in all of the service areas studied within each type of EAP. Differences in counselors' roles among EAP types are discussed.     

Experimental Construct Validity of the Outcomes of Study Skills Training and Career Counseling as Treatments for the Retention of At-Risk Students

The authors evaluated the separate and combined effects of study skills training and career counseling on student retention. Participants who were at high risk for dropping out of college were randomly assigned to one of four treatment or control conditions. The study-skills-alone treatment had a significant impact on retention; all of these participants continued their enrollment in the following two semesters. Career-counseling-alone and a combined (study skills plus career counseling) treatment did not register significant effects. Participants who received the study-skills-alone treatment also achieved significantly greater academic success; 88% had grade point averages (GPAs) equal to or greater than 2.0, whereas most other treatment and control participants had GPAs lower than 2.0 and were placed on academic probation. Issues relevant to the construct validity of these changes are discussed.     

Subclmical depression and role fulfillment in domestic settings: Spurious relationships,imagined problems,or real effects?

Considerable evidence has accumulated in support of the hypothesis that subclinical depression may inhibit role performance in important ways. However, interpersonal stress and marital discord often precede the development of depressive symptomatology and may independently predict deficits in family role functioning. In addition, cognitive theories suggest that persons with subclinical depression may report poor role functioning even in the absence of any real performance deficits. The current research examines the possibility (1) that the effect of depression on the fulfillment of important family roles is attributable to previously unmeasured contextual variables of ongoing interpersonal stress and/or relationship dissatisfaction or, alternatively, (2) that this relationship is the result of depressive distortion associated with self-report of symptoms and performance. Multiple regression analyses of interview data collected from 495 community-dwelling adults found, however, that depression is related to role functioning beyond any spurious effects attributable to interpersonal stress, spousal stress, or marital satisfaction. In addition, the effect of depression persists when collateral reports of role functioning utilized. Accordingly, it appears that subclinical depression is related to decrements in role performance, and this effect is not entirely due to contextual elements or shared method variance between self-report measures.The authors acknowledge research support from Research Grants R01-AA-07250 and R01-AA-07218 from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Research Grant R01-DA-07417 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and National Institutes of Mental Health Grant A-41487-07.     

The concurrent validity of three self-report measures of borderline personality

The recent accumulation of self-report measures of borderline personality disorder (BPD) affords the opportunity to evaluate both the construct validity of the concept and the quality of these measures. This study examines the relationship among three recently developed self-report instruments for assessing BPD from the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991), the MMPI Personality Disorders Scales (MPD; Morey, Waugh, & Blashfield, 1985), and the Bell Object Relations Inventory (BORI: Bell, Billington, & Becker, 1986). Data on the three measures were provided by 119 undergraduate subjects from a southeastern university. A correlational analysis addresses the convergence of these measures of BPD, their divergence from measures of different but related traits, and their independence from variance due to method. Application of the Campbell-Fiske (1959) criteria indicates adequate convergence for all the BPD measures but a lack of discriminant validity for the BORI scales. The fit of the data to a structural model of construct validity is tested using confirmatory factor analysis, and these results are consistent with the hypothesis of a latent borderline trait factor independent of measurement method factors. In sum, the construct validity of the borderline personality concept using self-report methodologies receives support, and a strong association between borderline personality and paranoid phenomena is also suggested.     

Musical notation for the keyboard: An examination of stimulus-response compatibility

A recent stimulus-response compatibility model was used to provide a performance evaluation of an experimental notation for the keyboard in which pitch varies horizontally in visual space. One hundred and twenty subjects performed a choice reaction time task using either the horizontal notation or a more traditional vertical notation. Half the subjects in each notation group received white noise and half received pitch-varying feedback with responses. A horizontal display advantage was revealed when rules of the model were applied to data analyses. Further, the horizontal display advantage was not dependent on the nature of the feedback. In a second experiment, performance of musicians and non-musicians was compared using the horizontal and vertical notations. Musicians' performance was uniformly better than that of non-musicians, and did not differ with notation orientation. The findings support the use of non-traditional horizontal notations for novice performance on a keyboard instrument.     

Effects of vowel variety and sample lenght on identification of a speaker in a line-up

Subjects (average age 21 years, recruited by personal contact and through a school) were presented with a spoken sentence on tape and then heard six speakers of the same sex, including the original speaker, say the same sentence. They were required to indicate which was the original speaker. The task was repeated with seven different sentences and sets of speakers. One group of subjects heard short sentences containing an average of 2.14 different vowel sounds and 6.28 syllables, another group heard short sentences containing an average of 6.14 vowel sounds (7.28 syllables) and a third group heard longer sentences containing an average of 6.28 vowel sounds (11.00 syllables). Accuracy of speaker identification improved significantly when more vowel sounds were heard, but increased sentence length had no significant effect on performance. Performance was significantly better when the listener was the same sex as the speaker than when the listener was of the other sex.