Gender differences in the development of relationships during late adolescence

Until recently, inadequate measures of affiliation need and relationship closeness hindered investigations into the social development of adolescents. For example, assumptions about gender differences (Douvan & Adelson, 1966; Gilligan, 1982) and age-related changes (Dunphy, 1972; Erikson, 1968; Newman & Newman, 1976) in affiliation need and relationship closeness have remained virtually untested. To better understand adolescent social behavior and test these assumptions, recently developed measures of affiliation need and interpersonal closeness were used to examine seventy-four 18- to 20-year-olds. In support of Erikson's theory, need for social comparison declined with age for both sexes. However, in support of Gilligan's theory, not only were females more attached to their partners, but these gender differences were most pronounced for the 18-year-olds. Finally, Dunphy's (1972) assumption that adolescents' need for stimulation peaks around age 18 or 19 and then declines, and Newman and Newman's (1976) position that need for emotional support declines in later adolescence, held true--but only for females.     

Dopamine D2 receptors mediate reversal learning in male C57BL/6J mice

Dopamine is critical for directing goal-oriented behavior. We investigated dopamine D₂ receptor involvement in reversal learning and reinforcement efficacy in mice lacking functional dopamine D₂ receptors and their heterozygous and wild-type littermates. Mice discriminated between two odors to receive a food reinforcer: One odor signaled a reinforcer (S⁺); the other odor signaled no reinforcer (S⁻). After mice learned the S⁺/S⁻ relationship, we inverted the reinforcement contingencies. The necessary number of trials to relearn the new reinforcement contingencies served as our index of reversal learning. Mice lacking functional dopamine D₂ receptors repeatedly failed to inhibit previously reinforced responses during reversal trials. In a separate experiment, mice responded for reinforcers on a progressive ratio schedule of reinforcement. Mice lacking functional dopamine D₂ receptors earned significantly fewer reinforcers than did heterozygous mice. Our results suggest that dopamine D₂ receptors regulate reversal learning and influence the reinforcing efficacy of natural rewards.     

Nursing and psychological treatments

Presents a comment on "Psychological Treatments" by D. H. Barlow. In his article, Barlow pointed to the need "to solidify the identification of psychology as a health care profession" by changing the terminology of practice in the health care context from psychotherapy to psychological treatments and suggested that the only persons qualified to carry out such interventions are doctoral-level psychologists. Unfortunately, there was no discussion of the health care professionals who already provide psychological treatments in health care settings and their contribution to the evidence base supporting such treatment. The authors find several aspects of the article to be problematic. Overall, the authors feel that suggesting that psychology should claim treatment of psychological disorders and psychological components of physical disorders in health care settings as exclusively its own domain ignores the research and clinical contributions of others.     

Do behavioral disturbances in persons with Alzheimer's disease predict caregiver depression over time?

Random effects models were used to examine the association between behavioral disturbances in persons with Alzheimer's disease (N = 90) and caregiver depressive symptoms at 2-month intervals over an 18-month period. There was substantial variability in trajectories of change in caregiver depressive symptoms over time but no systematic increase in distress despite increased severity of dementia symptoms. Total behavioral disturbances were associated with higher levels of caregiver depressive symptoms: this effect was primarily attributable to aggressive behaviors. No consistent departure from linearity was evident in the relationship between behavior and depression over time.     

Levels of abstraction in orangutan (Pongo abelii) categorization

Levels of abstraction have rarely been manipulated in studies of natural concept formation in nonhumans. Isolated examples have indicated that animals, relative to humans, may learn concepts at varying levels of abstraction with differential ease. The ability of 6 orangutans (Pongo abelii) of various ages to make natural concept discriminations at 3 levels of abstraction was therefore investigated. The orangutans were rewarded for selecting photos of orangutans instead of humans and other primates (concrete level), primates instead of other animals (intermediate level), and animals instead of nonanimals (abstract level) in a 2-choice touch screen procedure. The results suggest that, like a gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) tested previously (Vonk & MacDonald, 2002), orangutans can learn concepts at each level of abstraction, and unlike other nonhumans, most of these subjects rapidly learned the intermediate level discrimination.     

Psychoeducation and managed care: Clinical issues for the 1990s

Managed care has challenged mental health professionals to develop more efficient ways of addressing patient care needs. Psychoeducational programs, for patients and their families, have emerged as a medium by which relevant education and mutual support can be provided to participants. A review of the literature, a comprehensive model of psychoeducation, and the advantages of such models within the managed care program are offered. Also addressed are issues and import, treatment and research considerations.     

Competition and recency in a hybrid network model of syntactic disambiguation

The competitive attachment model of human parsing is a hybrid connectionist architecture consisting of a distributed feature passing method for establishing syntactic relations within the network, and a numeric competition mechanism for resolving ambiguities, which applies to all syntactic relations. Because the approach employs a uniform mechanism for establishing syntactic relations, and a single competition mechanism for disambiguation, the model can capture general behaviors of the human parser that hold across a range of syntactic constructions. In particular, attachment and binding relations are similarly processed and are therefore subject to the very same influences of disambuguation and processing over time. An important influence on the competitive disambiguation process is distance within the network. Decay of numeric activation, along with distributed feature passing through the network structure, has an unavoidable effect on the outcome of attachment and binding competitions. Inherent properties of the model thus lead to a principled explanation of recency effects in the human parsing of both attachment and filler/gap ambiguities.     

Family management of childhood diabetes

This paper reviews the available literature on family management of childhood diabetes and highlights gaps in the current knowledge base. Four aspects of family management of childhood diabetes are discussed: coping (how the family adjusts to living with a child who has diabetes), compliance (how the family manages the child's diabetes on a daily basis), communication (how the family learns from interactions with the health provider), and context (how the family environment sets the stage for managing diabetes).     

Ending social encouters

Certain classes of verbal behavior—content summary statements (S_c); affective summary statements (S_a); continuity (C), justification (J), and well-wishing (W) statements; and statements of positive affect (P)—were hypothesized to be constituents of interpersonal endings. These statements are shown to increase during the terminal phase of a social encounter as a function of whether the conversation is between friends or strangers and whether it is structured or unstructured. A hypothesis concerning the sequence in which these five classes of statements will occur during the ending of an interaction, namely, [S_c] → [J] → [_Sa^P] → [C] → [W], is tested and confirmed.     

Why researchers don't study women: The responses of 62 researchers

Sixty-two researchers accounting for 64 single-sex studies that appeared in 1970 1971 issues of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology reported why they had limited their studies to a single sex and why they had preferred either males or females for their studies. Also, articles and abstracts were read as a way of checking researchers' reporting practices. The replies were analyzed for thematic content and formed three major types: scientific (56%), practical (28%), and extrascientific (15%). The responses helped to explain why there has been an imbalance in psychology which led to the study of men rather than women instead of the exploration of both sexes. Sggestions are offered to help counteract this trend in future psychological research and reporting.