A diagrammatic approach to computer instruction for the naive user

There are inherent difficulties with text as an instructional format. This research presents the development of a diagrammatic representation that overcomes some of those difficulties. A simple “language” is presented that includes both procedural and model information. This approach is applied to the instruction of word processing/text-editing skills. An experimental methodology is presented and preliminary results are reported that suggest that the diagrammatic approach results in improvements in both the amount of word processing accomplished and the speed with which modifications are made.     

Gender identity,interactionism, and politics: A reply to Rogers and Walsh

This article is a reply to a recent article by Rogers and Walsh (Sex Roles, 1982, 8, 269–281). We disagree with some of their interpretations and criticisms of the psychomedical research on the development of sex differences. Thus, there is a discussion of the reasoning and strategies of the biological approach in this research area. However, we also support and extend some of their suggestions relevant to gender and sex.     

Personality correlates of occupational status according to Holland types

The present investigation sought to identify personality correlates of occupational status. Because occupational status is a direct function of occupation, the relationship between personality and status was examined both within and across occupational groups using Holland's 1973 typology. Four two-way analyses of covariance of 16PF (Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, Form A) second-order personality factors were performed using data from 175 employed adult males. No single personality factor was associated with status across occupational types. Among Social occupations, the low-status group had higher Extraversion and lower Anxiety scores than the high-status group. In general, the relationship between personality factors and occupational types provided additional confirmation of Holland's theory using an employed adult sample.     

Personality integration: A synthesis of the parts and wholes of individuality theory

Individuality theory views the total psychological system or personality as an organized complexity which is partitioned into six major systems—sensory, motor, cognition, affect, value, and style. Each of these systems is, in turn, describable in terms of its subsystems and their components. Individuality is captured via the concept of multivariate personality type, which includes both profile and temporal characteristics. Organism-environment interactions are handled via the basic system circuit. This circuit involves an information input from the environment, a norm against which inputs are compared, and outputs which feed back into the external environment. Normative match refers to the degree of alignment between a specifiable norm (i.e., a psychological construction such as a goal or a purpose) and the environmental input. We refer to norm-input matches as assimilation. In the case of mismatches, accommodation is required via feedback mechanisms. Whereas normative matching is focused on external interactions between the organism and the environment, template matching is focused on internal processes of the psychological suprasystem. Thus, template matching refers to the degree of alignment between the profile and temporal aspects of a specifiable situation and personality type. Template matching involves specifying the details of central processing—the integrative role of the style and value systems, the transformation processing of the cognitive and affective systems, and the coding role of the sensory and motor systems. Suprasystem functioning involves both internal (i.e., template matching) and external (i.e., normative matching) processing simultaneously. Thus, molar psychological constructions, such as worldview and life-style, are the products or outcomes of the integrative processing of the style-cognitive and value-affective systems respectively. When suprasystem norms are functioning assimilatively we are describing periods of personality stability. When suprasystem norms are functioning accommodatively we are describing periods of personality change. The most encompassing indicator of personality integration at a given moment     

Episode cognition and personality: A multidimensional analysis

The aim of the present study was to examine the relation between personality variables and the way an individual cognitively represents and interprets various interaction situations. A sample of typical and recurring interaction episodes within a student milieu was first elicited using a free response diary method. In the main study, subjects from the same subcultural milieu were asked to (a) complete a battery of personality assessment measures, including measures of social anxiety and social competence, and (b) indicate their perception of the interaction episodes of the group. Their judgements of the episodes were analyzed using Carroll and Chang's (1970) Individual Differences Multidimensional Scaling (INDSCAL) procedure, indicating that four characteristics, subjective self-confidence, evaluation, seriousness, and involvement defined subjects' implicit view of the episode space. A canonical correlation analysis between the personality measures and each subject's episode cognition weights indicated a significant relation between these two groups of variables. The link between social skills and episode cognition style was further explored by a multiple discriminant analysis of the episode cognition weights of subjects who scored in the top and the bottom third of the sample on a composite social skills measure. The results are interpreted as providing significant support for recent cognitive theories of personality, and the link between episode cognition and personality variables is considered. The role of episode cognition in social skills assessment and therapy is also discussed, with a view toward exploring the relevance of the findings for applied areas.     

Electronic data processing-compatible documentation in neurology--developmental stage of neurologic findings for a specialty-specific scientific evaluation system and print-out of a computer assisted epicrisis

A computer compatible neurological examination record has been drawn up for a neurological documentation called "ADOK Neurologie" as part of a scheme for the basic registration of patient-related information from all patients receiving ward treatment at the Medical Academy Dresden and the County Neurological and Psychiatric Hospital Arnsdorf. The examination questionnaire consists of dichotomous questions and permits up to 1,525 separate items of neurological information per patient to be stored and processed. The information permits purposeful scientific analysis and computer print-out of the epicrisis. The article reports on the structure of the questionnaire, the prospects and limits of the method and experience gained during many years of practical use.     

The death instinct

The death instinct has always been a controversial concept, insufficient to account for actual dying, and usually taken to be fused with aggression. After dislodging it from the shadow of aggression in order to evaluate its function, the instinct turns out to be one of the components that form the death motivation. Human beings develop a complex motivation for death, one that is more than biology (instincts) or physics (entropy). It includes (a) the death instinct, the primary analogue; (b) sequellae of the universal experience of object-loss, with identification and fantasies of a restorative reunion; (c) guilt over hostile attitudes toward the lost object, with depression, longings for atonement , and self-punishment; (d) compliance with reality, like that of old age or grave sickness. Examined in light of the complementary series of Freud's aetiological equation, the death instinct turns into a precondition of the composition motivation. Death motivation is a comprehensive concept, since patients express various of its aspects during their psychoanalyses , and it facilitates a metapsychological understanding and refines the accuracy of interpretation.     

Probabilistic multidimensional scaling: Complete and incomplete data

Simple procedures are described for obtaining maximum likelihood estimates of the location and uncertainty parameters of the Hefner model. This model is a probabilistic, multidimensional scaling model, which assigns a multivariate normal distribution to each stimulus point. It is shown that for such a model, standard nonmetric and metric algorithms are not appropriate. A procedure is also described for constructing incomplete data sets, by taking into consideration the degree of familiarity the subject has for each stimulus. Maximum likelihood estimates are developed both for complete and incomplete data sets. This research was supported by National Science Grant No. SOC76-20517. The first author would especially like to express his gratitude to the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study for its very substantial help with this research.     

SOME EFFECTS OF REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES IN TEACHING PICTURE NAMES TO RETARDED CHILDREN1

The effects of several different schedules of primary reinforcement were compared in a picture-naming task with retarded children. In Experiment I, number of correct responses and learning rate were higher under fixed-ratio schedules than under continuous reinforcement. In Experiment II, number of correct responses and learning rate tended to be greater under intermediate than under low or high fixed-ratio schedules. In Experiment III, number of correct responses was higher under interlocking schedules, in which the response requirement increased with time following the previous reinforcement, than under comparable fixed-ratio schedules. Learning rates were generally low and, perhaps because of this, not very different under the two types of schedules in this experiment. Accuracy (i.e., proportion of trials on which correct responses occurred) was typically high and insensitive to variations in schedule and schedule parameter throughout each experiment.     

Persistence of response prevention effects following retraining of escape behavior

This study evaluated the effects of response prevention procedures on the extinction of escape behavior following the reinstatement of shock-escape training prior to the start of extinction. Female hooded rats were assigned to four groups (N = 10) in a factorial design which orthogonally combined response prevention or pseudo-prevention procedures with escape retraining or no retraining procedures. Results showed that prevention reliably impaired shock-escape behavior on early retraining trials; but this effect dissipated completely by the end of retraining. In extinction, prevention reliably facilitated the extinction of escape behavior relative to that of pseudo-prevention controls; but the degree of facilitation was reliably attenuated by retraining procedures. These findings were related to the competing response interpretation of prevention effects.