Effects of erotic stimuli on sexually functional and dysfunctional women: Multiple measures before and after sex therapy

A group of 11 women entering sex therapy for treatment of low arousal, and a comparison group of 11 women experiencing no arousal deficit, viewed an erotic film, listened to an erotic audiotape, and engaged in sexual fantasy during two experimental sessions. Session I occurred pre-treatment for the low arousal group. Session II occurred post-treatment. The adequate arousal group was tested at comparable points in time. Sexual arousal was measured subjectively by self-rating and physiologically by a vaginal photoplethysmograph. Contrary to expectation, the two groups showed equivalent significant increases in physiological response during the erotic stimuli in both sessions. However, the adequate arousal group rated subjective arousal significantly higher than the low arousal group in Session I, while no difference was found between the groups in Session II. Significant correlations were present between physiological response and ratings of several affective reactions to the audiotape, though few significant correlations were found between physiological and subjective sexual arousal measures. These data indicate a discrepancy between genital responses and ratings of sexual arousal for which several interpretations are offered.     

A preliminary report on the nature of interactions in a mental-handicap institution

A preliminary analysis of the reactions by staff and other residents to the behaviour of mentally-handicapped people living in a medium-sized institution is presented. The subjects' behaviour was categorized as appropriate, inappropriate or neutral according to culturally-normative criteria. It was found that, for the majority of time there was no reaction to the subjects' behaviour by staff or by other residents. The implications of utilizing culturally-normative criteria for categorizing behaviour are discussed. It is proposed that this type of analysis is potentially useful for understanding the nature of interactions in institutions.     

Detecting fake-good and fake-bad MMPI-2 profiles

This study examined the extent to which the validity scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) could identify subjects who were faking bad or faking good and differentiate between psychiatric patients and normal subjects who were faking bad. Subjects were 106 undergraduate college students and 50 psychiatric patients. Results indicate that the mean profiles and optimal cutoff scores resembled those previously reported for the original MMPI. Accurate identification of persons who were faking bad or faking good was achieved. It was possible to differentiate between the psychiatric patients and normal persons who were faking bad, but different cutoff scores were needed to differentiate between normals taking the test under standard instructions and those instructed to fake bad. Optimal cutoff scores were suggested.     

Religion and the health belief model

This paper reviews the Health Belief Model (HBM) and the Religious Problem-Solving Coping Scale (RPSC) in an attempt to clarify religion's possible roles in health care actions. The HBM has been used for many years to suggest various influences on health care, including religion. The RPSC Scale investigates religion by looking at characteristics that link religion to the everyday practice of problem solving. Measuring religious beliefs with problemsolving coping allows the influence of religion to be considered in all areas of the HBM. This paper also illustrates the impact of using the RPSC scale and the HBM with implications for ministers and suggestions for further study.The author thanks Diana D. Bransfield, Ph.D., for her helpful guidance in preparing this article.     

Evidence for the self as an imaginal prototype

This study investigated recognition memory of self-photographs which had been previously rated by subjects for their degree of reference to an imaginal prototype of “real self.” The number of false alarms to NEW photographs was found to increase with degree of self-reference to the imaginal prototype with the exception of photographs rated highest in self-reference. Females were reliably superior to males in self-recognition. Males and females also differed in nonverbal behaviors reflecting differences in their image of real self. Results were interpreted as supporting an hypothesis that the self functions as a cognitive prototype which has both imaginal and verbal characteristics.     

The role of duration and rapid temporal processing on the lateral perception of consonants and vowels

This study explored the extent to which rapid temporal processing and duration contribute to the right-ear advantage (REA) and presumably left-hemisphere processing for stop consonants and the lack of clear-cut laterality effects for vowels. Three sets of synthetic stimuli were constructed: consonant vowel stimuli [ba da ga bi di gi bu du gu] of 300 msec duration (full stimuli) and two shortened stimuli consisting either of a noise burst and 40-msec transitions (40-msec stimuli), or a noise burst and 20-msec transitions (20-msec stimuli). Stimuli were presented dichotically for consonant, vowel, and syllable identification. Results indicated a significant REA for consonants in the full and 40-msec conditions and a non-significant REA in the 20-msec condition. Nevertheless, the magnitude of laterality did not change across the three conditions. These results suggest that although transition information including duration contributes to lateralization for stop consonants, it is the presence of abrupt onsets which crucially determines lateralized processing. For vowels, there was a significant REA only in the full stimulus condition, and a significant decrement in the magnitude of the laterality effect in the two shortened stimulus conditions. These results suggest that for vowel perception, it is the nature of the acoustic cue used for phonetic identification and not duration that seems to be the critical determinant of lateralization effects.     

Toward understanding sex differences in pay allocation: Agency,communion, and reward distribution behavior

This research examined the extent to which the personality characteristics of agency and communion are sex linked, and the extent to which differences in these orientations can account for sex differences in reward distribution behavior. In two studies, the agency and communion level of large samples of male and female undergraduates were assessed. As expected, males were more agentic and females were more communal. Moreover, when subjects who scored high or low on agency and high or low on communion were asked to allocate rewards between themselves and a co-worker, these personality differences were related to their allocation decisions. These results were used as the basis for discussing the role that sex-linked personality differences might play in distributive justice judgments.This article is an adaptation of a colloquium presentation at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, August 1981. The research reported here was supported by NIMH grant MH29987-1, Goals, Motives, and Norms of Reward Distribution, and by NIMH Biomedical Research Support Grant from the College of Social Science, Michigan State University. The authors wish to thank Andrea Doughty for her valuable advice, and to gratefully acknowledge the help of Mark Teicher, Julie B. Klein, Sue Schnelbach, Pat Loepp, Barb Allen, Gavin Goodrich, Bob O'Hara, Kelly Bowen, Rod Hollenstein, Steve Schultz, and Mary Hurst.     

Avoidance extinction in goldfish

Independent groups of goldfish trained to avoid shock in a shuttlebox situation were presented with several extinction procedures in which the relationships between the conditioned stimulus and shock were altered and/or response contingencies removed. Random shock presentations, equivalent to the number of shocks received during avoidance acquisition, resulted in response decrements similar to those obtained when the conditioned stimulus was presented alone. Pairing the conditioned stimulus with shock on every trial, however, served to maintain response levels. When response-contingent punishment was superimposed upon these Pavlovian pairings, performance was facilitated slightly although punishment alone resulted in somewhat faster response reduction than that produced by exposure only to the conditioned stimulus. Extinction of avoidance responding produced by exposure to the conditioned stimulus alone was dependent on the total duration of exposure and independent of both number of stimulus onsets and response prevention. These experiments demonstrated that, in general, the procedures used to reduce avoidance responding in rats were equally effective for goldfish, with one exception: the introduction of a Pavlovian contingency following avoidance acquisition, making the previously avoidable shock unavoidable, maintained response probabilities near previously established levels.