Reliability and validity of the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List - Revised

A recent factor analysis of the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List (MAACL) changed the Anxiety, Depression, and Hostility scales from bipolar to unipolar scales and added two new scales: Positive Affect and Sensation Seeking. Internal reliability of the MAACL-R scales, computed for normal and patient samples, was adequate for state and trait forms except for Sensation Seeking. Test-retest reliability in college students was higher for the trait form with retest intervals of from 2 to 8 weeks than for the state form with retest intervals of from 2 to 5 days. The pattern of correlations among self-, peer, and counselor ratings and the MAACL-R scales for normal and patient samples indicates improved discriminant validity and equally good convergent validity as the old scales. The use of standard scores that are indexed to the number of items checked reduced scale intercorrelations by controlling the acquiescence set.The financial support of the Weldon Springs Endowment Fund, University of Missouri at Kansas City, toward the completion of this research project is gratefully acknowledged.     

Adult maturational processes and the facilitating environment

The psychoanalytic theory of religion has been seriously limited in its development, largely owing to Freud's emphasis on religion's neurotic elements and an overemphasis on the infantile origins of religious development. This paper offers a conceptual framework and advances the thesis, based on contemporary psychoanalytic, developmental theory, that 1) Erikson's concept of epigenesis has applicability across the life span; 2) that beyond-the-self identity is constituent to human maturation and self-completion; 3) that successful adult maturation requires a mirroring-facilitating environment; and 4) that religious values, meanings, images, and communities play an essential role-as-elements of the facilitating environment of later life.     

Spatial frequency and attention: Effects of level-, target-, and location-repetition on the processing of global and local forms

Is attentional selection between local and global forms based on spatial frequency? This question was examined by having subjects identify local or global forms of stimuli that had been “contrast balanced,” a technique that eliminates low spatial frequencies. Response times (RTs) to global (but not local) forms were slowed for contrast-balanced stimuli, suggesting that low spatial frequencies mediate the global RT advantage typically reported. In contrast, the beneficial effect of having targets appear at the same, as opposed to a different, level as that on the immediately preceding trial was unaffected by contrast balancing. This suggests that attentional selection between different levels of structure is not based on spatial frequency. The data favor an explanation in terms of “priming,” rather than in terms of adjustments in the diameter of an attentional “spotlight.”     

Configurational approach to manifest dream analysis: Possible acceleration of the patient's communication in psychoanalytic psychotherapy

This paper presents an approach to dream analysis utilizing the manifest content of a number of consecutive dreams from the same patient. Following a review of the literature, it is noted that in once-a-week psychotherapy there is often very little time for exhaustive dream analysis to unravel the buried meanings within the latent dream content. Twenty categories have been established for the configurational analysis, which is applied to the analysis of the first eleven dreams of a patient in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The authors independently analyzed the patient's dreams using each of the 20 categories with high reliability, then combined their contributions. This data was then compared with the treating analyst's independent clinical observations about the twenty categories.     

An examination of linkages between personal characteristics and dimensions of transformational leadership

Recent research in organizational behavior has found that transformational leadership can engender improved employee work outcomes in many types of organizations. Personal characteristics of transformational leaders, however, have not been thoroughly investigated. This paper reports the findings of a study that explored relationships between personal characteristics and dimensions of transformational leadership using sales managers as the population of interest. Findings suggest that a reconceptualization of the proposed linkages may be necessary. Potential explanations for the results obtained are presented along with managerial and research implications.The authors gratefully acknowledge the host company for its participation in the study.     

GOOD AND BAD HUMORS:

Personality and its disorders may he studied at many levels, from the broad trait to the basic genetic level This article ad- dresses primarily two of these levels, the trait and the biochemical, and the relations between them, with some treatment of the genetic and neuropsychological levels Five current trait models are described Neurotransmitter systems in the brain and hormones have been shown to be important sources of other species, but simple one-to-one relationships between traits and biochemical are rare, and integrations are likely at all levels     

The Papago Psychology Service: A community mental health program on an American Indian reservation

A community psychology service run by the Papago Indian tribe and staffed largely by Papago Indians who have been trained as mental health workers is described. This service is unique among mental health services for Indians in that the tribe has complete control of the funds for the service and sets its own policies. It was developed for a rather traditional Indian group, and the culture, the traditions, and the wishes of the Papago community were respected. Consultation with medicine men was built into the program from the start, and adaptation of mental health techniques to fit the culture is stressed. Before this clinic was established, few mental health resources were directly available to the reservation. Similar to other Indian tribes, the Papagos are economically disadvantaged, with an unemployment rate of over 50%, low educational attainment, and very high rates of alcoholism, suicide, and vehicular accidents. The topics covered are the tribe's view of health programs for its people, the present Papago community and traditional means of treatment, traditional psychotherapy adapted to Papago culture, the indigenous Papago mental health worker, and the non-Indian professional consultant.     

Role of conditioned reinforcers in the initiation,maintenance and extinction of drug-seeking behavior

The development of a secondary reinforcer as a result of associating a neutral stimulus (buzzer) with intravenous (IV) doses of morphine was studied in rats. Secondary reinforcement developed in the absence of physical dependence and followed the association of the stimulus with either response-contingent or non-contingent injections of morphine. Strength of the conditioned reinforcer, measured in terms of responding on a lever for the stimulus plus infusion of saline solution, was proportional to the unit dosage of morphine employed in pairings of buzzer and drug. When extinction of the lever-press response for IV morphine was conducted (by substituting saline for morphine solution) in the absence of the conditioned reinforcing stimulus, it was seen later that the stimulus could still elicit lever responses, until it too had been present for a sufficient interval of non-reinforced responding. Similarly, extinction of the response for morphine by blocking its action with naloxone in the absence of the stimulus did not eliminate the conditioned reinforcement. Another study showed that a passive, subcutaneous (SC) dose of morphine served to maintain lever-pressing on a contingency of buzzer plus sahne infusion. Furthermore, the stimuli resulting from the presence of morphine (after a SC injection) were able to reinstate the lever-responding with only the buzzer-saline contingency when such responses had previously been extinguished. Moreover, it was shown thatd-amphetamine could restore responding under the same conditions, and that morphine could also do so for rats in which the primary reinforcer had beend-amphetamine. It is suggested that animal data such as these show that procedures designed for the elimination of human drug-taking behavior must take into account secondary reinforcers as well as the primary reinforcer(s).