LeRoy Walters and Julie Gage Palmer,The Ethics of Human Gene Therapy

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics -     

Informal and Professional Support for Solving Psychological Problems Among Korean‐Speaking Immigrants

Korean American immigrants rated the helpfulness of various sources of social support in addressing 3 psychological problems. Traditionalism was not related to perceived helpfulness of professionals but was significantly related to perceived helpfulness of informal support. Path analysis revealed that traditionalism and attitudes toward professionals mediated the effects of personal variables on the perceptions of social support.     

Tricks of Memory

Remembering an episode from even the recent past may involve a blend of fiction and fact. We discuss a straight-forward laboratory paradigm that is proving useful in the study of false memories of simple episodes. In this paradigm, subjects study lists of 15 related words ( bed, rest, awake ...) that are all related to a critical word that is not presented ( sleep ). Later, subjects recall and recognize the critical missing word with about the same probability that they remember words from the list. This memory illusion is resistant to people's attempts to avoid it. We argue that similar memory errors are commonplace and are a natural outcome of an intelligent cognitive system, which makes inferences about incoming information. Therefore, memory illusions, like perceptual illusions, are a consequence of normal human information processing and offer a window for examining basic cognitive processes.     

Intensity affects the preconscious processing of emotionally toned words in college students

The detectability of high and low intensity emotionally toned words was investigated in a signal detection paradigm using college students as subjects. Individually set thresholds kept word identification to an average of 16 percent. The results indicate a complicated pattern of interactions among intensity, gender, positive or negative tone, and hemispheric presentation. Greater detectability was found for right hemisphere presentations and low intensity words. In addition, positive words showed greater detectability than negative words. The findings are discussed in terms of factors that affect automatic attitude activation. This article is based on a presentation at the American Psychological Society Annual in Washington, D.C., June 1998.     

Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms and Stressful Life Events Predict the Long-term Adjustment of Survivors of Childhood Cancer and Their Mothers

Objectives: To examine prospectively the impact of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in response to childhood cancer and treatment on general adjustment while accounting for the role of other stressful life events and appraisal of life threat and treatment intensity. Methods: As part of a larger study assessing PTSS, 56 childhood cancer survivors, aged 8 to 18, and 65 mothers completed self-report measures of PTSS and appraisal of the intensity and life threat associated with cancer treatment at time 1 and self-report measures of stressful life events and general adjustment at time 2 (approximately 18 months after time 1). Results: For child survivors and their mothers, posttraumatic stress at time 1 significantly predicted general adjustment at time 2, over and above the significant contribution of lifetime stressful events. The life events variable did not function as a mediator in the association of PTSS and general adjustment. Conclusions: Trauma responses to childhood cancer and its treatment have implications for the long-term adaptation of children and their families. Early signs and symptoms of posttraumatic stress and stressful life experiences require early assessment and intervention.     

Alternative Models of Price Behavior in Dyadic Negotiations: Market Prices, Reservation Prices, and Negotiator Aspirations

Three competing predictors of price are manipulated in a two-party distributive negotiation. These include prevailing market prices, negotiator reservation prices, and negotiator aspirations. We offer a cognitive interpretation of how each type of information is incorporated into the negotiator′s thought processes as an alternative cognitive reference point. In two studies varying the levels of these three factors, only reservation prices, not prevailing market prices or negotiator aspirations, account for significant variance in negotiated outcomes. Discussion is offered, suggesting that the negotiator as decision maker may experience a "dominant reference point" effect. When multiple pieces of relevant information are available, the negotiator may only be able to focus on one of them. Among the three predictors studied, the reservation price may be cognitively interpreted as the most absolute limit.     

Grandmothers and Mothers: An Intergenerational Comparison of Child-rearing Practices with Pre-schoolers

Changes towards modernity in attitudes and behaviours in child-rearing come slowly. Stresses may arise in families when the developmental understandings of grandparents and parents lead to incompatible beliefs and practices. This research used in-depth, personal and separate interviews with 126 subjects, grandmothers and their grown daughters, to ascertain domains of congruence and of disparity in the child-rearing attitudes and techniques reported by each respondent. Greater awareness of areas where grandparents and parents agree and where they differ can lead to more efforts to understand each other's viewpoints and to reconcile differences which otherwise might lead to feelings of alienation or rejection between family members from different generations.     

Modeling Heterogeneous Peer Assortment Effects Using Finite Mixture Exponential Random Graph Models

Psychometrika - This article develops a class of models called sender/receiver finite mixture exponential random graph models (SRFM-ERGMs). This class of models extends the existing exponential...