Psychosocial Considerations in Sickle Cell Disease (SCD): The Transition from Adolescence to Young Adulthood

Sickle cell disease (SCD) occurs in 1 of every 400 to 500 African American births. Despite its prevalence, there has been a relative dearth of attention paid to SCD in the psychological literature. African American SCD adolescents and young adults, individuals at an already vulnerable developmental stage, are at increased risk for psychological distress and psychosocial impairments (e.g., depression and low self-esteem, poor social and academic/vocational functioning). Such difficulties often result in problematic adherence to medical regimens, and thus represent a potentially serious clinical and public health problem that merits the attention of psychologists working in medical settings. This article (1) reviews the psychosocial needs peculiar to SCD patients transitioning from adolescence to young adulthood; (2) applies a culturally informed stress-coping-adjustment framework to assess and address the psychological status, psychosocial functioning, and disease outcomes of these individuals; and (3) describes a culturally and developmentally sensitive, psychoeducational group intervention.     

The Pivotal Role of Replication in Psychological Research: Empirically Evaluating the Replicability of Sample Results

ABSTRACT This Article discusses reasons for the contemporary emphasis on evaluating the replicability of results from psychological research. Three logics for empirically evaluating the replicability of sample results—cross-validation, the jackknife, and the bootstrap—are described. A small heuristic data set is employed to make the discussion more concrete and accessible.     

Interpretational factors in conditional reasoning

Two experiments examined the role of necessity and sufficiency relationships in conditional reasoning. The results indicated that perceived necessity and sufficiency predicted variability in reasoning performance for four pragmatic relations (permission, obligation, causation, and definition), for both determinant and indeterminant syntactic forms, and for both a conditional arguments and a truth table evaluation task, as well as when the temporal relationship between the antecedent and consequent events was reversed. These data support the general utility of perceived necessity and sufficiency in the interpretation and evaluation of conditional relationships. However, the effects of necessity and sufficiency were smaller for reversed than for forward statements, which suggests that necessity/sufficiency-based interpretations may be more useful for evaluating some types of conditional relations than others. In addition, people were more likely to accept valid rather than invalid arguments, regardless of necessity/sufficiency relations, a finding that suggests that abstract, content-free representations may play a functional role in conditional reasoning.     

The use of limit theorems in paired comparison model building

The Thurstone and the Bradley-Terry models, both initially advanced on intuitive grounds, have proved useful in the analysis of paired comparisons. The psychological meaning of these models and their relation to one another is unclear, but they fit data. Stevens has observed that there may be two basic mechanisms of discrimination 1) additive and 2) substitutive. We advance two corresponding mathematical models: that experienced sensation is 1) the sum of a large number of independent signals and 2) the maximum of a large number of independent signals. These assumptions yield 1) Thurstone's model and 2) the model of Bradley-Terry. Psychological interpretations of the various parameters, in terms of sensation, present themselves in a natural manner. Thus this paper presents a theory which unifies and interprets two paired comparison models that have proved useful in fitting experimental data.This research was supported in part by a National Science Foundation Grant GP 3807 and by the Army, Navy, and Air Force under ONR Contract # NONR-988(08), Task Order NR 042-004 with the Florida State University.     

Use of Reinforcement Technique with a First Grade Boy

A reinforcement technique in counseling was used to modify a first grader's attending behavior. Pre- and post-counseling measurements were made and cumulative records were kept of attending time in counseling sessions and in arithmetic lessons, and a record was kept of completion vs. noncompletion of arithmetic assignments. The assessments made in regard to the arithmetic lessons enabled an investigation of transfer effects from counseling to the academic area. An investigation of transfer effects was also informally made relative to other school situations. Results showed increased attending behavior in counseling and in the classroom, and a marked improvement in completion of assignments, and were interpreted as supporting the use of a behavioral approach in elementary school counseling.     

Interdigital transfer of kinesthetic after-effects

Two experiments investigated the effect of using a different finger for inspection (I) than is used in making judgments on the size of a kinesthetic aftereffect (KAE). Experiment I investigated transfer of I stimulation of the ring finger to judgments made with the index finger, A control group used the index finger for both judgments and 1 period. Results indicated significant KAE for both groups. Experiment II replicated Experiment I except the second finger was used to test for transfer of I stimulation to judgments made with the index finger. Results indicated KAE for only the control group which used the index finger for both judgments and 1 stimulation.