Age-dependent facilitation of taste-footshock conditioning by prior exposure to the training context

Among adult rats, gustatory stimuli are easily associated with illness, but not with external unconditioned stimuli such as footshock. Recent evidence indicates, however, that this cue-to-consequence specificity may vary ontongenetically. The present studies examined the acquisition of an aversion to a taste paired with footshock in 5- and 15-day-old rats. Consistent with previous reports, 5-day-old rats avoided the taste that preceded footshock, while 15-day-old subjects did not express an aversion to the taste paired with footshock. Exposure to the training context for either 1 or 5 h prior to conditioning disrupted taste-footshock conditioning in the 5-day-old subjects. For the 15-day-old subjects, 1 h of pre-conditioning exposure to the training context had no effect on conditioning, whereas a longer duration of preexposure promoted conditioning to the taste cue. The results suggest ontogenetic differences in stimulus selection.     

The Role of Sympathy and Altruistic Personality Traits in Helping: A Reexamination

The purposes of this study were (a) to examine the role of social evaluative concerns in the self-report of sympathy and in the relation of sympathy to helping; and (b) to determine the role of "altruistic personality" traits and situationally induced vicarious emotional responses in the intention to help. Dispositional and situational self-reports of sympathy and other vicarious emotional reactions were obtained for persons who also were given the opportunity to assist a needy other. Moreover, dispositional measures of concern with social evaluation and an altruistic orientation were obtained, and a bogus pipeline manipulation was instituted for half the study participants. Both dispositional and situational self-reported sympathy were positively related to helping, as were other personality indices viewed as reflecting altruistic characteristics. The relations for the dispositional indices of sympathy were not due solely to social evaluative concerns or to other egoistic concerns. The effects on intended helping of dispositional sympathy, perspective taking, and the tendency to ascribe responsibility for others to the self appeared to be both direct and mediated by situational sympathetic responding. Finally, situational sadness did not mediate the effects of sympathetic responsiveness.     

Guidelines are not enough: The need for written sentencing opinions

Guideline sentencing systems, including the new federal guidelines, have not settled on a clear conception of when and how a trial judge should explain sentences. Indeterminate sentencing systems did not have a tradition of written sentencing decisions and recent sentencing reforms do not focus on the trial judge's role. This article suggests the many advantages of written sentencing opinions. Initial experience under the federal sentencing guidelines bolsters the conclusion that written sentencing opinions in appropriate cases—including both sentences “within” guidelines and guideline “departures”—are the next step in the evolving law of sentencing and the best way to recognize trial judges as an essential engine of principled change.     

Art in existential psychotherapy with couples and families

The authors describe and outline how art can be used in existential psychotherapy to help a couple or family uncover, discover, and make use of the meanings and meaning potentials to be found in marital and family life. In existential psychotherapy with couples and families, art can be used to help the members of the relationship notice meaning potentials in the future, honor meaning potentials that have been actualized and deposited in the past, and discover new ways to actualize meaning potentials in the here and now.     

Cognitive Testing Battery: differences among groups with dementia, Huntington's disease, and controls

This study evaluated a new test for dementia, the Cognitive Testing Battery, used for over six years in outpatient clinics for aging-related disorders. This battery was developed to be brief, easy to administer, and to provide useful feedback as a cognitive profile for clinicians, patients, and caregivers. 489 participants were tested during a 5-yr. period. Multidisicplinary teams diagnosed these patients with dementia, depression, or Huntington's Disease. A control group was also included. Groups were then compared on the 10 key subscales that subserve dementia populations. Analysis showed there were significant differences among the groups on all measures and that selected scales differentiated the groups. The total score maximally differentiated the groups, and the dementia group was most different from the other groups.     

Trial spacing is a determinant of cue interaction

Four conditioned lick suppression experiments with rats examined the effect of trial spacing on cue interaction. Experiments 1 and 2 found overshadowing to be eliminated with massed compound stimulus-outcome pairings and the usual trial spacing effect to be reversed with compound acquisition trials. Experiment 3 found that whether acquisition compound-outcome pairings were massed or spaced determined the effect of posttraining extinction treatment. Extinction of the overshadowing cue reduced responding following massed training and increased responding following spaced training. Extinction of the context decreased responding following massed training. Experiment 4 found the conditioning and devaluation results to be associative and stimulus specific. These results are in accord with the extended comparator hypothesis (J. C. Denniston, H. I. Savastano, & R. R. Miller, 2001).     

Nationality: Some Replies

This paper defends the principle of nationality against a number of critical objections made in recent issues of the Journal . It starts from the claim that national solidarity has served and continues to serve as an essential support to liberal democratic institutions and practices of social justice. Such national allegiances are not easy to defend if one begins from a cosmopolitan standpoint. But defending them does not mean embracing everything that people ordinarily believe — a political philosophy that begins from existing national sentiments can be sharply critical of the practices that are said to embody those sentiments. In particular justice, although its principles are context-dependent, is more than merely subjective.
The idea that nations are historic communities is defended against the charge that such 'communities' are in fact divided along lines of class, ethnicity, etc. Membership imposes obligations, but these are not merely to repeat what our ancestors have done; they are redefined in each generation. A principle of nationality that is reiterative and democratic, recognising the equal claims of other nations, and giving priority to the way the present inhabitants of a territory understand their identity, can remedy weaknesses in liberalism without licensing aggressive forms of nationalism.     

The persuasiveness of racial arguments as a subtle measure of racism

These studies provide evidence of the reliability and validity of a new indirect measure of racism, the Racial Argument Scale (RAS). On the RAS, participants rate how well arguments support conclusions that are positive or negative toward Blacks rather than their agreement with the arguments and conclusions. These studies show that the RAS has good internal consistency, high levels of test-retest reliability, good convergent validity with other self-report measures of racism, and does not correlate with social desirability or right-wing authoritarianism. Furthermore, these studies show that the RAS predicts behavioral measures of racism and that the RAS is able to predict positivity and negativity toward Blacks that is not measured by other self-report measures of racism. These studies suggest that the RAS is a reliable and valid measure of racial attitudes.     

Multiple listing for organ transplantation: autonomy unbounded

Recently, debate about the distribution of scarce organs for transplantation has focused on whether patients should have the right to place themselves on waiting lists at several transplant centers, thereby gaining an advantage over other potential recipients. This article explores the social and ethical issues raised by multiple listing, contrasting policies adopted at the national level with those implemented in New York State. It concludes by examining the implications of the debate for broader questions about entitlement and access to health care.     

Validity of the Threat Index.

The validity of the Threat Index was examined in a study of 42 students and 15 HIV+ clients. When completing the Threat Index, subjects rate the self and death on 30 bipolar adjectives. A count is made of the number of times the same adjective poles are used to describe the self and death. Uses of the same poles are called matches, while uses of different poles are called splits. The Threat Index is based on the assumption that splits indicate threat. Analysis showed that neither splits nor matches were usually threatening and that neither was necessary or sufficient for the experience of threat. These results did not support the validity of the Threat Index.