A microcomputer package for real-time skin conductance response analysis

A suite of programs has been developed to acquire data from a commercially available, highquality skin conductance meter, via a standard IEEE bus, on an Apple II or Apple lie microcomputer. These programs score and analyze stimulus-evoked skin conductance responses in a preset time window, and store the resultant data on disk, if required. Facilities for a manual override of the automatic scoring routine are available. The setup offers a method of scoring data as they are acquired; it uses currently recommended standards for skin conductance analysis and allows a high magnification of responses, without any need for continual monitoring, because of hardware facilities that automatically “back-off” a subject’s tonic skin conductance level.     

Psychological distance to reward: A human replication

Choice behavior in college students was examined in two experiments using the concurrent-chains procedure. In both experiments, the concurrent chains were presented on a microcomputer in the form of an air-defense game in which subjects used two radar systems to detect and subsequently destroy enemy aircraft. Access to one of two radar systems was controlled by a pair of independent concurrent variable-interval 60-s schedules with a 4-s changeover delay always in effect. In the terminal link, the appearance of an enemy aircraft was determined by a pair of differentially segmented fixed-time schedules (Experiment 1) or fixed-interval schedules (Experiment 2) of equal overall duration. In Experiment 1, the terminal-link duration was either 20 s or 40 s, and subjects preferred the unsegmented to the segmented intervals. In Experiment 2, the duration was either 10 s or 60 s, and the reinforcement contingencies required responding during the terminal link. Prior to the reinstatement of the initial link, subjects estimated the duration of the terminal-link schedule. Segmentation affected choice in the 60-s conditions but not in the 10-s ones. Preference for the unsegmented schedule was correlated with an overestimation of the durations for the segmented schedules. These results replicated those found in animal experiments and support the notion of increasing the psychological distance to reward by segmenting a time-based schedule of reinforcement.     

A Moderator of the Interaction Effect of Procedural Justice and Outcome Favorability: Importance of the Relationship

Justice literature has documented that procedural justice interacts with outcome favorability in determining people's reactions to a decision. Specifically when people perceive the outcome as negative, procedural justice has remarkably strong and positive influence on their attitudes and reactions to the decision. The present study extended past research by illustrating that the interaction effect of procedural justice and outcome favorability is dependent on the perceived importance of the relationship with the other party. Two studies yielded converging results that the interaction effect is operative only when the relationship with the other person or group is important to the person.     

Altruistic Orientation in Children: Construction and Validation of the Child Altruism Inventory

The Child Altruism Inventory (CAI) consisted of 24 yes-or-no items which measured the altruistic orientation of children. The sample included 1095 Grades 2 to 6 Chinese children in Hong Kong, The test-retest and internal consistency reliabilities of the CAI were in the 0.70s. The correlations of the CAI score with the intelligence and self-esteem scores were significantly positive, while the correlations of the CAI score with the psychoticism and neuroticism scores were significantly negative. Children in classes of positive and negative social environment rated high and low on the CAI respectively. The relations of the CAI score with self-report prosocial and delinquent behavioural indices were also positive and negative respectively. The psychometric properties of the CAI are regarded as quite good.     

Are DSM-IV-TR Borderline Personality Disorder, ICD-10 Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder, and CCMD-III Impulsive Personality Disorder Analogous Diagnostic Categories Across Psychiatric Nomenclatures?

This study examined the validity of the borderline construct which encompasses diagnostic criteria from the DSM-IV-TR Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), ICD-10 Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD), and CCMD-III Impulsive Personality Disorder (IPD) in a sample of 1,419 Chinese psychiatric patients. Participants completed the Chinese Personality Disorder Inventory and the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory-2 assessing various disordered personality features. Adequate internal consistency was found for the borderline construct (α = .83). Exploratory factor analysis revealed two components: (1) affective and cognitive disturbances, and (2) impulse dysregulation, which were replicated by confirmatory factor analysis. Item analysis indicated that the various borderline criteria displayed similar levels of diagnostic efficiency, which does not support the elimination of fear of abandonment and transient psychotic features from the EUPD and IPD criteria set. Findings of this study suggest that BPD, EUPD, and IPD may represent analogous diagnostic categories across classification systems.     

Outcome of group cognitive-behavior therapy for bulimia nervosa: the role of core beliefs

It is hypothesized that individuals who benefit less from CBT will be those who have more pathological core beliefs (unconditional beliefs, unrelated to food, shape and weight). Twenty bulimic women were treated using 12 sessions of conventional group CBT. Eating behavior and attitudes were assessed pre- and posttreatment. Core beliefs were assessed at the beginning of the programme, and were used as predictors of change across treatment (once any effect of pretreatment psychopathology was taken into account). Group CBT was effective, with reductions of over 50% in bulimic symptoms. Outcome on most indices was associated with pretreatment levels of pathological core beliefs. Possible reasons for these findings are discussed.     

Net-generation attributes and seductive properties of the internet as predictors of online activities and internet addiction.

Born between 1977 and 1997, Net-generation is the first generation to grow up surrounded by home computers, video games, and the Internet. As children of the Baby Boomers, the Internet is the medium of choice for the Net-geners. Based on the assumption that Net-generation has unique characteristics, this study examined (1) how Net-geners addicted to the Internet differ from the non-addicted and (2) how these attributes, together with the seductive properties of the Internet, are related to Internet addiction. Data were gathered from a probability sample of 699 Net-geners between the ages of 16 and 24. Results show that Net-geners addicted to the Internet tend to be young female students. Being emotionally open on the Net and a heavy user of ICQ were most influential in predicting Net-geners' problematic use of the Internet. Addicted Net-geners are also strongly linked to the pleasure of being able to control the simulated world in online games. The finding reinforces previous research that "dependents" of the Internet spend most of their time in the synchronous communication environment engaging in interactive online games, chat rooms, and ICQ for pleasure-seeking or escape, while "non-dependents" use information-gathering functions available on the Internet. Furthermore, Internet addicts tend to watch television significantly less, indicating a displacement effect on traditional media use for the Net-generation.     

A test of the hypothesis about the two-dimensional nature of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scale

This paper presents the results from two related studies concerning the internal structure of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability (MD-SD) scale. Study 1 tested the hypothesis that attribution and denial are two major components of the MC-SD scale by factoring the intercorrelations among the MC-SD items using the correlated multiple-group common factor analysis, and the results supported the hypothesis. Study 2 investigated the differential validity of these components for predicting scores on the Lie scale, the K scale, and the Repression-Sensitization scale. The attribution and denial components were found to be differentially related to the K scale and the Repression-Sensitization scale but not the Lie scale. These results were also interpreted as partially supporting the hypothesis.