Overcoming Self-Negation in Women

The significant overrepresentation of women in depression and a seeming addiction to self-downing are viewed as heavily influenced by internalized gender role messages and further compounded by societal discrimination. The healthy self is defined, and ways of helping women in therapy move toward greater self-acceptance are described, with an emphasis on REBT women's groups. A case study illustrates the process.     

The Role of Family Processes and Coping Strategies in the Relationship Between Parental Chronic Illness and Childhood Internalizing Problems

Sixty-nine families (father, mother, and one child) in which the father had hemophilia, approximately half of whom were HIV positive, were assessed in an examination of the relationship between parental chronic illness, family functioning, child coping strategies, and child adjustment. Latent variable path analyses with partial least-squares estimation procedures (PLS) were used to test a model of the relationship between parental chronic illness, family process variables, child coping strategies, and child internalizing behavior problems. The severity of the father's illness predicted family process variables, which predicted the coping style of the child. The use of more avoidant coping strategies was associated with more internalizing problems.     

Effects of consent form information on self-disclosure

When researchers encounter preexisting psychological distress in participants, ethical codes provide little guidance on how to balance issues of beneficence and autonomy. Although researchers may inform participants what will occur given responses indicating distress, this information may lead to biased self-reports. This important issue was addressed in this study by manipulating consent form information regarding the type of psychopathology to be assessed and various levels of possible follow-up. In comparing responses on self-report measures of anxiety, depression, and general psychological distress, men who believed depression was the focus of the study reported fewer symptoms of depression and less trait anxiety as intrusiveness of experimenter follow-up increased. These results are discussed within the framework of socialization theory. Given that half of the sample did not correctly answer questions regarding information contained in the consent form, guidelines to improve consent form comprehension are offered.     

Effects of ethanol on reinforced variations and repetitions by rats under a multiple schedule.

Response sequences emitted by five Long-Evans rats were reinforced under a two-component multiple schedule. In the REPEAT component, food pellets were contingent upon completion of a left-left-right-right (LLRR) sequence on two levers. In the VARY component, pellets were contingent upon variable sequences (i.e., a sequence was reinforced only if it differed from each of the previous five sequences). The rats learned to emit LLRR sequences in the REPEAT component and variable sequences in VARY. Intraperitoneal injections of ethanol (1.25, 1.75, and 2.25 g/kg) significantly increased sequence variability in REPEAT, thereby lowering reinforcement probability, but had little effect on sequence variability in the VARY component. These results extend previous findings that alcohol impairs the performance of reinforced repetitions but not of reinforced variations in response sequences.     

Hemispheric differences in visual search of simple line arrays

Summary The effects of perceptual organization on hemispheric visual-information processing were assessed with stimulus arrays composed of short lines arranged in columns. A visual-search task was employed in which subjects judged whether all the lines were vertical (same) or whether a single horizontal line was present (different). Stimulus-display organization was manipulated in two experiments by variation of line density, linear organization, and array size. In general, left-visual-field/right-hemisphere presentations demonstrated more rapid and accurate responses when the display was perceived as a whole. Right-visual-field/left-hemisphere superiorities were observed when the display organization coerced assessment of individual array elements because the physical qualities of the stimulus did not effect a gestalt whole. Response times increased somewhat with increases in array size, although these effects interacted with other stimulus variables. Error rates tended to follow the reaction-time patterns. The results suggest that laterality differences in visual search are governed by stimulus properties which contribute to, or inhibit, the perception of a display as a gestalt. The implications of these findings for theoretical interpretations of hemispheric specialization are discussed.     

The impact of school emotional climate on student psychopathology

Reports of differences among schools in emotional and social climate were related to changes in behavioral and emotional problems and alcohol use in students who remained in these schools over a 2-year interval. Four dimensions of school climate were examined. School conflict and social facilitation were shown to be related to increases in childhood psychopathology, whereas student autonomy was not. Effects of academic focus were even stronger than those of conflict, in the sense of being independently related to more syndromes. School climate effects were examinedfor conditionality on student characteristics and for synergism, It was concluded that intervention to alter the school climate may promote the emotional and behavioral well-being of children and adolescents.This research was supported by NIMH Grants MH36971 and MH30906. The authors wish to thank Robert Ouellette for his assistance.     

Cerebral hemispheric involvement in the acquisition of new phonetic categories

This study was concerned with the involvement of the cerebral hemispheres in the acquisition of perceptual skill with novel speech sounds. Two groups of eight subjects rated on three occasions the dissimilarity of pairs of Mandarin Chinese speech sounds varying on voicing and aspiration, presented to the left or right ear with contralateral noise. The experimental group received listening experience with long passages of Mandarin containing the target sounds. Multidimensional scaling analysis of dissimilarity ratings indicated that listening experience leads to increased perceptual differentiation of phonetic categories drawn from a language unfamiliar to the listener. This improvement occurred sooner with presentation of the target sounds to the right hemisphere than to the left if the phonological contrast was along the voicing dimension. Improvement in the perception of stimuli varying on aspiration occurred in right ear presentations only. This finding supports the position that speech perception mechanisms at the feature level may be distributed asymmetrically across the hemispheres.     

Temporal clause comprehension in fluent and nonfluent aphasics

Ten fluent and ten nonfluent aphasics participated in this study. Their ability to comprehend before and after clauses which mirrored the order of occurrence and those which did not mirror the order of events was investigated. Results indicate that type of aphasia was not a significant variable related to comprehension but that sentence type was a significant variable. Aphasics' comprehendbefore clauses better thanafter clauses. Nonfluent aphasics were able to comprehend those temporal clauses that mirror the order of occurrence better than those that do not. Order of mention was not a significant factor related to comprehension in the fluent group.     

GENDER COMPARISONS OF MATHEMATICS ATTITUDES AND AFFECT

This article reports the complex results of meta-analyses of gender differences in attitudes and affect specific to mathematics. Overall, effect sizes were small and were similar in size to gender differences in mathematics performance. When differences exist, the pattern is for females to hold more negative attitudes. Gender differences in self-confidence and general mathematics attitudes are larger among high school and college students than among younger students. Effect sizes for mathematics anxiety differ depending upon the sample (highly selected or general). One exception to the general pattern is in stereotyping mathematics as a male domain, where males hold much more stereotyped attitudes ( d = -.90). While affect and attitudes toward mathematics are not the only influences on the development of gender differences in mathematics performance, they are important, and both male and female affect and attitudes should be considered in conjunction with other social and political influences as explanations.     

Cross-informant consistency in externalizing and internalizing problems in early adolescence

The concept of cross-informant consistency has long been a topic of interest for those involved in assessment of behavior problems in adolescence. The purpose of the present study was to replicate and expand the existing literature by including four informants (mother, father, teacher, and adolescent self-report) and examining correlations among them as well as differences between reporters on an absolute level of both internalizing and externalizing problems. Fifty-two young adolescents (ranging in age from 11 to 15 years) and their mothers, fathers, and social studies teachers participated in the study. The Conduct Disorder subscale, Socialized Aggression subscale, and Anxiety/Withdrawal subscale of the Revised Behavior Problem Checklist were used. Results indicated that teachers showed little agreement with other informants on conduct problems (teachers reporting fewer problems), while parents and adolescents showed significant agreement. Informants showed no agreement on the measure of covert problems (socialized aggression), and all reports showed agreement on internalizing problems (although teachers continued to report fewer problems). Implications for assessment of young adolescents are discussed.This research was supported, in part, by the William T. Grant Foundation and the University of Georgia's Institute for Behavior Research.