Shyness and locus of control as predictors of internet addiction and internet use.

The new psychological disorder of Internet addiction is fast accruing both popular and professional recognition. Past studies have indicated that some patterns of Internet use are associated with loneliness, shyness, anxiety, depression, and self-consciousness, but there appears to be little consensus about Internet addiction disorder. This exploratory study attempted to examine the potential influences of personality variables, such as shyness and locus of control, online experiences, and demographics on Internet addiction. Data were gathered from a convenient sample using a combination of online and offline methods. The respondents comprised 722 Internet users mostly from the Net-generation. Results indicated that the higher the tendency of one being addicted to the Internet, the shyer the person is, the less faith the person has, the firmer belief the person holds in the irresistible power of others, and the higher trust the person places on chance in determining his or her own course of life. People who are addicted to the Internet make intense and frequent use of it both in terms of days per week and in length of each session, especially for online communication via e-mail, ICQ, chat rooms, newsgroups, and online games. Furthermore, full-time students are more likely to be addicted to the Internet, as they are considered high-risk for problems because of free and unlimited access and flexible time schedules. Implications to help professionals and student affairs policy makers are addressed.     

Linking Gene, Brain, and Behavior: DRD4, Frontal Asymmetry, and Temperament

ABSTRACT— Gene-environment interactions involving exogenous environmental factors are known to shape behavior and personality development. Although gene-environment interactions involving endogenous environmental factors are hypothesized to play an equally important role, this conceptual approach has not been empirically applied in the study of early-developing temperament in humans. Here we report evidence for a gene- endo environment (i.e., resting frontal brain electroencephalogram, EEG, asymmetry) interaction in predicting child temperament. The dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) gene (long allele vs. short allele) moderated the relation between resting frontal EEG asymmetry (left vs. right) at 9 months and temperament at 48 months. Children who exhibited left frontal EEG asymmetry at 9 months and who possessed the DRD4 long allele were significantly more soothable at 48 months than other children. Among children with right frontal EEG asymmetry at 9 months, those with the DRD4 long allele had significantly more difficulties focusing and sustaining attention at 48 months than those with the DRD4 short allele. Resting frontal EEG asymmetry did not influence temperament in the absence of the DRD4 long allele. We discuss how the interaction of genetic and endoenvironmental factors may confer risk and protection for different behavioral styles in children.     

A foundation for support theory based on a non-Boolean event space

A new foundation is presented for the theory of subjective judgments of probability known in the psychological literature as “Support Theory”. It is based on new complementation operations that, unlike those of classical probability theory (set-theoretic complementation) and classical logic (negation), need not satisfy the principles of the Law of The Excluded Middle and the Law of Double Complementation. Interrelationships between the new complementation operations and the Kahneman and Tversky judgmental heuristic of availability are described.     

How People Can Benefit from Mental Health Consumer-Run Organizations

The goal of this study is to develop a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of the processes by which people can benefit from mental health consumer-run organizations (CROs). To accomplish this goal, the concept of roles is used to create a preliminary framework that draws connections between several established theoretical explanations. To ground theory development in empirical data, 194 CRO members from 20 CROs answered open-ended questions about what personal changes occurred as a result of their CRO involvement and what CRO participation experiences enabled personal change. Data analysis led to the identification of 18 personal change categories and 7 experiences that led to change. These categories were integrated into the preliminary theoretical framework, which needed to be extended to accommodate all categories. While inevitably tentative, the final conceptualization provides a more comprehensive understanding of the processes by which people can benefit from CRO participation.     

Use of a token economy to eliminate excessive inappropriate social behavior in an adult with developmental disabilities

Adults with developmental disabilities frequently have both deficits in appropriate social skills and excesses in inappropriate social behavior (Matson, LeBlanc, & Weinheimer, 1999). Typically, published treatment studies have focused on social skills training procedures that teach and promote the use of new social behaviors. However, only a few studies have focused on management of existing social behaviors that are problematic because they occur excessively or in an inappropriate context (Wright, Herzog, & Seymour, 1992). The current study focuses on management of three types of inappropriate social behavior in a 26‐year‐old male with moderate mental retardation: inappropriate social interactions, inappropriate sexual behavior, and verbal aggression. A token economy with response cost procedure was implemented using a DRO interval as the basis for earning tokens. Using a multiple‐baseline design across behaviors, each of the three types of inappropriate social behavior was successfully treated. After demonstrating the success of the procedure, the DRO interval was increased while maintaining the reductions in inappropriate social behaviors. Appropriate behaviors such as initiating conversation, shaking hands, etc maintained throughout the intervention. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A 25-year follow-up: Some reflections on personality development over the long term

Highlights of our work over the last 30 years are reviewed; we begin with the infants whom we studied in the mid-1950s and conclude with impressions from a follow-up of their development 30 years later. The review begins with our first effort to propose a constructionist view of behavioral organization over the first 3 years of life, in terms of the negotiation by infant and caregiver of a sequence of adaptations in their interaction. This review includes a brief consideration of living systems and some of the principles that constrain the organization of behavior of the participants. Illustration of the way that these principles set up the “event-structure” of a system is given. In its recurrence, this event-structure sets the stage for psychic organization. The application of this early formulation to the study of 25- to 30-year outcome in these same infants studies the hypothesis that the configuration of adaptive strategies that the subject constructs by 2 years of age will be recognizable in the strategies which that individual employs in self-recognition and in the later construction of his ecologic niche at age 25. The logic or rules for this construction are set up over the first 2 years, as the infant's adaptation to the event-structure of the system is achieved and regulates later constructions. The bias set depends on the red thread of the subject's early inner experience of state and emotion (or affect) in relation to the infant's competence as agent in regulating states. A basis for inference as to this red thread of inner experience has been summarized in five propositions of construction. These highlight the patterning of competence in self-regulation within the individual's unique system. The role of infant state and of positive affects in this long-term influence is critical, as is the patterning of competence in enabling the infant to reconstruct desired states as goals in the unique configuration of adaptive solutions achieved for that system.