Processing of metaphoric and non-metaphoric alternative meanings of words after right- and left-hemispheric lesion

This study examines the specificity of the contribution of the right hemisphere to the processing of metaphoric meaning of words. Ten right- and 10 left-hemisphere-damaged subjects, and 20 normal control subjects were submitted to: (1) a word-triad task where they had to associate alternative metaphoric and non-metaphoric words to a target word, and to (2) a word-dyad task where they had to decide whether or not there was a semantic relationship between two words. The two tasks aimed at differentiating between the subjects' preference for a given semantic meaning versus a genuine semantic deficit for a particular meaning. Results revealed that both right- and left-hemisphere-damaged groups presented a genuine semantic deficit for the processing of metaphoric meaning. The absence of a double dissociation between the two brain-damaged groups does not support the hypothesis of a specific contribution of the right-hemisphere to the processing of metaphoric meaning of words.     

Facing Up to Hopelessness: A Dialogal Phenomenological Study

Hopelessness is a fundamental human experience, and yet is often considered evidence either of sin or of illness. This dialogal phenomenological study, based on in-depth interviews, takes a fresh look at despair as experienced by people across a variety of ages and contexts, and at the consequences and outcomes of these feelings. At the heart of despair is a sense of isolation, impotence, and an immutable future, and yet it may give rise to new purpose or a new understanding and acceptance of life with its possibilities and limitations. The therapeutic implications of this understanding of despair are discussed with a focus on how presence can be healing.     

Individuation,ego development and the quality of conflict negotiation in the family of adolescent girls

Individuation, ego development and family negotiation of conflict were studied in 27 Norwegian families with an adolescent daughter, 16–19 years, drawn from a larger sample to represent a rectangular distribution of ego development. Individuality and Connectedness (individuation) as conceptualized and scored by Condonet al. (1984) was modified and adapted to a Norwegian material. Four factors were extracted, one related to individuality (self-assertion and separateness) and two to connectedness (clarification and acceptance). Ego development, measured by the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (Loevinger & Wessler, 1970) was related to connectedness between mother and daughter and between father and daughter, but not to individuality. Maturity of conflict negotiation was positively related to connectedness between mother and daughter and negatively to individuality between father and daughter. It was argued that for women, individuality may not be a singular goal in ego development or in individuation and that self-other differentiation of identity and interests may develop within a close relationship and not only through separation.     

Herrnstein''s syllogism: genetic and shared environmental influences on IQ, education, and income

Genotypes may influence the phenotypic associations among IQ, education, and income. To investigate this hypothesis, we believe that the appropriate methodology requires estimation of genetic and environmental influences using data able to separate these influences. The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) is a nationally representative sample that contains genetically-informative full- and half-siblings (28–35 years old in 1992; Ns=1943 full-siblings, 129 half-siblings). A biometric genetic model was fit that estimated the shared environmental and genetic variance components of IQ, years of education, and hourly income. The total heritabilities were 0.64 for IQ, 0.68 for education, and 0.42 for income. Heritabilities due to a common genetic factor were 0.35 for IQ, 0.52 for education, and 0.12 for income. Environmental influences due to a common shared environmental factor were 0.23 for IQ, 0.18 for education, and 0.08 for income. The model predicted a correlation of 0.63 between IQ and education and 0.34 between IQ and income. Sixty-eight percent of the former and 59% of the latter was genetically mediated; the remainder was mediated by common shared environment. These findings suggest that social inequality in the United States has its origin in both genetically-based traits and in different environmental backgrounds.     

Group Supervision of Novice Clinical Supervisors: Eight Recurring Issues

The authors describe one approach to the supervision of novice clinical supervisors. A central feature of this group approach to supervising supervisors is the eight recurring supervisory issues: supervisor anxiety, intervention choices, group cohesion, responsibility, parallel process, power struggles, individual differences, and sexual attraction. Our experience suggests that assessing and successfully confronting these supervisory issues seem to be an integral part of supervisor supervision. Suggestions for addressing these issues are offered.     

Masculinity—Femininity in children's self-concepts: The relationship to teachers' judgments of social adjustment and academic ability,classroom behaviors,and popularity

This study explored the response of peers and teachers to children who differed in the extent to which their self-concepts included traits which children view as masculine or feminine. It was hypothesized that teachers would judge relatively more masculine children to be inferior in (1) academic ability and (2) social adjustment compared to more feminine children, and that these relationships would be independent of IQ. Relationships between masculine—feminine self-concept and observable classroom behaviors were examined, particularly the impact of classroom behavior on teachers' evaluations of masucline versus feminine children. Finally, the relationship between masculine—feminine self-concept and popularity was studied. Subjects were 64 middle-class fourth and fifth graders. For boys, the hypotheses were supported for evaluations made by seven women teachers. Evaluations made by one man teacher did not support the hypotheses. Neither hypothesis was supported for girls. Among boys, relative masculinity was associated with a distinctive pattern of classroom behavior, and this statistically accounted for women teachers' negative evaluations of the more masculine boys. For boys, the relationship between popularity and masculine—feminine self-concept differed significantly between classroom settings; while for girls there were no significant relationships. Methodological issues, sex differences in the importance of sex-typing of self-concept, teacher sex differences, and implications for mental health are discussed.The author acknowledges the invaluable assistance of the following persons: Kevin McClearey assisted in the initial development of the observation procedure; Jessica Broitman and Dennis Quintana conducted the observations; Dennis Quintana assisted in developing the items for the masculine—feminine self-concept questionnaire; Ms. Judy Hermann, Principal, offered cooperation in the school setting; Drs. William Hodges and Donald Weatherley offered criticisms of an earlier version of this paper. An earlier, condensed version of this paper was presented at the meeting of the Western Psychological Association, Los Angeles, 1976.     

Self-rated adjustment and sex-typing on the Bem Sex-Role Inventory: Is masculinity the primary predictor of adjustment?

Questions concerning the relationship between self-rated adjustment and the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) were examined in two studies. In Study I, whether sex-typing was defined by Bem's original t-test criterion or the newer median-split criterion, superior adjustment was associated with androgynous vs. traditional typing only among women, not men. Also in conflict with the androgyny position, adjustment differences among sex-types were accounted for by differences in masculinity, not in femininity or androgyny per se. The greater contribution of masculinity vs. femininity to self-rated adjustment may be exaggerated because BSRI femininity includes items which do not load on a unidimensional femininity factor. In Study II, inspection of these unrelated items suggested that they reduce the desirability of BSRI femininity, thereby reducing its relationship to adjustment. Comparisons between standard BSRI scoring and an alternative based on unidimensional subscales revealed that the alternative femininity subscale was judged to be more desirable, and it reduced the degree of difference between masculinity and femininity in their relationships to adjustment. Superior adjustment, however, was again associated with androgynous vs. traditional sex-typing only among women, and adjustment differences among sex-types were again accounted for by differences in masculinity.The authors acknowledge the assistance of the following persons who helped in the administration, scoring, or preparation of questionnaire materials: Jill Jamison, Eric Isberg, Kay Peter, Steve Zalinger, Walter Davis, James Ball, Mark Jensen, and Heidi Sanft. Correspondence should addressed to Dr. Louise Silvern, Psychology Department, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309.     

Two adolescents at risk for schizophrenia: A family case study

This is a study of the complex factors that contributed to the development of adolescent psychoses in two stepbrothers, ages 12 and 15. The identified patient, the younger boy, was in what appeared to be a reversible stage of early adolescent psychosis and his 15 year old newly acquired stepbrother in a nonreversible stage. Each boy was a mentally gifted, neurologically handicapped adolescent who was inextricably vulnerable on the basis of his neurodevelopmental sensitivity to specific immobilizing parental fears and conflicts. Their inherent problems set them apart from their intact teenage sisters and affected the nature and quality of their total life experience. Those working with psychotic children and their families must bear these relationships in mind for optimal strategic intervention and change. In the management of psychotic adolescents and their families, the individual and family therapist could work to everyone's disadvantage if these important neurodevelopmental difficulties are not considered.This study was supported in part by the Maternal and Child Health Services Training and Study Project No. 144, Department of Health, Education and Welfare.     

Predicting emotional concomitants of learned helplessness: The role of motivational orientation

Previous theoretical and empirical analyses indicate that an extrinsic motivational orientation, i.e., performing activities to please others or concern with criticism, predicts the cognitive and behavioral deficits associated with learned helplessness. Conversely, intrinsically motivated students, who perform activities for the inherent pleasure of mastery over challenge, have been shown to be virtually resilient to successive failure experiences and even show a facilitation effect. However, research has not yet addressed the extent to which motivational orientation predicts the emotional deficits associated with helplessness—namely, depression and a maladaptive attributional style. Furthermore, no research has examined the relative predictability of these variables to investigate subjects' feelings after an experimental manipulation of failure. The present research found support for the proposition that an extrinsic motivational orientation predicts depression and the Expanded Attributional Style Questionnaire. More importantly, our findings demonstrated that an extrinsic motivational orientation was a more reliable predictor of subjects' feelings after a failure manipulation than either depression or a maladaptive attributional style. These findings are discussed in light of intervention strategies to attenuate the development of an extrinsic motivational orientation in students.