The reasonably prudent person,or me?

Abundant research concerning the role of the self in social judgment suggests that people have a strong tendency to evaluate others’ actions, preferences, and values with regard to their own. Reliance on self-standards contrasts with the legal standard of the reasonably prudent person (RPP) standard, which presumably represents the behavior of the average person in the community. In three studies that investigated judgments of harmful actions, we compared the influence of self-standards (“How likely would I behave in this manner?”) and RPP estimates (“How likely would the average, reasonable person in the community behave in this manner?”). In each study, self-standards influenced participants’ judgments of guilt and the acceptability of the defendant's actions more than did judgments about what a RPP would do. Studies 2a and 2b also investigated attitudinal differences in susceptibility to RPP consensus manipulations. Participants judged a target who committed murder in self-defense, and also projected their own hypothetical behavior in the scenario. When the manipulated RPP disapproved of the murder, the target was deemed more culpable, but only among participants who themselves were unwilling to commit the hypothetical act. Participants who expressed willingness to murder in self-defense were unaffected by RPP information, regardless of whether or not it was consistent with their own stance. Hence, RPP information at best exerted minimal influence on juridical judgments, and only among certain participants. Implications of these findings for legal applications of the RPP, and for the role of the self in social judgment, are discussed.     

Situational social problem-solving skills and self-esteem of aggressive and nonaggressive boys

This study was designed to assess specific social problem-solving, perceived competence, and selfesteem characteristics of 20 aggressive and 18 nonaggressive boys. Significant behavioral differences existed between the groups. The problem-solving measure provided for qualitative assessment of specific problem solutions that children consider, varying according to the interpersonal context of conflicts with peers, teachers, and parents and to the level of others' intent in conflicts (ambiguous frustration and hostile provocation). In univariate analyses, aggressive children had poorer selfesteem, generated fewer verbal assertion solutions in peer conflicts and during hostile frustration, and employed more direct action solutions with teachers and during hostile frustration. Discriminant analyses significantly differentiated the two groups. Findings indicated that future research should consider the relative distribution of specific kinds of problem situations that children produce, and that situational factors in social problem-solving skills should be addressed.This paper is based on a presentation made at the American Psychological Association annual convention in Los Angeles, August 1985. Acknowledgment is made of the administrative support provided by the Durham County Schools and the Durham Community Guidance Clinic. This research was supported in part by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and from the Research Branch of the North Carolina Division of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services. Appreciation is expressed to the school counselors who assisted with the coordination of this research: Tom Gemmer, Patricia Kirkley, Kathy McSwain, and Geoff Wyckoff.     

Measuring grief: A short version of the perinatal grief scale

Despite a considerable number of studies, there are two major drawbacks in the literature on grief and bereavement. One is a lack of adequate and generally agreed upon measures for assessing grief. The second is a lack of ability to predict from existing measures the likelihood of what has been termed chronic or pathological grief reactions. This paper reports the results of the development of a bereavement measure for the study of perinatal loss which attempts to address these gaps. The measure is specific to a pregnancy-related loss, although it has the potential for adaptation to use for other types of loss. Analysis of responses from 138 women has resulted in the reduction of the original measure from 104 to a more manageable and almost equally comprehensive and reliable 33 items. In addition, a factor analysis has produced three factors, two of which indicate the possibility for longer-term and more severe grief reactions. Because of its sound psychometric qualities and interesting factor structure, the measure shows promise of being useful for both research and clinical purposes.This research was funded by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grant R01 H18431-04, with additional assistance from the Center for Social Research at Lehigh University. Dr. Potvin is supported by the Quebec Health Research Fund.     

Sociosexuality and Romantic Partner Choice

ABSTRACT In three studies, we explored how individual differences in sociosexual orientation systematically relate to the types of attributes people prefer in romantic partners. In Investigation 1, individuals rated the importance of 15 partner attributes. Two factors emerged: personal/parenting qualities and attractiveness/social visibility. Individuals who possessed a restricted sociosexual orientation rated attributes that loaded highly on the former factor as being more important than those that loaded highly on the second one, whereas the reverse was true for unrestricted individuals. In Investigation 2, individuals evaluated two prospective romantic partners, one who was described as highly attractive and socially visible but less desirable in terms of personal/parenting qualities and one who had the opposite set of attributes. Unrestricted individuals tended to select the former partner, whereas restricted individuals chose the latter one. Investigation 3 examined the attributes actually possessed by their romantic partners. Unrestricted individuals were dating partners who were more socially visible and attractive, whereas restricted individuals were dating partners who were more responsible, faithful/loyal, and affectionate. Results are discussed in terms of an evolutionary model that links sociosexuality to mate selection.     

Linking empirically based theory and evaluation: The family bereavement program

Conclusion We have illustrated how our small theory (Lipsey, 1990) of bereavement guided the development and evaluation of a preventive intervention for bereaved children. Our small theory, based on prior empirical research, enabled us to identify family processes that appeared to mediate the effects of parental death on child mental health. Our intervention was designed to attempt to change these processes. The evaluation of our experimental trial of the intervention assessed changes on these processes as well as the more distal mental health outcomes. The experimental trial showed some-what encouraging results, in terms of the program's ability to modify the warmth of the parent–child relationship and to decrease symptomatology in the adolescent children. We also obtained further empirical support for our underlying theoretical model. Finally, implications for redesign of the program were derived from assessing the adequacy of the program components to change each of the mediators in the theoretical model.Support for this research was provided by NIMH grant P5OMH39246 which is gratefully acknowledged. David R. Pillow is now at Western Psychiatric Institute, Pittsburgh; Fred Rogosch is at the University of Rochester; Janette Beals is now at University of Colorado Health Sciences Center; Kim D. Reynolds is now at the University of Alabama, Birmingham; Carl Kallgren is now at the Pennsylvania State University, at Erie; and Rafael Ramirez is now at the University of Puerto Rico.     

Counselling after Stroke: An Unmet Need?

Information was gathered by means of a questionnaire survey and interviews from a group of patients (N = 17) and health professionals (N=13) working within a stroke unit, concerning the emotional needs of patients and and their relatives and how staff responded to these needs. Although most of the staff had received some training or information about counselling and felt that their interactions with patients often involved an element of counselling, there was strong support for separate specialised counselling services to deal with psychological problems suffered by both patients and their relatives. Patients rated assistance with personal and emotional worries and advice about physical problems as equally useful. A strong need for a counselling service in some form or other was expressed by patients. Neither the level of the patients' social support nor the presence or absence of aphasia, however, predicted the strength of interest expressed. It is concluded that specialised psychological help could be useful in various ways for both in- and out-patients and for their families.     

Victim to offender: A review

It has been suggested that victimization during childhood may be a primary factor in the adoption of offending behaviour during adolescence. Why is it, therefore, that the majority of child abuse victims do not become delinquent? Although empirical and theoretical evidence abounds in the victim to offender literature, the pathways responsible for vulnerability towards and protection against criminal activity have so far been unidentified. The significance of detecting these influencing factors is apparent, specifically in relation to termination of the cycle either before or after it has begun.     

Effects of association and imageability on phonological mapping

In two experiments, we examined the influence of semantic activation on the generation of a phonological code, testing the interactivity assumption common to both dual-route and interactive-activation models. In Experiment 1, subjects named regular and irregular targets preceded by related and unrelated primes. In Experiment 2, these variables and target imageability were manipulated. Both relatedness and imageability interacted with regularity, indicating that semantic activity speeds access to a phonological code.     

Duration discrimination of empty time intervals marked by intermodal pulses

In 1973, Rousseau and Kristofferson reported that short empty intermodal time intervals marked by a light flash and a brief tone were poorly discriminated by subjects, and that AT,5 was constant over a large range of durations. It led them to suggest that short intramodal empty intervals, marked by stimuli from the same sensory modality, might be handled by a “more efficient mechanism” to which intermodal intervals would not have access. Unfortunately, their study lacked the basic evidence needed to make a strong statement: no direct comparison between inter- and intramodal duration discrimination and no within-subject discrimination function were available. To clarify these two issues, three experiments were performed. The data indicate that intermodal time intervals are discriminated more poorly than intramodal ones, and that intermodal duration discrimination functions follow Weber’s law. Analysis of data from different experiments lead to the conclusion that inter- and intramodal intervals are timed by a common timekeeper and that intermodal intervals induce a large noise component in the timekeeping operation.