Identity status and perceived parenting style in adolescents living in central South Africa

This study investigated the relationship between black South African adolescents’ identity statuses and their perceived parenting styles. Participants (n = 188; 66% = females) were from central South Africa. They completed the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status and the Parental Authority Questionnaire in addition to a biographic survey that included questions on their family structures (nuclear, extended, other types). Findings suggest that diffused and achieved identity statuses relate to perceived authoritative and permissive parenting styles respectively. Results bring into question the universality of Western identity development and parenting style theories.     

Immobility experiments with dogs of the Arkansas Line of Nervous Pointers

As demonstrated in four experiments, dogs and pups of the Arkansas Line of Nervous Pointers, in contrast to kennel-mate dogs of the normal line, respond to manual inversion and brief restraint in an open sling with prolonged, mainly hypertonic, immobility. This response is consistent and replicable. At least in 4-month-old pups, the duration of sling immobility is positively correlated with the degree of behavioral pathology as determined by the objective Human Interaction Test. We found no evidence of basic difference between upright freezing and supine immobility.     

Value and Sex-Role Orientation of Chinese Adolescents

The value preference of a sample of Chinese adolescent high school students, as measured by the Rokeach Value Survey, showed a greater emphasis on the personal and competency values. Specifically, adolescents in this study tended to favour a joyous, comfortable, free, and enjoyable lifestyle. It was found that the four most important terminal values were: freedom, true friendship, happiness, and a comfortable life, while the four least important were: mature love, national security, an exciting life, and salvation. The four most important instrumental values included: capable, cheerful, broadminded, and intellectual, while the four least important included: logical, imaginative, clean, and obedient. The relationships between value preference and sex role were examined and close relationships were found, especially with respect to the instrumental values. Specifically, masculine adolescents were more agentic and instrumental, and feminine adolescents were more expressive and communal in their value preference. Androgynous adolescents were found more similar to the masculine than to the feminine group. In addition, regression analyses showed that masculinity tended to have more pervasive effects than femininity on adolescents' value preference. The implications and significance of the findings of this study in contrasting the general collectivistic depiction of Chinese and in relating to adolescent development, are discussed.     

A set of 254 Snodgrass-Vanderwart pictures standardized for Spanish: Norms for name agreement,image agreement,familiarity, and visual complexity

The Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) picture set was standardized for a Spanish sample (N = 261). The present article shows the main results, but more explicitly, it shows the differences between English and Spanish data. This evidence justifies the statement that normative data of cognitive stimuli cannot be taken into another language directly, because object names that are very common in one language may not be so in another, or objects that have a specific name in one language may have a generic name in another, and so on. Finally, because of the potential usefulness of the data for bilingualism studies, the Spanish data are presented jointly with the English data.     

Input-output relations in simple reaction time experiments

The isotonic muscular effort was measured from the thenar muscles of human subjects during simple reaction time experiments. It was found that the output (θ) was related to the input (φ) by a simple power law, i.e. θ = φⁿ for visual, auditory and electrical stimuli applied to the digits. The exponents found were 0.21, 0.11 and 1.04 for auditory, visual and electrical stimuli respectively. Although different from those determined by Stevens for the transformation of the input energy to a psychological magnitude, their relative values are almost identical.     

Psychopharmacologic facilitation of operant conditioning of genetically nervous catahoula and Pointer dogs

Previous work has demonstrated that a genetic factor underlies much of the disturbed behavior in one strain of short haired pointer bird dogs (E line) maintained for several years in our laboratory. In some dogs the behavior is seemingly permanent and is characterized by human avoidance, excessive startle, reduced exploratory activity, and “freezing” or catatonic posturing. Another strain of dogs, catahoulas, with a high incidence of disturbed behavior similar to that above but with much less catatonic posturing, was made available for study also. In both of these strains defensive reaction and gross avoidance behavior often prevents the acquisition and later performance of operant conditioning (bar pressing for food reward) unless supportive tranquilizing chemotherapy is given. The chief interest in this study is, (1) the nearly permanent disharmony in the animal which seems to be an example of Gantt’s concept of schizokinesis, and (2) a comparison of 12 psychoactive compounds widely used in psychiatry for their effectiveness in restoring integrated adaptive functioning even in the most disturbed of the animals in our colony. The results show that: 1. even dogs with the most severe schizokinetic disabilities of many years duration have learned the operant conditioning (bar pressing); 2. however, it was and has remained necessary to facilitate both behavior shaping and nearly all later performances throughout the following year with benzodiazepine tranquilizers and these were far superior to any of the several other drugs tested; 3. neither gradual or rapid withdrawal nor sudden stopping of benzodiazepines allowed the dogs to continue the bar pressing. In fact, during withdrawal of the drug, performance seemed to parallel blood levels as reported in the literature.     

Effects of naloxone and neuroleptic drugs on muscle rigidity and heart rate of the nervous Pointer dog

Muscle rigidity, a persistent physiological characteristic of the nervous Pointer dog, is not only attenuated by the major neuroleptic drugs, haloperidol and pimozide but also by naloxone. In addition, naloxone administration results in a modest but significant increase in heart rate of these subjects. The data obtained in this study add support for the concept that an abnormality in central nervous system dopaminergic function is involved in the genesis of abnormal behavior of this animal model.