ATTRIBUTIONS,COMPLEXITÉ ATTRIBUTIONNELLE ET SATISFACTION CONJUGALE*

The present study investigates the relation among attributions, attributional complexity, and marital satisfaction. More specifically, we examine the value of attributional complexity as a possible moderator in the relationship between attributions and marital satisfaction. Seventy-four French Canadian couples completed the Marital Attributional Style Questionnaire, the Conflict Rating Scale, the Attributional Complexity Scale, and the Dyadic Adjustement Scale. The results corroborate the existence of a relationship between attributions and marital satisfaction. Against predictions, attributional complexity does not seem to moderate the relation between attributional style and marital satisfaction. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

The partial punishment effect following minimal acquisition training: Sodium amobarbital and the stimulus properties of early punished trials

In a runway investigation, six groups of rats received limited runway training such that partial punishment, partial reinforcement, or continuous reinforcement was accompanied by sodium amobarbital or saline. Following an interpolated phase of continuous reinforcement without injections, all groups were given punished extinction. The entire experiment was conducted under widely spaced conditions (ITI = 24 hr). It was found that partial punishment increased resistance to punished extinction relative to partially and continuously reinforced controls when acquisition was given under saline. When partial punishment training was accompanied by amobarbital this effect was eliminated. The drug was observed to have no effect on the punished extinction performance of the partial reinforcement and continuous groups, respectively. Moreover, the partial reinforcement effect (PRE) did not generalize to punished extinction. These data provide information concerning the difference between the stimuli associated with the early trials of punishment and nonreward and indicate that the former but not the latter contain emotional elements.     

Acquired stuttering

Working from a case of degeneration of the nervous system accompanied by stutterlike repetitions, this article raises the question whether patients should be said to have acquired stuttering when they evidence only one of the typical symptoms of the syndrome. On the other hand, it is shown that when acquired stuttering is polysymptomatic, it can hardly be distinguished from developmental stuttering on the basis of the patient's verbal behavior. This may have important medicolegal implications. When acquired stuttering occurs in the context of aphasia, both affections appear to be relatively independent of each other. Specifically, there seems to be no causal relationship between them.     

L'évaluation subjective directe des émotions ressenties au sein du couple

This present study examined the relationship between interpersonal affects, personality, psychological distress, attachment and marital adjustment. More specifically, we hypothesized that the inclusion of a direct subjective evaluation of interpersonal affects would add to our understanding of marital adjustment, even when other variables (personality, psychological distress, attachment) are being taken into account. The sample included 204 heterosexual French Canadian married or cohabiting couples. Results showed that women experienced more feelings of insecurity, unfairness, depreciation and powerlessness than men. Also, individuals who were less satisfied with their marriage reported more feelings of insecurity, unfairness, depreciation and powerlessness.     

Obsessive Passion: A Compensatory Response to Unsatisfied Needs

The present research investigated the role of two sources of psychological need satisfaction (inside and outside a passionate activity) as determinants of harmonious (HP) and obsessive (OP) passion. Four studies were carried out with different samples of young and middle‐aged adults (e.g., athletes, musicians; total N = 648). Different research designs (cross‐sectional, mixed, longitudinal) were also used. Results showed that only a rigid engagement in a passionate activity (OP) was predicted by low levels of need satisfaction outside the passionate activity (in an important life context or in life in general), whereas both OP and a more favorable and balanced type of passion, HP were positively predicted by need satisfaction inside the passionate activity. Further, OP led to negative outcomes, and HP predicted positive outcomes. These results suggest that OP may represent a form of compensatory striving for psychological need satisfaction. It appears important to consider two distinct sources of need satisfaction, inside and outside the passionate activity, when investigating determinants of optimal and less optimal forms of activity engagement.     

Developmental bias for number words in the intraparietal sulcus

Children and adults show behavioral evidence of psychological overlap between their early, non‐symbolic numerical concepts and their later‐developing symbolic numerical concepts. An open question is to what extent the common cognitive signatures observed between different numerical notations are coupled with physical overlap in neural processes. We show that from 8 years of age, regions of the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) that exhibit a numerical ratio effect during non‐symbolic numerical judgments also show a semantic distance effect for symbolic number words. In both children and adults, the IPS showed a semantic distance effect during magnitude judgments of number words (i.e. larger/smaller number) but not for magnitude judgments of object words (i.e. larger/smaller object size). The results provide novel evidence of conceptual overlap between neural representations of symbolic and non‐symbolic numerical values that cannot be explained by a general process, and present the first demonstration of an early‐developing dissociation between number words and object words in the human brain.     

Of Maslow,motives, and managers: The hierarchy of needs in American business, 1960–1985

This paper examines the impact of psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs in American management. I trace how a roster of management experts translated the hierarchy of needs into management through case studies of job redesign programs at Texas Instruments and marketing firm Young & Rubicam's management training. The hierarchy of needs resonated with management, I argue, because it seemed to offer both a concrete guide for management, with practical implications for designing management training and work structures, alongside a broader social theory that purported to explain changing social values and economic circumstances in America. For the management theorists who invoked the hierarchy of needs, the corporation served as both the prime site for people to fulfill their higher psychological needs and the ideal site to study and cultivate motivation. This article contributes to histories of psychology that show how psychology became a prominent resource in American public life.