Delusions and hallucinations as a reflection of the subcultural milieu among psychotic patients of the 1930s and 1980s

Delusions and hallucinations reported in the social histories of 150 patients admitted to an East Texas state hospital during the 1930s and of 150 patients admitted during the 1980s were examined for content that would characterize and contrast the patient subcultural milieu of the two time periods. Patients admitted during the 1930s tended to reflect the material deprivation and personal powerlessness of the great depression in delusions of great wealth and positive "special powers." The hallucinatory visions and voices of the 1980s patients reflected a more threatening and negative subcultural milieu, with more visions of blood, snakes, and dead people or animals. Command hallucinations to hurt, to kill, or to do "perverse things" would also suggest that the subculture milieu of the 1980s had become more dangerous.     

Prejudice Toward Contemporary Outgroups as a Generalized Attitude

The interrelatedness of attitudes toward homosexuals, Blacks, women, and old people was studied, as well as attitude differences on demographic variables. Three hundred and nine White undergraduates responded to the Homosexual Attitude Scale, The Attitudes Toward Women Scale, Multifactor Racial Attitude Inventory, and two attitudes toward old people scales. Nine of the ten possible intercorrelations were significant beyond the .01 levels. Prejudice toward quite distinct outgroups appears to be a generalized attitude. Attitude differences were found on the demographic variables of sex, political party, and religion. Women expressed more tolerant attitudes than men toward all four outgroups studied. Republicans were more prejudiced toward homosexuals and women than were Democrats or Independents. Participants who identified themselves as Christians were less supportive of equality between the sexes than were Catholics, Protestants, or those with no religion Christians were also more prejudiced toward homosexuals than were Catholics or those with no religion.     

Do children use similar processes to read and spell words?

The use of spelling-sound information in both reading and spelling was evaluated by having children read and spell nonwords and five types of words that differed in terms of their regularity for reading and spelling. The subjects were grade 3 children who had been psychometrically defined as good readers and good spellers (“good”), good readers and poor spellers (“mixed”), or poor readers and poor spellers (“poor”). Results indicated that all children attempted to use spelling-sound correspondences in both reading and spelling, although children in both the mixed and the poor groups had weaker knowledge of these correspondences and were less systematic in their use of them. Furthermore, even though the children in the mixed group had been matched with children in the good group on reading comprehension, the number and type of errors made by the mixed subjects on both the reading and spelling tasks were more similar to those of the poor subjects than to those of the good subjects.     

Fathers' expectations and aspirations for their children

Do contemporary fathers have the same kinds of goals, beliefs, aspirations, and expectations about their children that fathers had 30 years ago? To answer this question, we interviewed 102 White fathers of 133 daughters and 126 sons about the topics probed by Aberle and Naegele (1952). We also asked about how the fathers expressed approval and disapproval of their children's behaviors, about their techniques for encouraging their children to develop the traits the fathers considered desirable, and about the sources of sex education for children. In general, our contemporary fathers mimicked some of the expectations of the earlier group and differed in others. Like the earlier group, some expectations were gender stereotypic. These expectations presumably function to restrict or limit the socialization of their children. More striking were the differences in the two sets of responses. In contrast to the statements from Aberle and Naegele's fathers, our fathers expressed many similar expectations for their daughters and sons. The educational and occupational levels of the fathers and the family composition qualified only a few of the above results.     

Selective attention and priming: Inhibitory and facilitatory effects of ignored primes

The priming effects of ignored information have been studied in Stroop displays (Neill, 1977) and with spatially superimposed drawings (Tipper, in this issue); naming of probes related to ignored primes is delayed in these experiments (“negative priming”). This negative priming effect is confirmed in a list reading task in Experiment 1, which used partially superimposed letters, and Experiment 2, which used spatially separated letters. Furthermore, Lowe (1979) using Stroop colour words observed that changing the nature of the probe such that it did not require selection from a competing word reversed the priming effects of the ignored word from inhibition to facilitation. Experiment 3 confirmed this observation when subjects selected a red letter from a green letter. Two models are suggested to account for this result. In the first, negative priming is a product of the ignored prime and subsequent probe being encoded both as a stimulus to be ignored and one to be named (Allport, Tipper and Chmiel, in press; Lowe, in press). This dual encoding is ambiguous, requiring further processing before response can be output. The other model suggests that negative priming reflects inhibition of response to ignored information, slowing naming latencies to probe stimuli that require the same response. Experiment 4 attempts to differentiate between the models, and the latter inhibition view is preferred.     

The borderline diagnosis and integration of self

To try to encompass what is meant by borderline with parameters that are too delineating can lead to conceptual difficulties and confusion for several reasons: The human psyche is too complex and probably has too much of the quality of a gestalt to be understood adequately by dichotomizing thinking; an individual does not experience himself as operating in discrete units, but as a unified whole; and the most characteristic manifest quality of the borderline picture is its tendency toward a chaotic functioning that somehow always spills over any defining boundaries which are set up to attain conceptual containment. If we then accept our limitations on the precision and order with which we can comprehend it, the understanding of borderline might be supplemented by seeing it in terms of the subjective experience of an integrated self. This offers a more holistic approach that tends not to be so subject to objectifying compartmentalization. It is more in tune with the subjective experiencing a person has of that which defines and moves him in the world. And it offers a referent axis along which the distance one has traveled in the borderline direction might be gleaned. Finally, the relationship of the borderline diagnosis to character disorder might be looked this way: The diagnosis does not refer to a particular character disorder or to a group of disorders. It emerges in all character pathology to the degree that the experiencing of an integrated and whole sense of self, which is at the heart of character structure, is diminished.     

Nonprofessional counselors: Revisiting selection and impact issues

This study examined two issues related to the use of nonprofessional counselors (n = 159) within the context of a diversion program for juvenile offenders. First, the relationship of the nonprofessionals' personality traits and general attitudes to client outcome was examined. No statistically significant correlations were observed. Second, the differential impact of various training and supervision factors was examined in terms of nonprofessional satisfaction, attitudes, and locus of control. Results suggested that training intensity, training content, and supervision setting may influence nonprofessionals' attitudes towards various social groups and their satisfaction with the nonprofessional experience.     

Anomalous dominance in sibling stutterers: Evidence from CT scan asymmetries, dichotic listening, neuropsychological testing, and handedness

Two left-handed siblings with developmental stuttering are comprehensively described. The methods of study included speech and language evaluation, neurological and neuropsychological examinations, dichotic listening, auditory evoked responses, electroencephalogram, and CT scan asymmetry measurements. The data from each sibling showed evidence of anomalous cerebral dominance on many of the variables investigated. The CT scan measurements showed atypical asymmetries, especially in the occipital regions. These findings support the theory that stuttering may be related to anomalous cerebral dominance, both on functional as well as structural bases. Implications of anomalous dominance and the resultant effect of hemispheric rivalry on speech fluency are discussed.