CATECHOLAMINE EXCRETION, PERFORMANCE, AND SUBJECTIVE STRESS

Psycho-endocrine relations were explored in 52 students exposed to moderately stressful psychological tests demanding selective attention. Subjects with high excretion rates of adrenaline performed better during the entire stress session than did subjects with low adrenaline excretion. The level of subjective stress increased consistently throughout the session in subjects with low excretion rates of adrenaline, while it remained relatively constant in subjects with high adrenaline excretion. No consistent relationship could be demonstrated between noradrenaline excretion and the psychological variables. Possible effects on the catecholamine-excretion patterns of factors such as severity and duration of the stress are discussed.     

Pattern uncertainty and the discrimination of visual patterns

Sixty Ss individually sorted eight decks of 50 cards each. A deck contained 25 cards each of two stimulus patterns. The patterns were drawn from different sets of five-dot patterns judged to be equivalent. The eight decks represented pairs of patterns drawn (a) from the same equivalence set, (b) from different equivalence sets of the same size, and (c) from different equivalence sets of different sizes. Sorting times were shown to increase with increasing size of equivalence set, and were shown to be greater for patterns drawn from within the same equivalence set than for patterns drawn from different equivalence sets. Ratings of pattern goodness were found to be useful predictors of sorting time only in their capacity to discriminate between equivalence sets of different sizes. The results were interpreted as supporting the importance of equivalence set membership in a discrimination task where the S logically does not have to consider stimuli other than the given criterion stimuli.     

EFFECTS OF CHRONIC REDUCTIONS IN BRAIN CHOLINESTERASE ACTIVITY ON ACQUISITION AND EXTINCTION OF A CONDITIONED AVOIDANCE RESPONSE

R ussell , R. W., W atson , R. H. J., and F rankenhaeuser , M. Effects of chronic reductions in brain cholinesterase activity on acquisition and extinction of a conditioned avoidance response. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1961, 2 , 21–29.—Significant effects of five different levels of reduction in brain ChE activity in the white rat were found during the extinction, but not during the acquisition, of a conditioned avoidance response. The reductions were produced and chronically maintained throughout the experiment by administration of an organo-phosphorous anticholinesterase. (1) Reduced brain ChE activity was associated with differential effects on the behavior, i.e., speed of conditioning was not altered significantly, whereas speed of extinction was so affected. (2) There appears to be a 'critical level' between 60 and 65 per cent reduction of normal ChE activity below which extinction was significantly affected.     

Human evaluative conditioning: Order of stimulus presentation

In an experiment designed to demonstrate evaluative conditioning, subjects were shown 48 pictures of sculptures that they rated on a scale with 21 categories (?10 to +10). Then, the two most liked pictures (L) were paired with pictures from the categories ?1, 0, or +1 (N). In contrast to prior experiments, subjects were given either forward conditioning (N-L) or backward conditioning (L-N) trials but not both. Four other neutral stimuli were paired with each other (N-N) and acted as control stimulus pairs. After conditioning, the stimuli were rated a second time. There was a statistically significant difference in evaluative ratings showing a change of the evaluative tone of the previously neutral stimuli in a positive direction only after forward conditioning. This finding is inconsistent with results of prior experiments and challenges the assumption of Martin and Levey (1987) that evaluative conditioning is different from human classical conditioning.     

New directions for family therapy: rubbish removal as a task of choice

Family therapy may be accompanied by laughter and wit as well as serious labour. Family life has a great deal to laugh about, and family therapists, if they take families seriously, need to be able to laugh and joke with them.     

A situational analysis of the relationship between spouse-specific assertiveness and marital adjustment

This study examined the relationship between marital adjustment and spousespecific assertiveness, conceptualized in terms of defense of rights, in a sample of 115 married women, 27 of whom were in a distressed marriage. Subjects indicated their likely behavioral responses in 11 commonly occurring marital conflict situations and provided ratings of the expected effectiveness of their responses, the amount of resentment they would experience in the situations, and the frequency of occurrence of the situations in their marage. Marital adjustment was found to be directly related to response effectiveness and level of assertive responding and inversely related to situational resentment and frequency of transgression by spouse. Surprisingly, the level of assertive responding was less strongly related to marital adjustment than were any of the other principal variables. A multiple regression analysis indicated that the set of experimental variables accounted for 45% of the variance in marital adjustment. All of the principal variables uniquely accounted for significant levels of variance in marital adjustment. Viewed collectively, the results of this study indicate that (1) parameters of marital conflict situations have considerable importance for the marital adjustment of women and (2) explication of the relationship between marital conflict and marital adjustment requires investigation of a variety of behavioral, affective, and contextual variables.     

Four Decades of Creative Vision: Insights from an Evaluation of the Future Problem Solving Program International (FPSPI)

E. Paul Torrance, a pioneer in creative education, and his associates founded the Future Problem Solving Program (now FPSPI, or Future Problem Solving Program International) in the mid‐1970s as a competitive, interscholastic program and as a curriculum project integrating creative problem‐solving and future studies. Since its founding, the program has emerged to be international in scope, and has expanded to incorporate multiple components to engage students’ creative strengths and talents in varied ways. This report presents highlights of an international evaluation of the program, the results of which support and sustain Torrance's creative vision for education.