The High School Dropout Goes to College

662 former secondary school leavers of academic potential were identified for a program designed to give selected dropouts a chance to enter the University of Toledo. Following responses to questionnaires, 94 students were selected for further screening, which resulted in the final selection of 50 candidates. 34 members of the experimental group attended pre-school workshops in reading, writing, and study habit skills. 31 enrolled as regularly admitted students in academic programs of the university for the academic year. 11 completed their freshman year, although only 4 were making satisfactory academic progress.     

Effects of prolonged gravitational stress on performance

Effects of prolonged radial acceleration on performance were studied in eight series of experiments: (I) Visual choice reaction time, (II) Visual acuity, (III) Accuracy of movement, (IV) Perceptual speed, (V) The Stroop test, (VI) The 100 - 3 test, (VII) Multiplication and (VIII) Time perception.     

Brain mechanisms involved in angry prosody change detection in school-age children and adults,revealed by electrophysiology

Voices transmit social signals through speech and/or prosody. Emotional prosody conveys key information about the emotional state of a speaker and is thus a crucial cue that one has to detect in order to develop efficient social communication. Previous studies in adults reported different brain responses to emotional than to neutral prosodic deviancy. The aim of this study was to characterize such specific emotional deviancy effects in school-age children. The mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a evoked potentials, reflecting automatic change detection and automatic attention orienting, respectively, were obtained for neutral and emotional angry deviants in both school-age children (n = 26) and adults (n = 14). Shorter latencies were found for emotional than for neutral preattentional responses in both groups. However, whereas this effect was observed on the MMN in adults, it appeared in an early discriminative negativity preceding the MMN in children. A smaller P3a amplitude was observed for the emotional than for the neutral deviants at all ages. Overall, the brain responses involved in specific emotional change processing are already present during childhood, but responses have not yet reached an adult pattern. We suggest that these processing differences might contribute to the known improvement of emotional prosody perception between childhood and adulthood.     

The Ecological Self: Metaphor and Developmental Experience?

The term ecological self, used within the fields of deep ecology and ecopsychology, is considered here from the viewpoint of developmental research and theory, within the context of contemporary relational psychoanalysis. Both developmental theory and more specifically our concept of health are explored with the inclusion of relatedness to the nonhuman world and an emphasis on embodiment and interactive experience. Illustrations and examples are drawn from research, clinical work with adults and the literature of natural history.     

Genetic and environmental influences on mothering of adolescents: a comparison of two samples

This study examined 2 samples of adolescents and mothers using a child-based design (Nonshared Environment in Adolescent Development [NEAD] project, N = 395 families) and a parent-based design (Twin Moms [TM] project, N = 236 twin family pairs) to compare genetic and environmental influences on mothering. For both samples, the same measures of positivity, negativity, control, and monitoring were used. The use of matched child-based and parent-based samples enabled passive and nonpassive genotype-environment (GE) correlations to be approximated, providing information about process. Passive GE correlations were suggested for mother's positivity and monitoring. For mother's negativity and control, primarily nonpassive GE correlations were suggested. In several cases, both types of GE correlation were indicated. Finally, observer ratings of negativity and monitoring were influenced only by environmental factors.     

Beyond the Frying Pan: Addressing Work Issues with Women in Therapy

In recent years, mental health practitioners have been exploring how women are balancing work and family. Given how this issue affects womens experiences in the corporate world and at home, marriage and family therapists are attempting to consider this concern as they treat female clients individually and within relational systems. Few articles and studies have examined the issues female employees face in the workplace and how the issues influence the therapeutic process. In this article, the authors examine the organizational, sociological, and cultural challenges women deal with at work and apply these areas to the therapeutic context. The authors present a case study of a female client enduring a difficult work situation, discussing how to view and approach this case from a feminist family therapy perspective.     

Interpersonal hierarchy expectation: introduction of a new construct

The goal of these series of studies was to introduce a new individual difference construct, interpersonal hierarchy expectation (IHE), and to show that it predicts interpersonal perception. IHE means expecting social interactions and relationships to be hierarchically structured. I developed a self-report questionnaire to measure IHE (IHE Scale [IHES]). In 5 studies, 581 undergraduates took the IHES together with an array of self-report personality measures. Three studies included a measure of hierarchy perception. According to prediction, people who expected interpersonal hierarchies were prone to perceive hierarchies in interactions and relationships. The IHES is an easy to apply, short, self-report measure that might prove useful in personnel training and selection as well as in other studies of personality and social behavior.