The Social Production of Altruism: Motivations for Caring Action in a Low-Income Urban Community

Contemporary social science paints a bleak picture of inner-city relational life. Indeed, the relationships of low-income, urban-residing Americans are represented as rife with distress, violence and family disruption. At present, no body of social scientific work systematically examines the factors that promote loving or selfless interactions among low-income, inner-city American individuals, families and communities. In an effort to fill that gap, this ethnographic study examined the motivations for altruism among a sample of adults (n = 40) who reside in an economically distressed housing community (i.e., housing project) in New York City. Content analyses of interviews indicated that participants attributed altruism to an interplay between 14 motives that were then ordered into four overarching categories of motives: (1) needs-centered motives, (2) norm-based motives deriving from religious/spiritual ideology, relationships and personal factors, (3) abstract motives (e.g., humanism), and (4) sociopolitical factors. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Feasibility of Using Video to Teach a Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skill to Clients With Borderline Personality Disorder

This study tested the feasibility of using a psychoeducational video recording to teach a behavioral skill from the Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT; Linehan, 1993a, 1993b) skills training program to individuals meeting criteria for borderline personality disorder. A video presenting a DBT emotion-regulation skill was developed and the extent to which viewers learned the skill material was evaluated via a randomized controlled trial (RCT), utilizing a within-subjects design. Thirty individuals meeting DSM-IV criteria for borderline personality disorder participated. Participants were recruited from mental health treatment settings and were naïve to DBT. Viewing the video was associated with significant increases in knowledge of the skill, relative to viewing a control video, and with increases in participants' expectations of positive outcomes for skill use. In addition, participants rated the video as relevant and helpful. A remarkably high number (80%) utilized the skill taught subsequent to viewing the video when assigned to do so, and overall reported significant decreases in negative affect after using the skill. Video appears to be feasible as a medium for teaching DBT skills material under controlled conditions; future research is needed to examine the effectiveness of video in more naturalistic settings.     

Modeling individual differences in working memory performance: a source activation account

Working memory resources are needed for processing and maintenance of information during cognitive tasks. Many models have been developed to capture the effects of limited working memory resources on performance. However, most of these models do not account for the finding that different individuals show different sensitivities to working memory demands, and none of the models predicts individual subjects' patterns of performance. We propose a computational model that accounts for differences in working memory capacity in terms of a quantity called source activation , which is used to maintain goal-relevant information in an available state. We apply this model to capture the working memory effects of individual subjects at a fine level of detail across two experiments. This, we argue, strengthens the interpretation of source activation as working memory capacity.     

Intraindividual variability in perceived locus of control in adults: P-technique factor analyses of short-term change

Multivariate correlational methods such as P-technique factor analysis provide a way to structure intraindividual change by identifying dimensions of covariation in intensive longitudinal measurements. For example, for 20 years or more researchers have acknowledged that some major personality constructs such as anxiety exhibit both trait (relatively stable, interindividual) and state (intraindividual) variability. However, the consideration that state variability might be quite general and can “intrude” in the measurement of putatively more stable attributes has not generally entered into construct validation work and other manifestations of theoretical development. Locus of control, as with many personality constructs, is considered to be a dimension of relatively stable interindividual differences. Levenson's three-dimensional locus of control scale was adapted for use in a measurement-intensive P-technique study involving 10 participants (5 mothers and fathers who were expecting their first child) to examine the extent to which responses manifested systematic liability. The data indicated that perceived locus of control exhibits coherent, day-to-day variability; especially the dimensions identified as internality and powerful others. Such state variation manifestations are discussed in relation to their important implications for measurement, long-term prediction, and theorizing about the nature of personality.     

Internet and the support of psychology education

The Computers in Teaching Initiative (CTI) Centre for Psychology has been promoting the use of computers in psychology education for the last 5 years. The advent of the Internet and ubiquitous access to the World-Wide Web has the potential to revolutionize the way the teaching and learning of psychology can be supported. This paper describes how we are using the Web to support psychology education through information dissemination, through the provision of teaching resources, and through facilities for communication.     

Forgetting and conditioned suppression: role of a temporal discrimination

Several experiments have found complete retention of conditioned suppression when overall suppression to the signal for shock was measured. The present experiment examined retention of conditioned suppression but did so with a paradigm that produced temporal discrimination of shock occurrence. Nine rats were exposed to a flashing light signal of 5-min duration that always terminated with a shock. After several months, a temporal discrimination was well established, as shown by maximum suppression toward the end of the signal period. After remaining in the home cage for 25 days, the rats were again subjected to the conditioning procedure. The overall level of suppression remained the same but the temporal discrimination was not observed.     

Temporal integration of acoustic and cutaneous stimuli shown in the blink reflex

Temporal integration of pairs of brief blink-eliciting acoustic and cutaneous stimuli was investigated to determine if there was integration of stimuli from different modalities. Reflexes elicited by a tone burst or by a brief electrical shock to the supraorbital nerve followed by a second tone burst or shock at short stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) were larger and faster than control reflexes elicited by a single stimulus identical to the lead stimulus of the stimulus pairs. Reflex amplitude was augmented at longer SOAs where there was no effect on latency. Temporal integration was evident for all stimulus pairs, showing that it is due, at least in part, to processes that occur outside specific sensory pathways. Heterogeneous stimulus pairs produced greater reflex enhancement than did homogeneous stimulus pairs. This finding was examined further in Experiment 2, which showed that reflex enhancement with pairs of acoustic pulses was unaffected by the frequency of the second stimulus, suggesting that sensory masking was not acting to suppress reflex expression with acoustic pulse pairs. Integration of reflexogenic acoustic stimuli shown in the blink reflex is restricted to shorter intervals than is integration of acoustic stimuli shown by psychophysical procedures, suggesting that the two methods reflect different aspects of stimulus processing. Integration of reflexogenic stimuli may result from summation of activity associated more directly with reflex expression than with perceptual awareness.     

A COMPARISON OF COGNITIVE CONFLICT BETWEEN PERSONS IN WESTERN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES1

Etude comparative du conflit cognitif interpersonnel en Europe occidentale et aux Etats-Unis. — La recherche a été menée conjointement dans divers pays européens (Grande-Bretagne, France, Italie, RFA) et aux Etats-Unis, selon la même procédure. On induit des différences cognitives détetminées entre les 2 membres d'un groupe, en les entraînant différemment (ce dont ils ne sont pas conscients) dans une tâche d'apprentissage portant sur des problèmes politiques; il s'ensuit un conflit quand on réunit les deux sujets et qu'on leur demande d'aboutir à des solutions communes. Les résultats montrent que — a) les différences cognitives ne sont pas réduites en Europe alors qu'elles le sont, lentement, aux Etats-Unis; — b) les sujets européens aboutissent moins souvent que les sujets américains à des solutions de compromis; — c) les européens réagissent différemment à l'idée de « Contrôle de l'Etat ». Ce type de recherche peut être utilisé pour étudier le conflit cognitif sur une base interculturelle; les résultats font apparaître des problèmes importants qui n'ont pas encore été étudiés.