Co-operative parenting post-divorce: possibility or pipedream?

Research shows that, after divorce, children do best when they retain a constructive relationship with both parents. Hence, mediation services and recent reforms in family law seek to encourage parents to co-operate fully and amicably, and to share parental responsibility for the care and well-being of their children. There is a danger that a vision of 'happy-ever-after' post-divorce families ignores the complexity of transitions facing separating families, and the emotional, social and economic stresses which parents experience for many years.
Drawing on years of research with divorcing families, this paper invites practitioners to consider whether too much is expected of divorced parents, and whether existing services for separating families adequately address the needs of different family members.     

Fifth grade school adjustment and later arrest rate: A longitudinal study of middle school antisocial boys

This study investigated the efficacy of three different regression models in predicting arrest rate over the fifth to seventh grade range for a sample of antisocial and at risk control middle school boys (N=76). These boys were selected from a larger sample of approximately 200 boys and their families for inclusion in a long term longitudinal study beginning in the fourth grade. Subjects in the present study were identified when they were in the fifth grade and school measures of adjustment were recorded annually for them on two occasions (fall, spring) through the ninth grade. Predictors were derived from the following variables: (a) teacher ratings of social skills; (b) direct observations of academic engagement in classroom settings; (c) direct observations of the playground social behavior of target subjects and peers; and (d) discipline contacts with the principal's office as extracted from archival school records. These predictor variables appeared to assess respectively teacher related and peer related forms of school adjustment. The regression models investigated yielded R-Squares of approximately 30 between arrest rate and two to three predictor variables in each analysis. However, following the deletion of two subject cases that represented extreme instances of underprediction (i.e., subjects who were arrested [i.e., seven arrests each] but whose fifth grade behavioral profiles suggested they would not be), the obtained R-Squares increased to approximately .55. Implications of the findings for the early screening and identification of at risk students are discussed.     

Strategies for Oligopoly Negotiations Involving Multiple Issues

This study compared the effectiveness of cooperative, distributive, and integrative strategies in oligopoly negotiations involving multiple issues. Seventy-five female subjects from introductory psychology classes assumed the role of buyers and negotiated with three programmed strategies (sellers). Subjects could bargain with the seller of their choice and could change sellers at any time. Results indicated that subjects made most offers to and reached most agreements with the cooperative seller. Furthermore, the cooperative seller strategy tended to earn most profit per customer contact and produced most joint profit per customer contact. However, the integrative seller tended to produce most seller profit per agreement and joint profit per agreement.     

Three near-death experiences with premonitions of what could have been

We analyze three near-death experiences involving a unique type of prophetic vision that has not previously been reported in the literature. These visions involve a brief glimpse of what circumstances would have been like for the near-death experiencers' family in the aftermath of the experiencers' deaths, had they actually died.     

A simple behavioral treatment program for psychogenic encopresis

A treatment program based on behavioral psychological principles which can be explained to parents in one session and supervised by letters and phone calls each week was found to be highly effective in completely eliminating the problem of psychogenic encopresis. A controlled study and extensive clinical use have indicated 100% effectiveness for the program when carefully adhered to.     

Muscle tension, skin conductance, and finger pulse volume: asymmetries as a function of cognitive demands

Previous studies of physiological asymmetries induced by cognitive tasks have focused on a single physiological measure at a time and have failed to relate physiological asymmetries to levels of performance on the asymmetry-inducing tasks. The present study recorded surface muscle tension (EMG), skin conductance (SC), and finger pulse volume (FPV) from the left or right sides of 28 right-handed college students during two left- (Verb Memorization and Lyric Recitation) and two right-hemispheric tasks (Facial Memorization and Humming). EMG and FPV asymmetries as a function of tasks were discovered, with the directionalities of these asymmetries consistent for both left- and right-hemispheric tasks. EMG was shown to be reduced and FPV increased on the side contralateral to the hemisphere required for task-related processing. The consistency between these findings and predictions by Walley and Weiden (1973) and Kahneman (1973) are discussed. No significant SC asymmetry as a function of tasks was observed. It was found that factor variates obtained from principle components analyses of physiological measures recorded from the left or right sides during Verb Memorization and Facial Memorization were marginally successful in predicting verb and facial recognition performance.     

A PDP-12 interface for time-code generator/readers

An interrupt-driven time-code reader interface for the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-12 minicomputer is described.