THE LANGUAGE OF <Emphasis Type="Italic">YES</Emphasis> IN A WORLD OF <Emphasis Type="Italic">NO</Emphasis>: A GAY MAN REDISCOVERS HIS SILENCED SELF

Developmental issues arising from the dilemma of the protogay male child (as defined by Blum and Pfetzing in 1997) and the assaults to his sense of self are discussed in the context of the impact of the analytic attitude. Clinical material is offered as a 50-year-old gay man, troubled by his inability to form a lasting loving relationship with a man, experiences integration in the analytic relationship, stemming from what he describes as the “Yes” offered by his female analyst.     

Anxiety's role in aids prevention

Abstract

Anxiety's role in AIDS risk reduction is discussed. We argue that behavioral techniques will be critical tools for alerting people to the threat of AIDS and their own vulnerability. Informational models have not been found to be sufficient for convincing people of the extent of the threat of AIDS to them. We suggest that techniques aimed at raising people's anxiety over their vulnerability will be necessary to raise their motivation to attend to AIDS messages, and we present techniques aimed at increasing anxiety over vulnerability. Following acknowledgment of vulnerability, people will need to adopt or continue safer sex practices that are viewed as undesirable in contrast to unsafe sex practices that are viewed as less costly and less anxiety provoking. Given a clearer practical and theoretical understanding of the anxiety-producing costs of adopting safer sex behaviors, we present methods for reducing this anxiety. We also discuss the necessity for considering ethnic, minority, and other cultural nuances in social and sexual anxiety and how these might be addressed in efforts to increase safer sex practices.     

Visitor Self-Report Behavior Mapping as a Tool for Recording Exhibition Circulation

ABSTRACT

The evaluation of visitor flow within a museum or exhibition has been a topic of interest for decades with several research approaches taken over the years. Direct observation or visitor tracking during museum occupancy is the most popular technique, but it generally requires substantial amounts of time and financial resources. An alternative approach to direct observation—visitor self-mapping—is presented using data obtained from 2 short-term, small-budget evaluations of a world-class collection museum. Results show that self-mapping provides usable data with more than 90% of maps having tracking data for the entire museum. Maps varied in the amount of detail, but more than 60% of visitors provided details beyond what was required. In Study 1, movement patterns, sweep rate indices, and timing data suggest that the mapping data accurately reflected the visitor experience. Study 2 directly paired the self-mapping method used in Study 1 with unobtrusive behavioral observations to address the reliability and validity of the new approach. A discussion compares the relative costs and benefits of the new approach with more conventional direct observation techniques and provides directions for future research.     

Tracking the first two seconds: three stages of visual information processing?

We compared visual priming and comparison tasks to assess information processing of a stimulus during the first 2 s after its onset. In both tasks, a 13-ms prime was followed at varying SOAs by a 40-ms probe. In the priming task, observers identified the probe as rapidly and accurately as possible; in the comparison task, observers determined as rapidly and accurately as possible whether or not the probe and prime were identical. Priming effects attained a maximum at an SOA of 133 ms and then declined monotonically to zero by 700 ms, indicating reliance on relatively brief visuosensory (iconic) memory. In contrast, the comparison effects yielded a multiphasic function, showing a maximum at 0 ms followed by a minimum at 133 ms, followed in turn by a maximum at 240 ms and another minimum at 720 ms, and finally a third maximum at 1,200 ms before declining thereafter. The results indicate three stages of prime processing that we take to correspond to iconic visible persistence, iconic informational persistence, and visual working memory, with the first two used in the priming task and all three in the comparison task. These stages are related to stages presumed to underlie stimulus processing in other tasks, such as those giving rise to the attentional blink.     

Studying the specificity of spirituality: lessons from the psychology of religion

Psychological research on spirituality need not start from scratch: the psychology of religion provides substantial knowledge and experience that can be drawn on when psychologists want to do research on spirituality. Spirituality, while certainly not identical with religion or religiosity, is a human phenomenon to which many methodological insights from the study of religion may be applied, although it is also a domain where many mistakes from the history of the psychology of religion are likely to be repeated. After presenting some thoughts on the conceptualization of spirituality, and reflecting on the type of psychology required to do research on spirituality, the paper points out some hidden agenda's in the psychologies of religion and spirituality. Focusing on and keeping in mind the specificity of spiritual conduct, the paper discusses a number of practical aspects of empirical research on spirituality.     

Cross-fertilization versus transmission: Recommendations for developing a bidirectional approach to psychotherapy dissemination research

Psychotherapy researchers are increasingly engaged in collaborations with clinical practitioners and mental health administrators. Each party brings its own perspectives, values, and agendas to bear in these encounters. Viable research—practice collaborations depend on understanding and negotiating some of the tensions in these relationships. In this article, we discuss the contexts that prevail for various participants in a psychotherapy dissemination study as well as the values, goals, costs, and benefits related to research participation. This article is a collaboration among the researchers, mental health administrators, therapists, and clients involved in an ongoing treatment dissemination study. Our recommendations for research—practice collaborations are based on our experiences and dialogues over the course of this study.     

Mapping Attitude Formation as a Function of Information Input: Online Processing Models of Attitude Formation

Consistent with calls for a dynamical social psychology (Jacoby et al., 1987; Nowak, Lewenstein, & Vallacher, 1994), attitude formation was studied using a recently developed, computer‐based simulation technique termed Higher Order Cognitive Tracing (see Jacoby et al., 1994). Participants’ attitudes toward 12 different products in 3 product categories were investigated as a function of incremental information input. As opposed to traditional memory‐based models of attitude formation, the study explored online processing models. Results indicate that the impact of information tends to decrease the later in the sequence that information is accessed. In addition, new information that is affectively inconsistent with prior information tends to have a greater impact on attitudes than information that is affectively redundant. This effect is more pronounced earlier rather than later in the sequence of information acquisition. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

The simplicity principle in human concept learning

How do we learn concepts and categories from examples? Part of the answer might be that we induce the simplest category consistent with a given set of example objects. This seemingly obvious idea, akin to simplicity principles in many fields, plays surprisingly little role in contemporary theories of concept learning, which are mostly based on the storage of exemplars, and avoid summarization or overt abstraction of any kind. This article reviews some evidence that complexity minimization does indeed play a central role in human concept learning. The chief finding is that subjects' ability to learn concepts depends heavily on the concepts' intrinsic complexity; more complex concepts are more difficult to learn. This pervasive effect suggests, contrary to exemplar theories, that concept learning critically involves the extraction of a simplified or abstracted generalization from examples.