Humor As a Stress Moderator in the Prediction of Blood Pressure Obtained during Five Stressful Tasks

In five consecutive stressful tasks we examined the role of humor as a potential stress moderator using systolic and diastolic blood pressure as an indication of cardiovascular reactivity. In all five tasks, the Coping Humor Scale interacted with sex in the prediction of blood pressure. The same pattern was found in response to each of the five tasks: Females who were higher in coping humor exhibited lower systolic blood pressure than females scoring lower on coping humor, while the reverse characterized males; males who scored high on the coping humor scale exhibited higher systolic blood pressure than males scoring low on that scale. Similar though less robust results were found when the Situational Humor Response Questionnaire was used as the measure of humor. In the Cold Pressor Task, which involves pain and endurance, interactions were found between humor, sex, and trials indicating a stress-moderator effect. The absence of interactions indicating stress moderation in most of the analyses with the other four stress tasks suggests that humor may play more of a role in moderating the impact of uncontrollable and passively experienced stressors. Tasks requiring more active, problem-solving behavior may be less amenable to the beneficial effects of humor. The findings do not clearly resolve the questions about the role of humor in effecting responses to stress. However, they do suggest that the subjects' sex may be an important consideration when evaluating the impact of humor as a stress moderator.     

The role of symmetrical and asymmetrical social conflict in cognitive change

We asked whether dyads consisting of nonconservers of liquid would be more likely than solo controls to change to a conservation answer when each child gave symmetrically conflicting answers from different perspectives ("more" versus "less" from different viewpoints). We also asked whether nonconservers are more likely than conservers to abandon their answers in conserver + nonconserver dyads. In order to stimulate the perspectival conflicts in the nonconserver + nonconserver dyads, the partners experienced artificial displays in which the two possible answers were afforded by different views of the apparatus. We found no evidence that social conflict of the kind engineered in the nonconserver + nonconserver dyads stimulates cognitive change. Our evidence that nonconservers tend to adopt the conservation answer of their partners was less strong than that collected in previous studies, but this may have been due to the fact that, contrary to previous studies, the children's social dominance relations were affecting the outcome. We concluded that the ineffectiveness of symmetrical social conflict is consistent with Piaget's conception of nonconservers as children insensitive to the perspective-relative nature of their judgments.     

Reducing Avoidance of Social Interaction with a Physically Disabled Person by Mentioning the Disability Following a Request for Aid1

The effectiveness of strategies for reducing avoidance of social interaction with a physically disabled person was experimentally investigated. Female college students privately expressed their preference for social interaction before and after learning the other was a female in a wheelchair or nondisabled. The results provide evidence for the effectiveness of mentioning the disability following a request for aid related to the disability (the Request-mention Strategy). Change in preference for social interaction was more positive when the disabled person employed the Request-mention strategy than when she said nothing. Requesting aid without mentioning the disability was not found to be effective. A request for aid unrelated to the disability was clearly ineffective. The disabled person who said nothing was avoided, in comparison to when the same person was nondisabled. Favorability of impressions of the other, as measured by ratings of her characteristics, was not influenced by the experimental conditions.     

The so-called duty to warn: The psychotherapeutic duty to protect third parties from patients' violent acts

This article discusses the much-misunderstood Tarasoff decision that requires psychotherapists to protect third parties from patients' violent acts. Through a normative approach, the paper analyzes four important issues: what to do when potential victims are unknown; what to do about the fact that the patients' potential for violence may be incorrectly perceived; the value of warning potential victims; and, the problem of discharging potentially violent patients from the hospital. The author proposes that the courts adopt a more flexible substantial departure test in most cases that involve psychiatric negligence.     

Effects of visual presentation of caloric values on food buying by normal and obese persons.

The effects of the visual presentation of the caloric values of food on the food buying behavior of 450 normal, overweight, and obese female subjects were studied, in a cafeteria setting. The caloric signs significantly decreased the total number of calories bought across all three weight groups. No differences were found among the three weight groups, either in the effect of the presentation of the caloric signs or in the total number of calories bought. The implications of these results were discussed, both in terms of present-day research on obesity as well as in terms of a large scale modification of eating behavior.     

Differences in baseline drinking behavior between alcoholics and normal drinkers

Drink preference, sip magnitude, amount of time taken to consume drinks and amount of time between sips were measured for 23 normal drinkers and 26 hospital admitted alcoholics while they consumed up to 16 oz. of 86-proof liquor or its equivalent in an experimental bar-and-lounge environment. The alcoholics as denned in this study ordered more drinks, preferred straight drinks, took larger sips and drank faster, but took a longer time between sips than did the normal drinkers. The utility of baseline drinking measures and the external validity of the results are discussed.     

Reviews of current books

Pastoral Psychology -     

Sociability and Social Withdrawal in Childhood: Stability and Outcomes

The stability and long-term correlates of both social withdrawal and sociability were investigated in a longitudinal study of normal children in kindergarten through the fifth grade. Both observational and peer assessment indices of withdrawal and sociability were considered; furthermore, a distinction was made between observed active versus passive solitude. Of particular interest was whether social withdrawal in early childhood was predictive of subsequent internalizing problems, as assessed by self-reports of social competence, overall self-worth, loneliness, and depression as well as teacher ratings of shy/anxious behavior, in later childhood. Results indicated a modest degree of stability for observed social withdrawal but not for observed sociability, nor for active or passive forms of solitude. Somewhat higher stability correlations were obtained for peer assessments of both sociability and withdrawal. In terms of predictive outcomes, significant relations were found between early social withdrawal in kindergarten and Grade 2 and subsequent internalizing problems in Grades 4 and 5, although the pattern of results was mixed. These data suggest that social withdrawal in early childhood may be predictive of risk for internalizing difficulties in later childhood.