A respectable job: Factors which influence young Asians' choice of career

To find out why some college or university courses are particularly attractive to ethnic-minority school-leavers, school pupils and first-year students of South Asian (n=158) and UK origin (n = 158) completed a questionnaire relating to occupational choice. The social position attainable from a 'respected' profession and the ability to work with others who share similar beliefs were found to be of greater importance to subjects from an Asian background than to those of UK origin, who placed greater emphasis on personal growth and autonomy. There was no evidence that the Asian young people were consciously choosing careers with the aim of avoiding discrimination.     

Existential measurement: A factor analytic study of some current psychometric instruments

The foray of quantification research into the arena of existentialism and ontology has given rise to several psychometric instruments pertinent to the area. Both exploratory and Confirmatory principal-factor analyses were used to study the relationships among 16 existential scales currently in use in the research literature. Participants were 133 individuals comprised of 74 females and 59 males with a median age of approximately 30.5 years. Approximately one half of the sample was in attendance at the University of Regina and Saskatchewan during the 1976–1977 fall term, while the remainder was drawn from the respective communities. Confirmatory factor analysis supported both the prediction of substantial condensation of existential scales and the presence of an avoidance of ontological confrontation factor. Exploratory factor analysis provided some support of the theory that the avoidance of existential confrontation is a central function of neurosis. Extracted factors were interpreted and examined with respect to implications for existential-ontological theory and research.     

Dual coding under conditions of second stimulus modality uncertainty in successive matching tasks

Subjects matched successively presented stimuli within and across modalities. In conditions in which they were informed of the modalities of the two stimuli, no differences in matching performance were obtained between the four types of match (visual-visual, auditory-auditory, visual-auditory, and auditory-visual). Thus, there appeared to be no difference between the modalities in ability to perceive or retain the particular stimuli used. In conditions in which subjects were informed of the modality of the first stimulus but only of the modality in which the second stimulus would appear on 80% of trials, there was again no significant difference between auditory-auditory and visual-visual matching. However, auditory-visual matching was much faster than visual-auditory matching when the second stimulus appeared in the unexpected modality. The results suggest that subjects prepare for both possible types of match when uncertain of the second stimulus modality and that the cross-modal asymmetry reflects the additional attentional load that this incurs.     

Chronic drinking, binge drinking, and drunk driving II

Data from the Rhode Island Behavioral Risk Factor Survey on self-reported alcohol consumption and drunk driving were examined. Driving while intoxicated was significantly associated with both binge drinking and chronic drinking, but the measures of drinking were not significantly associated.     

Dangerousness and disability as predictors of psychiatric patients' legal status.

In a sample of patients admitted to two state psychiatric facilities, discriminant analyses were used to predict (1) legal status at admission (voluntary versus emergency detention), and (2) the subsequent decision to commit patients initially admitted under an order of emergency detention (court commitment versus release). Measures of preadmission dangerousness, followed by variables reflecting degree of disability or impairment, accounted for most of the variance in legal status at admission. Personal resources and demographic characteristics added little to the discrimination. Measures of disability accounted for most of the variance in the later decision to commit, whereas indices of dangerousness, personal resources, and demographics added little to discrimination of discharged and court-committed patients. These findings reflect the gap between legal standards and the practice of civil commitment, and support the argument that degree of disability plays a more important role than dangerousness in decisions to extend the hospitalization of involuntary patients.     

The influence of examiner race on the cognitive functioning of urban and rural children of different races

Urban and rural girls enrolled in second grades of a school system in the South were randomly assigned to black and white examiners to be tested on an individually administered intelligence test. The interaction of race of examiner, race of subject, and location of subject's home on test performance was investigated using a factorial design employing analysis of covariance. This interaction was not significant. However, as found in other studies, the white children as a group scored significantly higher than the black children. A discussion of conditions in which an interaction relationship may result is presented.     

Stereospatial masking and aftereffect with normal and transformed random-dot patterns

Masking and aftereffect in the perception of binocular depth were studied using random-dot sterograms as adaptation and target stimuli. Detection of the target was impaired by prior adaptation only when the two stimuli differed in disparity by less than 2 minarc. The masking function was unaffected by uniocular enlargement and blurring within the adaptation stimulus, but masking was no longer selective to disparity when the elements seen by the two eyes were reversed in brightness. The stereoscopic depth aftereffect was also insensitive to uniocular enlargement and blurring, and could not be generated when there was brightness complementation within the adaptation stimulus. Both the masking and aftereffect data are interpreted as evidence that stereospatial detectors in human vision are insensitive to transforms that maintain luminance-spatial correlations in binocular input.     

The ethics of enforced medical treatment: the balance model

ABSTRACT When is it right to enforce medical treatment on a patient who is refusing that treatment? English law recognises two ethical principles as of paramount importance: the autonomy of the patient; and the consequences of not treating compared with treating. The law, by and large, operates these principles in succession. Thus, in the case of a patient refusing treatment, the law asks first, is the patient competent? Only if the answer is no, are the consequences considered. We criticise the position taken by English law and argue, first, that competence is a graded and not a binary concept, and secondly, that the two ethical principles should be applied not sequentially but at the same time. These two ideas form what we have called the balance model. This model could be used for an empirical study of individuals’ ethical beliefs, and in particular to test the hypothesis that the ethical beliefs of most individuals conform to the balance model rather than to the position taken by English law.     

Non-Informative Effects of Stimuli Functioning as Cues

The category of a first stimulus (S₁) serving as a cue may allow a subject to predict the category of a second stimulus (S₂). However, a cue may have effects on RT to S₂ that are independent of those derived from its intended role as a predictor. These non-informative effects of a cue may add to or subtract from the benefits associated with its predictive function. Two experiments demonstrate that when S₁ is in the same category as S₂ (as is frequently the case for valid cues in cueing experiments) but provides no information about S₂, RT is slower than when S₁ is in a different category from S₂. It is suggested that this category relation effect arises because inhibition of a response to S₁ is still present when S₂ arrives and that, in some cueing experiments, it may subtract from the RT benefits derived from the cue as a predictor of S₂. Also, RT to a visual but not to an auditory S₂ was faster after an auditory S₁ than after a visual S₁. It is argued that this modality combination effect is consistent with the view that auditory signals are more alerting than visual ones and that this is another factor to be taken into account in the design of cueing and other experiments.