'But they aren't motivated …' issues concerned with encouraging motivation for change in families

This article is an attempt to provide some frameworks for understanding aspects of the context of families which support or constrain motivation for change. A theme of the entire paper is that ambivalence is normal and that it is therefore useful to regard families both as motivated to change and motivated to maintain stability. Part I focuses particularly upon family–referrer– therapist relationships and Part II upon family–therapist relationships. Part I begins with an exploration of the idea of motivation as a process and outlines the usefulness of the concept of ambivalence. Its main focus however is upon the importance of considering referrers when attempting to assess the motivation of family members for change.
Part II considers the relationship between the family and the therapist and takes account of some important aspects of the contexts of both. It ends with a summary of some experiential exercises which enable one's personal understanding of motivation issues to develop.     

Individual and group differences in intelligence and speed of information processing

A battery of eight different reaction time (RT) tests, measuring the speed with which individuals perform various elementary cognitive processes, and a group test of scholastic aptitude (the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, ASVAB) were given to 50 black and 56 white male vocational college students. The regression of the general factor scores of the ASVAB on the RT measures yielded a shrunken multiple correlation of 0.465. Although discriminant analyses, when applied separately to the ASVAB subtests and to the RT variables, showed highly comparable overall discrimination (over 70% correct classification) between the black and white groups, factor scores derived from the general factor (labeled ‘speed of information processing’) of the RT battery show only about one-third as large a mean black-white difference as the mean group difference on the general factor scores derived from the ASVAB. Comparisons were also made between the 106 vocational college students and 100 university students of higher average academic aptitude who had previously been tested on the same RT battery (Vernon, 1983a). These groups showed marked differences on the RT variables, the largest differences occuring on the tests that required more complex cognitive processing. The more complex RT tests also correlate most highly with the psychometric measures of ability within each group. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that individual differences and the mean differences between groups in psychometric abilities and scholastic achievement are related to differences in the speed of information processing as measured in elementary cognitive tasks.     

Endemic images and the desensitization process

Forty-eight test-anxious subjects were selected and randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions. The subjects in the first group were asked to imagine a series of images that reflected relaxing motifs and these images were counterposed with a series of items from a test-anxiety hierarchy. The second group received a course of group systematic desensitization. The third group (control) was asked to “think about relaxing” as recorded chamber music was played. Two one-way Analyses of Variance (ANOVAs) and a series of Scheffé multiple comparisons revealed that the subjects' post-therapy levels of anxiety as measured by the Suinn Test Anxiety Behavior Scale (STABS), as well as their grade point averages (GPA) were significantly different under the endemic image and control procedures. Significant differences were also observed for these measures when the scores of the systematic desensitization and control groups were compared. No significant differences were observed between the post-therapy scores of the endemic image and systematic desensitization groups. The utility of the endemic imagery treatment for clients who are unable to undergo deep muscle relaxation because of physical infirmities, for example, cerebral palsy, is noted and a call for more extensive research is made.     

INTELLIGENCE,COGNITIVE STYLES,AND BRAIN LATERALIZATION

The concept of intelligence as a kind of mental power is criticized, since it is essentially static. Many authors wish to substitute the concept of processes or styles of thinking and learning, which might be developed by appropriate training. But there is no consensus as to which styles are of major importance in intellectual growth, and few of those suggested can be assessed objectively. They resemble the historical notion of types; and like types, they may be weak in internal consistency and generalizability. Some types which are defined by psychometric variables or factors are more promising. Currently the contrast between left brain and right brain functions is over-popularized. But it is associated both with verbal vs visuospatial abilities, and with analytic-sequential vs holistic processing. The right brain has been credited with a wide range of other functions for which there is little evidence, e.g., intuition, creativity, meditational trance states, etc. Findings from studies of brain-damaged or commissurotomized patients, and experiments with normal subjects, are outlined. The dichotomy is not the same as Das' simultaneous vs successive, Freud's primary vs secondary processes, Witkin's field independence, or Guilford's convergent vs divergent. Certain implications for education, for mental testing, and for cross-cultural research are discussed.     

A Lotus 1-2-3-based system for recording and maintaining body weight of laboratory animals

Body-weight maintenance is required in a variety of behavioral and physiological studies. A PC-based animal-weighing system is described; it features automated data collection and allows for accurate control of body weight in test animals via manipulation of food intake. Major system components are a PC XT-compatible computer, Lotus 1-2-3 and National Instruments Measure software, and a digital electronic balance. The system is controlled by Lotus macros, which present menus to the user. Menus provide for the basic operations of the system, including establishing new data files, collecting weight data, printing, and transferring files to a laboratory minicomputer. The optional weight-maintenance algorithm calculates the amount of food necessary to maintain target body weights. Some important aspects of this algorithm, including maintenance-feeding and gain parameters, can be manipulated to reduce weight oscillation in test animals or to accommodate the maintenance of body weight of different animal species. The system facilitates acquisition and recording of weight data, minimizes the frequency of error, and reduces variability both within and across animals when body-weight maintenance is required.     

STRATEGIES TO INCREASE EXERCISE-REPORT CORRESPONDENCE BY BOYS WITH MODERATE MENTAL RETARDATION: COLLATERAL CHANGES IN INTENTION-EXERCISE CORRESPONDENCE

Correspondence between verbal and nonverbal behavior in an exercise room was taught to 4 13-year-old boys diagnosed with moderate mental retardation. Participants were asked prior to each exercise session which exercise machine(s) they intended to use. No contingencies on stating intentions (promising) were applied. Following the exercise session, participants were asked to say (report) which machine(s) they had used. Following the baseline condition, do-report correspondence training was introduced sequentially across participants. During do-report correspondence training, accurate reporting was reinforced. High rates of both do-report and promise-do correspondence were observed. Data were analyzed via a multiple baseline across subjects design and contingency-space analysis. Results are discussed with regard to observed changes in promise-do correspondence subsequent to observed changes in do-report correspondence.     

Age of acquisition,not word frequency,affects object naming,not object recognition

Word frequency is widely believed to affect object naming speed, despite several studies in which it has been reported that frequency effects may be redundant upon age of acquisition. We report, first, a reanalysis of data from the study by Oldfield and Wingfield (1965), which is standardly cited as evidence for a word frequency effect in object naming; then we report two new experiments. The reanalysis of Oldfield and Wingfield shows that age of acquisition is the major determinant of naming speed, and that frequency plays no independent role when its correlation with other variables is taken into account. In Experiment 1, age of acquisition and phoneme length proved to be the primary determinants of object naming speed. Frequency, prototypicality, and imageability had no independent effect. In Experiment 2, subjects classified objects into two semantic categories (natural or man-made). Prototypicality and semantic category were the only variables to have a significant effect on reaction time, with no effect of age of acquisition, frequency, imageability, or word length. We conclude that age of acquisition, not word frequency, affects the retrieval and/or execution of object names, not the process of object recognition. The locus of this effect is discussed, along with the possibility that words learned in early childhood may be more resistant to the effects of brain injury in at least some adult aphasics than words learned somewhat later.     

Intelligence, reaction times, and peripheral nerve conduction velocity

Two studies (with sample sizes of 85 and 88) are reported that investigated relationships among measures of intelligence, speed of information processing, and peripheral nerve conduction velocity (NCV). In both studies, NCV was significantly correlated with IQ scores (rs = .42 and .48) and with reaction times (RTs; rs = −.28 and −.18): Thus, faster NCV was associated with higher IQ scores and faster speed of processing. In both studies, NCV and RTs contributed significantly, in combination, to the prediction of fullscale IQ (shrunken multiple Rs = .53 and .57), but the expected pattern of causal relationships between the variables was not borne out. The results are interpreted in terms of a “neural efficiency” model of intelligence, which has recieved support from other studies of physiological correlates of human intelligence.     

Learned helplessness and the detection of contingency: A direct test

Two studies tested a basic hypothesis of the learned helplessness model: That performance deficits associated with exposure to uncontrollable outcomes are directly mediated by an individual's perception of response-outcome independence. In the first experiment 48 subjects were exposed to noise bursts. For one experimental group, the termination of the noise was response-contingent. For five other groups, noise-burst termination was independent of subjects' responses. These five groups varied in the number of trials on which they received positive feedback: As predicted, subjects overestimated the amount of control they had over noise termination as a positive linear function of the amount of noncontingent positive feedback they received. Although subjects exposed to either noncontingent positive or negative feedback showed subsequent performance deficits on an anagrams task, the expected relation between perceived control and subsequent performance failed to emerge. These findings were replicated in a second experiment. In addition, subjects' locus, stability, and globality attributions failed to predict subsequent performance. These results call into question the central premises of helplessness theory: That perceived uncontrollability and causal attributions mediate learned helplessness.