Depression in children: Parent,teacher, and child perspectives

Depressed and nondepressed children were found to differ in the types of behavior problems manifested at home and at school. Children rated as depressed by their parents on the Personality Inventory for Children evidenced significantly more conduct problems, anxiety, impulsive hyperactivity, learning problems, psychosomatic problems, perfectionism, and muscular tension at home than children rated as nondepressed. Depressed children were rated by their teachers as displaying more inattentionpassivity than nondepressed children. A significant but modest relationship was found between parent report and child selfreport of the child's depression. Depressed children attributed positive events to external causes and negative events to internal causes significantly more than did nondepressed children. The specificity of these results to depression was also examined;the particular features of childhood depression are compared to the features of adult depression. The investigators would like to thank Jim McFerren and Ralph Zalazar for their work as research assistants and David Watson for his help with the statistical analyses. The helpful comments of Eric Klinger and Auke Tellegen are gratefully acknowledged. The cooperation of Dr. Loren Benson, director of personnel services of the Hopkins School District #274; Mr. Edward Ryshavy, principal of Glen Lake Elementary School; and the teachers of that school is greatly appreciated.     

Follow-up on welfare benefits received by Job Club clients

A follow-up was made of the welfare payments received by AFDC clients who had received job-finding counseling. At the 6th-month follow-up, welfare payments had been reduced by about one-half for the Job Club clients vs 15% for the control group.     

Science and behavior therapy: A survey of research in the 1970s

A representative sample of a decade of contributors to the journals Behavior Therapy, Behaviour Research and Therapy, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry was asked to report on their motivations for conducting studies that had been published in that journal. Results indicated that the primary motivation of behavioral researchers was to build on prior research through gathering and analysis of data to illuminate applied-clinical issues and validate treatment procedures. Few researchers reported consultation arrangements or efforts to replicate as their motivation for research. Most respondents described the training model in which they had received their doctoral education as oriented toward a scientist-practitioner approach rather than one that focused primarily on research, therapy or assessment training. Most respondents noted that their philosophy of behavior therapy at the time of the study in question to be applied behavior analysis or social-learning theory with far less being affiliated with a neobehavioristic mediational S-R model or cognitive behavior modification. These results are discussed within the context of the relevance of clinical research in behavior therapy and professional psychology.     

The effects of sex and fear level of subjects on the snake approach behaviour of dyads

Dyads, differing in composition in terms of sex and fear level of subjects, were video-recorded whilst interacting with a harmless snake. Approach measures were taken for all subjects in the form of latency of first touch, percentage time in contact with snake and intensity of interaction from no touching at all through to picking up. As hypothesized, ‘fearless’ subjects showed more approach than ‘fearful’, with latency giving the most significant difference. Male and female scores were not significantly different on any measure, although there was a significant interaction on latency between sex and fear level, due to the performance of fearful females. Contrary to hypothesis there was no evidence that males regardless of fear level showed any more approach when paired with a female partner. There was evidence in line with hypothesis that fearless females showed more approach when paired with other females. Fearless males showed more approach when paired with fearful partners and fearful females when paired with fearless partners. These results are discussed in terms of the literature on the laboratory study of human fear and therapeutic modeling.     

Time-interval acquisition on a 6502-based microcomputer

A versatile machine language subroutine and accompanying interface circuitry enable a 6502-based computer to collect time intervals between data events that can be represented by voltage transients. Intervals within the range of 150 microsec to 13.98 min can be collected with a resolution of ±25 microsec. Electrical interface circuitry includes signal conditioning and optical isolation and also allows user-specification of threshold levels on the data line. The machine language software timing routine and sequential interval handler include a 24-bit interval timer, a 16-bit interval counter, user-specified number and length of acquisition periods, and an out-of-memory tester. Although presented for implementation on the Apple II series of microcomputers, the transportability of the routine to other 6502-based machines is addressed.     

Eco on Dewey

This study seeks to examine Umberto Eco's views of the key ideas in John Dewey's Art as Experience. Eco's proferred suggestion of transactional psychology as a corrective to Dewey's views is criticized as a misreading of Dewey's position.     

Comparison of two integrity tests based upon youthful or adult attitudes and experiences

To assess the effects on selection of two different approaches to the measurement of employment applicants' integrity, score data from two integrity tests were compared. A sample of 225 applicants to a drug supply company were administered both the Life Experience Inventory-Revised (LEI-R) and the Personnel Selection Inventory (PSI-3). The LEI-R items were largely derived from Freudian theory about the effects of childhood and youthful experiences on adult attitudes and behavior; the PSI-3 items were based upon the hypothesis that direct questions about deviant criminal and delinquent behavior and attitudes will yield responses predictive of employee integrity. Both the subscale scores and the total scores of the two inventories exhibited positive and moderately high intercorrelations. A principal (or common) factors analysis yielded two factors: one apparently a general deviance factor and the other a two-cluster LEI/PSI factor. Similar selection strategies (same cut-off score rules) yielded hit (agreement) rates from 71 to 82 percent. Implications for applicant integrity testing are discussed.     

Power and influence in the environment of family therapy*

This paper explores some of the ways in which family therapy theory and practice limits an appreciation of the contexts of families and family therapists. It focuses particularly upon how the rules which underlie patterns of relationships in social systems are made and maintained more by one part of a system than by another, and considers this (a) within families, (b) within various aspects of the social environment of families, and (c) within the organizational contexts of family therapists. It then proposes that the systemic thinking which family therapists apply to families is potentially applicable to wider contexts including international relationships.