Fear of criticism in washers,checkers and phobics

Fear of criticism in patients who manifested specific phobias, washing rituals and checking rituals was investigated. Six items from the Fear Survey Schedule measuring degree of anxiety to criticism were selected for this purpose. Results indicated that both washers and checkers showed more sensitivity to criticism than did phobics, while washers and checkers did not differ significantly. The implications of these findings for treatment are discussed.     

A within-subject analysis of stimulus control therapy with severe sleep-onset insomnia.

Stimulus control, a behavioral technique designed to reduce sleep difficulties, has been demonstrated to be effective when compared with control procedures. These comparisons, mainly involving between-subjects analyses, have neglected the contribution of the stimulus control procedure to the production of clinically significant amelioration of sleep dysfunction. In contrast, the present within-subjects experiment was conducted to assess the capability of stimulus control to produce clinically relevant reductions in multiple measures of sleep disturbance. A comparison with the credible placebo procedure indicated that the stimulus control techniques reduced subjects' sleep onset latency to a mean latency below 30 min per week. Additionally, sedative-hypnotic usage was greatly reduced.     

Consistency,self-consciousness,and the predictive validity of typical and maximal personality measures

Most personality measures which ask for subjects' typical performance have often not been effective as predictors of criterion behaviors. Based upon the maximal performance model of ability tests, predictors were constructed which required subjects to report both how dominant they typically are in a particular situation and how dominant they are capable of acting. The efficacy of these typical and maximal self-reports in predicting typical and maximal expressions of dominance in the laboratory was compared. Self-reports of maximal dominance tended to outpredict self-reports of typical dominance for both typical and maximal laboratory expressions of dominance. In addition, maximal self-reports were of equal predictive validity for both those subjects reporting themselves as consistent in expressing dominance and those reporting themselves as inconsistent (situationally variable). Finally, the extent to which subjects were self-reflective (private self-consciousness) and concerned about their appearance to others (public self-consciousness) mediated the validity of both their typical and maximal self-reports, although the predictive superiority of maximal self-reports was maintained.     

Social comparison and group interest in ingroup favouritism

Studied the effects of reward magnitude and comparability of the outgroup on minimal intergroup discrimination where self-interest was related to ingroup profit. Favouritism towards own group is hypothesized to arise from intergroup comparisons to enhance self-esteem as well as instrumental rivalry for group and self-interest. Sixty-two fourteen to fifteen years' old school-boys and girls were randomly assigned to a high or low reward condition in which they distributed monetary rewards, via choice-matrices, to the ingroup and a relevant comparison outgroup, and the ingroup and an irrelevant comparison outgroup. Monetary self-interest was explicitly and directly linked to ingroup's absolute profit. Ss sacrificed group and personal gain to achieve intergroup differences in monetary outcomes favouring the ingroup; and were less fair and more discriminatory towards the relevant than irrelevant outgroup. especially with High Rewards.     

Left thalamic hemorrhage with dysphasia: a report of five cases.

A specific type of “thalamic speech” is being recognized with increasing frequency. Paucity of spontaneous speech, fading vocal volume, anomia, perseveration, and neologisms, with intact comprehension and word repetition, characterize the speech disorder associated with thalamic lesions. Nine cases of left thalamic hemorrhage and speech disturbance have been reported previously. This report details the speech, neurological, and neuroradiological findings in five additional cases of thalamic hemorrhage with dysphasia.     

Self-consciousness,evaluation of physical characteristics,and physical attractiveness

Results from an investigation of the relationship between habitual awareness of oneself as a social object (Public self-consciousness) and speed of processing information about the overt self are reported. Since high public self-consciousness subjects report themselves to be concerned about their physical appearance, they were expected to have more readily retrievable evaluative judgments concerning their physical characteristics. Consistent with this prediction, high compared to low public consciousness subjects required significantly less time to report their evaluations of eleven of their physical features. In a second study, high public self-consciousness was shown to be positively related to judged physical attractiveness in two geographically diverse samples. The quicker evaluations of the high public self-consciousness group were discussed in terms of information processing model recently described by Markus (1977).     

Binaural loudness matches in unilaterally impaired listeners

Binaural loudness matching data using a 2IFC adaptive procedure were obtained in high-frequency, unilateral cochlear-impaired listeners. The matches were obtained at frequencies where both ears had similarly normal thresholds, and also at other frequencies where the impaired ear had various degrees of hearing loss. In these listeners, one presumed difference between the ears is the limited or altered spread of excitation in the impaired ear. In agreement with previous studies using other approaches (Hellman, 1974, 1978; Hellman & Meiselman, 1986; Moore, Glasberg, Hess & Birchall, 1985; Schneider & Parker, 1987), the results of the present study suggest that both the range and the slope of loudness growth function are not dependent on the spread of excitation, but instead are related primarily to the degree of threshold elevation at the test frequency. Following this suggestion, a spread-of-excitation-independent model, based upon a group of neurons with the same characteristic frequency (CF) but different thresholds, is proposed to account for loudness growth in both normal and recruitment cases. In particular, it is shown quantitatively that a compressed distribution of thresholds due to threshold elevation may be responsible for loudness recruitment in sensorineural hearing loss.