Equipment malfunctions and attribution of causality

The purpose of this study was to test whether individuals would be more likely to attribute the cause for the malfunction of a new piece of equipment as a manufacturing problem in the equipment or as an inability on their part to properly work with the equipment. The subjects were 600 residents of Florida, selected by a stratified random sample and interviewed in a statewide telephone survey. Subjects were more likely to attribute the cause to themselves rather than the machine. Overall, 71% attributed the cause to themselves, while only 24% said the machine was at fault. There was also an interaction effect in terms of income, with middle-income users more likely to blame the machine and upper-income users more likely to blame themselves. Further, there was also a significant relationship between attribution of cause and age, with older respondents being more likely to attribute cause to themselves. These results imply that attribution may differ when the potential object of attribution is a machine rather than another person.     

Sleep quality, sleep propensity and academic performance

We examined associations between measures of sleep propensity on the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, sleep quality on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and academic performance by GPA and grades in introductory psychology for 414 students. In the total sample, neither sleep propensity nor sleep quality correlated with GPA or introductory psychology grades. However, among students carrying a full course load, those reporting poor sleep quality performed less well on academic measures than those reporting a better quality of sleep. Further research is needed to assess the moderating influence of overall demands of daytime functioning on the association between sleep quality and academic performance.     

Inequality as ingroup privilege or outgroup disadvantage: the impact of group focus on collective guilt and interracial attitudes

Among members of privileged groups, social inequality is often thought of in terms of the disadvantages associated with outgroup membership. Yet inequality also can be validly framed in terms of ingroup privilege. These different framings have important psychological and social implications. In Experiment 1 (N = 110), White American participants assessed 24 statements about racial inequality framed as either White privileges or Black disadvantages. In Experiment 2 (N = 122), White participants generated examples of White privileges or Black disadvantages. In both experiments, a White privilege framing resulted in greater collective guilt and lower racism compared to a Black disadvantage framing. Collective guilt mediated the manipulation's effect on racism. In addition, in Experiment 2, a White privilege framing decreased White racial identification compared to a Black disadvantage framing. These findings suggest that representing inequality in terms of outgroup disadvantage allows privileged group members to avoid the negative psychological implications of inequality and supports prejudicial attitudes.     

Initial behavior outcomes for the peacebuilders universal school-based violence prevention program

PeaceBuilders is a universal, elementary-school-based violence prevention program that attempts to alter the climate of a school by teaching students and staff simple rules and activities aimed at improving child social competence and reducing aggressive behavior. Eight matched schools (N > 4,000 students in Grades K-5) were randomly assigned to either immediate postbaseline intervention (PBI) or to a delayed intervention 1 year later (PBD). Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze results from assessments in the fall and spring of 2 consecutive school years. In Year 1, significant gains in teacher-rated social competence for students in Grades K-2, in childself-reported peace-building behavior in Grades K-5, and reductions in aggressive behavior in Grades 3-5 were found for PBI but not PBD schools. Differential effects in Year 1 were also observed for aggression and prosocial behavior. Most effects were maintained in Year 2 for PBI schools, including increases in child prosocial behavior in Grades K-2. Implications for early universal school-based prevention and challenges related toevaluating large-scale prevention trials are discussed.     

The "subliminal" versus the "subconscious" in the American acceptance of psychoanalysis, 1906-1910.

Insofar as Frederic W. H. Myers' conceptions of the "subliminal" were spread by the Boston-based "Emmanuel movement" for medically supervised religious psychotherapy (fl. 1906-1910), the movement probably did more to help than to hinder American acceptance of Freudian ideas. Certainly, many academic psychologists' conceptions of the "unconscious" and "subconscious" were a hindrance.     

Two-component arterial blood pressure conditional response in rat

The objective of these experiments was to quantify the pattern of change in arterial blood pressure (BP) during a discriminative aversive classical conditioning paradigm in rat using a new “high resolution” computer analysis. Sprague-Dawley rats (n=5) were restrained in a soft, conical cloth pouch and conditioned using a 6 sec. pulsed tone (CS+) followed by a 0.5 sec. tail shock; a steady tone, never followed by shock, served as a CS-. BP peaked at 16.4±6.5 mm Hg (mean±SD) above control at 1.5±0.1 sec. after onset of CS+. This “first component” (“C₁”) also occurred during CS- (12.1±3.8 mm Hg), although the magnitudes of the two were significantly (p<0.05) different. Another group of rats (n=8) was treated identically except the tones were 15 seconds long. The conditional BP response consisted of two components. C₁ was reminiscent of that seen using the short tone: for CS+ a peak of 13.6±5.6 mm Hg at 1.5 sec. or, for CS-, of 10.0±4.3 at 1.3 sec. (p<0.05). In CS+ trials BP peaked again (“C₂,” 7.4±2.5 mm Hg) at 8.3±1.2 sec. There was no statistically significant C₂ for CS- trials, clearly demonstrating discrimination between tones. The unconditional BP response in both groups consisted of two large, closely spaced peaks in BP. Respiration was recorded in 3 additional rats. After shock delivery these subjects often showed a sudden shift between (1) a regular respiratory pattern with moderate chest excursion and (2) apneic episodes interspersed with single, deep breaths. This latter pattern was associated with large, low frequency fluctuations in BP. Continued development of the rat conditioning paradigm is especially warranted because of the ability to record sympathetic nerve activity in intact, awake subjects and the large number of readily available genetic strains, which model human pathological states.     

Measuring Associative Strength: Category-Item Associations and Their Activation from Memory

Three measures of the strength of association between a category and members of the category were investigated: (a) a naming measure, in which the participants (93 undergraduates) were asked to list the members of a category and the listing order was assumed to reflect associative strength; (b) a latency measure, which assessed the latency to correctly identify specific items as members or nonmembers of a given category; and (c) a facilitation measure, in which the spontaneous activation of an item upon presentation of a category label as a prime was assessed by considering the extent to which the prime facilitated recognition of an initially degraded (visually obscured) item. The three measures correlated substantially, thus validating the naming and latency measures as reasonable approximations of the likelihood that a given item will receive activation in memory when the category is presented. Many of the constructs of interest to survey researchers can be viewed similarly as associations in memory, and the naming and latency measures can be fruitfully used in surveys; research attesting to the utility of namingand latency data is reviewed.     

The efficacy of noncontingent escape for decreasing children's disruptive behavior during restorative dental treatment

We evaluated the effectiveness of a dentist-implemented behavioral intervention in which brief escape from dental treatment was provided on a regular basis, independent of the child's behavior. Within a multiple baseline design across subjects, 5 children, ages 4 to 7 years, were provided with temporary escape from dental treatment on a fixed-time schedule. The intervals were signaled by an electronic timer worn by the dentist. Clinically significant reductions were observed in physically disruptive behavior across all 5 children with the introduction of noncontingent escape, and verbally disruptive behavior was markedly reduced in 4 of the 5 children. In addition, the dental staff s use of physical restraint was reduced to near zero across all 5 children. The research extends the literature in both clinical dentistry and in applied behavior analysis by demonstrating that a dentist can easily and effectively implement noncontingent reinforcement to produce clinically significant and socially important changes in children's health behavior.