The Infant mental health specialist in newborn pediatric rounds: A systems approach

This article describes a special program wherein infant mental health specialists participate in hospital rounds with pediatric residents. The purpose of the program is described in terms of medical awareness of psycho-social needs of the family and improved clinical services. Examples are given of the way in which “rounding” contributes to the meeting of infants' and families' medical and psychological needs. Note is made of the multilevel impact of this collaboration.     

The quality of sucking in infants with colic

Feeding problems have been reported in infants with colic. The purpose of this study was to examine the nutritive sucking pattern of infants identified as having colic. Twenty-nine infants (16 with colic and 13 controls) between the ages of 1 to 3 months, being bottle-fed by their mothers, were observed by a blind examiner. We hypothesized that infants with colic would show greater disorganization in nutritive sucking and show greater variability in sucking rate than infants without colic, as assessed by the revised Neonatal Oral Motor Assessment Scale (NOMAS). Infants with colic were found to present a disorganized sucking pattern; namely, a lack of rhythmical movement and a difference in amount of sucks per burst than infants without colic. Methods of intervention are suggested.     

A comparison of skill-building and desensitization strategies for intervention with aggressive children

Social skills training and desensitization interventions were conducted with 41 institutionalized aggressive children aged 7–13. Subjects were randomly assigned after blocking by aggression and cooperative play to either of the treatments. Dependent measures were direct observations of playground play and teacher ratings. Subjects in the social skills program mastered the basic cognitive skills presented to them. Observational data indicated that both groups experienced marked reduction in aggressive behavior and increases in cooperative play. The social skills training intervention engendered incremental improvement in aggression in comparison to the desensitization condition. However, none of the behavioral changes evident in the observations were reflected in teacher ratings.     

Cooperative social coordination and aggression: Sex and strain differences in the effects of housing on gonadectomized rats with hormone replacement

Laboratory rats were used to investigate sex and strain differences in the effects of aggression on a cooperative behavior in which pairs learned to coordinate shuttling in a rectangular chamber. The level of aggression was manipulated by comparing males and females of the aggressive S3 strain and a less aggressive Sprague-Dawley-derived strain and housing same-sex partners either together or individually (8 groups, n = 7 pairs per group). Hormone levels were stabilized by gonadectomy and daily injections of the appropriate sex hormone. The only serious coordination deficits were in individually housed males, associated with violent fighting and an extreme dominance/subordinance relationship that was not observed in females. All other groups readily learned and performed the coordination with evidence that low and moderate levels of aggression could facilitate coordination by evoking species-typical behaviors that increased proximity, synchrony, and differentiation within pairs. The discussion focused on models of affiliative behavior in the study of aggression and the compatibility between moderate levels of aggression and cooperation.     

Cooperative social coordination and aggression: Sex and strain differences in the effects of housing on gonadectomized rats with hormone replacement

Laboratory rats were used to investigate sex and strain differences in the effects of aggression on a cooperative behavior in which pairs learn to coordinate shuttling in a rectangular chamber. The level of aggression was manipulated by comparing males and females of the aggressive S3 strain and a less aggressive Sprague-Dawley-derived strain and by housing same-sex partners either together or individually (eight groups, n = 7 pairs per group). Hormone levels were stabilized by gonadectomy and daily injections of the appropriate sex hormone. The only serious coordination deficits were in individually housed males, associated with violent fighting and an extreme dominance/subordinance relationship that was not observed in females. All other groups readily learned and performed the coordination, with evidence that low and moderate levels of aggression could facilitate coordination by evoking species-typical behaviors that increased proximity, synchrony, and differentiation within pairs. The discussion focused on models of affiliative behavior in the study of aggression and the compatibility between moderate levels of aggression and cooperation.     

The more (men), the less merry: Social density,social burden,and social support

Sex Roles - Two questionnaire studies in rural Georgia examined how social and spatial density were related to social burden and social support. Results from the first study, which had 116 female...     

Commentary on some of the Russian writings of Pitirim A. Sorokin

The roots of Sorokin's sociology are found in his Russian works. Barriers of language and politics however, have prohibited their study by many social scientists and historians. This article is the most systematic effort to compile, translate, and annotate the catalogue of Sorokin's scholarly writings from 1910 to 1922. The recent changes that made this bibliography possible have stimulated a resurgence of Russian respect and interest in Sorokin, and opened new opportunities for research and collaboration. These are explored in the closing section of the article.     

German philosophy: Language and style

Conclusion Why, then, has so much of German philosophy for so long and so intensively felt itself bound to texts and authorities? And why is philosophy in Germany so often a matter of philosophizing through an author (whether Kant or Hegel or Heidegger)? Why is German philosophy to such a large extent a philosophy wherein questions such as What problems are you dealing with, then ? or Is what you say here true ? or What, then, is your own view on this matter? are unable to gain a foothold?The textual orientation of the mainstream of German philosophy is certainly in part dictated by the fact that this philosophy was always, in the middle ages as also in the modern era, to a very high degree a product of the universities. The most important philosophical movements in England, in contrast (as also in France), arose initially against the opposition of the universities. German-speaking university philosophers were thereby able to take over the teaching forms and methods of their scholastic predecessors in unbroken continuity, and the commentary, whether spoken or written, was in German philosophy faculties a prescribed form until as late as 1800. Even Kant gave lectures always in the form of commentary on other works, never on his own philosophy.Gradually, of course, philosophy came to be a matter for the universities in the Anglo-Saxon countries as well. The teaching of philosophy in these countries has however to a much greater extent than on the Continent been tied not to the formalized lecture(-commentary) but rather to tutorials and seminars involving comparatively small numbers of active participants. The job of philosophizing is learned thereby in Anglo-Saxon universities principally through the activity of argument and discussion.In German universities, in contrast, philosophy continues to be learned, in general, through lectures or homilies involving little or no discussion, so that the student of philosophy is rarely called upon to become active in his philosophizing. This is marked in the fact that in German one still refers to those enrolled in a lecture course as hearers (Hörer), whereby one often gains the impression that the hearers of lectures in philosophy are not in fact familiar with the desire to understand the content of what they hear.Even the teaching of the history of philosophy becomes impossible under such conditions, at least if this is understood in the Anglo-Saxon sense as an objective and as it were atomistic treatment of the ideas and arguments and problems which have arisen at different times and places. Rather we have an outcome in which philosophy, history of philosophy and textual commentary have become fused together into a single whole. To philosophize is to insert oneself into this whole, in order to contribute thereby to its further growth. Sometimes there will come along a philosopher (Hegel, Gentile, Heidegger) who will conceive it as his task to bring this development to a climax. The whole enterprise may thereby from time to time acquire a certain vital teleology. On the other hand, however, the conception of philosophy as a slowly growing textual mass can on occasion skid out of control, as the dadaistic posturings of Derrida et al. have made all too abundantly clear.     

Self-Consciousness and Strategic Self-Presentation

ABSTRACT People who are publicly self-conscious have been characterized as being especially concerned about their social identities and oriented toward gaining approval and avoiding disapproval. In two experiments, it was found that “pure publics” (i.e., those high in public and low in private self-consciousness) were the most concerned about matching their deeds and words. These subjects presented themselves to a partner consistently with their publicly known, prior performance on a supposedly valid test of social sensitivity. However, they presented themselves in a uniformly positive manner if the test could be dismissed as invalid and/or if their performance was unknown. In contrast, subjects low in public or high in private self-consciousness did not display these strategic patterns and presented themselves positively in all cases. Pure publics are thus the most likely to engage in patterns of self-presentation that have been shown to maximize approval and minimize disapproval in social interactions.