The type a behavior pattern,sex differences,and cardiovascular response to and recovery from stress

Sixty-one subjects performed a Stroop Color-Word Interference task, a mental arithmetic task (serial subtraction of 7s), and a shock avoidance task (repeating digits backward while expecting to be shocked for mistakes). Systolic and diastolic blood pressure and pulse rate were recorded while subjects anticipated, undertook, and recovered from the shock avoidance task, and undertook and recovered from the Stroop and mental arithmetic tasks. The results revealed that, compared to Type B subjects, Type A subjects manifested higher diastolic blood pressure during the Stroop and shock avoidance tasks and higher pulse rate following the mental arithmetic and shock avoidance tasks. No significant interactions were found between sex and A/B Type. The results are congruent with the notion that greater sympathetic nervous system activity among Type A individuals, both men and women, contributes to greater coronary atherosclerosis and heart disease in this group.     

Five writing-assistance programs: A review

A variety of written material was evaluated with five writing-assistance software packages. Three of the packages were found to be of limited value; they operated at a superficial level and cost much money. Of the remaining two, one was judged potentially valuable, although it was embedded in a larger system designed to teach writing to college students. The other one was judged a best buy on the basis of helpfulness to writers and minimal cost. Software is still no substitute for a good human editor.     

Intact retention in acute alcohol amnesia

Research on alcohol amnesia has focused on memory processes that are disrupted during intoxication. The present experiment examined the possibility that certain memory processes might be resistant to the amnesic effects of alcohol. Intoxicated and sober subjects studied a list of 29 words. They were then given one of three different retention tests: free recall, identification of degraded words based on the procedure used by Warrington and Weiskrantz (1970), and yes/no recognition. As expected, free recall was significantly impaired by alcohol intoxication. In contrast, in the identification test, intoxicated subjects benefited to the same degree as sober subjects from prior exposure to the items. The two groups did not differ in immediate recognition memory. The results of the free-recall and identification tasks are similar to findings with chronic amnesic patients and suggest that perceptual fluency is not affected by alcohol, whereas elaborative processes supporting recall are particularly sensitive to disruption during intoxication. The failure to find recognition impairment at the level of intoxication used in this study distinguishes temporary alcohol amnesia from chronic amnesia.     

Short-term group psychotherapy: Who succeeds,who fails?

Group psychotherapy literature is unclear about what patient characteristics contribute to better and poorer outcome. This study examined pre-group therapy patient characteristics and their relationship to short-term group therapy outcome. A battery of outcome measurements was administered to 192 short-term group therapy patients before, after, and 4–6 months after their group experience. Three distinct outcome groups are defined: dropouts, low changers and high changers. Characteristics of each group are discussed. Aside from the traditionally important variables such as age and education, this study indicates that interpersonal variables (interpersonal sensitivity, distance/closeness to others, primary involvement with family) may be potentially important areas to pursue in screening and preparing patients for a group.     

The suffix effect: How many positions are involved?

Three experiments tested the effect of the availability of the last item on the recall performance for earlier list items in a stimulus suffix paradigm. A decrement due to the suffix occurred for preterminal positions even when the last item was made available. This preterminal suffix effect was found to be more extensive in a condition in which subjects were free to recall the end items first than in a condition in which subjects were forced to recall in a strict left-to-right fashion.     

Intrinsic Motivation and norms about payment1

Several previous studies have shown that rewarding individuals for preforming an interesting task may have an inhibitory effect on tast satisfaction and persistence. In this experiment, an extrinsic reward decreased task satisfaction and persistence when a norm for no payment existed, but the inhibitory effect was not found when a norm for payment was associated with the task. This result is discussed in terms of the “means-ends” theoretical perspective developed by Calder and Straw (1975b) as well as other dcompeting explanations.     

The school psychologist as behavioral ecologist

Some psychologists involved in the implementation of applied behavioral psychology in educational systems must increasingly attend to the ecological impact of such interventions. An ecological orientation emphasizing system-like interdependencies among environment, organism, and behavior suggests several substantial additions to conventional role functions of behavioral school psychologists. Such functions involve taking an active part in evaluating and assessing second-order consequences of behavioral interventions. Recommendations for functional and procedural changes are provided within this framework.