Belief in afterlife as a moderator of fear of death?

Investigating the notion that belief in afrerlife (BA) serves the function of helping the individual to deal with fear of death, a study was designed to explore the effect of public commitment to religion, repression-sensitization, and anticipatory concern with death and dying on BA, and examine the relationship between BA and state anxiety. Fifty students of theology and fifty students of various other subjects responded to a German version of Byrne's R-S scale, and then were randomly assigned to two conditions: they either worked through Thanatos-Questionnaire, and thereby were confronted with death and dying for about 15 to 20 minutes, or filled out a questionnaire unrelated to the topic. Thereupon, a BA scale was administered, and at last, subjects responded to a scale measuring state anxiety. The findings of Osarchuk and Tatz (1973) that religiously committed persons are strengthening BA after being confronted with death and dying could not be replicated. However, among subjects with no public commitment, those concerned with death and dying scored significantly lower on BA than those not concerned. This effect was especially observed among students classified as sensitizers. Because changes of BA did not correspond with changes of within cell correlations between BA and state anxiety, an alternative explanation of the findings in terms of dissonance theory is put forward.     

The effect of memory load on reaction time in character classification

In order to investigate the effect of memory load on reaction time (RT), choice RT trials were embedded in a binary character classification task using the varied set procedure. Twelve Ss performed in experimental blocks, as well as in control blocks consisting of character classification trials only. In experimental blocks, every trial began as a classification trial with the presentation of a new positive set. On a random half of these trials, however, a choice RT stimulus was presented instead of a probe letter and S simply made the indicated response. Results indicated that memory load had no effect on the choice RT trials. Embedding choice RT trials in the classification task affected the intercept (but not the slope) of the function relating classification RT to memory load. This result implies that the increase in latency usually obtained in classification experiments is entirely due to an increase in the duration of the memory searching stage of processing.     

Factors limiting the generality of the risky-shift phenomenon

While a considerable amount of research has centered on explaining the risky shift (enhancement of risk acceptance through group discussion; see, for example, Dion, Baron, and Miller, 1970), few studies have investigated the generality of the phenomenon. Three of several ways in which the laboratory context is usually lacking of reality are: (a) The decision consequences are imaginary, as in the ‘Choice-Dilemma’ situations used in most of the risky-shift research; (b) the decision consequences - even if they are real (e.g. money) - are slight; and (c) the decisions are made for oneself (whereas in real life many decisions involve agents acting on behalf of others). The present study was designed to investigate the effects of the above three factors - type of incentive, magnitude of stake and decision target - using a betting task as the decision situation.     

The development of socialization skills in an electively mute child

In a booth designed especially for work with both autistic and electively mute children, a 4-yr-old girl named Dolly, who had no communicative speech or imitative skills, was given a preliminary session in which her verbal output was assessed. To elicit sounds from Dolly, an instrument called a “color organ” was used as a positive reinforcer. After this baseline assessment, in 40 half-hour sessions, Dolly was taught to make eye contact with E, and to obey instructions—although it was first necessary to extinguish her disruptive behavior, particularly her opérant crying. In addition, she learned non-verbal imitative behavior, such as hand clapping; and verbal imitative behavior, such as saying “Hi!” Social (play) sessions were begun after session 21, and continued for the remaining time. These were helpful in generalizing Dolly's learned skills to an environment other than the booth; and to other tasks, such as singing “Ee-eye-ee-eye-oh” in the refrain of the song, “Old McDonald”; and pointing to E's eyes, saying “ice”.     

Ethnotherapeutic empathy (EthE)—Part I: Definition,theory, and process

This paper introduces the concept of ethnotherapeutic empathyin working with ethnoculturally different patients to increase the efficacy of therapy. This form of empathy is used instrumentally to get to know the patient's inner problematic images, anxieties, fears, depressive affect, suffering, hurt, disillusionment, rage, joy, and triumph. Clinical empathy with ethnic patients is instrumental in that it is purposive:it sets out to achieve what might be called patient-comprehending(that is, finding out the nature of the patient's problems) using this as guide to intervening—a form of creativity-in-action. Ethnotherapeutic empathy utilizes active ego processes, in contrast to the passive processes implied in artistic appreciation and surrender. This article presents the definitions of empathy, and associated intrapsychic and social factors, as well as physiological responses in empathie responding. The implications for clinical practice with patients of differing ethnocultural and racial groups are discussed. The article develops a foundation for understanding the therapeutic matrix of applied ethnotherapeutic empathy which is detailed in the second part of this article (Ethnotherapeutic Empathy [EthE]—Part II: Techniques of Vicarious experiencing Across Cultures).     

Violations of transitivity: Implications for a theory of contextual choice

Violations of strong stochastic transitivity in concurrent-chains choice were first reported by Navarick and Fantino. In a series of articles, Navarick and Fantino concluded that neither a unidimensional model capable of predicting exact choice probabilities nor a fixed-variable equivalence rule was possible for the concurrent-chains procedure. I show that when choice is modeled contextually (i.e., when preference for a schedule is affected by factors other than the schedule itself, e.g., aspects of the alternative schedule), a unidimensional, exact-choice probability model is possible that both predicts the intransitivities reported by Navarick and Fantino and provides a fixed-variable equivalence rule for the concurrent-chains procedure. The contextual model is an extension of the generalized matching law and violates a key assumption underlying traditional choice models—simple scalability—because of (a) schedule interdependence and (b) bias from procedural contingencies. Therefore, strong stochastic transitivity cannot be expected to hold. Contextual scalability is analyzed to reveal a hierarchy of context effects in choice. Navarick and Fantino's intransitivities can be satisfactorily explained by bias. If attribute sensitivity is context dependent, however, and if there are similarity structures among choice alternatives, the contextual model is shown to be able to predict violations of ordinal preference. Therefore, it may be possible to formulate a deterministic, general psychophysical model of choice as a behavioral alternative to probabilistic, multidimensional choice theories.