Fear and aggression in the rat

The effect of fear on two types of aggression in rats was investigated by adding a cat stimulus to a colony in which the dominant male was attacking an intruder (offensive aggression), or, to a tube test situation in which defensive biting was measured before and during tail shock. The cat completely abolished offense in the colony; when the cat was presented and removed before a strange rat was placed in the colony, attack on the intruder was also reduced. In contrast, defensive biting was unchanged or even slightly potentiated by the presence of the cat, demonstrating a separation of the effects of fear on offensive and defensive aggression.     

Volunteering for family strength

This paper describes the development of the volunteer component of the Perinatal Positive Parenting program—a program for parents of firstborns who deliver at the William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan. Effective parenting volunteer service requires energy, interest, and an extraordinary commitment to healthy family relationships. Principles which assure a high level of commitment to the Perinatal Positive Parenting Program are discussed. Recruitment, training, supervision, and evaluation dimensions which specifically support this commitment are also examined.     

Florian Znaniecki: A short reminiscence

This brief account of the author's interactions with Florian Znaniecki centers on the scholarly impact of Thomas and Znaniecki's five-volume Polish Peasant in Europe and America and on Znaniecki's early contributions to the sociology of science.     

Effects of naturally-occuring nontraumatic separations from mother

Thirty-three twelve-month-old infants were divided into three groups based on the frequency and length of naturally-occurring nontraumatic separations from mother during the first year. One group had experienced only brief separations when left with a babysitter for an evening. A second group had been left once or twice for an average of five days while parents vacationed. A third group had been left regularly and frequently during the daytime, usually because mother was working. These groups were compared on measures of reaction to separation and reunion, in the home and in the laboratory, at one year of age. No group differences were found on any of the dependent variables. It is suggested that the quality of substitute care is probably more important than separation per se in mediating the impact of employment or daycare on infant development.     

Socialization within day care: A brief review

Studies examining the effects of day care are reviewed. Little evidence was found indicating a negative impact on child development. A number of weaknesses in the day care literature were pointed out, including problems of ecological validity and failure to examine for differential effects. Suggestions for future research are made, among them a “natural history” of day care and studies of children who have experienced trauma.     

Philosophy and psychology at the Sorbonne, 1885–1913

The first university course in experimental psychology in Paris was located in the Faculty of Letters rather than the Faculty of Sciences or Medicine. The historical association of psychology with philosophy helps explain this placement, but this choice reinforced the philosophical character of the position at the expense of the experimental. In fact, the course included no laboratory instruction, with the exception of optional demonstrations conducted at psychological laboratories associated with the Faculty of Medicine. The fragmentation of the emerging discipline, distributed among divergent and competing Faculties, meant that training in experimental psychology may have been more difficult in France than in the United States or Germany, where laboratory research and training were more integrated. The first three instructors of the course—Théodule Ribot, Pierre Janet, and Georges Dumas—had a coherent vision of psychology as a synthesis of medical and philosophical approaches, but the matrix of institutional and disciplinary boundaries prevented them from bringing these approaches together.     

Pregrouping aggression and defense scores influences alcohol consumption for dominant and subordinate rats in visible burrow systems

Five male/two female rat colonies were established in visible burrow systems, with males selected for pregrouping attack scores and also evaluated in open field and cat odor tests. Dominant-subordinate pregrouping attack differences suggested that the males becoming dominant are those showing more persistent and higher level attack. For six colonies showing dominant-subordinate behavioral differences, pregrouping defense tests failed to predict subordinate status. However, pregrouping defense scores were reliably correlated with subordinate pre-postgrouping change scores for voluntary ethanol consumption. Subordinates showed higher ranked ethanol consumption than dominants, but these groups were not different on pregrouping ethanol consumption. Subordinate postgrouping ethanol consumption was positively correlated with pregrouping attack toward an adult intruder, consonant with previous findings that highly aggressive subordinates are the targets of more intense attack by dominants. These results provide further support for a view that subordination stress increases voluntary ethanol consumption in male rats and suggest some additional individual differences factors that may be involved in increased ethanol consumption for male subordinates. © 1992 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Improved Test–retest Reliability Criteria as Applied to Probability Assessments

Test–retest reliability is a common indicator of response consistency. It is argued that using regression coefficients for detecting systematic response error is less appropriate than testing for shifts in the mean (median) and variance. This procedure is exemplified using probability response data. For this data, shifts in centrality were found to be about 2.5 times more likely than shifts in variability. The shifts in centrality did not favor any particular direction; however, variability tended to decrease over time in early sessions.     

Temperamental Factors in the Execution of Interrupted Editing Tasks

The question investigated in this study is how the temperament traits of strength of excitation (SE), strength of inhibition (SI), and mobility (MO) affect behaviour during the execution of computer tasks and tasks interrupting them. Several hypotheses, partly derived from the regulative theory of temperament, were tested in an experiment in which the natural environment and the types of task commonly performed by secretaries were simulated. The sample consisted of 39 female secretaries (21–64 years old). It was found that individuals high on SE and MO needed less time to resume tasks after an interruption than individuals low on these temperament traits. Interruptions similar to the main task resulted in longer resumption times for low-SE individuals. MO was negatively related to the time needed to perform the main task. A model describing the relationship between the frequency of switches between tasks and the speed of task performance in low-MO and high-MO individuals is presented.