A model for police officer burnout

This article presents an empirically derived model of police officer burnout based on 199 male police officers. A brief review of research on police officer stress is also provided.This chapter is a summary of research conducted by Dr. Alan M. Goodman for his doctoral dissertation entitledA Model for Police Officer Burnout, June 1983, California School of Professional Psychology, San Diego.Alan M. Goodman, Ph.D. obtained his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology in San Diego, California. In addition, Dr. Goodman is a School Psychologist and is a consultant to several school districts in Southern California. Dr. Goodman has been employed in both inpatient and outpatient mental health settings. Most recently, Dr. Goodman has been a Registered Psychologist at Catholic Community Services in San Diego where he conducted individual, conjoint and family therapy sessions for a varied socioeconomic population, including city service personnel.Dr. Goodman has conducted extensive observations of police officers on the job through the Ride-A-Long program in which non-police personnel may accompany police officers on a particular shift of duty. In addition, he has consulted with numerous police chiefs regarding the various high-risk factors for those police officers who may be experiencing burnout and stress. In addition, intervention strategies in order to alleviate these feelings were discussed with these officials.     

The management of children''s distress in response to painful medical treatment for burn injuries

The purpose of the current study was to develop an initial assessment of the efficacy of astress-management program designed to reduce the behavioral distress of children undergoing highlypainful medical treatments for their burn injuries. The stress-management program was delivered to 4 male patients, ages 5–12 yr and its effects assessed in a combined multiple-baseline and reversal design. Results indicated that the program was moderately effective at reducing behavioral distress during the burntreatment procedures for 3 of the 4 patients and less effective with the fourth. However, the design also revealed that the presence of a therapist to coach the patient in the use of these techniques was essential and that distress levels rose substantially on days when there was no therapist present. Finally, speculations concerning the factors responsible for the effectiveness of the stress-management program as well as its reduced efficacy with 1 S were discussed.     

Asymmetries in the acquisition of polar adjectives: Linguistic or conceptual?

This study was designed to determine whether the asymmetry in children's acquisition of polar adjective pairs is based on linguistic factors related to differences in adult usage and frequency or on an underlying conceptual difference. 24 children, aged 3;7–4;11, took part in a concept-learning task in which nonsense syllables replaced English words for the positive and negative ends of four dimensions: size, height, length, and thickness. The data indicate that the syllables for the negative end of each dimension have a longer learning period and a greater prelearning error rate. These results support the hypothesis that the asymmetry observed in the acquisition of polar adjectives is based on an underlying conceptual asymmetry.     

Psychology and self-help groups. Predictions on a partnership

Continued growth and increased legitimacy are anticipated for the American self-help group (SHG) phenomenon. Currently estimated at six and a quarter million participants annually, self-help groups will assume a central role in the nation's mental health delivery system over the next two decades. The first part of this article illuminates the self-help group phenomenon itself. Its scope, characteristics, supporting social climate, and associated research issues are reviewed. The second part is a futuristic examination of its interface with the newly industrializing world of health care. Massive increases in mental health services are predicted, especially via the SHG format. Theory development, research sophistication, changing SHG formats, a place in public policy, and acceptance into graduate curricula are also expected, as are collaborative relationships with a variety of professional disciplines. Psychologists are urged to enhance the relevance of the profession by taking an early leadership role in these developments.     

Use of repetition to facilitate spontaneous language acquisition

The role of repetition as a facilitator of spontaneous language acquisition was examined in a 12-month longitudinal study of three children: John, Mindy, and Ashley. Imitation was first defined in a traditional fashion as the exact repetition of a model utterance, within five utterances, without changing the model except to reduce it. During the single-word utterance period, John entered words into his vocabulary by imitating them and then using them spontaneously, while the two girls did not. He also imitated longer utterances than he produced spontaneously while the two girls did not. At the same time, John showed the most rapid language acquisition of the three children. John did not use imitation, as defined, to enter new syntactic-semantic relations into his speech during the two-word stage. However, when the definition of imitation was broadened to include other kinds of repetitions such as repetitions with expansion, either of the child's own productions or of those of others, it was found that repetitions played a significant role in the acquisition of new vocabulary and new syntactic-semantic relations in two-word utterances.This article is based, in part, on a Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology, University of Denver, in 1976. Portions of the article were presented at the Wisconsin Education Research Association, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, December 1–2, 1977. The research was undertaken while the author was an NIMH predoctoral fellow, 5F01 MH55918-02 MTHL, and was also supported by a Grant Foundation grant for graduate student research to Dr. Marshall Haith and a Spencer Foundation grant to Dr. Kurt Fischer.     

Specialization of the cerebral hemispheres in scanning for information in short-term memory

Lateral specialization of function in the cerebral hemispheres was investigated in the context of a memory scanning paradigm. The S first memorized a set of letters (the memory set) and then indicated whether or not a subsequent test stimulus, presented in either the right or left visual field, matched any letter in the set. The test stimulus was either a letter or a picture of some common object; for the picture, S’s response was based on the initial letter of the name of that object. Reaction time was recorded and plotted as a function of the number of letters in the memory set. The results support the hypothesis that in a memory scanning task of this type, letter and picture test stimuli are spatially and verbally represented, respectively, and are processed in different cerebral hemispheres.     

The compatibility of hunting and mothering among the agta hunter-gatherers of the Philippines

Women's hunting is widely held biologically impracticable in foraging societies, chiefly because hunting is presumed incompatible with maternal responsibilities. A three-year study of hunting practices among the Agta Negrito people of northern Luzon reveals women's active participation in hunting, singly and in groups, without detriment to normal fertility and child care.     

Sex of employee and sex of supervisor: Effect on attributions for the causality of success and failure

An industrial “employee-testing” situation was simulated in two laboratory studies to determine if differential attributions would be made for the causality of success and failure, as a function of the sex of the “supervisor” and of the “employee.” The saliency of the relative success of the performance was confirmed in both studies, as was the importance of the sexual composition of the dyad. Two surprising results were the general lack of derogation of females by themselves and others, as was generally found in prior research, and the different self-attributional patterns made in the presence and absence of a supervisor. The latter result calls into question the ipsative conception of attributions.