Race Relations on Prime Time Television Reconsidered: Patterns of Continuity and Change

This study was designed to assess the changes that have occurred in the portrayals of black people and cross-racial relationships in prime-time television broadcasting during the past decade. By replicating the content analysis procedures used by Weigel, Loomis, and Soja (1980), this investigation provided a consistent basis for comparing two similar samples of television content drawn, respectively, from 1978 and 1989. Results of this comparison indicated that, although black appearances and cross-racial interactions were no more frequent in the 1989 sample of product commercials, the black presence in prime-time programming had increased substantially. As compared to 1978, the proportion of time that one or more black characters were on the screen more than doubled, while the frequency of cross-racial interactions more than tripled in the 1989 sample. Nevertheless, ratings of qualitative dimensions of these cross-racial interactions suggested that relationships between blacks and whites on television continued to be portrayed as cooperative but emotionally detached, particularly when the relationships occurred outside of the work place.     

Goal hierarchies and plan revision

This paper examined the effects of goal failure on plan revision. We argued that plans can be conceptualized as hierarchies of interrelated goals, such that broad superordinate goals are progressively subdivided into chains of more concrete subgoals. It was further expected that following negative feedback individuals would be biased to revise their goals by resetting those subgoals which were most closely linked to the point where failure occurred. In Study 1, methodological problems prevented an adequate test of the research hypotheses. Unexpectedly, individuals formulated their plans with revision in mind. In particular, planners tended to overset lower-level subgoals such that minor failures would allow them to still achieve their higher-level goals without revision. These findings were replicated in Study 2. Study 3 again examined goal revision. We utilized an experimental design to achieve more control over the task and plan content. As expected, it was found that goal revision was biased by the structure of the goal hierarchy. In particular, individuals tended to focus on the specific subgoal where failure feedback existed. In doing so, they tended to ignore the overall plan and made changes only to a small section of the goal hierarchy.The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of Carol Bormann, Keith James, Richard Hollenbeck, and Howard Weiss.     

Planning processes in preschool children

This study investigated different types of planning skills in 4- and 5-year-olds. The planning tasks consisted of three search tasks and two clustering tasks. Each task was measured in three ways: by a planning score, the Bronson task attack strategy measure of ongoing behaviors, and by self-report. A varimax rotation of the scores in a factor analysis produced the same two factors for both the planning scores and the Bronson task attack strategy scores. One factor was formed by tasks that allowed for a variety of open-ended solutions, but also had heavy information-processing demands. Tasks that allowed for only one task-imposed solution, but with lighter information-processing demands, formed the second factor. Two of the primary planning tasks used in prior research with preschoolers did not load on the same factor, the grocery store search task (Gauvain & Rogoff, 1989) and the Wellman search task (Wellman, Fabricus, & Sophian, 1985), which suggests that these tasks measure different types of planful search. Self-report data indicated that children were not able to adequately describe their plans. In addition, the one task that required semantic clustering was too difficult for the majority of the preschoolers. Taken together, this suggests that language-based planning measures will underestimate preschoolers' actual planning capacity.     

Methylphenidate and cognitive flexibility: Dissociated dose effects in hyperactive children

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was conducted to assess the acute effects of placebo and three doses of methylphenidate (MPH) (0.3, 0.6, 0.9 mg/kg) on cognitive flexibility and overt behavior in 28 children with a confirmed diagnosis of attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. Two underlying cognitive processes (response inhibition and response reengagement) were assessed by measuring the probability and speed with which subjects could inhibit responses to a primary task (forced-choice letter discrimination) and immediately execute a response to a secondary task (simple reaction time) when given a signal to do so. Results indicated that MPH enhanced cognitive flexibility, although the high dose was less effective than lower doses in enhancing response inhibition. Dissociations of dose effects on cognitive function and behavior were demonstrated: Dose-response functions for changes in behavior were linear, whereas the function for response inhibition was U-shaped. Findings argue against the typical clinical practice of determining the response to stimulant treatment from a single measure such as parent report of child behavior.     

Nature and grace: the paradox of Catholic ethics.

Roman Catholic bioethics seems to be caught in a paradox. On the one hand it is committed to the natural law tradition and the power of reason to understand the structures of creation and the moral law. On the other hand there is a greater and greater appeal to Scripture and revelation. The tradition maintains that reason is capable of understanding the rational structures of reality and that ethics is properly built on metaphysics. In this way ethics, bioethics, is non-sectarian. However, the tradition also recognizes the effects of Original Sin on the will and intellect and the broad cultural changes that have affected our understanding of metaphysics. The appeal to Revelation is a corrective to many contemporary trends in ethics and bioethics. This article will examine the interplay of reason and revelation in the Church's teaching on sexuality (particularly contraception and in vitro fertilization), suffering, and death. Catholic bioethics is in the end prophetic and ecumenical and not gnostic and non-ecumenical.     

The Effects of Supervisor's Race and Level of Support on Perceptions of Supervision

The effects of supervision support and supervisor race were examined in a 2 × 2 factorial design (high vs. low support × African American vs. Caucasian supervisor), with the inclusion of a no-supervision control condition. Sixty Caucasian women served as counselors in two counseling sessions with a confederate client. They were supervised by 1 of 6 experienced supervisors—3 African American and 3 Caucasian. Dependent variables included measures of counselor anxiety, perceived performance, satisfaction, and perceptions of the supervisory relationship. Results revealed a significant main effect for supervisor level of support but no significant effects for supervisor race. Implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

Effects of client personality on dominance and affiliation during early sessions of rational-emotive psychotherapy

This is a study of effects of client personality on interpersonal presentation during early Rational-Emotive therapy (RET). Independent variables were intake scores for clients from the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI; Millon, 1983). Dependent variables, from audiotapes of sessions at the Institute for RET (IRET), were Revised Interpersonal Adjective Scale (IAS-R; Wiggins, Trapnell and Phillips, 1988) ratings of clients and therapists. Three commonly adaptive axis II traits (histrionic, narcissistic and antisocial) had significant positive effects on clients, increasing their apparent interpersonal dominance. Paranoid traits, which have previously shown either neutral or positive patterns, mirrored the adaptive patterns. Compulsive traits, which have also been helpful in other stressful situations, seemed maladaptive, however, here. Finally, six commonly maladaptive axis II traits (schizoid, avoidant, dependent, passive-aggressive, schizotypal and borderline) had weak, insignificant effects on clients. In general, these findings suggest that the IRET therapeutic setting may be a psychologically “safe” place for clients. Personality traits that are usually troublesome did not impair self presentation in early sessions of RET, and several usually positive traits appear helpful. The order of authorship was determined by mutual agreement, based on the number of hours each author committed to the project. Dempsey's thesis, based on his work, was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Henry Rutgers Scholars honors at Rutgers College. Lamon's thesis, based on his work, was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph. D. at the University of Vermont.