The Egocentricity Index and Self-Esteem in court ordered psychiatric evaluations

An attempt was made to test the hypothesis that the Egocentricity Index (Exner, 1974), a ratio which incorporates pair and reflection responses, is related to self-esteem. Sixty criminal defendants referred for psychiatric evaluation were routinely administered the Rorschach. After all other testing was completed the subjects were asked to complete the Coopersmith Self-esteem Inventory. Results found no significant relationships between the Egocentricity Index and self-esteem as measured by the Coopersmith. It was recommended that the Egocentricity Index not be used as a measure of self-esteem until research evidence to support its use in this manner is provided.     

If it changes it must be a process: study of emotion and coping during three stages of a college examination

This natural experiment provides substantial evidence for the following major themes, which are based on a cognitively oriented, process-centered theory of stress and coping: First, a stressful encounter should be viewed as a dynamic, unfolding process, not as a static, unitary event. Emotion and coping (including the use of social support) were assessed at three stages of a midterm examination: the anticipation stage before the exam, the waiting stage after the exam and before grades were announced, and after grades were posted. For the group as a whole there were significant changes in emotions and coping (including the use of social support) across the three stages. Second, people experience seemingly contradictory emotions and states of mind during every stage of an encounter. In this study, for example, subjects experienced both threat emotions and challege emotions. The complexity of emotions and their cognitive appraisals reflects ambiguity regarding the multifaceted nature of the exam and its meanings, especially during the anticipation stage. Third, coping is a complex process. On the average, subjects used combinations of most of the available forms of problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping at every stage of the exam. Different forms of coping were salient during the anticipation and waiting stages. Problem-focused coping and emphasizing the positive were more prominent during the former, and distancing more prominent during the latter. Finally, despite normatively shared emotional reactions at each stage, substantial individual differences remained. Using selected appraisal and coping variables, and taking grade point averages (GPA) into account, approximately 48% of the variances in threat and challenge emotions at the anticipation stage was explained. Controlling for variance due to the grade received, appraisal, and coping variables accounted for 28% of the variance in positive and negative emotions at the outcome stage. Including grade, 57% of the variance in positive emotions at outcome and 61% of the negative emotions at outcome were explained.     

Alcohol and social behavior II: the helpful drunkard

Can alcohol make people more helpful, and if so, how? We hypothesized that alcohol would increase helping when, if the person were sober, the helping response would be under high inhibitory conflict--that is, when it would be affected by strong instigating and inhibiting pressures. Alcohol's damage to inhibitory processing should then allow instigating pressures to have more influence on the response, increasing helping. We expected that under low inhibitory conflict, when either or both of these response pressures would be weak under sobriety, alcohol would have little effect on helping. In two experiments we examined this reasoning. In Study 1, a mild dose of alcohol increased helping among high-conflict subjects pressured to help with a task they did not like, but did not increase helping among low-conflict subjects who either liked the task or were weakly pressured to help. In Study 2, a somewhat stronger dose of alcohol increased helping among all high-conflict subjects pressured to help with an undesirable task, yet again had no effect among low-conflict subjects weakly pressured to help. These studies provided an experimental demonstration of the role of inhibitory response conflict in mediating alcohol's social effects, and show that this process generalizes to prosocial behavior. Additional evidence from both experiments helped to rule out alternative explanations concerning drinking expectancies, alcohol's ability to enhance mood, and its ability to make the task more bearable.     

Adolescent self-disclosure and loneliness: private self-consciousness and parental influences

Using structural equation techniques, we tested a theoretical model designed to describe the causal relations existing among loneliness, self-disclosure to peers and parents, and specific antecedent variables. Participants were 350 high-school students who answered questions concerning themselves and their interpersonal relationships. Results generally indicated a good fit between the theoretical model and the observed relations. In addition to replicating the findings of previous studies concerning the relation between self-disclosure and loneliness, results also indicated an indirect relation between private self-consciousness and loneliness via peer self-disclosure; that is, high private self-conscious adolescents' greater willingness to self-disclose to peers resulted in their feeling less lonely. Results are discussed in terms of current theory in related fields.     

Memory deficits and memory surfeits: differential cognitive consequences of tokenism for tokens and observers

Historically, women and minority group members have been underrepresented in the professions and in better paying, high-status jobs. Even when they have been admitted to such positions, these underrepresented persons often have been the only member of their social category: a token. Previous field and laboratory research has shown that "tokens" attract disproportionate attention and are either evaluated unfairly or evaluated on the basis of their normal reactions to differential treatment by majority group members. We tested the possibilities of whether tokens might suffer more cognitive deficits than would nontokens, and whether they do so even when they are treated no differently. College students were led to believe that they were sharing their views on everyday topics with three other students (actually videotaped confederates), who were either all of the student's own sex or all of the opposite sex. In a later memory test, token participants remembered fewer of the opinions that they and the three other students had expressed than did nontokens. Observers, in contrast, remembered more of what token subjects said than what the three other students said. Theoretical and public policy implications are discussed.     

A note on accepting the null hypothesis: problems with respect to the mass-spring and pulse-step models of movement control

Models are sometimes developed on the premise that there are no differences between two or more conditions regardless of experimental manipulation. This article argues that unless a very sensitive experiment (or series of experiments) was conducted, such conclusions are often premature. Design and statistical factors such as alpha level, variability, sample size, and treatment effect are all determinants of the sensitivity of the experiment. It is sometimes the case that an experiment produces differences between means and yet the null hypothesis is not rejected because of high variability within experimental conditions or because too few subjects were used. Unless the probability of detecting a difference between groups is known, it would seem unwise to conclude that no difference exists. Judgment on the model should be suspended. Examples are taken from the mass-spring and pulse-step models fro voluntary movement control to illustrate the problem.     

Response timing variability: coherence of kinematic and EMG parameters

A detailed kinematic and electromyographic (EMG) analysis of single degree of freedom timing responses is reported to (a) determine the coherence of kinematic and EMG variability to the reduced timing error variability exhibited with amplitude increments within a given criterion movement time and (b) understand the temporal organization of various movement parameters in simple responses. The data reveal that the variability of kinematic (time to peak acceleration, duration of acceleration phase, time to peak deceleration) and EMG (duration of agonist burst, duration of antagonist burst, time to antagonist burst) timing parameters decreased with increments of average velocity in a manner consistent with the variable timing error. In addition, the coefficient of variation for peak acceleration, peak deceleration, and integrated EMG of the agonist burst followed the same trend. Increasing average movement velocity also led to decreases in premotor and motor reaction times. Overall, the findings suggest a strong coherence between the variability of response outcome, kinematic, and EMG parameters.     

The growth of stability: postural control from a development perspective

This study compared central nervous system organizational processes underlying balance in children of three age groups: 15-31 months, 4-6 years, and 7-10 years, using a movable platform capable of antero-posterior (A-P) displacements or dorsi-plantar flexing rotations of the ankle joint. A servo system capable of linking platform rotations to A-P sway angle allowed disruption of ankle joint inputs, to test the effects of incongruent sensory inputs on response patterns. Surface electromyography was used to quantify latency and response patterns. Surface electromyography was used to quantify latency and amplitude of the gastrocnemius, hamstrings, tibialis anterior, and quadriceps muscle responses. Cinematography provided biomechanical analysis of the sway motion. Results demonstrated that while directionally specific response synergies are present in children under the age of six, structured organization of the synergies is not yet fully developed since variability in timing and amplitude relationships between proximal and distal muscles is high. Transition from immature to mature response patterns was not linear but stage-like with greatest variability in the 4- to 6- year-old children. Results from balance tests under altered sensory conditions (eyes closed and/or ankle joint inputs altered) suggested that: (a) with development a shift in controlling inputs to posture from visual dependence to more adult-like dependence on a combination of ankle joint and visual inputs occurred in the 4- to 6-year-old, and reached adult form in the 7- to 10-year-old age group. It is proposed that the age 4-6 is a transition period in the development of posture control. At this time the nervous system (a) uses visual-vestibular inputs to fine tune ankle-joint proprioception in preparation for its increased importance in posture control and (b) fine tunes the structural organization of the postural synergies themselves.     

Reflex responses of human lip muscles to mechanical stimulation during speech

The role played by reflex pathways in the production of movement has been a significant issue for motor control theorists interested in a wide variety of motor behaviors. From studies of locomotion and chewing, it appears that gains in reflex pathways can be altered so that activity in these pathways does not produce destabilizing responses during movement. In speech production, recent experimental evidence has been interpreted to suggest that autogenetic lip reflexes (perioral reflexes) are suppressed during sustained phonation or speech production. The present study was conducted to assess the effects of phonation, direction of movement, and ongoing speech production on reflex responses of lip muscles. The present results suggest, in contrast to earlier work, that this reflex pathway is not suppressed or absent because the amplitude of the observed response depends upon the activation levels of the various muscles of the lower lip and, therefore, indirectly on the nature of the gesture the subject is instructed to produce.     

Passive avoidance in syndromes of disinhibition: psychopathy and extraversion

According to the physiological animal model proposed by Gorenstein and Newman (1980; see also Newman, Gorenstein, & Kelsey, 1983), psychopaths and extraverts may be characterized by a common psychological diathesis related to behavioral inhibition (see also Fowles, 1980; Gray, 1982). One aspect of this diathesis involves deficient passive avoidance learning, which has been central to explanations of "unsocialized" (e.g., Trasler, 1978) and antisocial behavior (e.g., Hare, 1970). Results from three experiments supported our prediction that psychopaths and extraverts would exhibit deficient passive avoidance relative to nonpsychopaths and introverts, respectively. In addition, the passive avoidance deficit was particularly evident in tasks that required subjects to inhibit a rewarded response in order to avoid punishment. The latter finding may be important for explaining the inconsistent results regarding passive avoidance learning in psychopaths (e.g., Chesno & Kilmann, 1975; Schmauk, 1970). Discussion of the results focuses on the importance of reward in mediating the passive avoidance deficit of "disinhibited" individuals and on the existence of an indirect relationship between psychopathy and extraversion: one that is consistent with the observed experimental parallels as well as with the more ambiguous evidence regarding a direct correlation between measures of the two syndromes.