Touch and technology: Two paradigms of patient care

Technology violates human dignity only to the extent that its use reduces persons to the moral status of objects. The prevalence of technology in health care is an extension of the scientific paradigm, in which the body is reduced to an object void of subjectivity. The empathie paradigm, in contrast, is based upon the moral primacy of subjectivity. Empathic touch-as distinct from instrumental and philanthropic touch-establishes a clinical relation of intersubjectivity, affirming in patients the dignity and worth that morally distinguish persons from objects.An earlier version of this paper was presented to the 15th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Nursing Service Administrators of the American Hospital Association; San Diego. California, October 27–29, 1982.     

Combining whole-school and targeted programs for the reduction of bullying victimization: A randomized,effectiveness trial

Despite the extensive evaluation of school-based interventions for bullying, victimization remains a significant problem in schools. Bullying victimization is significantly predicted by contextual (school-related) factors. As a consequence whole-school programs have been commonly used to prevent and reduce bullying victimization. Evidence also points to individual risk factors (such as emotional distress) in predicting victimization, yet programs to prevent bullying victimization by changing these individual risks are far less developed. Few studies have approximated “real-world” implementation conditions in their trials. The current effectiveness trial evaluated the combination of a whole-school program designed to prevent bullying perpetration and victimization together with a targeted intervention for at-risk students, teaching them individual and dyadic strategies to reduce their anxiety and manage victimization, allowing schools some latitude to implement programs as they typically would. Students from Grades 3 and 4 (N = 8,732) across 135 schools were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: combined intervention; whole-school intervention only; individual intervention only; and care as usual. Victimization decreased significantly and similarly across all four conditions at 12 and 24 months following baseline. Similar reductions and failure to discriminate conditions were found on other key constructs: anxiety; bullying perpetration; and depression. Possible reasons for the failure to demonstrate victimization prevention differences and lessons learned from this large, effectiveness trial are considered.     

The history of science as discourse,the structure of scientific and literary texts: Part II. Some issues posed by computational methodology

Implications of both computer science and the computer are critical for a deeper penetration into the history of science. Building directly on “Formalized Historiography,” which appeared in this Journal last year [14 (1978): 247–263], the present essay contrasts the analysis of history of science discourse by a human reader with that at present or in prospect possible with computer-based ‘intelligent systems.’ Further, related issues are posed as to how scientific the history of science may itself become, and as to the types of transformed understanding that may emerge both of the processes of science and of the history of science. For example, would a connotation-free understanding of the structure of scientific discourse through successive state transitions (paradigm shifts) disclose science itself to be an abstract machine?     

Reducing skin picking via competing activities

This study examined the outcomes of a competing activities intervention to decrease skin picking exhibited by a 9-year-old student with comorbid diagnoses. Results of an ABCBAB design revealed that the use of student-selected manipulatives resulted in reduced skin picking.     

Global positive expectancies of the self and adolescents' substance use avoidance: testing a social influence mediational model

Grounded in theories of global positive expectancies and social influences of behavior, this investigation posited a model in which global positive expectancies are related to substance use as mediated by attitudes, subjective norms, self-efficacy, and intentions. Using a cohort sample (n = 525), structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypothesized predictions of future substance use. The findings suggest that, relative to adolescents with lower global positive expectancies, adolescents with higher global positive expectancies use substances less frequently over time because of their protective attitudinal and control-oriented perceptions towards that behavior. Additionally, results from the current investigation also extend prior findings on the factor structure of global positive expectancies, suggesting these expectancies can be viewed as a second-order factor representing optimism and two components of hope-agency and pathways.     

Morphological representation in an endangered,polysynthetic language

This article presents the results from an initial psycholinguistic study of patterns of morphological representation in Dene Suliné (Chipewyan), an indigenous and highly endangered language spoken in Northwestern Canada. Our investigation focused on how morphological knowledge in this polysynthetic language is affected across various levels of language attrition by employing a morphological segmentation task and an off-line lexical decision task. We discuss the manner in which these tasks target different aspects of morphological ability and then turn to methodological issues associated with conducting psycholinguistic studies with language users that differ in levels of age, education, literacy, and bilingualism (Dene- English). Finally, we report on the challenges of doing psycholinguistic research outside the confines of a university setting and make some recommendations to other researchers who might wish to undertake similar studies.     

Ideological and personal zeal reactions to threat among people with high self-esteem: motivated promotion focus

After a mortality salience manipulation, participants completed measures of either ideological zeal (Study 1) or personal project zeal (Study 3). Mortality salience increased both kinds of zeal but only among participants with high self-esteem. High self-esteem was positively correlated with dispositional tendencies toward promotion focus, action orientation, and behavioral activation; it was negatively correlated with behavioral inhibition and rumination (Study 2). These findings clarify the role of dispositional self-esteem in mortality salience research and confirm that, as has been found with various other threats, zealous reactions to mortality salience are most pronounced among participants with high self-esteem. Results support a regulatory focus perspective on zealous reactions to threat. Ideological and personal zeal reflect motivated promotion focus reactions that are rewarding because they decrease the motivational relevance, regulatory fit, and subjective salience of threats.     

Individual differences in working memory capacity and episodic retrieval: examining the dynamics of delayed and continuous distractor free recall

Two experiments explored the possibility that individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) partially reflect differences in the size of the search set from which items are retrieved. High- and low-WMC individuals were tested in delayed (Experiment 1) and continuous distractor (Experiment 2) free recall with varying list lengths. Across both experiments low-WMC individuals recalled fewer items than high-WMC individuals, recalled more previous list intrusions than high-WMC individuals, and recalled at a slower rate than high-WMC individuals. It is argued that low-WMC individuals' episodic retrieval deficits are partially due to the fact that these individuals search through a larger set of items than high-WMC individuals. Simulations based on a random search model were consistent with these general conclusions.