The real and the ideal; gender differences in heterosexual behaviour among Norwegian adolescents

This article focuses on gender differences in early heterosexual behaviour among Norwegian adolescents. The material comprised a random sample of 3000 Norwegian adolescents aged 17–19 years. The response rate was 63%. Data were collected by means of anonymous self-administered questionnaires. Sixty-nine per cent of the girls and 59% of the boys had had sexual intercourse. The majority of the adolescents, and a larger percentage of girls than of boys, had their first intercourse within a relationship of mutual commitment. The boys' first coital partners were 0.2 years younger than the boys themselves and the girls' partners were 2.8 years older than were the girls. Boys had had more coital partners than girls but girls had had intercourse more often than boys. Coital frequency was affected more by how long the adolescents had known the partner than by gender as such. In conclusion, boys and girls aged between 17 and 19 years form part of couples at two different stages of development. For this reason, boys and girls accumulate different sexual experiences in the early stage of their sexual careers.     

A flavor paired with lithium chloride blocks the formation of a pentobarbital-lithium chloride association

Thirsty rats were used in order to determine whether a vinegar solution, which had been paired with an injection of lithium chloride, could block the formation of an association between a pentobarbital- and a lithium chloride-induced state. During phase 1 the rats in the blocking group had a 2.0% vinegar solution paired with an injection of 240 mg/kg of lithium chloride, during phase 2 these rats were reexposed to the vinegar prior to each injection of 20 mg/kg of pentobarbital and 240 mg/kg of lithium chloride, and during phase 3 these rats were given access to a novel 0.75% saccharin solution and were injected with pentobarbital after saccharin removal. Animals with this history did not form an association between the pentobarbital- and lithium chloride-induced states during phase 2 as evidenced by their refusal to consume the saccharin solution over repeated pairings of saccharin with pentobarbital during phase 3. Control groups that received forward pairings of pentobarbital and lithium chloride, in the absence of a previously conditioned vinegar solution during phase 2, formed an association between pentobarbital and lithium chloride. These findings indicate that drug states and flavors can interfere with each others' capacity to predict the occurrence of lithium chloride.     

Rational-emotive therapy and the christian client

In some cases a person's religious beliefs can cause or exaccerbate emotional problems. Sometimes religious concepts can be used to ameliorate a client's problems. In dealing with Christian clients, the RET therapist can utilize the teachings and actions of Jesus in leading a client to recognize irrational beliefs. This paper illustrates and discusses rational teachings and actions of Jesus as regards four basic irrational beliefs and eleven underlying irrational beliefs.Sandra D.M. Warnock, M.A., served as a missionary to Hawaii with the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and as Minister of Outreach at Vinton Baptist Church, Vinton, Virginia. She was Senior Staff Clinician at Hollins Communications Research Institute in Hollins College, Virginia and is currently an adjunct lecturer in Psychology at Southside Virginia Community College in Keysville, Virginia.     

HyperCard administration of a block-design task

HyperCard (Atkinson, 1987) is a new development environment for the Macintosh that shows promise for use in psychological research and testing. In this paper, we discuss the development of HyperCard stackware with which a block-design task similar to that of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) can be administered. The reliability and validity of the computerized block-design task was evaluated by administering both the computerized task and the WAIS-R subtest to college undergraduates. Results indicated that the computerized task’s reliability compared favorably with that of the WAIS-R subtest. Validity coefficients were equivocal; although an elapsed-time measure showed moderate correlation between the tasks, the numbers of designs correctly completed in each condition were not significantly correlated.     

Effects of uncertainty on melodic

In three experiments, musically trained and untrained adults listened to three repetitions of a 5-note melodic sequence followed by a final melody with either the same tune as those preceding it or differing in one position by one semitone. In Experiment 1, ability to recognize the final sequence was examined as a function of redundancy at the levels of musical structurein a sequence, contour complexity of transpositions in a trial, and trial context in a session. Within a sequence, tones were related as the major or augmented triad; within a trial, the four sequences began on successively higher notes (simple macrocontour) or on randomly selected notes (complex macrocontour); and within a session, trials were either blocked (all major or all augmented) or mixed (major and augmented randomly selected). Performance was superior for major melodies, for systematic transpositions within a trial (simple macrocontours), for blocked trials, and for musically trained listeners. In Experiment 2, we examined further the effect of macrocontour. Performance on simple macrocontours exceeded that on complex, and excluded the possibility that repetition of the 20-note sequences provided the entire benefit of systematic transposition in Experiment 1. The effect of musical structure (major/augmented) was also replicated. In Experiment 3, listeners provided structure ratings of ascending 20-note sequences fromExperiment 2. Ratings onsame trials were higher than those on correspondingdifferent trials, in contrast to performance scores for augmentedsame anddifferent trials in previous experiments. The concept of functional uncertainty was proposed to account for recognition difficulties on augmented same trials. The significant effects of redundancy on all the levels examined confirm the utility of the information-processing framework for thestudy of melodic sequence perception.     

Cerebral laterality and depression: differences in perceptual asymmetry among diagnostic subtypes

Examined the influence of diagnostic subtype of depression on perceptual asymmetry for dichotic listening and visual tachistoscopic tasks. A total of 65 unmedicated patients with major depressive disorders and 30 normal controls were tested on a verbal and nonverbal task in each modality. Patients diagnosed according to the DSM-III with melancholia had abnormal perceptual asymmetry for dichotic nonsense syllable and complex tone tasks. In contrast, patients having a nonmelancholic "atypical depression" (reactivity of mood with preserved pleasure capacity and associated features) did not differ from normal controls on these tasks, but had an increased incidence of left handedness. Bipolar depression (history of hypomania) differed from unipolar depression in showing abnormal perceptual asymmetry for a tachistoscopic dot enumeration task. Alterations of perceptual asymmetry in melancholia and bipolar depression were consistent with hypothesized right hemisphere dysfunction.