Synergistic effects of ethanol and cocaine on brain stimulation reward.

The effects of two widely abused drugs, ethanol and cocaine, were examined alone and in combination on intracranial reward processes. In agreement with previous research, higher doses of both cocaine and ethanol alone produced facilitation of behavior maintained by brain stimulation reward. Low intraperitoneal doses of ethanol and cocaine, which alone did not affect performance, were found to reduce stimulation reward threshold and modestly increase response rate. The enhancement of brain stimulation reward by the combination of ethanol and cocaine suggests that both drugs may produce their rewarding effects through common neuronal substrates and that they may potentiate the abuse of each other.     

The Mehrabian measures of achieving tendency: are separate male and female scales necessary?

The 1969 male and female Mehrabian measures of achieving tendency are among the best-known measures of resultant achievement motivation. This study addressed the question of whether unique male and female items are necessary. Pearson product-moment correlation analyses on 83 male and 184 female undergraduates showed that females' scores on the unique male items correlated positively with their scores on the original female scale, and males' scores on the unique female items correlated positively with their scores on the original male scale. Coefficient alpha reliabilities of the original male and female forms were found to be acceptable. Cluster analyses showed that the Mehrabian items cluster in very similar ways for both males and females.     

A versatile microcomputer I/O interface

Interfacing microcomputers to control experiments requires the use of various types of programmable integrated-circuit chips. A versatile interface which permits control between the interface chips and various experimental devices is described.     

Popular induction: When is consensus information informative?1

An experiment was conducted in which information regarding a target persons evaluation of a target object was presented either in written form or via video tape, and information regarding the evaluations of four other people was also presented either in written form or via video tape. The results indicated that the effect of consensus on both person and object attribution was significantly weaker when the target-person information was video taped (concrete) and the other-people information was written (abstract) than in the other three conditions created by the combination of the two informational variables. It is argued that, in contrast to earlier speculation in the literature, type of consensus and its mode of presentation represent conceptually orthogonal dimensions. Further research is urged to map out the boundary conditions of consensus information; it is demonstrated that current work has largely concentrated upon only a portion of this attributional domain due to the prevalent confounding of these two independent dimensions.     

Attributions and politics

Four hundred electors took part in an experiment to test the proposition that political preferences have an effect on how people attribute the determinants of wealth. As predicted, respondents preferred environmental explanations to the causes provided relating to personal qualities. Again as anticipated preferences for environmental interpretations were less pronounced among Conservative party supporters. It was argued that more attention be paid to the attributions of different sections of society and that such findings have important implications both for attribution theory itself and in an improved understanding of the nature of political attitudes.     

Beyond Babel: An Anglican perspective in Bradford the eighth lambeth interfaith lecture

Bradford represents a unique vantage point from which to chart the attempts by a British city to respond to the social fact of religious and cultural diversity. A town famous for its textile industry, it has attracted migrant labour for over one hundred and fifty years: the Irish Catholic migration in the mid-nineteenth century anticipates in many particulars the Muslim experience a hundred years later. After thirty years the sizeable South Asian Muslim presence has begun to participate in the political, economic, institutional and cultural life of the city. The Church's role in both creating and supporting institutions where Christian and Muslim can work together, and using its own institutional influence to accommodate Muslim needs has been considerable. The trust and respect in which the local Bishop was held in the city enabled him to facilitate and maintain a dialogue between Muslims and civic and political leaders at a time when communities were threatening to polarize into mutual incomprehension, in the wake of The Satanic Verses affair. The Church's role was also to affect the temper and challenge the terms in which issues were discussed, not least the dismissal of Muslims as 'fundamentalists', which obscured the diversity and debate within the Muslim communities in the city.     

MMPI correlates of Exner's Egocentricity Index in an adolescent psychiatric population

This research examined the relationship between Exner's Egocentricity Index (EI) and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) Scales 2, 4, and 9 in an adolescent psychiatric population. Subjects with a low EI had significantly higher MMPI Depression (D) scale elevations compared to those with a high EI. Furthermore, of the adolescents who had Scale 2 scores in the clinical range, 68% also had an EI in the bottom half of the distribution. There was no relationship between the EI and MMPI scales 4 and 9. These findings are discussed in light of the generally poor correlations between MMPI and Rorschach variables.     

Elicited responding in chain schedules.

An omission procedure was employed to study elicited pecking in the first component of a two-component chain schedule. Both components were fixed-interval schedules correlated with colored keylights. The first response following the initial-link schedule produced a second fixed-interval schedule. We studied several fixed-interval lengths in two conditions: a standard response-dependent condition and an omission-contingent condition. The omission-contingent condition differed from the response-dependent condition in that responses during the initial fixed interval terminated the trial (omitting the terminal component and grain). If the terminal component was not omitted, a response following the terminal link's requirement produced 4-s access to grain. Pigeons responded during more than 70% of the initial links in the omission-contingent condition and responded during more than 90% of the initial links in the response-dependent condition. In general, rates of responding were consistent with the percentage data. The responding in the omission condition suggests that there may be elicited pecking, in chain schedules using pigeons, that is not the result of contingent conditioned reinforcement.