On seeing oneself as “left out”: The chronically complaining patient in psychotherapy

A clinical observation regarding patients who complain about feeling left out and/or second best provides the framework for this paper. What is expressed is a form of separation anxiety coupled with a loser self-concept. It is suggested that these patients represent a milder form of the moral masochism. Early theoretical formulations include Freud and his emphasis on the superego and Reich's emphasis on the masochist's fear of being left alone. Kramer's little man phenomenon is an example of a more current theoretical formulation which takes account of the complexities of the ego, and composite self and identity in the clinical phenomena observed. A case of a latency-aged child is provided.     

Public knowledge,attitudes, and beliefs about homeless people: Evidence for compassion fatigue?

Media reports suggest that the public is becoming impatient with the homeless—that so-called “compassion fatigue” has gripped the nation. This characterization of public sentiment could have important policy consequences—restrictive measures can be justified by growing public impatience, and progressive housing policies seem infeasible within a hostile climate of opinion. But evidence to support the compassion fatigue notion is anecdotal. We examine the issue by tracking the results of public opinion polls and by reporting detailed evidence from a nationwide random-digit dial telephone survey (N=1,507) concerning knowledge attitudes and beliefs about homeless people. To be sure, the public sees homelessness as an undesirable social problem and wants something done about it. However, although the homeless are clearly stigmatized, there is little evidence to suggest that the public has lost compassion and is unwilling to support policies to help homeless people.     

Stimulus-independent thought depends on central executive resources

Stimulus-independent thoughts (SITs) are streams of thoughts and images unrelated to immediate sensory input. Four experiments examined the contribution of aspects of working memory to production of SITs. In Experiments 1 and 2, interventions that were targeted on, respectively, phonological and visuospatial components of working memory both interfered with production of SITs, but there was evidence that these tasks also made demands on central executive resources. Experiments 3 and 4 specifically examined the hypothesis that production of SITs and control of nonproceduralized tasks both depend on central executive resources, and so should show mutual interference. In Experiment 3, prior practice on pursuit rotor and memory tasks reduced the interference with SITs from concurrent task performance. In Experiment 4, randomness within a task involving random-number generation was less when SITs were being produced concurrently than it was when they were not. The results suggest that production of SITs depends on central executive resources.     

Compound word effects differ in reading,on-line naming,and delayed naming tasks

Bimorphemic compound words (e.g.,blueberry), bimorphemic suffixed words (e.g.,ceaseless), and monomorphemic controls (e.g.,arthritis) were read in neutral sentence contexts in Experiment 1. The main result revealed longer first fixation durations on compound words than on control and suffixed words. Different effects emerged when naming tasks were used. An on-line naming task revealed substantially shorter naming latencies for compound words than for control and suffixed words. Naming latencies for compound and control words were equivalent in a delayed naming task. These results indicate that on-line naming latencies and word-viewing durations may yield diverging results. They also suggest that activation of constituent words of compound words occurs independently from the specification of conventional word meanings.     

Social-Cognitive and Behavioral Correlates of Aggression and Victimization in Boys' Play Groups

A contrived play group procedure was utilized to examine the behavioral and social-cognitive correlates of reactive aggression, proactive aggression, and victimization via peers. Eleven play groups, each of which consisted of six familiar African-American 8-year-old boys, met for 45-min sessions on five consecutive days. Social-cognitive interviews were conducted following the second and fourth sessions. Play group interactions were videotaped and examined by trained observers. High rates of proactive aggression were associated with positive outcome expectancies for aggression/assertion, frequent displays of assertive social behavior, and low rates of submissive behavior. Reactive aggression was associated with hostile attributional tendencies and frequent victimization by peers. Victimization was associated with submissive behavior, hostile attributional bias, reactive aggression, and negative outcome expectations for aggression/assertion. These results demonstrate that there is a theoretically coherent and empirically distinct set of correlates associated with each of the examined aggression subtypes, and with victimization by peers.     

Training children's self-control: A field experiment in self-monitoring and goal-setting in the classroom

A field experiment investigated the effects of training in self-monitoring and goal-setting skills on classroom study behavior and academic achievement among elementary school students in an individualized mathematics program. In the Self-Monitoring Conditions, students were shown a simple system for observing and maintaining daily records of their own study behavior during their math classes; orthogonally, in the Goal-Setting Conditions, students were shown a simple method of setting and recording daily performance goals during their math classes. Exposure to self-monitoring procedures produced significant increases in both appropriate study behavior and in actual achievement in the mathematics program, while exposure to goal-setting procedures had no effect on either study behavior or academic achievement. Nor, contrary to expectation, did exposure to the goal-setting instructions enhance the effectiveness of the self-monitoring system. The implications of these results in terms of implicit and explicit models of self-reinforcement processes were discussed.     

Preparing dichotic tapes using a digital music synthesizer

Digital music synthesizers represent audio signals in the form of binary coded numbers. These binary coded numbers can be manipulated by the operator, thereby altering the audio signal in a variety of ways. The present article describes how these capabilities can be used to produce perfectly aligned dichotic tapes in which the stimulus items are matched on all extraneous (timbre, amplitude, duration) factors.     

Childhood peer rejection,aggression, withdrawal,and perceived competence as predictors of self-reported behavior problems in preadolescence

Childhood peer rejection, aggression, withdrawal, and perceived competence were compared as predictors of self-reported behavior problems. Peer sociometric status (Coie, Dodge, and Coppotelli, 1982), teacher ratings of behavior problems (Lorion, Cowen, & Caldwell, 1975), and perceived competence ratings (Harter, 1982) were obtained for 613 second-through fourth-grade children. Two years later, these students completed a modified version of the Youth Self-Report form (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1987). Rejected children and neglected girls were more likely to have a self-reported nonspecific negative outcome than others. Neglected girls were at heightened risk for depression. A varied set of predictors obtained from different informants emerged for each sex for each of the specific self-reported outcomes of depression, unpopularity, delinquency, aggression, and self-destructive/identity problems. Results are discussed in terms of future directions for longitudinal research on the consequences of poor peer relationships in childhood.This research was supported in part by a grant from the W. Alton Jones Foundation and in part from Cooperative Agreement (G0087C3033) between the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, and the University of Virginia. However, the opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the opinions of the funding agencies. Portions of this paper were presented at the First Annual Meeting of the Society for Research in Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, Miami, Florida. The authors would like to thank Robert Terry, Ruth Axman, Pamela Griesler, Melissa DeRosier, Nancy Vaden, Charlene Eickholt, Amy Young, Emily Burhans, Eric Johnson, Renee Lorio, and Karen Welke for their assistance in conducting this research project.