Social skills training with hospitalized adolescents: an evaluative experiment

The effectiveness of social skills training on adolescent males admitted to a psychiatric hospital was evaluated through the use of empirically derived anger scenarios, blind raters, matched experimental and control treatment groups, and a repeated measures analysis. Results indicated that the social skills training effectively improved the dimension of verbal response and eye contact. Facial expression did not show measurable improvement. The use of specific skills components and scoring criteria in the social skills training was emphasized. Overall, support was found for the efficacy of social skills training for hospitalized adolescents.     

Children use categories to maximize accuracy in estimation

The present study tests a model of category effects upon stimulus estimation in children. Prior work with adults suggests that people inductively generalize distributional information about a category of stimuli and use this information to adjust their estimates of individual stimuli in a way that maximizes average accuracy in estimation (see Huttenlocher, Hedges & Vevea, 2000). However, little is known about the developmental origin of this cognitive process. In the present study, 5- and 7-year-old children viewed stimuli that varied in size and reproduced each from memory. Consistent with the predictions of a Bayesian model of category effects on estimation, responses were adjusted toward the central value of the stimulus distribution. Additionally, the dispersion of the stimulus distribution affected the pattern of bias and variability of responses in a way that is predicted by the model. The results suggest that, like adults, children use categories for increasing average accuracy in estimating inexact stimuli.     

Derived stimulus relations, semantic priming, and event-related potentials: testing a behavioral theory of semantic networks

Derived equivalence relations, it has been argued, provide a behavioral model of semantic or symbolic meaning in natural language, and thus equivalence relations should possess properties that are typically associated with semantic relations. The present study sought to test this basic postulate using semantic priming. Across three experiments, participants were trained and tested in two 4-member equivalence relations using word-like nonsense words. Participants also were exposed to a single- or two-word lexical decision task, and both direct (Experiment 1) and mediated (Experiments 2 and 3) priming effects for reaction times and event-related potentials were observed within but not across equivalence relations. The findings support the argument that derived equivalence relations provides a useful preliminary model of semantic relations.     

Preferred Prayer Styles and Anxiety Control

To date, the literature on prayer and anxiety has yielded mixed results. Recent development of a new instrument has improved our ability to measure individuals’ prayer activities, which may be a promising means of clarifying this literature. This correlational study examined preferred prayer styles and associated scores on measures of anxiety control and trait anxiety in a sample of 85 college students. Results suggested that individuals whose prayer styles were characterized by active rather than avoidant coping were likely to evidence greater perceived control of anxiety and lower levels of trait anxiety. Dr. Harris is a rehabilitation psychologist at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis, MN. Dr. Schoneman is a clinical psychologist at Casa Pacifica and in private practice. Dr. Carrera is a counseling psychologist at the Psychological Services Center at the University of Cincinatti. Correspondence to J. Irene Harris, Staff Psychologist, VA Medical Center, One Veterans Drive, Minneapolis, MN 55417; e-mail: jeanette.harris2@med.va.gov.     

Victim derogation and victim enhancement as alternate routes to system justification

Abstract-Numerous studies have documented the potential for victim-blaming attributions to justify the status quo. Recent work suggests that complementary, victim-enhancing stereotypes may also increase support for existing social arrangements. We seek to reconcile these seemingly contradictory findings by proposing that victim derogation and victim enhancement are alternate routes to system justification, with the preferred route depending on the perception of a causal link between trait and outcome. Derogating "losers" (and lionizing "winners") on traits (e.g., intelligence) that are causally related to outcomes (e.g., wealth vs. poverty) serves to increase system justification, as does compensating "losers" (and downgrading "winners") on traits (e.g., physical attractiveness) that are causally unrelated to those outcomes. We provide converging evidence using system-threat and stereotype-activation paradigms.     

FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS AND EXTINCTION OF DIFFERENT BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS EXHIBITED BY THE SAME INDIVIDUAL

Specific extinction procedures were matched to the function of two target behaviors displayed by the same individual, with results indicating that the matched extinction procedure suppressed the behavior for which it was designed. One of the target behaviors was exposed to an irrelevant extinction procedure, which produced no beneficial effects. These results support previous research indicating the need to match extinction procedures to the function of problem behavior.     

Optimism, Pessimism, and Friendship

Peterson and Bossio (1991) have proposed that pessimistic people, by default, will have predominantly pessimistic friends. We tested that notion by examining the correlation between the scores of close friends on both separate and direct measures of optimism and pessimism (via the O/P instrument) and a measure of explanatory style (EASQ), which purports to tap optimistic-pessimistic tendencies as a bipolar dimension. In two studies, only pairs of male friends yielded significant correlations, and only on the direct optimism measure (r= .65, both studies). Another significant correlation (r= .37) was found in Study 2 between sensation seeking scores of mixed-sex friends. No between-friend correlations were found in Study 2 for loneliness and assertiveness. Finally, both pessimism, as directly measured, and loneliness were correlated with typical friendship duration (r=-.24 and-.32 respectively), while none of the personality measures were correlated with number of reported friends.     

Anxiety disorders in African-American and white children

There are little available data on African-American children with anxiety disorders. Treatment-seeking African-American (n=30) and white children (n=139), with a current DSM-III-R anxiety disorder, were compared on sociodemographic background variables, clinical characteristics, and lifetime rates of specific DSM-III-R anxiety disorders. Overall, results suggested that the anxiety-disordered African-American and white children who sought treatment from an outpatient mental health facility were more similar than different. The two groups did, however, differ somewhat on several variables (trend only), including rates of school refusal, severity of primary anxiety disorder, lifetime prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder, and total scores on the Fear Survey Schedule for Children-Revised. More specifically, white children were more likely to present with school refusal and higher severity ratings, while African American children were more likely to have a history of posttraumatic stress disorder and score higher on the FSSC-R. The impact of these findings and the need for additional research are discussed.This study was supported in part by MH grant 40021 from the National Institute of Mental Health.