Behavioral community psychology: training a community board to problem solve

This study demonstrated the effect of training nine lower socio-economic adults participating as policy board members in a federally funded rural community project to make behaviorally defined statements to increase problem-solving behaviors in board meetings. A multiple-baseline design across subjects and skills was used to analyze the behavioral categories of: (1) stating the problem; (2) finding solutions to the problem, and (3) implementing the action to the solution. Problem-solving responses during board meetings increased for subjects following training and remained higher than baseline during follow-up.     

Gender differences in moral development

Sixty-nine Midwestern middle-class children and adolescents were tested on justice and care orientations when reasoning abstract and interpersonal moral dilemmas. Nona Lyons' (“Two Perspectives on Self, Relationships and Morality,” Harvard Educational Review, 1983, 53, 125–145) scoring method was used to score subjects' responses. A 2(sex)×2(age) analysis of variance run on the total justice and care scores, as well as each individual dilemma, supported Carol Gilligan's (In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982) theory that two distinct ways of thinking about moral problems exist — justice and care — and are differentially related to gender. Girls emphasized the morality of care significantly more than justice. Contrary to Gilligan (1982) and Lyons (1983), however, boys in both age groups emphasized the morality of justice and care equally. Data from the interpersonal dilemmas using Lyons's (1983) coding scheme are consistent with J. Piaget (The Moral Judgement of the Child, New York: Free Press, 1966) and Lawrence Kohlberg [“The Cognitive-Developmental Approach,” in D. A. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research, Chicago: Rand McNally, 1969]: older subjects became more justice oriented and younger subjects emphasized the morality of care. Sex differences on Kohlberg's stage theory were not significant and the protagonist's gender in the Heinz dilemma had no effect on moral reasoning.     

The psychoanalytic process and the development of insight in child analysis: a case study

This paper describes a segment of the analysis of an aggressive latency-age child. The data demonstrate the relationship between the establishment of a psychoanalytic process (the analysis of transference, defense, and resistance), the development and nature of insight in the child, and the resulting therapeutic change. Examination of the process shows that the therapeutic gains were a result of insights acquired by the child, particularly his awareness of painful affects that had been warded off. This case is compared with Bornstein's treatment of a phobic child who manifested severely "out-of-control" behavior.     

Development of infant ear asymmetries for speech and music

Groups of 2-, 3-, and 4-month olds were tested for dichotic ear differences in memory-based phonetic and music timbre discriminations. A right-ear advantage for speech and a left-ear advantage (LEA) for music were found in the 3- and 4-month-olds. However, the 2-month-olds showed only the music LEA, with no reliable evidence of memory-based speech discrimination by either hemisphere. Thus, the responses of all groups to speech contrasts were different from those to music contrasts, but the pattern of the response dichotomy in the youngest group deviated from that found in the older infants. It is suggested that the quality or use of lefthemisphere phonetic memory may change between 2 and 3 months, and that the engagement of right-hemisphere specialized memory for musical timbre may precede that for left-hemisphere phonetic memory. Several directions for future research are suggested to determine whether infant short-term memory asymmetries for speech and music are attributable to acoustic factors, to different modes or strategies in perception, or to structural and dynamic properties of natural sound sources.     

Inhibition of the glabella reflex by monaural and binaural stimulation

The human eyeblink, elicited by a tap to the glabella, can be inhibited if a relatively weak acoustic signal precedes the tap by approximately 100 msec. The work reported here was designed to explore the surprising fact that more inhibition occurs when the acoustic prestimulation is presented monaurally than when it is presented binaurally. The present studies revealed that (a) given equally loud binaural inputs, a reduction of about 40 dB(A) in one of them is sufficient to produce inhibition comparable to that produced by a monaural signal, (b) the difference between nonaural and binaural inhibition remains constant as the intensity of prestimulation is varied, and (c) the simultaneous offset of a tone in one ear and onset of a tone in the other ear produces more inhibition than either monaural offest or onset alone. These findings suggest that the specific attributes of a given acoustic signal make independent contributions to the inhibition produced by that signal.     

Semantic distance effects in naming superordinates

The time to select a superordinate label in response to a target word is shown to be a function of the normative likelihood of the target being produced as an exemplar of the superordinate. This extends the scope of semantic distance effects to a new task situation. The effect declines with practice (repetition) and is also reduced by other preceding tasks. Two alternative accounts of the processing underlying selection are discussed.     

Synchronization of unimanual and bimanual responses with monotic and dichotic clicks

In experiments requiring subjective judgments, the apparent rate of rapidly presented dichotically alternating clicks has consistently been shown to be slower than that of clicks presented monotically. The first of the present studies asked (1) if slowing of dichotic clicks would be observed when the listener’s task was to “follow” the clicks with overt motor responses (unimanual keypresses) rather than to make psychophysical judgments, and (2) if following of dichotic clicks could be improved by providing two response channels (alternating bimanual presses). Both answers were affirmative. The second study asked (3) if the improvement obtained in the bimanual condition reflected increased perceptual capacity. The results indicated that it did not, but was attributable to an increase in response ceiling.