Affect availability, tolerance, complexity, and modulation in psychoanalysis: followup of a longitudinal, prospective study

Evaluation of 22 patients in supervised psychoanalysis showed that affect availability and tolerance changed in a positive direction during the course of psychoanalysis. In this study, we have defined criteria of change that can be clinically observed. The changes observed were present one year following the completion of psychoanalysis. Ratings of analysts' and patients' interviews, and ratings of psychological tests all revealed that patients had derived "therapeutic benefit" in relation to affect experience and management. Discriminations were made among changes in affect modulation, which reflected both loosening and tightening of controls, changes in affect availability, changes in experience of painful affects, and changes in experience of affect complexity. Analysts' interviews and psychological test data reflected notable changes in affect modulation in the direction of increased control, while patients' interviews more often reflected changes in the direction of increased expressiveness.     

Visually perceiving distance: a comment on Shebilske, Karmiohl, and Proffitt (1983)

Shebilske, Karmiohl, and Proffitt (1983) interpret their data as showing that (a) the reference tonus level of the extraocular muscles controlling vergence is affected by everyday conditions of close viewing, and (b) this naturally induced phoria affects the visual perception of distance under natural viewing conditions. We note that these interpretations do not fully concur with the data presented--for example, the second conclusion favorably conflates partial results from two separate experiments--and we identify a number of confoundings that reduce the likelihood that the reported inaccuracies in distance judgments were due to variations in efference.     

Conformity as a function of the consistency of positive self-evaluation with being liked and being right

Insko, Sedlak, and Lipsitz (European Journal of Social Psychology, 1982, 13, 143–167) have presented evidence that agreement effects in p?o?x triads, or semicycles, are at least partially a function of the consistency of positive self-evaluation with being liked and the consistency of positive self-evaluation with being right. Consistent with the Insko et al. balance interpretation of agreement effects, results indicated that conformity in an Asch-type experiment is a joint function of the concern with being liked and the concern with being right. The judgment stimuli were sets of three colors, and the subjects' task was to indicate whether the middle color was more like the color on the left or the color on the right. In the main experiment, subjects conformed more with public than with private responding, and also when they were led to believe that the relationships among the colors were objectively determined rather than undetermined. The first of these two results (in conjunction with the lack of an interaction and the presence of a difference between the public condition and a private camera control condition) was taken as evidence for the concern with being liked. The second finding of a difference between the determined and undetermined conditions was taken as evidence both for the concern with being right and also as indicating that conformity can occur with objective stimuli. Although concepts similar to the concerns with being right and liked have been widely discussed, a review of the literature indicated that the previously presented evidence is not totally convincing.     

Being female and athletic: A cause for conflict?

This study examined the interrelationships among role conflict, gender role orientation, and female sport participation. One hundred six female high school athletes and nonathletes were administered the Personal Attributes Questionnaire and a role conflict inventory. Multivariate analyses revealed that athletes experienced significantly higher levels of role conflict than nonathletes, but a nonsignificant relationship was found between role conflict and gender role orientation. Role conflict was also unrelated to type of sport, although team athletes high in feminine orientation perceived higher role conflict than low feminine oriented athletes. Overall, levels of perceived and experienced role conflict were low. In sum, role conflict does not appear a major concern for adolescent female athletes nor was gender role orientation a factor related to conflict between the roles of female and athlete.     

Perceiving extents of rods by wielding: haptic diagonalization and decomposition of the inertia tensor

We report two experiments on the length-perception capabilities of the hand-related haptic subsystem. On each trial, a visually occluded rod was wielded by the subject at a position intermediate between its two ends. The position was either 1/2 or 3/4 of the rod's length. On two-thirds of the trials, a weight was attached to the rod at a point either above or below its center of gravity and not coincident with the hand's position. In Experiment 1, the subject's task was to perceive the distance reachable with the portion of the rod extending beyond the position of the grasp. In the second experiment, the subject's task was to perceive the distance reachable with the entire rod if it were held at its proximal end. In Experiment 1, perceived reaching distance was a function of the moment of inertia of the amount of rod forward of the grasp about an axis through the proximal end of the rod segment. In Experiment 2, perceived reaching distance was a function of the moment of inertia of the entire rod about the given axis of rotation intermediate between the rod's ends. The results are discussed in terms of (a) the notion of smart perceptual instruments capitalizing on invariant properties of the inertia tensor and (b) how the haptic decomposition of moments of inertia follows the principle of equivalence of forces.