Adjusting Social Inferences in Familiar and Unfamiliar Domains: The Generality of Response to Situational Pragmatics

Two experiments investigated the influence of situational pragmatics on the selective use of specific instances and generalized knowledge structures to make social inferences. In Experiment 1, social inferences were made in an unfamiliar domain similar in structure to a typical situation of social greetings and address, but devoid of useful cues to social schemas. Participants were told that either one or another of the features of the situation was more pragmatically important for deriving inferences about appropriate social behaviour; consistent with predictions from a computational model of analogical mapping (ACME), they made reliable inferences based on analogies to specific instances, with the situational importance of relations guiding the selection of the optimal analogue. In Experiment 2, social inferences were examined in the more familiar domain of predicting social behavior between low and high status persons and between members of an ingroup and an outgroup in Japan. The availability of specific examples was varied, as was the perceived importance of status and group membership. The situation was isomorphic to that in the first experiment, except for the availability of generalized knowledge structures to guide inferences. Participants made relatively veridical inferences that were sensitive to variations in the pragmatic importance of dimensions. Provision of specific analogues had little impact on inferences, suggesting that participants were relying instead on more general and cross-culturally applicable knowledge about adjusting social relations according to situational pragmatics.     

Family Functioning and Mental Illness: A Comparison of Psychiatric and Nonclinical Families

The primary objective of the present investigation was to examine adaptive functioning in the families of patients with a wide range of psychiatric disorders. Seven dimensions of family functioning, as measured by the Family Assessment Device (FAD), were compared across families of patients with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (n = 61 ), bipolar disorder (n = 60 ), major depression (n = 111 ), anxiety disorder (n = 15 ), eating disorder (n = 26 ), substance abuse disorder (n = 48 ), and adjustment disorder (n = 46 ). Families in each psychiatric group were also compared to a control group of nonclinical families (N = 353 ). Results indicated that regardless of specific diagnosis, having a family member in an acute phase of a psychiatric illness was a risk factor for poor family functioning compared to the functioning of control families. However, with few exceptions, the type of the patient's psychiatric illness did not predict significant differences in family functioning. Thus, having a family member with a psychiatric illness is a general stressor for families, and family interventions should be considered for most patients who require a psychiatric hospitalization for either the onset of, or an acute exacerbation of, any psychiatric disorder.     

Reassurance in Analytic Therapy

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

ACADEMIC EFFECTS OF PROVIDING PEER SUPPORT IN GENERAL EDUCATION CLASSROOMS ON STUDENTS WITHOUT DISABILITIES

We studied the academic effects on peers without disabilities of serving as peer supports for students with disabilities in general education classrooms. Three peers were studied using a range of indicators, including academic engagement, coursework performance, and social validity assessments. Peers assisting a student with disabilities via curricular adaptation, assignment completion, and social facilitation constituted the multicomponent independent variable. We used withdrawal or multiple baseline designs to demonstrate positive benefits for peers for all measures used. In addition, follow-up data for 2 peers indicated that the positive changes associated with serving as a peer support were maintained for up to 2 months. Our results are discussed in relation to the possible academic and social effects of providing peer supports in general education classrooms for students with and without disabilities.     

The Development of a Clinical Rating Scale the McMaster Model of Family Functioning

This article describes the development and validation of the McMaster Clinical Rating Scale (MCRS). The MCRS is a 7-item scale designed to be completed by a trained rater after completion of an in-depth interview of the family. We present data from four new studies and review previously published articles concerning the reliability, validity, and clinical utility of the MCRS. Adequate interrater reliability and rater stability were obtained. The MCRS was found to correlate significantly with the self-report Family Assessment Device and to discriminate between families in different phases of a depressive disorder.     

Stereotypes of Suicide Causes for Three Age/Gender Cohorts

On the basis of open-ended questions and interviews using vignettes of fictitious male and female suicide committers of ages 15, 40, and 60, a list of reasons attributed to their suicides was obtained. From this list, a 45-item (5-point Likert scale) checklist was developed. This checklist was administered to a total of 232 respondents in a factorial design. The subjects were asked to respond to items concerning the fictitious suicide committer of their own age and gender, as well as to items for the other two age/gender cohorts. Thus, two groups of subjects answered the checklist. One group of respondents rated the checklist separately for the 3 age cohorts of fictitious male committers (15-year-old male, 40-year-old male, and 60-year-old male). The other group rated the checklist for the three fictitious female committers. The rank of endorsement for each cause was tabulated separately for age/gender cohorts, and indices of overall agreement were computed. The results indicated high agreement among all respondents on the causes of suicide considered to be most likely for a given cohort, as well as a distinct differentiation among cohorts and gender groups. The findings were discussed with reference to cultural stereotypes about suicide causes, and arguments were elaborated on the contribution of these shared beliefs to an individual's decision to commit suicide.     

Nodality effects during equivalence class formation: An extension to sight-word reading and concept development

Three students with moderate disabilities were taught to read and match-to-sample sight words comprising stimulus sets based upon the four food groups. We taught students conditional discriminations within four four-member sets using a single-sample/four-comparison procedure. Students were taught A-B, B-C, and C-D conditional discriminations for each of the four potential stimulus classes. Subsequent probes tested for relations based upon symmetry and one-node and two-node transitivity. The performances for all students indicated that symmetric relations emerged before one-node transitive relations, and that one-node transitive relations emerged before two-node transitive relations. These results are consistent with a pattern of responding, referred to as a "nodality effect," in which relations with fewer nodes are demonstrated prior to the demonstration of relations with a greater number of nodes. These results extend this area of research to sight-word reading for students with moderate disabilities.     

Social Dominance Orientation, Hierarchy Attenuators and Hierarchy Enhancers: Social Dominance Theory and the Criminal Justice System

This study investigated differences in social dominance orientation between incumbents of different social roles (police officers vs. public defenders) and ethnic groups known to differ in general social status (i.e., whites vs. blacks and Hispanics). Consistent with theoretical expectations: (a) Police were significantly more social-dominance oriented than either jurors or public defenders. (b) Public defenders tended to be less social-dominance oriented than jurors. (c) Euro-Americans were significantly more social dominance oriented than Afro- and Hispanic-Americans, (d) Euro-American police officers had, by far, the highest levels of social dominance orientation. Furthermore, all of the effects above held even when controlling for demographic factors such as gender, social class, age, education, and ethnic group. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Loomingness and the Fear of AIDS: Perceptions of Motion and Menace

The authors examined the role of "perceived loomingness" in fear of HIV. Perceived loomingness refers to perceptions of rapid forward movement and instantaneous changes in the distance and danger of a potential threat (Riskind, 1992). One hundred and twenty undergraduates rated vignettes of two public encounters with an HIV-positive stranger. High-HIV fear subjects perceived greater loomingness and danger in these vignettes than did low-HIV fear subjects. Regression analyses that tested for a mediated model confirmed that the perceptions of loomingness may spark threat cognitions (such as the probability and imminence of harm), which, in turn, lead to fear. As predicted by the harm-looming model, loomingness also had some effects on fear that were not mediated by such standard threat cognitions.