Visual discrimination learning and transfer in rats with hippocampal lesions

Two experiments were performed on rats with hippocampal brain damage and on a control group with neocortical lesions. In the first experiment the hippocampal group learned a difficult visual discrimination as promptly as the controls, and neither group was subsequently impaired by adding relevant or irrelevant background cues to the original stimuli. In the second experiment the animals learned a simultaneous visual discrimination in which the stimuli differed in both brightness and orientation. The hippocampal group was impaired relative to the controls on acquisition, and showed poorer transfer to stimuli differing only in brightness or orientation. The results are incompatible with the hypothesis which attempts to explain the effects of hippocampal damage by a widespread reduction in sensory gating, but they are consistent with a more restricted version of the same hypothesis.     

Job-seeking behavior: A segment of vocational development

This paper reports two companion studies which establish that there is a significant relationship between an individual's personality characteristics and his pattern of job-seeking behavior. Individuals who are tough-minded, independent and nonneurotic had specified job goals and self-actualized behavior. They were highly successful in obtaining jobs. Individuals who were sensitive, dependent and neurotic had vague goals and passive behavior. They failed to get jobs. Individuals who exhibited a mixture of the cited characteristics and behavior were also exploring career options. They had a modicum of success in obtaining jobs. Job-seeking behavior as a process of vocational development is discussed.     

Seventh-grade students at-risk for school failure

This study was designed to assess the effects of failure on the subsequent test performance in school of young adolescents. Fifty-one seventh-grade students, identified as at-risk for future school failure, were compared to 51 randomly selected classmates on individually administered measures of intelligence, self-concept, problem-solving ability, coping ability, attribution, and locus of control. Teachers' ratings, mathematics ability, and grades of the two groups were also compared. Students with a history of school failure, although of normal intelligence, were found to be significantly less intellectually, academically, and affectively competent than their more successful peers and were rated by their teachers as significantly less able to deal adaptively with normal school stress. A discriminant analysis separated the groups with 93% accuracy. On two equivalent mathematics tests, one given under relaxed conditions, and the other under normal school test-like conditions, approximately thirty percent of both the at-risk and the otherwise normal students got lower scores when they thought they were taking a test. Implications of these results for the understanding and remediation of stress-depressed school performance are discussed.     

THOUGHTS ON THE PSYCHOBIOLOGY OF RELIGION AND THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF ARCHETYPAL EXPERIENCE

Abstract. There is good reason to suppose that religious belief and ritual are manifestations of the archetypal blueprint for human existence encoded in the genetic structure of our species. As a consequence, religion has become a focus of study for psychobiologists and neuroscientists. However, scientific explanations of religious experience do not "explain away" such experience nor are they substitutes for the experience itself. On the contrary, scientific discoveries may be seen as corroboration of religious insights into the unus mundus , the essential oneness of all experience, which links human nature with the nature of the cosmos.     

Parent Involvement Project

This article describes a project designed to provide assistance to parents of exceptional children in western Pennsylvania. The format for eight parent sessions is presented.     

When opposites attract: a multi-sample demonstration of complementary person-team fit on extraversion

This study assessed the nature of the person-team fit relationships for extraversion on members' attraction toward their teams. Unlike most studies of personality-based fit, which emphasize similarity, we predicted that complementary fit on extraversion (i.e., high individual-low team or low individual-high team levels) would result in greater attraction to the team. Data from two independent samples of intact project teams were analyzed, including 324 MBA students comprising 64 case analysis teams and 217 members of 26 manufacturing teams. Using polynomial regression analysis and three-dimensional surface plots, our results supported the predicted relationship. In addition, the data indicated that individuals who were more attracted to their teams were also better performers, as judged by their peers and supervisors.     

What is terrorism and can psychology do anything to prevent it?

Terrorism has a long history, which continues to unfold, and takes many forms. Notwithstanding these facts, there is no generally accepted definition of terrorism. I set forth the definitional issues that underlie the current debate about terrorism. By comparing terrorism with various forms of violence, I argue that it is plausible to construe terrorism as crime and, in support of this, I demonstrate why terrorism cannot be morally justified. Next, I cluster various immediate and long-term approaches intended to prevent terrorism, highlighting psychologically based strategies, such as behavioral profiling, teaching tolerance and citizenship, modifying media images of terrorism, and building peace. In order to understand and respond more effectively to 21st-century terrorism, I advocate adoption of a multidisciplinary, contextually sensitive approach.     

Peer Contagion of Depressogenic Attributional Styles Among Adolescents: A Longitudinal Study

This study examined longitudinal associations between adolescents and their friends depressive symptoms and depressogenic attributional style. Participants included 398 adolescents in grades six through eight at the outset of the study. Adolescents completed peer nominations to identify reciprocated and unreciprocated best friendships as well as measures of depressive symptoms and depressogenic attributional style at an initial time point, and again 11 months later. Results revealed that best friends reported level of depressive symptoms was prospectively associated with adolescents own depressive symptoms and with adolescents depressogenic attributional style. Moderator effects suggested that friends attributional styles were prospectively associated with adolescents own attributional styles for those involved in reciprocated friendships. Lastly, findings offered preliminary support for adolescents Time 2 depressive symptoms as a mediator of the association between friends depressive symptoms and adolescents attributional style. Findings have important implications for cognitive and interpersonal models of adolescent depression, as well as the study of peer contagion effects.