Personality in a Religious Commune: CPIs in Rajneeshpuram

From 1981 to 1985 in the high desert of Oregon, followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh built a city on a 100-square-mile ranch. They attracted red-clothed Rajneeshees and controversy from around the world. As part of the only largescale program of surveys and systematic research on the ranch, a sample of 67 Rajneeshees (34 women and 33 men with a mean age of 35) took the California Psychological Inventory (CPI). The mean t scores on the 20 profiled scales of Raineeshee men and women were similar to one another and dissimilar to the norm group on several scales. They scored particularly high on In (Independence) and Fx (Flexibility). In general they were high on the interpersonal style sector and mildly low on the sector covering conformity and socialization. A new method for producing a prototypical person's results, the quasi-individualized profile, is illustrated. On the recently developed structural model of the CPI, Rajneeshees were strongly norm doubting (Deltas and Gammas), and about evenly split between Deltas (internalizers) and Gammas (externalizers). Downfall of the commune may be at least partly attributable to imbalance of life-style types, which, if true, leads to questions about the personality mixture needed in new and creative organizations.     

Value Stability and Change in an ISAF Contingent

Studying an International Security Assistance Force contingent on tour in Afghanistan, the aim of the present study was to test assertions of the relative stability of personal values in a challenging environment. Three hundred twenty Swedish soldiers answered questionnaires on their values before and after a 6‐month tour of Afghanistan. Value change and stability were studied via mean‐level change, rank‐order stability, and individual‐level change methods. Regression analysis was used to study the impact of combat exposure and personality traits on change. The analysis concluded that even when experiencing such a different social context as a military mission to Afghanistan, the soldiers' values remained stable. Some minor changes occurred, in a pattern similar to a regression toward the mean. It was also shown that combat exposure—to a minor extent—predicted changes in values, whereas Big Five scores yielded stronger effects. The present findings suggest that the assertion of the stability of values is a well‐founded proposition, even after radical changes in environment. However, the findings on the effects of combat exposure point to the possibility of severe life events having the power to exert change in values. Personality traits were, however, more important factors in the present context.     

Covert verbal mediation in arbitrary matching to sample

Covert verbal mediation was examined in an arbitrary matching‐to‐sample (MTS) preparation with a high‐verbal group (college students) and a low‐verbal group (adults with intellectual disabilities). Arbitrary relations were established between nonsense words, visual symbols, objects, and hand signs. Task difficulty was balanced for the groups based on errors during acquisition. All participants experienced a hand sign condition, and three MTS conditions each with a unique configuration of the comparison array: fixed location, random location, and all symbols the same. The same symbol condition was designed to impede a participant's ability to label individual symbols. The results showed that disrupting labeling adversely affected MTS performance for high‐verbal participants, but not for low‐verbal participants. The data suggest that high‐verbal participants depended on mediating verbal behavior and joint control to assist them in finding the correct comparison stimulus. Low‐verbal participants could not benefit from verbal mediating variables and likely relied on unmediated contingencies, or some form of nonverbal mediation. For the high‐verbal group, 19 different putative emergent relations were identified as occurring at various stages of acquisition between the sample stimulus and the selection response. These emergent relations likely provided supplementary sources of stimulus control that participated in evoking MTS selection behavior.     

Change and Stability in Attitudes Toward Violence During ISAF Service

A Swedish contingent to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF; N = approx. 320) was studied before and after deployment to Afghanistan to assess if the mission and experiences on it affected attitudes toward violence. Attitudes toward war violence and penal violence were assessed across t = 1 and t = 2, as were the effects of combat exposure on change and stability in attitudes. It was hypothesized that the attitudes would remain stable across the deployment due to their importance to the soldierly identity, but that experiences of combat exposure would cause an increase in the propensity toward change. Results demonstrate that attitudes did not change between the pre- and postdeployment stages. Unexpectedly, increasing levels of combat exposure did not predict higher rates of change, but rather increased stability in attitudes toward violence. The results demonstrate that in terms of the willingness to use force, peacekeeping deployments do not have detrimental effects on soldiers.     

Chance and choice, change and continuity--that's life

Responding to this invitation to write an autobiography, I have tried to put in some order, the jumble of memories that come to mind. There are markers of the journey--the major decisions and changes in direction, many influenced by external events. Despite turns and detours, there is also continuity of interests and behavioral style. My beginnings on a Nebraska farm were a considerable distance in place and character from my current retirement in Oregon. The trail of events was especially marked by the death of my father, early choice of psychology, military service in Germany, marriage in Paris, establishing the university clinic and clinical program at the University of Oregon, starting a school of Community Service and Public Affairs, working with Leona Tyler on books and an extensive research project, and a year going around the world with my family including a long period in India. My principal contributions to personality assessment include cross-cultural studies, development of a boredom scale, community psychology connections, many reviews, books in clinical psychology and assessment, and work with students and others who continue this important branch of psychology.     

Proactive sensitizing effects of acute stress on acoustic startle responses and experimentally induced colitis in rats: relationship to corticosterone

In humans, some individuals develop a syndrome after trauma (post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD) characterized by increased startle responses and lower than normal cortisol secretion. We explored a rat model using the acoustic startle response (ASR) as a behavioral indicator of the effect of a short series of shocks. Because gastrointestinal disorders have been associated with prior stress, we also studied the rats' vulnerability to a chemically-induced colitis. After initial blood sampling, 12 rats were exposed to ten 1 mA 5 s foot-shocks while 12 rats served as controls. Nineteen days later the rats were tested for ASR. Thirty trials (10 trials at each of 95, 105, and 115 dB, pseudo-randomized) were given. After exposure for 6 days to dextran sulphate sodium in their drinking water, the rats were killed and the colons examined for erosions. Shocked rats showed greater startle responses and more colonic erosion than unshocked rats, but the shock effects were significant only for animals with low initial plasma corticosterone levels. Shocked rats also showed higher levels of granulocyte marker protein (GMP) in their faeces. These results suggest that low corticosterone secretion may represent a marker for vulnerability to long term effects of shocks as indicated by increased startle responses and colonic pathology.     

DIVERGENT PROBLEM SOLVING

On compare les performances d'adolescents hindous (N = 70) et américains (N = 94) habitant des bourgs agricoles, dans deux épreuves de créativité (divergent thinking). Les résultats montrent que les sujets américains donnent plus de réponses nouvelles aux problèmes, tandis que les Hindous répondent de façon routinière, ce qui ne convient pas aux tâches proposées. On peut interpréter ces différences de deux manières: ou bien c'est l'environnement pris globalement qui entraîne une capacité différentielle à penser de façon créatrice; ou bien il s'agit d'une influence spécifique de la maison et de l'école. Une réplique partielle de la première étude a été réalisée à New Delhi (Inde): le milieu urbain présente des ressemblances avec l'environnement global des adolescents américains, tout en conservant les traditions hindoues en matière d'habitat et d'école. Les résultats sont en faveur de l'hypothèse selon laquelle ce sont les différences dans l'environnement global qui influent sur la créativité.     

ADOLESCENTs' EXPECTATIONS OF FUTURE EVENTS - A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF AUSTRALIANS,AMERICANS, AND INDIANS

An important developmental task of adolescents is to consider future possibilities and begin to make choices and plans. In this investigation, samples of 15-year-olds of both sexes from small towns in India, the United States, and Australia were asked to list seven important events they expected in the future, to indicate the approximate time that would elapse before the occurrence of each, and whether each was pleasant or unpleasant. Raters categorized responses for content. The two American samples, twelve years apart, were very similar in their responses. All groups listed predominantly pleasant events. Australian girls showed longer time spans than American girls; and Indian boys, but not girls, produced longer time spans than most of the Australians or Americans. A number of significant differences in the content of responses appeared.     

Concurrent processes: The affect-cognition relationship within the context of the “mere exposure” phenomenon

The affect-cognition relationship and Zajonc’s (1968) “mere exposure” hypothesis were examined in two studies that involved ratings of: (1) preference and familiarity for geometric forms previously scaled for complexity and (2) preference or height and familiarity for male yearbook pictures previously scaled for attractiveness or height. Two exceptions to his hypothesis were noted: simple geometric forms and unattractive faces showed satiation, and faces seen once before were rated more attractive than both novel faces and faces seen twice before. Moreover, mere exposure effects were noted with a nonaffective dimension (height). The major finding was that presentation frequency generally manifested independent relations to affect and rated familiarity, as well as to height and rated familiarity, therefore evoking a concurrent response process Eriksen, 1960).