Clients' treatment expectations at a community mental health center

Clients' expectations about mental health care, particularly differences in these expectations as a function of social class, and the relationship of discrepancies between expectations and perceptions to treatment outcome, is examined in this study with 317 Caucasian clients. In contrast to the majority of studies, no differences in treatment expectations relating to clients' social class, sex, or marital status were found. Nor were discrepancies related to course or outcome of therapy. Discussion focuses around explanation and interpretation of these findings. Particularly relevant is the need to determine the extent to which nonusers in the community share the attitudes and expectations of clients.     

The fate of ear asymmetries in short-term memory

Recognition memory for word lists presented to left or right ears was tested after filled retention intervals of 0-to 60-sec duration. Experiment 1 showed that the right-ear advantage (REA) for immediate recognition in dichotic listening does not occur after 10 sec delay. In Experiment 2, monaural presentation produced a nonsignificant REA which did not appear to be affected by delay. These data suggest that the REA for immediate report usually observed in the dichotic listening situation is a transient phenomenon which is based on phonetic encoding. The left hemisphere seems to be specialized for the initial reception of verbal information, but not for the storage or retention of such information over time.     

Computer-based career planning for adults

The Career Information and Planning System is described. Designed for officers of the United States Army, it is a computer-based counselling and guidance system which aims to enhance the career planning skills of adults.     

Continuing education,identity, sex role,and psychosocial development in adult women

Comparisons on psychosocial development and sex-role identification were made between 39 adult women returning to college in midlife and 40 traditional homemakers. Significantly more homemakers had foreclosed on the adult identity issues of goals and religion and scored lower on a measure of psychological androgyny. Women in continuing education showed greater evidence of identity crisis as they neared graduation. The two groups did not differ along Eriksonian developmental stages, but there were differences in the pattern of favorable and unfavorable resolutions of psychosocial crises within both groups. The results support the existence of an identity crisis as a response to life events in adulthood and demonstrate a relationship between behavioral and self-report indices of rejection or acceptance of the traditional feminine role.This research was completed in partial fulfillment of the doctorate degree from the Graduate School of Education and Human Development, University of Rochester.     

INCREASED PEER-TEACHING WITH GROUP-ORIENTED CONTINGENCIES FOR ARITHMETIC PERFORMANCE IN BEHAVIOR-DISORDERED ADOLESCENTS1

Group-oriented contingencies were applied to increase the arithmetic problem-solving rates of four behavior-disordered adolescent residents in a psychiatric hospital. The experiment followed an ABAC reversal design consisting of baseline conditions (A₁ and A₂), and cumulative (B) and mixed (C) interdependent group-oriented contingency conditions. Under the cumulative arrangement, the subjects earned five cents for every correctly solved multiplication problem. The same conditions were in effect with the mixed contingency, except that each subject was required to work at least three problems before any subject could earn money. The results indicated consistent increases in the subjects' arithmetic computation rates as a function of the group-oriented contingencies. Concurrent observations were made across the four conditions of the experiment on four categories of the subjects' verbalizations: antecedent peer-teaching, consequent peer-teaching, positive statements, and negative statements. The subjects' rates of antecedent peer-teaching verbalizations covaried with the group-contingency-induced increases in their levels of computation behavior. The majority of the verbalization involved answers to number fact questions or redirecting peers to engage in on-task activities. The three other categories of the subjects' verbalizations that were observed—consequent peer-teaching, positive statements, and negative statements—were not found to covary with the subjects' altered rates of computation behavior.     

On the surface structure of infinitive-complement sentences

Linguists' inability to reach consensus about the surface structure of infinitive-complement sentences with verbs likebelieve is a consequence of unresolved foundational disputes about the nature of generative grammar. Naive native speakers' linguistic intuitions about sentences of this type, as assessed by elicitation of judgments about surface structure, also fail to provide a solution to this problem. Insofar as we have no way of deciding on the surface structure ofbelieve-type infinitive-complement sentences, click-displacement results with these materials cannot be used to support either a surface-structure account or a deep-structure account of the parsing of sentences in the process of comprehension.This research was supported in part by Grant MH 08520-12 from the National Institute of Mental Health.The order of appearance of the names of the first and second authors was determined by a flip of a coin.     

Development of sensitivity to information for impending collision

Infants were tested in three experiments to study the development of sensitivity to information for impending collision and to investigate the hypothesis that postural changes of very young infants in response to an approaching object are of a tracking rather than of a defensive nature. Experiment 1 involved the presentation of three types of shadow projection displays, specifying (1) collision, (2) noncollision, and (3) a nonexpanding rising contour, to infants from 1 to 9 months of age. Avoidance of collision appears to be absent in 1- to 2-month-olds, begins to develop in 4- to 6-month-olds, and is present in 8- to 9-month-old infants. In Experiment 2, 1- to 2-month-old infants were presented with optical expansion patterns which specified collision and noncollision. The top contour of these displays stayed at eye level. No significant difference was observed between reaction to the collision and the noncollision displays, suggesting that the young infants were tracking the displays and not attempting to avoid collision. Experiment 3 was designed to determine whether an approaching real object might elicit an avoidance response in infants not sensitive to an optical display specifying collision. No evidence of avoidance behavior was observed in the 1- to 2-month-olds; however, avoidance, as indexed by blinking, does appear to be present at 4 months of age.     

Texture perceived with the fingers

Relative assessments of 10 attributes commonly used to describe the texture of liquids on skin were obtained for 14 liquids of widely varying rheological properties. The results were analyzed to show that these judgments can be predicted accurately from the assessments of just three attributes, smoothness, thinness, and warmth. Smoothness was found to be closely related to the forces of contact lubrication, and could be predicted from measurements of coefficients of friction. Thinness was found to be closely related to viscous forces, consistent with other predictions of assessments of thickness and spreadability. Warmth was not studied further. The results show how careful definition of the stimulus on the skin’s surface can sharply simplify the interpretation of the psychophysical experiment.     

Employment and health among married women with children

A sample of nearly 500 urban married women with children was used to evaluate the possible effect of outside-the-home employment on the mental and physical health of married mothers. Six measures of health were used, some drawn from interviews with the women, others from a medical examination. After controlling for ethnicity, education, and age of the women, the husband's occupation, number of children in the family, and length of time the woman has been married, it was found that wives who had been employed for more than a year were healthier than wives not employed outside the home and wives who had worked less than one year. Housewives who had never worked outside the home were healthier, on the whole, than wives who had been employed at some time in the past. Poor marital relationships and having no preschool age children seemed to increase the health advantage of long-term employed wives over those in the housewife categories. The occupational status of wife and husband did not seem to change these health differences very much.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Southwest Social Science Association, San Antonio, March 1975. The authors would like to thank Donna Duvall, Ministry of State for Urban Affairs, Ottawa; Elaine Hess, University of Nebraska at Omaha; and David R. Johnson, University of Nebraska — Lincoln for their comments. Gilles Robert and Marie Josepha Hebert ably assisted with various aspects of this project. Support for the project was provided by the Ministry of State for Urban Affairs, but the views expressed here are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Ministry.     

The interaction of locus of control expectancies and providing purpose on children's motivation

Children differing in locus of control orientation (internals, mediums, and externals' were administered an extended coding task following either a fictional rationale for the study (purpose incentive statement) or no purpose. As predicted, externals' performance under no purpose was significantly poorer and their rated interest in the task was significantly less favorable than those of internals. Also as predicted, these differences were nullified under the purpose incentive condition. The findings extend Lefcourt's (1967) suggestion that cue explication is important for externals to include external children, and support the position (Mischel, 1973; Rotter, 1975) that personality variables are increasingly important as a function of greater situational ambiguity. Implications of these findings for education and child-rearing are discussed.