Organized responding in instrumental learning: Chunks and superchunks

Two investigations attempted to determine if rats could learn that the second series of runway trials, the test series, was the same as the first series, the study series. Series were constructed from runway responses which terminated either in food reward (R) or nonreward (N). In the series RNR, for example, three successive responses terminated in R, N, and R, respectively. Rats manifested mastery of a series by running fast to R and slow to N. In Experiment 1 the test series (either RNR or RNN) occurred in a black runway about 15 s after the study series presented in a white runway. In Experiment 2 the test series (either RN or RRN) occurred in a gray runway about 15 min after the study series, also in a gray runway. In both experiments rats learned that the study series was the same as the test series. A hierarchical interpretation was suggested in which runway trials are organized into series, series being organized into lists.     

Work, leisure and well-being

Both work and leisure are essential for well-being. Yet the ways in which we conceptualise work, leisure and well-being are in flux, reflecting, in part, the changing societal, economic and community contexts in which work and leisure take place. This paper first discusses the contested nature of work and leisure in relation to well-being, and then considers current evidence concerning the ways in which work and leisure are experienced in contemporary society. The emerging issues are then discussed drawing on two international studies which indicate the increasingly global nature of these concerns. The pervasiveness of the trend towards intensification of work, reducing time and energy for other activities, and the gendered impact of this trend are evident in both studies. Many commentators have noted the negative effects of current working patterns on well-being. Finally, some implications for guidance and counselling as well as future research, are explored.     

Joining up with ‘not us’ staff to run adolescent groups in schools

The author describes the development of a model for working with staff members from non-psychoanalytic backgrounds to run therapeutic and therapy-like pupil groups in schools. She draws on her experience of co-facilitating groups at a London-based secondary school and uses examples from recent group work with Year 10 pupils (aged 14–15). Child psychotherapists who have shied away either from doing group work in general, or more specifically taking on group work in schools, may be encouraged to see that the underlying principles are essentially no different from those of individual therapy. Worrying and troublesome young people tend to have difficulties in their external relationships, often exhibited at school and contributing to their underachievement. Psychoanalytically informed groups such as the kind portrayed here can address this difficulty by offering a safe setting for interactions with other group participants and with the leaders to be observed, examined and challenged in the here and now. Attention is paid to primitive anxieties and the defences employed to keep them at bay, including the tendency to place individual needs before group needs when sense of self and sometimes survival itself are felt to be threatened. The aim is for participants to learn about themselves by sharing a group experience and, if successful, integrate some conflicting aspects of themselves. This model for doing group work demonstrates how child psychotherapists can make a unique and valuable contribution, provided the school environment is conducive and there is a member of staff who is open to learning a new way of working.     

Real-life revenge may not effectively deter norm violations

ABSTRACT

The current article examined the characteristics of real-life revenge acts. A demographically diverse sample of avengers described autobiographical revenge acts and the preceding offense. They rated the severity of both acts, the time before taking revenge, and motives for the timing. Independent raters also rated the severity of both acts and coded the domains. Results revealed that real-life revenge is (1) by and large equally common as revealed by lab-based studies on revenge, but (2) is usually a delayed response, and (3) although similar to offenses in severity (according to independent parties), it is dissimilar in the domain. These characteristics contradict manifestations of revenge as studied in lab research (e.g., as a response that must take place immediately and in the same domain). These discrepancies suggest that not all real-life instances of revenge are optimally suited to serve a deterrence function and that other motives may underlie more destructive revenge acts.