Punishment of shock-induced aggression

Squirrel monkeys were restrained in a chair equipped with a tail-shock apparatus and a pneumatic bite hose located in front of the subject's face. An aggressive response was recorded when the monkey bit the hose. Initial sessions in which no shocks were delivered produced some biting. When biting during these sessions stabilized at a near-zero level, regularly scheduled shocks were delivered to the monkey's tail, causing a consistently higher rate of biting. After several sessions under these conditions, a punishment phase was introduced in which the previous shock conditions were maintained, and every bite was followed immediately by another, more intense shock. Biting under these conditions was suppressed to a near-zero level. When the punishment contingency was removed, biting increased. With one subject, two additional bite-contingent stimuli were examined: (1) a milder shock that, when made contingent upon hose biting, also suppressed that response, and (2) a contingent tone that had no obvious suppressing or facilitating effect. Individual differences among subjects were extreme, but the effect of bite-contingent shock was consistent. Observations of the subjects during the punishment sessions indicated the existence of certain side effects that resulted from the use of punishment to suppress shock-induced aggression.     

College Major Choice and Personal Adjustment

This investigation focused on the differences in reported personal adjustment problems between freshmen students who made a congruent college major choice and students who made an incongruent choice. Personal adjustment was defined operationally with the Mooney Problem Checklist. Congruent and incongruent college major choice groups were defined operationally using the Vocational Preference Inventory. In the analysis of variance of the adjustment scores, the interaction term involving congruence of major choice and sex and the test for the main effect of sex were not significant. The test for the main effect of congruence was found to be significant. Subjects who had made a congruent college major choice reported fewer personal adjustment problems when compared to subjects in the incongruent group.     

What is a difficult mental health case? An empirical study of relationships among domain variables

A difficult case in psychotherapy can be defined in many ways. This study proposes a model for that definition, in which three domains (patient characteristics, case characteristics, and therapist characteristics) are considered to impact on that definition. A total of 264 professionals received a questionnaire to assess the relative importance of a series of variables within and across these domains. Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed-Ranks tests indicated that patient characteristics were considered more important than therapist or case characteristics in defining a difficult case. Case characteristics were considered more important than therapist characteristics. Pearson correlations, however, suggested that the three domains in the model are related. Correlations (for years of experience) and Kruskal-Wallis one-way ANOVA for ranks (for professions) also indicated that participants were able to identify variables within domains as important in that definition regardless of years of experience or professions. Across domains, the most important variables included the motivation of the client (a patient characteristic), dropout/attrition and multiple diagnoses (case characteristics), and the degree of therapist-client racial similarity (a therapist characteristic).     

INCREASING CALORIE CONSUMPTION IN CHILDREN WITH CYSTIC FIBROSIS: REPLICATION WITH 2-YEAR FOLLOW-UP

Three mildly malnourished children with cystic fibrosis and their parents participated in a behavioral group-treatment program that focused on promoting and maintaining increased calorie consumption. Treatment included nutritional education, gradually increasing calorie goals, contingency management, and relaxation training, and was evaluated in a multiple baseline design across four meals. Children's calorie intake increased across meals, and total calorie intake was 32% to 60% above baseline at posttreatment. Increased calorie consumption was maintained at the 96-week follow-up (2 years posttreatment). The children's growth rates in weight and height were greater during the 2 years following treatment than the year prior to treatment. Increases in pace of eating and calories consumed per minute were also observed 1 year posttreatment. These findings replicated and extended earlier research supporting the efficacy of behavioral intervention in the treatment of malnutrition in children with cystic fibrosis.     

Child protection dilemmas in a 'not-existing' pattern of abuse

Three cases from a larger review of child abuse inquiry reports are discussed. The abuse the children suffered is termed 'not-existing' because they had been shut away until they perished. Interaction between the children's caretakers and the child protection professionals is examined within a revised framework of the double-bind.     

Interpersonal loss and self-mutilation

Self-mutilation was hypothesized to increase in frequency during periods of interpersonal loss in a treatment program for seriously disturbed adolescents. The study examined changes in the frequency of acts of self-mutilation, aggression, and running away for 32 teenagers who experienced interpersonal loss when staff members left employment. Data were collected for a 4-year period. Statistical findings indicated that the frequency of self-mutilation increased significantly during the time period of anticipated loss, 2 weeks prior to staff terminations. There was no significant increase in the frequency of self-mutilation immediately following the staff terminations. Also, there was no significant change in the rates of aggression or running away either before or after the loss events. It was concluded that the time of anticipated loss was the period of highest risk for these adolescents in terms of self-mutilative behavior.     

Stress and work performance: The role of trait anxiety

Employees high in Trait Anxiety (TA) were found to exert greater work effort than those low in TA, which resulted in better sales performance. There was no relation between TA and work efficiency, measured by sales performance relative to work effort. Employees high in TA also reported greater levels of stress and more adverse effects of work on non-work relationships. Using multiple regression, both stress and interference with relationships were found to be better predicted by TA than work effort. The results are discussed in terms of laboratory-based theories about relations between TA and efficiency and intervention strategies for managing stress at work.     

Compassion: An east‐west comparison

Compassion is an emotion that occupies a central position in Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy while it is often a neglected subject in contemporary western philosophy. This essay is a comparison between an Eastern view of compassion based upon Mahāyāna Buddhist perspectives and a western view of the same emotion. Certain principles found in Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy such as the Bodhisattva Ideal, and suffering (dukkha) to name two, are explored for the information they contain about compassion. An essay by Lawrence Blum is taken as representative of a Western view (but not exclusively) and it is analyzed for its shortcomings in light of the Buddhist view. The conclusion briefly describes the value of understanding an eastern view on compassion as a means of filling the void one finds in western medical ethics discourse which focuses so heavily, and redundantly, upon issues such as patient autonomy and paternalism.