Memory in sub-clinical obsessive-compulsive checkers

In a series of experiments we extended the research on possible memory deficits in subclinical obsessive-compulsive Ss who reported excessive checking. Using a variety of memory tests we compared 20 subclinical checkers to 20 Ss without obsessive-compulsive symptomatology. Contrary to hypothesis, checkers remembered self-generated words better than read words just as much as did normals, but they were more likely than normals to report thinking they had studied words that, in fact, had not been on the study list. Further, they more often confused whether they read or generated the words at study. Checkers did not appear to perseverate on already-recalled words on repeated free recall tests any more than did normals. However, checkers remembered fewer actions overall and more often misremembered whether they had performed, observed, or written these actions. Such memory deficits may contribute to the development of excessive checking.     

An examination of male and female attitudes toward career and family issues

This paper presents the results of a study designed to investigate attitudes toward various career and family issues. The sample for the study consists of 240 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in business courses. Results indicate differences in men's and women's perceptions of such issues as employer and government support for child care, parental responsibility, traditionally defined sex roles, and the impact of nonwork issues on work effectiveness. Gender differences were also evident in decisions made by study participants in response to several career-family scenarios developed by the researchers.An earlier version of this article was presented at the 1990 meetings of the Academy of Management.     

When women evaluate women,nothing succeeds like success: The differential effects of status upon evaluations of male and female professional ability

Male and female subjects evaluated articles supposedly written by either a male or a female author of high or low professional status. Although evaluations by the male subjects appeared to be only slightly affected by the status variable, female subjects exhibited a complex reaction to the status variable and gave their most favorable evaluations to the high status woman and their least favorable evaluations to the low status woman. An evaluation-attribution hypothesis is presented to explain this response pattern. The significance of this response pattern for women who are attempting professional success and for the perception of female professional role models is discussed.The author wishes to thank Brian Peck for his help with data analysis and his insightful comments.     

Tachistoscopic perception under head tilt

Subjects attempted to identify singly presented letters, flashed briefly at six different locations equidistant from fixation. The locations were at 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 o’clock on an imaginary circle. The subjects performed both with their heads upright or tilted 60° (i.e., through 2 and 8 o’clock or through 10 and 4 o’clock). In Experiment 1, the letters were projected in a gravitationally fixed rectangular surround, and accuracy of report depended largely on the locations of the letters in gravitational coordinates, although there was clear evidence of a retinal influence as well. In Experiment 2, the surround was circular and accuracy depended principally on retinal location, although there was also a gravitational influence. Analysis of individual data suggested that, when their heads were tilted, subjects generally adopted a reference frame which lay between the retinal and gravitational frames, closer to one than the other but typically coinciding with neither. We conclude that the subjective reference frame does not depend on a poststimulus correction, but rather that stimulus information is incorporated directly into the subjective frame. The data also suggested that lateral asymmetries depend on a perceptual rather than a retinal interpretation of left and right visual fields.     

THE FUNCTIONS OF SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIOR: AN EXPERIMENTAL-EPIDEMIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

Data are summarized from 152 single-subject analyses of the reinforcing functions of self-injurious behavior (SIB). Individuals with developmental disabilities referred for assessment and/or treatment over an 11-year period were exposed to a series of conditions in which the effects of antecedent and consequent events on SIB were examined systematically by way of multielement, reversal, or combined designs. Data were collected during approximately 4,000 experimental sessions (1,000 hr), with the length of assessment for individuals ranging from 8 to 66 sessions (M = 26.2) conducted over 2 to 16.5 hr (M = 6.5). Differential or uniformly high responding was observed in 145 (95.4%) of the cases. Social-negative reinforcement (escape from task demands or other sources of aversive stimulation) accounted for 58 cases, which was the largest proportion of the sample (38.1%). Social-positive reinforcement (either attention or access to food or materials) accounted for 40 (26.3%) of the cases, automatic (sensory) reinforcement accounted for 39 (25.7%), and multiple controlling variables accounted for 8 (5.3%). Seven sets of data (4.6%) showed either cyclical or inconsistent patterns of responding that were uninterpretable. Overall results indicated that functional analysis methodologies are extremely effective in identifying the environmental determinants of SIB on an individual basis and, subsequently, in guiding the process of treatment selection. Furthermore, an accumulation of assessment data from such analyses across a large number of individuals provides perhaps the most rigorous approach to an epidemiological study of behavioral function.     

Demands for Privacy Among Adolescents in Multimodal Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Treatment

Adolescent clients' perceptions of the limits of confidentiality, as well as their privacy demands within the counseling relationship, were assessed. A total of 30 adolescents involved in individual, group, and family counseling for alcohol and other drug abuse served as participants. Participants were asked to respond to vignettes of confidentiality issues in terms of what they believed the counselor should do and what they would prefer the counselor to do. Results suggested that adolescents generally want higher levels of confidentiality than they expect to receive. This group of adolescent clients, however, made clear distinctions in their privacy expectations and demands according to specific situations.     

Living There,Leaving There: Identity,Sociospatial Mobility,and Exclusion in “Stigmatized Neighborhoods”

As mobility is increasingly reshaping social relations, understanding how it affects new forms of social exclusion is an important challenge in today's polarized societies. From a political-psychological perspective, this challenge requires recognition of how identity processes linked to exclusion are significantly shaped by sociospatial mobility practices. Identity, mobility, and exclusion are at the core of the psychological experience of people living in segregated areas from where they are impelled to leave. Building on this argument, we present a qualitative case study based on ethnographic and narrative methods, which aimed to understand identity processes among young people who have lived most of their lives in four “stigmatized neighborhoods” in Santiago de Chile. The analysis indicated that young people navigate a paradoxical identity project in such neighborhoods, driven by contradictory cultural mandates. This case study contributes to knowledge on how sociospatial exclusion and the politics of mobility can manifest in the form of “identity trouble,” as young people struggle between belonging and running away, while attempting to maintain a coherent sense of self.     

Cognition and native-language grammar: The organizational role of adjective-noun word order in information representation

In the present research, we investigated the influence of native-language adjective-noun word order on category accessibility for nouns and adjectives by comparing Portuguese speakers (in whose language nouns precede adjectives) with English speakers (in whose language adjectives precede nouns). In two studies, we presented participants with different numbers of verbal or pictorial stimuli, and subsequently they answered questions about noun- and adjective-conditioned frequencies. The results demonstrated a primacy effect of nativelanguage word order. Specifically, although both populations showed a speed advantage for noun-conditioned questions, this tendency was significantly stronger for Portuguese than for American participants. We discuss the important role of native-language syntax rules for the categorization and representation of information.     

Inhibitory processes in memory are impaired in schizophrenia: Evidence from retrieval induced forgetting

Schizophrenic patients are known to exhibit inhibitory impairments in response suppression and selective attention. However, the impairment of inhibitory control in memory retrieval has not clearly been documented. In two experiments, we investigate inhibition in memory retrieval by using the retrieval practice procedure. In Expt 1, a cued recall final test was used. Consistent with previous research, we found similar retrieval‐induced forgetting (RIF) effects in schizophrenic patients and in controls. However, these effects could be the result of interference/blocking or the results of inhibition. In order to reduce the influence of blocking in Expt 2, we used a recognition test. We found that RIF was reduced in patients, compared to healthy controls. The elimination of RIF effect in patients, when the influence of blocking is reduced, indicates that inhibitory processes in memory are altered in schizophrenia. Result suggest that schizophrenic patients suffer from critical impairments in inhibitory processes involved in memory retrieval, similar to the inhibitory deficits found in other cognitive domains.