The effect of earlier experience and reward contingencies on intrinsic motivation

The effects of task-contingent and performance-contingent extrinsic rewards upon subsequent intrinsic motivation are compared. Intrinsic motivation is measured by behavioral observation in a free time period and by rating scales. The results show, as expected, a higher rating of intrinsic motivation in the performance-contingent reward condition. The study further compares strength of intrinsic motivation in one- and two-session conditions. As hypothesized, a two-session condition, in which the subjects have a preexperience with the task without reward administration, leads to a higher rating of intrinsic motivation than a one-session condition without such a preexperience. The behavioral measure of intrinsic motivation is not significantly affected by the conditions. A post hoc analysis of the data indicates that there may be a different effect of extrinsic rewards on behavioral measures and on rating scale measures of intrinsic motivation.     

Gender Role of Male Therapists in Both Professional and Personal Life

This study's purpose was to extend the distantresearch on gender roles. The specific objective was tobetter understand the gender role of male psychologists.It was hypothesized that male psychologists would exhibit an androgynous gender role.Gender role styles in professional work and in thepersonal realm were assessed. Questionnaire packets weremailed to 300 male clinical psychologists affiliated with the American Psychological Associationacross six regions within the United States. Sixty ofthe 61 participants reported being Caucasian and 1reported being Native American. Being that the sample was that of practicing psychologists, all withdoctorate degrees, the social class is presumed to be atleast upper middle class. The packets contained ademographics questionnaire and two Personal Attributes Questionnaires. Results suggest that malepsychologists do exhibit an androgynous gender role inboth professional and personal realms. A great deal ofthe prior literature indicates that androgynoustherapists have more adaptive communication skills and arebetter at assessing and treating their clients. Thisresult is therefore advantageous to therapeuticoutcomes.     

Islamic law and human rights: A contribution to an ongoing debate

In this essay the author criticizes two opposite approaches to the relationship between Islam and human rights: the incriminating and the apologetic approach. They are either anachronistic in that they judge the rules of classical Islamic jurisprudence by present‐day standards, or they entirely ignore its heritage. The author attempts instead to develop a new approach whereby classical Islamic jurisprudence is analyzed in its historical context. In order to examine whether Islam recognized a notion of fundamental rights, the author first tries to establish to what extent the notion of legal equality is recognized in Islamic law. Secondly, he examines two hierarchical legal relationships, viz. that between master and slave and that between husband and wife, in order to find which basic and inalienable rights Islamic law assigns to the weaker party in these relationships. His conclusion is that classical Islamic law offers points of departure for the development of a modern theory of human rights rooted in Islamic notions.>     

Development of an on-line management information system for community mental health centers

An on-line computerized management information system has been developed at the Salt Lake City VA Hospital and is currently being implemented at Salt Lake Community Mental Health Center. An introduction to this system, including systems design and procedures for development, are presented. The advantages of on-line technology as compared to batch processing technology are also discussed.     

Repression of emotionally tagged memories: the architecture of less complex emotions

We asked subjects to recall memories of events that evoked feelings of anger, sadness, fear, and embarrassment. These memories evoked patterns of dominant and nondominant emotions. The dominant emotions evoked by the recalled events were no less intense for repressors than nonrepressors, but repressors' patterns of nondominant emotions were less intense than those of nonrepressors. The data suggested that for repressors the associative network of negative emotional memories may be more discrete and less complex than that for nonrepressors. This finding was consistent with recent research indicating that negative emotional memories are less accessible for repressors than for nonrepressors. The pattern of multivariate effects suggests that this repressive memorial architecture may serve the motive of isolating fear-associated memories.     

Sensory control of maternal aggression in Rattus norvegicus

Female rats become aggressive toward adult conspecifics during lactation. This change in social affect is dependent on the presence of the offspring, because maternal aggression disappears when the pups are removed. It was found that a similar decline occurs when the litter is placed in a glass flask while remaining in the home cage. In contrast, maternal aggression persists following placement of the pups in a nylon mesh bag. The pups did not vocalize while being in the mesh bags, so it appears that olfactory cues from the offspring constitute a critical element in the maintenance of maternal aggression in the rat. It has been suggested that the odor not only of the pups but also of the intruder may contribute to eliciting aggressive behavior in lactating rodents. In line with this proposal, it was found that mother rats spend about one third of the time preceding the first attack sniffing the body of the intruder. In contrast to findings in mice, housing of the prospective intruder behind a double wire mesh partition in the lactating female's home cage failed to reduce her aggressiveness toward him. Rats, then, may require more intimate contact with an individual than do mice for the aggression-reducing effect of familiarization to be observed.     

Copulation and intermale aggression in rats

Attack behavior of reliably aggressive male Long-Evans rats against unfamiliar male intruders was observed immediately following copulation to one or more ejaculations. Compulatory series to five ejaculations did not differ from copulation to a single ejaculation or from a noncopulatory control in affecting aggressive behavior. Repetitive biting attacks occurred in all conditions, with comparable wounding. Evidently, the male postejaculatory state of insensitivity to sexual stimuli does not extend to stimuli eliciting intermale aggression. A second experiment determined the attack-eliciting capacity of foreign males placed in the home cage of an actively copulating male. As intromissions increased and the interval to ejaculation decreased, the probability of intermale aggression and interruption of copulation diminished. The results are discussed in reference to sexual and aggressive strategies of the copulating male.     

The visual basis of category effects in object identification: evidence from the visual hemifield paradigm

The basis for the category specific living things advantage in object recognition (i.e., faster and more accurate identification of living compared to nonliving things) was investigated in two experiments. It was hypothesised that the global shape of living things on average provides more information about their basic level identity than the global shape of nonliving things. In two experiments subjects performed name-picture or picture-name verification tasks, in which blurred or clear images of living and nonliving things were presented in either the right or the left visual hemifield. With blurred images, recognition performance was worst for nonliving things presented to the right visual field/left hemisphere, indicating that the lack of visual detail in the stimulus combined with a left hemisphere bias toward processing high frequency visual elements proved detrimental for processing nonliving stimuli in this condition. In addition, an overall living things advantage was observed in both experiments. This advantage was considerably larger with blurred images than with clear. These results are compatible with the global shape hypothesis and converge with evidence using other paradigms.