Personality characteristics of Divorce-Prone individuals: A preliminary clinical study

This study focuses on Divorce-Prone individuals and the question of why some persons fail in one marriage after another. The authors studied 12 individuals who had each been divorced two or more times. They found that the cases fell into one of three broad and overlapping groups. The groups have been called the Self-Involved Narcissists, the Compliant Depressed, and the Casualties of Life's Vicissitudes. The individuals and the groups demonstrate a different etiology, different treatment problems, and a very different prognosis.     

Family crisis intervention: fish or fowl?

This paper considers the status of family intervention as an area of interest defined by its literature (70 publications) and includes a brief history, assessment of present status, and recommendations for future development of family crisis intervention as a distinct field with concepts and goals that can be clearly defined, taught, researched, and repeated in treatment. Recommendations are made for the development of an explicit paradigm for intervention with a clear, common language of terms and concepts for family involvement. Suggested directions for developing the paradigm and language are explored.     

Book reviews

Current Psychology -     

Survey on present and potential instructional use of computers in psychology

A survey of academic psychologists was taken to determine present use of computers in instruction, willingness to use good education software, and kinds of potential uses of computers in psychology courses. A majority of the respondents reported using computers in instruction. Respondents indicated substantial willingness to adopt computer-based courseware. Respondents believed that a variety of uses, including classroom demonstrations and student experiments, would facilitate student learning. The results of the survey are compared with the instructional modules the task force is developing.     

Variations on active learning

Although current theories of memory emphasize the fact that learning is an active process, there is little consensus on the role of active learning. This paper attempts to provide a more precise characterization of active learning in the acquisition of computer skills. The analysis of verbal protocols suggests that active learning varies on at least two dimensions: schema orientation and learning strategy. Schema orientation refers to the type of information the learner is acquiring and varies from relational information to procedural information. Learning strategy describes how the information is acquired. Some people prefer to be internally driven and form their own plans for learning. Others are externally driven and allow the instructional materials to guide their learning. These differences need to be taken into account in describing learning and in designing instructional materials.     

Typicality ratings for 893 exemplars of 93 categories

Although the typicality effect has been much studied in the semantic memory literature, typicality ratings exist for exemplars from only a very limited number of categories. This lack of ratings frequently limits the range of stimuli that can be used in investigations of the typicality effect. As an aid in stimulus construction, this paper reports typicality ratings of 893 exemplars from 93 different categories.     

The University Of Colorado Meaning Norms

There exist surprisingly few normative lists of word meanings even though homographs—words having single spellings but two or more distinct meanings—are useful in studying memory and language. The meaning norms that are available all have one or more weaknesses, including: (1) the collection of free associates rather than meanings as responses to the stimulus words; (2) the collection of single rather than multiple responses to the stimulus words; (3) the inclusion of only the two most frequently occurring meaning categories, rather than all meaning categories, for the stimulus words; (4) omission of the responses typical of each meaning category; (5) inadequate randomization of the presentation order of the stimulus words; and (6) unpaced presentation of the stimulus words. We have compiled meaning norms for 90 common English words of low, medium, and high concreteness using a methodology designed to correct these weaknesses. Analysis showed that words of medium concreteness have significantly more first-response meanings than do words of either low or high concreteness, lending support to the view that concreteness is a categorical, rather than a continuous, semantic attribute.     

An electronic device for detecting activity in caged rodents

An electronic device for detecting movement in small animals is described. The principle involves assessing changes in resistance between pairs of grid bars in a cage. The device is inexpensive, sensitive to movement, easy to calibrate and install, reliable across different activity arenas, and indifferent to animal size.     

Impact of Institutional Review Boards on cancer research

The concepts of informed consent and surveillance of human research designed to protect human subjects is commendable. The regulations of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) are having a major impact on clinical cancer research. There is greater administrative time needed of the investigator, the mechanisms of patient care have become cumbersome and some patients reject optional medical management that could be life saving. IRB regulations must be flexible to meet the needs of human subjects as well as those of the clinical investigator.     

Automatic monitoring of temperature and/or location: A computer-controlled radiotelemetry system

A radiotelemetry system for continuous monitoring of the temperature and/or location of small animals is described. All the functions of system control are carried out by an on-line microcomputer (TRS-80 Model III), resulting in a versatile system capable of alternating recording the temperature/location of multiple subjects with other behavioral or physiological events, such as activity level. We describe the use of this system in monitoring body temperature in hamsters and in recording the incubation pattern of breeding ring doves.