Cast of characters work: Systemically exploring the naturally organized personality

Cast of Characters Work conceives of the personality as a naturally organized unique group of characters who, together, function in an internal system. All characters bring their own histories, perceptions, feelings, beliefs, and behaviors to life's situations. Their survival strategies and interrelationships are felt as anxiety, conflict, ambivalence, or confidence. Heightening awareness of these multiple, simultaneous events increases access to the actual living process. The complex inner world of individuals, couples, and families can be precisely explored by working directly with each character and their relationships. Objectives are accountability and more functional, flexible, and satisfactory arrangements among characters internally and in couples and families.Also in private practice at 2 Pine Circle, Urbana, IL 61801.     

Book reviews

Current Psychology -     

The use of a resident daily scheduling procedure to increase appropriate social,ward, and scheduling behavior in adult psychiatric residents (patients)

The purpose of the present experiment was to investigate the efficacy of a goal orientation procedure in their treatment of apathy, isolation, and insufficient goal setting skills in chronic psychiatric residents. The experiment was conducted in a behaviorally-oriented deinstitutionalization program in a state psychiatric hospital. Three male and four female chronic psychiatric residents served as research participants. A group repeated measures design with four within-participant phases (ABA‘B’) was utilized. The goal orientation procedure included a written schedule that was completed by each research participant daily. This Daily Living Schedule required that a behavior be specified by the participant for every half-hour period during the day (8:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.). During all four phases of the experiment, research participants were observed on the ward from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon and 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. for engagement in scheduled target behaviors. The daily scheduling procedure produced substantial increases in appropriate behavior such as social activities, ward jobs, and participation in treatment programs, whereas decrease were produced in inappropriate behavior such as isolation and day time sleeping.     

Modeling feature perception in brief displays with evidence for positive interdependencies

Recent studies have begun to test certain fundamental assumptions underlying popular models of feature perception. This research is continued here. It was discovered that every basic assumption that was open to test in the present study was disconfirmed. However, several new characteristics of line and curve feature perception were discovered: (1) Feature perception sensitivity was inversely related to the number of features present in a stimulus pattern, and the decision criteria for reporting a feature decreased with the number of features contained in a pattern; (2) the decrements in sensitivity reported in (1) were greater for features lying inside a pattern than for those on the exterior; and (3) feature perception sensitivity actually improved if another feature was known to be correctly perceived during the same trial. Likewise, feature sensitivity decreased if another feature was missed on any trial. At the present time, a system that first extracts global and then local (more detailed) featural information provides a basis that qualitatively accounts for our findings and is also compatible with several other studies in the literature.     

Locus of control and delinquency

A sample of delinquent and nondelinquent male adolescents was assessed with respect to locus of control and intellectual achievement responsibility. Data were also gathered concerning age, family size, birth order, socioeconomic status, race, and school grade. Results were subjected to a multivariate analysis and showed support for a multidimensional model of locus of control. There was no difference in expectancy of control for negative academic events between delinquents and nondelinquents. In general, birth order and delinquency were the two most important determinants of locus of control. Results are discussed in terms of previous literature on locus of control with particular consideration paid to expectations of control.     

Adolescent health care in Brazil

The period of youth and adolescence has been shown to have continuous demographic growth in the developing world. Young nations thus have to contend with the specific health needs of teenagers and young adults. This is illustrated by an analysis of the health-care needs of Brazilian adolescents. The issues highlighted here are adolescent morbidity and mortality, current delivery of adolescent health care, and future directions of adolescent programs in Brazil.     

Relationships between adolescent drug use and parental drug behaviors

The present study examined some previously reported relationships between drug use by adolescents and perceived attitudes and behaviors of their parents. An anonymous questionnaire was administered to the student body of an inner-city secondary school for difficult students. Relationships between parental use of drugs and adolescent use of the same drugs were moderate and roughly equivalent across drugs. However, parental use of marijuana was strongly related to the adolescent's use of other, harder drugs such as opiates, cocaine, amphetamines, and barbiturates. This finding is explained within the framework of Kandel's postulated stages of drug initiation. It points to a need for further study of parental influences, which may be increasingly problematic as more individuals who have grown up in our marijuana-accepting society become parents of adolescents.     

Potential Social Action As A Function Of Expectation-Outcome Discrepancies Among Employed And Unemployed University Graduates

Full-time employed (N = 255), partly employed (N = 48), and unemployed (N = 43) male and female university graduates completed a questionnaire that included measures designed to assess expected job levels and current job levels and two measures of potential social action (willingness to volunteer actions and hours to a fictional Campaign to Assist Unemployed Youth). Comparisons between groups and the results of multiple regression analyses provided mixed support for the prediction that larger negative gaps between expected and current employment status would be associated with a greater willingness to assist the Campaign. The unemployed respondents tended to volunteer more actions and more hours to the Campaign than did the other two groups. A multiple regression analysis showed that the current level by expected level interaction term was statistically significant as predicted, but only for the fully employed graduates. Within the full-time employed group, female graduates and those from the humanities/social sciences/education schools expressed more willingness to assist the Campaign than did male graduates and those from the sciences/medicine schools of the university. Results were discussed in relation to current research on relative deprivation and reported affect and to recent studies of job satisfaction.     

Induction by reinforcer schedules.

Traditional strategies for determining whether a reinforcer schedule enhances the occurrence of an activity are reviewed and critically evaluated. A basic assumption underlying these strategies is that it is possible to isolate the effect of reinforcer intermittency on schedule induction. It is concluded that this is not, in fact, possible. An alternative approach is proposed that emphasizes the inductive effects of the reinforcer schedule as a unit and the effects of particular aspects of the reinforcer schedule (e.g., interreinforcer interval, repetition of the reinforcer, reinforcer magnitude).