The emotions of professional writers

In this study, 24 professional writers completed a short pencil-and-paper questionnaire on which they indicated how they felt before, at a pause, and after specific writing episodes. The intensity with which they experienced 20 emotions was assessed, as was the frequency with which these emotions were experienced when writing in general. Results indicated that the professionals experienced positive emotions significantly more often when writing in general than they experienced either negative-active or negative-passive emotions. Negative-passive emotions such as boredom, shame, and shyness were particularly rare and weak. During the actual writing process, positive emotions tended to intensify, whereas negative-passive and negative-active emotions resisted change. Sponsorship of writing had little impact on the quality of emotions experienced during the process. The professional poets, however, experienced negative-active emotions significantly more often when writing in general than did the prose writers.     

The MMPI and clinical diagnosis: a comparison of classification system outcomes with discharge diagnoses

This study examined the agreement or congruence rate between clinical-discharge diagnoses rendered by a psychiatrist, and admission and discharge MMPI-derived diagnoses from four diagnostic classification systems that have been developed for the MMPI. The four classification systems included a simple high-point code based on the most elevated clinical scale in the profile, the Henrichs revision of the Meehl-Dahlstrom rules, the Goldberg equations, and a system developed by Lachar. Subjects consisted of 150 patients selected from a larger pool of patients who had completed a 9-week adult residential treatment program. Overall, this study yielded modest hit rates between 26% and 34% for MMPI-derived diagnoses and psychiatric diagnoses across the various classification systems. In addition, stability of MMPI-based diagnoses from admission to discharge assessments ranged from 48% to 51% depending on the classification system employed. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the use of the MMPI in patient diagnosis. It is recommended that the MMPI be used in conjunction with other sources of clinical and test information in deriving clinical diagnoses.     

Primary process thinking and anxiety in children

The relationship between primary process thinking and two measures of anxiety was investigated in fourth- and fifth-grade children. Holt's Scoring System for Primary Process Responses on the Rorschach was the measure of primary process thinking. The major hypotheses were supported for boys in that frequency of expression of primary process material was positively related to behavioral manifestations of anxiety as measured by the Teacher's Rating Scale. Also, controlled access to and integration of primary process was negatively related to teacher's ratings of anxiety. There were no significant results for girls. Primary process measures were not related to the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children. Possible reasons for the different relationships between the primary process measures and the anxiety measures are discussed.     

Distributed planning of movement sequences

Three experiments are reported that examine whether fast finger-tapping sequences are entirely planned before execution starts (advance planning), or if they can be started while planning is still under way (distributed planning). Subjects performed finger tapping sequences of three to eight taps at a high rate, under both simple and 2-choice reaction time (RT) conditions. The sequences differed in the location of an accentuated element within them. The RT to choose between sequences with different accent locations progressively decreased as an inverse function of the time-distance between the initial tap and the first point at which the alternative sequences differed. The shortening in choice reaction time (CRT) was never accompanied by noticeable changes in the inter-response times or force patterns of the tapping sequences. The RT to initiate sequences with accent location known beforehand (SRT condition) showed, in two of three experiments, a weak decreasing trend as the accentuated tap shifted away from the beginning of the sequence. The SRT results suggest a possible predominance of advance planning when the same sequence is repeated over a series of trials. The CRT results are taken as evidence that planning of the sequence beyond the unpredictable tap could be distributed before and after sequence initiation. Several factors are discussed that may influence the balance between planning in advance of, and planning in parallel with, sequence execution.     

Children's preference for challenge: the role of perceived competence and control

This research tested the hypothesis that children's perceptions of academic competence and their personal control over school-related performance affects subsequent intrinsic interest and preference for challenge in an evaluative setting. In a correlational study, children's self-reported perceptions of academic competence and personal control were found to relate positively to their intrinsic interest in schoolwork and preference for challenging school activities. A subset of this sample was exposed to varying levels of a controlling directive, and preference for challenge was assessed behaviorally during a free-choice period in which subjects were unaware that they were being observed. As predicted, the data indicated that when given the evaluative, controlling directive, children who had high perceptions of academic competence and control preferred a greater challenge than did children whose perceptions were low on these measures. No difference between groups in terms of preference for challenge was evident when no controlling directive was presented. These findings are discussed in terms of theories of intrinsic motivation and potential processes that underly these effects.     

Depression and mental control: the resurgence of unwanted negative thoughts

In three experiments we examined depressed individuals' mental control abilities and strategies. Experiment 1 revealed that although depressed college students were initially successful in suppressing negative material, they eventually experienced a resurgence of unwanted negative thoughts. Analysis of subjects' stream-of-consciousness reports indicated that this resurgence was associated with the use of negative thoughts as distracters from the unwanted item. In Experiment 2 depressed subjects acknowledged that positive distracters were more effective than negative ones in suppressing negative thoughts. This acknowledgement suggests that depressed subjects in Experiment 1 did not deliberately focus on negative distracters but that those thoughts automatically occurred because they were highly accessible. Experiment 3 demonstrated that depressed subjects' use of positive distracters could be increased somewhat when we provided such distracters and made them easily accessible. Taken together, the findings suggest that depression involves an enhanced accessibility of interconnected negative thoughts that can undermine mental control efforts.