Stress and infectious disease in humans

This article reviews research on the role of stress in infectious disease as measured either by illness behaviors (symptoms and use of health services) or by verified pathology. Substantial evidence was found for an association between stress and increased illness behavior, and less convincing but provocative evidence was found for a similar association between stress and infectious pathology. Introverts, isolates, and persons lacking social skills may also be at increased risk for both illness behaviors and pathology. Psychobiological models of how stress could influence the onset and progression of infectious disease and a psychological model of how stress could influence illness behaviors are proposed.     

Bivalence and subjunctive conditionals

Writers such as Stalnaker and Dummett have argued that specific features of subjunctive conditional statements undermine the principle of bivalence. This, paper is concerned with rebutting such claims. 1. It is shown how subjective conditionals pose a prima facie threat to bivalence, and how this threat can be dissolved by a distinction between the results of negating a subjective conditional and of negating its consequent. To make this distinction is to side with Lewis against Stalnaker in a dispute about possible worlds semantics for such conditionals, and reasons are given for doing so. 2. These arguments are extended to answer Dummett's claim that behaviourist and phenomenalist analyses in terms of subjunctive conditions violate bivalence. This answer is shown to be compatible with the principle that hypothetical statements are true only in virtue of categorical facts.     

The future lies open

Recently retired as Dean of Students and Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, he has held offices in many organizations in the student personnel field. He was president of apga in 1967–1968.     

What makes it a heap?

On the epistemic view of vagueness, a vague expression has sharp boundaries whose location speakers of the language cannot recognize. The paper argues that one of the deepest sources of resistance to the epistemic view is the idea that all truths are cognitively accessible from truths in a language for natural science, conceived as precise, in a sense explained. The implications of the epistemic view for issues about the relations between vague predicates and scientific predicates are investigated.     

Youth's Dilemma: To Be or To Become

Youth should be engaged in three basic intellectual and moral activities: (a) selecting life purposes, (b) limiting their concern for immediate satisfaction, and (c) striving to become their highest and best potentiality. Teachers and counselors have a responsibility to aid growth in confronting the dilemmas inherent in these problems.     

Psychological profiles of adult children of alcoholics in search of therapy

Adult children of alcoholics (ACOAs) and adults from dysfunctional families of origin are increasingly recognized as high risk groups for psychiatric disorders. However, there has been little empirical investigation of the psychological characteristics of these populations. This study compares clinical samples of these two groups using the Symptom Checklist-90, (SCL-90), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the Irrational Beliefs Test (IBT), as well as DSM-III-R diagnoses and demographic information. The two groups did not differ significantly on the psychological tests and showed similar demographics and diagnoses. Both groups showed levels of psychopathology comparable to other psychiatric populations. It was concluded that clinical samples of ACOAs and adults from dysfunctional families of origin have many problems of clinical proportion. Assessment and treatment of these groups is best done by properly trained professional staff and because of their similar problems and treatment needs the two groups may be treated together.