Success,social comparison,and self-assessment: Parents' midlife evaluations of sons,daughters, and self

The literatures on sex-role socialization and social comparison theory were used to predict how parents would evaluate the life success of adult sons and daughters and how parents' assessments of themselves would be influenced by comparisons with these children. Although parents (N=215) did not report different levels of life success for 291 adult sons versus 251 adult daughters, parental well-being was more closely tied to assessments of sons' success. In addition, although parents' reported that both sons and daughters had exceeded their own life success, theparent-child comparison with daughters was the better predictor of parents' well-being. Findings are discussed in terms of parents' individual development, family processes at midlife, and cohort differences between parents and their children.     

Cognitive function after open-heart surgery: Are postoperative neuropsychological deficits caused by cardiopulmonary bypass?

Despite the many technological developments in arterial perfusion and cardiac surgical procedures, open-heart surgery is still believed to pose a significant risk for cerebral injury. There are several potential causes of brain damage during open-heart surgery, including prolonged or severe arterial hypotension, as well as emboli emanating from the cardiopulmonary bypass circuit or the operative field. This article reviews the available neuropsychological studies of outcome following cardiac valve replacement and coronary artery bypass grafting. Because both procedures are life-saving operations, the research in this area has been quasi-experimental and fraught with methodological problems. Nonetheless, the findings converge to suggest that cognitive dysfunction occurs after open-heart surgery, and that the deficits are attributable, at least in part, to factors specific to the operation or to the patient being maintained on cardiopulmonary bypass. Preliminary findings suggest that embolization is the primary cause of perioperative deficits in uncomplicated operations. Studies have also consistently found preoperative deficits in this population, suggesting that neuropsychological dysfunction is caused by severe chronic cardiac disease as well as open-heart surgery.     

7－15岁儿童对友谊关系的认知及其发展

用以承诺为主题的两难推理故事探查７－１５岁儿童对友谊关系的认知及其发展。结果表明,儿童的有关发展制约于社会观点采择能力的发展和调节友谊关系的道德规范的理解,并表现出阶段结构的发展模式,我国儿童的发展具有某种跨文化的普遍性,也显示出自己的特点。     

Police evaluation research: an experimental and cost-benefit analysis of a helicopter patrol in a high crime area

The significance of a helicopter patrol procedure directed toward prevention of home burglaries was evaluated from experimental and cost-benefit perspectives. The helicopter patrolled one city zone from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for two 12-day periods. Each 12-day period was separated by a baseline period in which only normal patrol-car levels were maintained. Significantly reduced burglary levels during the intervention periods, compared to baseline periods, documented the experimental significance of the helicopter procedure. The cash costs of implementing the patrol procedure were compared to two estimates of the resulting cash benefits. This latter cost-benefit analysis was supplemented by a discussion of the intangible costs and benefits of the helicopter procedure. Taken together, these analyses documented that the marginal costs of the helicopter intervention were exceeded by all estimates of benefits.     

THE BEHAVIOR OBSERVATION INSTRUMENT: A METHOD OF DIRECT OBSERVATION FOR PROGRAM EVALUATION1

The background and development of a multicategory direct observation system, the Behavior Observation Instrument (BOI), is described. This time-sampling procedure for recording the behavior of persons is demonstrated in several treatment settings and the results applied to issues of program evaluation. Elements that have prevented direct observation from being widely adopted, such as costs, manpower, and training requirements, are systematically analyzed. A basic psychometric analysis of the instrument is used to determine optimum frequency and duration of observation intervals as well as observer agreement. The results imply that direct observation methods, once assumed by some to belong to the special province of the single-subject design, can be used to assess the effects of programs on groups of psychiatric clients in an efficient and economic manner.     

NATURALISTIC OBSERVATIONS OF INSTITUTIONALIZED RETARDED PERSONS: A COMPARISON OF LICENSURE DECISIONS AND BEHAVIORAL OBSERVATIONS

In the last several years, various organizations have produced strikingly similar documents by which institutions for retarded persons are judged for licensure. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether residential units that were licensed differed from residential units that were not licensed in terms of the active programming behaviors of their staff and residents. Data were collected through a time-sampling procedure that yielded about 160,000 observations on eight staff and six resident behaviors. Results showed that the licensed units were just as derelict as unlicensed units in providing habilitative programming for their retarded residents. Maladaptive responding by residents occurred at least as much as task-related behaviors: residents spent as much time self-stimulating as they did in programming; they also engaged in self-abusive behavior about as much time as they engaged in on-task responding. Results were discussed in terms of the failure of governmental regulations that are not based on observation to adequately assess habilitative programming.     

Do medical decision analyses' largest gains grow from the smallest trees?

Some decision analysts recommend reserving their models for careful, complete study of complex problems. Others believe simple problem analyses provide the greatest gains. To clarify these issues, I tested: (1) whether simple published analyses compared to complex ones, produced results as non-intuitive; and (2) whether non-intuitiveness represented analytic gain (or equivalently, intuitive loss). Very limited data also examined (3) the gain from adding model intricacy for a given problem vs. selecting more complex problems for analysis. To assess two non-intuitiveness measures, 75 subjects (33 physicians and 42) non-physicians stated their intuitive preferences in 40 (22 published and 18 unpublished) medical dilemmas. For both physicians and non-physicians, simpler models (those with lees than 30 terminal branches in the decision tree) had about one third the non-intuitiveness of more complex ones. Three tests also supported the premise that analyses outperform intuition, therefore that on average the formers' non-intuitiveness reflects less analytic gain. In addition, for different models of the same problem, tree complexity did not correlate with gain. Thus, simpler trees may not generally gain less because they inadequately describe problems. Instead, simpler analyses may represent simpler problems, with more similar intuitive and formal solutions. If so, these findings may help us avoid some costly but unnecessary simple analyses.     

Behavioral assessment and treatment of acquired visuoperceptual disorders

Visuoperceptual deficits are common sequelae of damage to either hemisphere of the brain, but are typically more pronounced following injuries involving the right cerebral hemisphere. Common visuoperceptual disorders include visual field cuts, hemi-inattention and hemi-spatial neglect, hemi-perceptual deficits, and gaze and visual pursuit disturbances. A number of behavioral interventions have been developed to teach patients to compensate for acquired visual deficits. Studies addressing assessment and treatment issues in this area are reviewed, and future directions for research are outlined.     

The cognitive interview: Its origins,empirical support,evaluation and practical implications

This paper provides a background to current research on the cognitive interview (CI), which is a set of cognitive retrieval techniques designed to facilitate memory search (for example, via reinstatement of contextual cues). One of the principal aims of this research is to identify and develop techniques which police investigators can themselves use. A series of studies were conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles, using police officers as interviewers and students, non-students and children as witnesses to realistic crimes. In all studies the CI elicited significantly more correct information with no apparent increase in errors or confabulations. The CI has been tested in a field study involving police officers in Florida. This paper will critically review this research, as well as more recent unpublished work including CI studies conducted in Germany and the UK. Some important modifications of the original CI procedure are described, and there is a theoretical discussion and explanation of the various components of the CI procedure. Finally, we will consider applications of the CI in clinical and organizational settings.     

Thoughts and feelings and things: A new psychiatric epistemology

Epistemology — the study of knowledge — is a philosophical discipline with close ties to psychiatry. When epistemologists address specific questions about how knowledge is actually realized by human beings, their philosophy must be informed by empirical studies of the sort psychiatrists now take up in a variety of forms. As this paper describes, psychiatrists can likewise improve their understanding of human psychology through a deeper appreciation of philosophical analysis in epistemology.The aim of this article is to introduce a unifying framework within which the experience from different approaches to psychiatry — (1) the conceptual schemas of cognitive psychiatry, (2) the mental structures of psychoanalytic psychiatry, (3) the categorical forms of existential psychiatry, and (4) the neural pathways of biological psychiatry — can all be applied productively to the central question of epistemology. By establishing a broad understanding of the problem of knowledge, this new view of epistemology is developed within the idiom of each psychiatric approach. In addressing themselves to a unitary problem, these diverse psychiatric approaches are themselves revealed, not as competing points of view, but as complementary views of a single subject. The result is a new epistemology that can not only bring the insights of psychiatry to philosophy, but can also contribute to the care of patients when psychiatrists bring this broader view to their clinical work.