No Evidence of Suicide Increase Following Terrorist Attacks in the United States: An Interrupted Time‐Series Analysis of September 11 and Oklahoma City

There is substantial evidence of detrimental psychological sequelae following disasters, including terrorist attacks. The effect of these events on extreme responses such as suicide, however, is unclear. We tested competing hypotheses about such effects by employing autoregressive integrated moving average techniques to model the impact of September 11 and the Oklahoma City bombing on monthly suicide counts at the local, state, and national level. Unlike prior studies that provided conflicting evidence, rigorous time series techniques revealed no support for an increase or decrease in suicides following these events. We conclude that while terrorist attacks produce subsequent psychological morbidity and may affect self and collective efficacy well beyond their immediate impact, these effects are not strong enough to influence levels of suicide mortality.     

Developmental change in the understanding of affective meaning in music

The development of the understanding of affective meaning in music was investigated. Subjects aged 4, 5, 6, and 19 assigned verbal labels to musical segments previously determined by adults to be representative of one of four affects (happy, sad, angry, afraid). Analysis of correct interpretations and errors revealed a pattern of interactions among age, sex, and affect indicating that the ability to verbalize an understanding of affective meaning in music consistent with that of adult subjects is present during the preschool years. Age-related similarities in performance, as well as differences favoring both younger and older subjects, were observed and were discussed in relation to recent research in, and theories of, affective development and communication.The authors thank H. Julia Hannay, Edward Kemery, Shiela MacDonald, and Robert McGrath for their assistance in this research. The conceptual inspiration of Joseph Intrieri is gratefully acknowledged. We also thank Leslie Brody, Robin Hornik, and several anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft of the paper. Portions of this research were presented at the Southeastern Conference on Human Development, Baltimore, April 1982.     

A developmental evaluation of the role of word shape in word recognition

Fourth- and seventh-grade children and college-age adults proofread passages typed either in lowercase or in all capital letters. Words were misspelled by deleting one of four letters, s, c, k, or p, that have similar features in lowercase and uppercase. Proofreading errors decreased with age and increasing reading ability, but all of the subjects were sensitive to changes in word shape--they missed more words with deletions of s or c than k or p in the lowercase passage but not in the all-capitals passage. These findings indicate that word shape is an important variable in recognizing familiar words, even for young readers.     

Genetic counseling for deaf adults: Communication/language and cultural considerations

It has been estimated that at least 50% of congenital or early onset deafness loss has a genetic etiology. Genetic services have traditionally been utilized by hearing parents of deaf children. Deaf adults could also greatly benefit from genetic counseling services. However, many deaf adults do not seek genetic services due in part to the communication/language and cultural differences of this group. Deaf people communicate in various ways including the use of sign language, oral communication, writing, or a combination of these modes. Also, while some deaf individuals are part of the hearing culture, others are part of the Deaf culture which has its own language, values, and traditions. Culturally Deaf individuals do not see themselves as handicapped or disabled. The genetic professional's awareness of the communication/language and cultural needs of this group, as well as their agency's responsibilities under section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, may increase the accessibility of genetic services and contribute to the provision of successful genetic counseling for deaf adults.Throughout this paper, the term deaf will be used to denote a person who audiologically has a hearing loss which may range from mild to profound and may be sensorineural, conductive, or mixed. However, the term Deaf is used to denote cultural deafness.     

Perception,meaning, and mind

Earlier versions of this paper were read in the Philosophy department at the University of Helsinki, in the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh, at Vanderbilt University, at the Indiana Philosophical Association, and at the Institute for Logic and Cognitive Science at the University of Houston. I am grateful for very helpful comments on each of these occasions, and I am especially appreciative to John Haugeland, Mark Johnson, and George McClure for their comments and suggestions. Thanks, too, to Robert Solomon who urged me to amplify my claims about perceptual meaning.     

Changes in energy expenditure and work during response acquisition in rats

The principle of least effort predicts that behavior will tend to maximum efficiency. To test this prediction, changes in the energy expended (VO2) and work performed per reinforcement were monitored continuously as rats learned to press a beam with a criterion force for liquid food rewards. All 12 subjects exhibited significant decreases in energy expended per reinforcement over the 16 days of observation. Of these, 10 subjects also decreased the work performed per reinforcement. Analyses of motor performance were undertaken to determine how motor programs for changing efficiency were generated. The 10 animals showing decreased work reinforcement also exhibited significant decreases in the variability of temporal and kinetic response features and in mean response magnitude (time integral of force or work per response) as a function of practice. Adjustments in work output were primarily accomplished by modifying temporal response features (response duration and, initially, interresponse time). The kinetic features (response recruitment and peak force) remained relatively constant for these animals. The remaining 2 subjects differed in that response recruitment increased after Day 9, resulting in progressively larger amounts of work being performed to earn each reinforcement, and the interval between successive reinforcements decreased.     

Delusions and hallucinations as a reflection of the subcultural milieu among psychotic patients of the 1930s and 1980s

Delusions and hallucinations reported in the social histories of 150 patients admitted to an East Texas state hospital during the 1930s and of 150 patients admitted during the 1980s were examined for content that would characterize and contrast the patient subcultural milieu of the two time periods. Patients admitted during the 1930s tended to reflect the material deprivation and personal powerlessness of the great depression in delusions of great wealth and positive "special powers." The hallucinatory visions and voices of the 1980s patients reflected a more threatening and negative subcultural milieu, with more visions of blood, snakes, and dead people or animals. Command hallucinations to hurt, to kill, or to do "perverse things" would also suggest that the subculture milieu of the 1980s had become more dangerous.     

The borderline diagnosis and integration of self

To try to encompass what is meant by borderline with parameters that are too delineating can lead to conceptual difficulties and confusion for several reasons: The human psyche is too complex and probably has too much of the quality of a gestalt to be understood adequately by dichotomizing thinking; an individual does not experience himself as operating in discrete units, but as a unified whole; and the most characteristic manifest quality of the borderline picture is its tendency toward a chaotic functioning that somehow always spills over any defining boundaries which are set up to attain conceptual containment. If we then accept our limitations on the precision and order with which we can comprehend it, the understanding of borderline might be supplemented by seeing it in terms of the subjective experience of an integrated self. This offers a more holistic approach that tends not to be so subject to objectifying compartmentalization. It is more in tune with the subjective experiencing a person has of that which defines and moves him in the world. And it offers a referent axis along which the distance one has traveled in the borderline direction might be gleaned. Finally, the relationship of the borderline diagnosis to character disorder might be looked this way: The diagnosis does not refer to a particular character disorder or to a group of disorders. It emerges in all character pathology to the degree that the experiencing of an integrated and whole sense of self, which is at the heart of character structure, is diminished.