Sex stereotypes in Norway revisited: 1977–87

In 1977 sex-trait stereotypes in Norway were measured at the young adult level and at the level of five-year-olds. At the young adult level the Adjective Check List was used, and the results were analysed according to an affective meaning scoring system, and a scoring system based on Transactional Analysis. The instrument used for children was a picture-story technique (Sex Stereotype Measure II). Persistence and change in sex-trait stereotypes were examined by replicating the study in 1987. Quantitatively, young adults' sex-trait stereotypes seemed to have changed little during the last decade, but qualitative analyses indicated that stereotypes have changed in the direction of greater favourability, activity and strength towards women and in the reverse direction towards men. The children in the 1987 sample expressed less stereotype knowledge than children in the 1977 sample concerning traits which traditionally have been ascribed to men.     

An experimental investigation of the labelling effect of psychiatric diagnosis

Eighty-six college students in four different classes were shown a videotaped, staged group situation. Two classes viewed a version in which one of the actors behaved in a 'neurotic' fashion. The other two viewed a tape where all actors behaved 'normally'. One class from each of these conditions was told that the actor had been described as severely neurotic, resulting in a total of four experimental conditions. Ratings of subjects' questionnaire data indicated more attribution of psychological disorder when the 'neurotic' label was used. A significant difference between the two tape conditions was also found, indicating a successful behavior manipulation on the tapes. The label also appeared to influence subjects' evaluation of the actor's past.     

Attention and information storage in visual short-term memory

Schioldborg, P. Attention and information storage in visual short-term memory. Scand. J. Psychol., 1973, 14, 1–3.- Information retrieval from STM was examined with Sperling's (1960) method. Of nine letters displayed in rows of three, the number of letters correctly reported from each row differed significantly, the mean being 2.4, 2.2, and 1.6 letters for the middle, upper, and lower row, respectively. By increasing exposure time, number of correctly reported letters increased for each row at equal rate. However, by increasing the delay period of the selection signal, number of letters decreased at different rates, the reduction being 48%, 24%, and 10% for the lower, upper, and middle row respectively. The results are assumed to reflect differences in the initial attention level for the individual item; the smaller this level, the lower the level of information processing and the faster the erasure from STM.     

Contrasting Multi-Generational Attitudes Toward Psychosis in Two Norwegian Families

Two families reacted quite differently when their eldest daughters exhibited unmanageable, psychotic symptoms. One family's reaction was to keep the daughter at home and hide from the world; the other's reaction was to push the daughter out of the family and to forget her. This paper illustrates the influence of cultural, socioeconomic, and psychological backgrounds on these patterns of reaction. The problems of establishing a working relationship with the families are also discussed.     

Affective Forecasting: Predicting and Experiencing Satisfaction With Public Transportation1

Affective forecasting in public transport was investigated in 2 studies. Study 1 revealed differences in satisfaction between users (n = 870) and non‐users (n = 137). Users were more satisfied than were non‐users with regard to reliability and safety, as well as with regard to overall satisfaction. It was also found that non‐users mispredicted their satisfaction with public transport. Study 2 revealed that habitual car users (n = 106) reported greater satisfaction after using public transport for 1 month than they had predicted initially, which provided additional support for the hypothesis that habitual car users would mispredict their satisfaction with public transport. Satisfaction with public transport also increased in comparison with a random sample of car users (n = 63).     

Falsifiability of political opinions

The concept of "falsifiability," taken from philosophy of science, was applied to the individual's political reasoning. 131 undergraduates, taking a position on the nuclear power issue, estimated: (a) importance attached to factual arguments supporting held opinion, and (b) degree of opinion change evoked by hypothetical disconfirmation of the arguments. The relation between these estimates was analyzed in two respects: (1) the difference served as an indicator of opinion falsifiability, and (2) the correlation served as an indicator of rationality, inasmuch as rationality dictates that disconfirmation of important arguments will evoke a more considerable opinion change than disconfirmation of unimportant arguments. Results showed that nuclear power opponents and subjects holding radically formulated opinions were more reluctant to opinion falsification, whereas degree of involvement in the issue was of no importance. No significant differences in rationality were observed, although additional analyses showed subjects to be more sensitive to disconfirmation of accepted, but opinion contradicting, arguments than to disconfirmation of opinion supporting arguments.     

Selective attention and relevance-irrelevance in recall

Abstract.— Recall of relevant and irrelevant items was examined under different types of set, where selection was procured either by a figural or a cognitive attribute of the items. Letters and digits were differentiated by their colour or position (S-set), or by their mutual class (R-set). Recall of irrelevant items proved consistently poorer with selection based on S-set than on R-set. the effect beeing enhanced, the greater the number of items involved. Response latency increased with number of items, being greatest under R-set. The differentiation between relevant and irrelevant categories thus appeared more effective with selection procured by figural attributes, which suggests different levels of information processing of these categories under the two types of set.     

The importance of contextual elements in taste-aversion learning

The effect of exteroceptive contextual cues, presented during the conditioned stimulus (CS) and unconditioned stimulus (US) intervals, upon the later development of conditioned saccharin aversions was studied in two experiments. It was found that the presence of the contextual cues during the CS + US and CS intervals resulted in a greater degree of saccharin aversion; the presence of these cues during the US interval was relatively less important. These findings are discussed in terms of conditioning models and retrieval models derived from animal learning and human information-processing data.     

Is there an optimal factor structure of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale in patients with first‐episode psychosis?

The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) is the most widely used scale to assess a variety of symptoms in patients with schizophrenia and other psychoses. The factor structure of the PANSS has been examined with confirmatory factor analyses in several studies, but not in a well‐defined first‐episode psychosis sample. The aim of this paper is to examine the statistical fit of five different PANSS models in a first‐episode, non‐affective psychosis sample. Confirmatory factor analyses were performed on PANSS data (n = 588). A main criterion for best fit was defined as the Expected Cross Validation Index (ECVI). No tested model revealed an optimally satisfactory model fit index. The Wallwork/Fortgang five‐factor model demonstrated the most optimal psychometric properties. The corresponding subscales of all evaluated five‐factor models were strongly intercorrelated. The Wallwork/Fortgang five‐factor model was found to be statistically and clinically ideal among patients with first‐episode psychosis. Therefore, we recommend this model in forthcoming studies among patients with first‐episode psychosis. However, to prevent the loss of clinically valuable information on an item level, we do not recommend removing any items from the original form. Our study also implies that the specific choice of model will not have a substantial effect on outcome results in studies on the course and outcome in first‐episode psychosis.     

Gender differences on the Five to Fifteen questionnaire in a non‐referred sample with inattention and hyperactivity‐impulsivity and a clinic‐referred sample with hyperkinetic disorder

Lambek, R., Trillingsgaard, A., Kadesjö, B., Damm, D. & Thomsen, P. H. (2010). Gender differences on the Five to Fifteen questionnaire in a non‐referred sample with inattention and hyperactivity‐impulsivity and a clinic‐referred sample with hyperkinetic disorder. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 51, 540–447. The aim of the present study was to examine gender differences in children with inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity on the Five to Fifteen (FTF) parent questionnaire. First, non‐referred girls (n = 43) and boys (n = 51) with problems of attention and hyperactivity‐impulsivity and then clinic‐referred girls (n = 35) and boys (n = 66) with hyperkinetic disorder (HKD) were compared on the FTF. Results suggested that non‐referred boys were more hyperactive‐impulsive than non‐referred girls, whereas clinic‐referred boys and girl with HKD were more similar than dissimilar on the FTF questionnaire. Secondly, it was examined whether the application of gender mixed norms versus gender specific norms would result in varying proportions of clinic‐referred children with HKD being identified as impaired on the subdomains of the FTF questionnaire. Based on results it was concluded that the use of a gender mixed normative sample may lead to overestimation of impairment in boys with HKD, but the type of sample applied to define impairment on the FTF should depend on the purpose for applying the questionnaire.