A token economy program for chronic schizophrenic patients

Abstract.— A token economy program was applied on a ward for 12 chronic schizophrenic patients. An ABABC-design, i.e. a group reversal design with a noncontingent reinforcement phase at the end, was used to evaluate the treatment. The patients' activity-level increased from baseline to the treatment phase. During the reversal period the activity-level decreased but it increased again when the token economy was reintroduced. The non-contingent reinforcement resulted in the predicted decrease for two of the six behaviors recorded. Five of the twelve patients were discharged from the ward during the 8-month program period and none of them had been readmitted at the end of the one year follow-up. Individual treatment programs for two of the patients concerning aggressive acts, deficient eye-contact and lip-biting are described.     

Personality trait inferences of Turkish immigrant and neutral targets: An experimental study

Sandal, G. M. Bye, H. H. & Pallesen, S. (2012). Personality trait inferences of Turkish immigrant and neutral targets: An experimental study. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 53, 528–533. The study investigated whether personality traits attributed to immigrant targets differ from personality inferences made for a neutral target, and whether trait attributions differ for assimilated and integrated immigrant targets. Participants (n = 340) were randomized to one of three conditions in which they read the same story about a person, but where the person was described as either: (a) an assimilated Turkish immigrant; (b) an integrated Turkish immigrant; or (c) neutral (no nationality or religious practice indicated). Subsequently, they rated the personality of the described person on the NEO‐Five Factor Inventory (observer rating version) and completed the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (Impression Management scale) with reference to themselves. Both immigrant targets were rated as significantly higher on extraversion and lower on neuroticism than the neutral target. The integrated target was rated as more open than the neutral target, and as higher than the assimilated target on neuroticism when controlling for impression management.     

The relative impact of workplace bullying as a social stressor at work

Hauge, L. J., Skogstad, A. & Einarsen, S. (2010). The relative impact of workplace bullying as a social stressor at work. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 426–433. Exposure to workplace bullying has been argued to be a severe social stressor and a more crippling and devastating problem for affected individuals than the effects of all other work‐related stressors put together. However, few studies have explicitly investigated this assumption. In a representative sample of the Norwegian working population, the present study investigated the relative contribution of workplace bullying as a predictor of individual and organizational related outcomes after controlling for the well‐documented job stressors of job demands, decision authority, role ambiguity and role conflict. Bullying was found to be a significant predictor of all the outcomes included, showing a substantial relative contribution in relation to anxiety and depression, while for job satisfaction, turnover intention and absenteeism, more modest relative contributions were identified. Workplace bullying is indeed a potent social stressor with consequences similar to, or even more severe than, the effects of other stressors frequently encountered within organizations. Thus, the finding that bullying has a considerable effect on exposed individuals also when controlling for the effects of other job stressors demonstrates bullying as a serious problem at workplaces that needs to be actively prevented and managed in its own right.     

Dual processes in reasoning?

Previous results have shown that the introduction of negatives into the sentences used in a deductive problem affected behavior in a systematic way which was independent of the logical structure of the problem. In the present investigation, the subjects were asked to justify their responses when reasoning about such sentences. In accordance with previous results, the responses were dominated by the terms in the sentences regardless of whether they were negated. However, the justifications did vary when negatives were introduced in accordance with the logical consequences of the responses. The interpretation of these justifications as causes of behavior seemed implausible. It was suggested that they were rationalizations, or that there was at least some form of dual processing between behavior and conscious thought.     

MATCHING BIAS IN THE SELECTION TASK

A previous study (Evans, 1972) found that subjects tend to match rather than alter named values when constructing verifying and falsifying cases of conditional rules. It was suggested that this tendency (‘matching bias’) might account for the responses normally observed in Wason's (1968, 1969) ‘selection task’. This suggestion was tested by giving subjects the selection task with conditional rules in which the presence and absence of negative components was systematically varied, to see whether subjects consistently attempted to verify the rules (Wason's theory) or whether they continued to choose the matching values despite the presence of negatives, which would reverse the logical meaning of such selections. Significant matching tendencies were observed on four independent measures, and the overall pattern, with matching bias cancelled out, gave no evidence for a verification bias, indicating instead that the logically correct values were most frequently chosen.     

Operationalizing relational turbulence theory: Measurement and construct validation

This study assessed measures operationalizing concepts in relational turbulence theory (Solomon, Knobloch, Theiss, & McLaren, 2016). Studies of relational turbulence in marriage have used measures developed in research on dating couples; therefore, one goal was evaluating these variables in a general population sample of married individuals (N = 1,469). A second goal addressed problems in measures of relational uncertainty by assessing alternative scales. Third, associations between relational turbulence theory variables and measures of cognitive, emotional, and communicative phenomena were estimated. Fourth, the distinctiveness of relational turbulence measures relative to measures of other relational qualities was assessed. The conclusions advance new, Likert relational uncertainty scales and highlight the validity of relational turbulence constructs as distinctive predictors of cognitions, emotions, and communication.     

Depression is not an inevitable outcome of disclosure avoidance: HIV stigma and mental health in a cohort of HIV-infected individuals from Southern India

Previous research has shown that HIV stigma in India can be characterized by a framework dividing manifestations into enacted (discrimination), vicarious (hearing stories of discrimination), felt normative (perceptions of stigma's prevalence), and internalized stigma (personal endorsement of stigma beliefs). We examined whether this framework could explain associations among stigma, efforts to avoid HIV serostatus disclosure, and depression symptoms in a cohort of 198 HIV-infected individuals from Southern India who were followed up for one year as part of a study of antiretroviral adherence. Prior studies had suggested that disclosure avoidance was a primary outcome of stigma and that impaired well-being was a primary outcome of disclosure avoidance. Analyses from our longitudinal research revealed that the pattern of associations among stigma, disclosure avoidance, and depression symptoms remained consistent over time. Enacted and vicarious stigmas were correlated with felt normative stigma beliefs. In turn, felt normative stigma was correlated with disclosure avoidance. And, enacted stigma, internalized stigma, and disclosure avoidance were all associated with depression symptoms. However, even though the overall framework held together, internalized stigma and depression symptoms dropped significantly over time while other components remained unchanged. These findings suggest that, although HIV stigma may limit disclosure, it does not invariably lead to psychological maladjustment. Amidst ongoing perceptions and experiences of stigma, HIV-positive individuals can achieve significant improvements in their acceptance of the disease and in mental well-being.     

STATE OF SCIENCE IN INDUSTRIAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY: A REVIEW OF SELF-REPORTED LIMITATIONS

This study investigated self-reported limitations of published papers as an alternative and novel operationalization of the state of science of industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology. A content analysis was conducted of the reported limitations in every I-O psychology articles published in the Academy of Management Journal, the Journal of Applied Psychology, and Personnel Psychology between 1995 and 2008 (N= 2,402). Articles were coded for the number and types of limitations reported, characteristics of the research design, and topic area. Threats to internal validity were the most often reported limitations. In addition, variations were detected in the reporting of limitations over time, indicating a subtle but steady shift in the focus of I-O psychology research. Implications of these results for the science and practice of I-O psychology and for the use of self-reported limitations in scientific communication are discussed.     

Interpretation and matching bias in a reasoning task

Subjects were required to construct verifying and falsifying cases of conditional rules in which the presence and absence of negative components was varied. Their responses gave some indication of consistent interpretation of the rules, generally conforming to Wason's (1966) idea of a “defective” truth table. Much of their behaviour, however, seemed to be determined by a task variable in the form of a tendency to construct instances which matched, rather than altered, the values named in the rules.