A Short Measure of the Need for Affect

Summary

Widespread divergencies of opinion exist over the usefulness, the nature, the purpose, and the scientific status of clinical psychological testing. This paper seeks to order these problems in historical and philosophical perspective. Largely different values and orientations have been contributed by traditional American academic psychology, by clinical psychology, and by psychiatry. Academic psychologists advocate a rigorous scientific basis (logical positivism) for testing, which the clinician tends to find overly confining and antagonistic to his humanistic, individual centered, service orientation; while psychiatrists tend to differ greatly among themselves in their understanding of psychological testing and hence exert no uniform influence on the practice. The current trend emphasizes greater sophistication in the academic approach to testing, with advances in empiricism and computer-aided manipulation of data, while the more clinically oriented psychologists seek to strengthen their theoretical position and to demonstrate the effectiveness of their methods through studies of clinical judgment. At the same time basic methodological research to support the “clinical position” is yet too sparse. It is proposed that both academic and clinical approaches have a significant contribution to make to clinical psychological testing. Ultimately the design of psychological tests and the evaluation of their usefulness rests upon what we conceive psychological science to be, and we need to remind ourselves, in this regard, that the conception of science is subject to change.     

A Story About a Stupid Person Can Make You Act Stupid (or Smart): Behavioral Assimilation (and Contrast) as Narrative Impact

Media priming refers to the residual, often unintended consequences of media use on subsequent perceptions, judgments, and behavior. Previous research showed that the media can prime behavior that is in line with the primed traits or concepts (assimilation). However, assimilation is expected to be less likely and priming may even yield reverse effects (contrast) when recipients have a dissimilarity testing mindset. Based on previous research on narrative comprehension and experience as well as research on media priming, a short-term influence of stories on cognitive performance is predicted. In an experimental study, participants (N = 81) read a story about a stupid soccer hooligan. As expected, participants who read the story without a special processing instruction performed worse in a knowledge test than a control group who read an unrelated text. Participants with a reading goal instruction to find dissimilarities between the self and the main protagonist performed better than participants who read the story without this instruction. The effects of reported self-activation and story length were further considered. Future inquiries with narratives as primes and contrast effects in media effects research are discussed.     

Fixed-interval punishment

The average rate of bar-pressing maintained by a variable-interval schedule of milk reinforcement in 33 rats was found to be a decreasing function of intensity of concurrent punishment and, over a wide range of shock intensities, was inversely related to punishment frequency. Cumulative records were, however, negatively accelerated during 30-min punishment sessions with complete suppression occurring earlier and earlier (after fewer and fewer shocks) as intensity increased. In addition, acceleration was often observed between successive fixed-interval shock presentations and, at low and moderate intensities, bursts of responding occurred after each shock. The time to recover between punishment sessions (post-punishment recovery) was an increasing monotonic function of punishment intensity.     

Examining Individual Differences in Interpersonal Influence: On the Psychometric Properties of the Generalized Opinion Leadership Scale (GOLS)

Opinion leadership describes an individual's tendency to informally influence others’ attitudes and overt behaviors. In contrast to contemporary views of opinion leadership as a highly domain-specific trait, this paper introduces a multi-faceted personality trait, generalized opinion leadership (GOL) that characterizes exceptionally influential individuals independent of a specific subject area. Two studies report on the psychometric properties of a scale to assess GOL. Study 1 is based on three independent samples (N = 1,575, N = 1,275, and N = 231) and demonstrates the factorial structure of the instrument and its measurement invariance across sex, age, and educational levels. Study 2 (N = 310) analyzes multitrait-multiinformant data to highlight the scale's discriminant validity with regard to innovativeness and trendsetting.     

Toward a Psychodynamic Approach to Bioethics

Although many first-generation bioethicists were psychiatrists and some received psychoanalytic training, the field of bioethics has developed largely in isolation from psychodynamic theory. While much has been written regarding the ethics of psychoanalysis, only a few scholars have attempted to explain bioethical phenomena in psychodynamic terms. This paper argues for the development of a comprehensive theory of "psychodynamic bioethics" that attempts to explain individual and collective attitudes toward bioethical controversy in psychodynamic terms.     

The effect of drugs on a fixed-ratio performance suppressed by a pre–time-out stimulus,

Pecking was reinforced by a fixed-ratio schedule with food, and responses during a red light produced a time out. If the bird did not respond during the red light, the light terminated and the bird could complete the FR schedule of positive reinforcement uninterrupted. The bird stopped responding during the red light sufficiently to avoid most of the possible time outs. In general, the pre–time-out stimulus suppressed responding more when the FR schedule was large than when it was small. The occurrence of the pre–time-out stimulus in the fixed ratio produced FR strain and extreme curvature atypical of normal fixed ratios of this size. Amobarbital, pentobarbital, chlorpromazine, and d-amphetamine injected when the FR performance was strained by the pre–time-out procedure produced marked increases in responding. The drug administration lowered the rate of responding only at larger doses; and then this occurred predominantly just after the injection.