The Rate and Characteristics of Suicide Attempters in the Native Hawaiian Adolescent Population

Native Hawaiian high school students, N = 1779, were surveyed for symptoms of psycho-pathology and suicide attempts in the previous 6 months. Seventy-seven (4.3%) of the students reported making a suicide attempt. There were no significant differences in prevalence rates for males and females. Depression, anxiety, aggression, substance abuse symptoms, and low family support, but not peer support, were significantly correlated with suicide attempts. On logistic regression, depression, substance abuse, and family support independently predicted attempts. The lack of gender difference may indicate a cultural characteristic of the Hawaiian population that differentiates it from mainstream American populations but likens it to the Native American population.     

Response latency measurements to visual cognitive tasks by normal hearing and deaf subjects

Visual cognitive differences between hearing (N = 16) and deaf (N = 32) high-school and middle-school students were studied. Visual tasks were presented on a microcomputer and response latencies were collected. Significant differences were noted between the deaf and normal groups but not between total communication deaf and oral deaf students. These differences support the hypothesis that deaf students prefer a visual cognitive strategy. Implications for educating the deaf are discussed.     

Slips of the analyst.

Understanding the analyst's work and its vicissitudes has been a major focus of recent psychoanalytic writing. This study on slips of the analyst represents an attempt to advance our understanding of analytic work. The slips described support the view that slips reflect not simply contributions from instinctual life, but active work-related goals of the analyst in carrying out the analytic tasks. Countertransference is discussed as reflected in the disturbance of intentionality betrayed by the occurrence of a slip. The essential role of the analyst's understanding his or her own reactions is emphasized.     

Neurological soft signs and school achievement: The mediating effects of sustained attention

A group of 115 black male adolescents drawn from a clinically unselected birth cohort, half of whom were known to have had neurological soft signs at age 7, were examined at age 17 to determine the relation between soft signs and performance on standard tests of school achievement and sustained attention. Three signs measured at age 17-dysgraphesthesia, difficulties with rapid alternating movements (dysdiadochokinesis), and motor slowness—were related to lower concurrent and past IQ and to impaired performance on laboratory and paper-and-pencil measures of sustained attention. The relation between signs and the attentional measures remained significant after IQ was statistically controlled. The three age 17 soft signs as well as age 7 signs were related to impaired performance on standardized tests (age 17) of school achievement. Most of the relation between signs and school achievement could be accounted for by the variance signs shared with sustained attention. One sign, mirror movements, was unrelated to all other attentional and cognitive measures.The study was supported by center grant MH 306906 and research training grant 5 T32 MH 13043-13 from the National Institute of Mental Health, as well as by the City College and the City University Computing Centers. We thank Lillian Belmont and two reviewers for their critical comments on an earlier version of the paper. We dedicate this paper to the memory of Joseph Barmack.     

Continuities in the development of the physical and social sciences: Principles of a new social physics

The original concept of “social physics” was built on positivist philosophy and scientific method. Evidence from quantum physics suggests that a postpositivist “social physics” may yet be viable, not because social science should emulate physics, but because physics is more like social science. The five principles of complementarty, uncertainty, the measurement problem, nonlocal causation, and participatory collusion are presented in this article to demonstrate the contemporary convergence of the physical and social sciences into a new social physics. E. Sam Overman is associate professor of public affairs at the Graduate School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado at Denver, Denver CO 80204. He recently editedMethodology and Epistemology for Social Science, selected papers by Donald T. Campbell (University of Chicago Press, 1988). He has published other articles on policy physics and social science philosophy, and has conducted research and published extensively in the area of information resource policy and management.     

Metaphors do not use associations between concepts,they are used to create them

Does the interpretability and aptness of a metaphor depend on prior existing associative relations between the metaphor topic and vehicle? Lexical decision latencies for pairs of words drawn from apt, comprehensible metaphors were no faster than latencies for randomly paired words. In contrast, lexical decision latencies for associatively related word pairs were faster than latencies for randomly paired words. These data suggest that good metaphors do not use preexisting associations to achieve their effects. Instead, we argue tht people use metaphors to create new relations between concepts. Implications for a theory of metaphor comprehension are discussed.     

“Put a Little Love in Your Heart”: Acceptance of Paternalistic and Ally Political Discourses Both Predict Pro-Roma Solidarity Intentions Through Moral Inclusion

The way politicians talk about minorities institutes the normative context of intergroup relations. We investigated how endorsement of different political discourses predicts donation and collective action intentions by majority members toward the Roma in five European countries. The survey was conducted online using samples demographically similar to the populations of Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, France, and Ireland (N = 5,054). First, results showed that accepting paternalistic discourse versus discourse promoting allyship were not distinguishable; both promoted higher moral inclusion which in turn predicted higher prosocial intentions. Second, donations (i.e., immediate relief) and collective action (i.e., social change action) were driven by identical factors. Third, acceptance of openly hostile political discourse neither predicted moral exclusion, nor lower prosocial intentions. In summary, our research provides important evidence that when it comes to Roma—non-Roma relations, the previously established distinction between solidarity intentions that aim to solidify status relations versus bring about social change is completely blurred, presumably because of the social context in which any positive message communicates moral inclusion challenging the hostile status quo.     

Role of intertrial interval following an escape or avoidance response in bar-press avoidance

In three experiments, rats learned bar-press avoidance as a function of the intertrial interval following an escape or an avoidance. The general hypothesis is that the length of these intervals affects bar-press avoidance differentially, depending on whether an avoidance follows an escape (avoidance/escape) or an avoidance (avoidance/avoidance) on the previous trial. Specifically, it is proposed that short escape ITIs will facilitate avoidance/escape and avoidance/avoidance, while avoidance ITIs will have no effect on avoidance responding. The results tend to support this hypothesis. The shorter the intertrial interval following an escape, the higher the probability of both measures: avoidance/escape and avoidance/avoidance. No effect of avoidance interval was found on avoidance/avoidance. Unpredictedly, however, it was found that in comparison to a very short intertrial interval following an avoidance (0.5 sec), relatively long intervals (5 and 45 sec) facilitate avoidance/escape. These results were interpreted as mainly reflecting nonassociative factors such as shock-produced activity.     

If the boy loves the girl and the girl loves the dog,does the boy love the dog?: The overgeneralization of verbal transitive inference skills

Two studies investigated 4- to 10-year-old children's capacity to make verbal transitive inferences. The results of the two studies suggest that the development of transitive inference skills follows a specific to general developmental path, and that children overgeneralize their verbal transitive inference skills to inappropriate relational terms prior to determining the general principle that underlies the use of relational terms in transitive sentences.