Child psychology in Canada: Review of Child development: Selected readings.

Reviews the book, Child Development: Selected Readings by L. Brockman, J. Whiteley, and J. Zubek (Eds.) (1973). In their attractive paperback, University of Manitoba psychologists Lois Brockman, John Whiteley, and John Zubek have wisely not chosen Canadianism at all costs, but instead have compiled a good collection of standard readings with some Canadian extras. The articles are predominantly individual research reports, accompanied by a few research reviews and theoretical or historical papers, and the student is introduced to the giants of the field regardless of nationality--Piaget, Terman, Harlow, Kagan, and others. Beyond this, where it is possible to illustrate major types of developmental work with Canadian-based literature, this has been done. Over 1/2 of the 41 selections have Canadian authors or subjects. Articles by Hebb, Walters, Laurendeau and Pinard, Melzack, and Lambert leave no doubt as to the major contributions Canada's psychologists have made to the field of developmental psychology. A great deal of effort has gone into creating a worthwhile textbook of readings, and on the whole, the work of the editors is excellent. In addition to providing good introductions to each selection, they have included six completely new papers, and have excerpted, summarized, combined, or otherwise reworked several articles to make them more suitable for student readers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Strategies of therapeutic intervention—classification by restraining and driving forces.

Presents the conceptual framework for a new method of classification of strategies of therapeutic intervention. The classification is based on the terms driving force and restraining force, where a driving force operates in the direction of achieving the therapeutic aim and a restraining force operates against this direction. Seven strategies are identified, and each is illustrated by an example from the literature. The seven strategies are (a) enhancing the driving forces, (b) reducing the restraining forces, (c) preventing the driving forces from reducing each other's effects, (d) preventing the restraining forces from enhancing each other's effects, (e) causing the driving forces to enhance each other's effects, (f) causing the restraining forces to reduce each other's effects, and (g) transforming the restraining forces into driving forces. The theoretical and practical value of the classification is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beneath the surface of long-term therapy: Therapist and client report of their own and each other's covert processes.

Therapists and clients reported on their own and their perceptions of each other's covert processes in long-term therapy. Therapists had a match rate of .45 for client reactions, with therapists rating match on therapeutic work reactions as helpful. Although 65% of clients left somethimg unsaid (primarily because of avoidance), only 27% of therapists were able to match what clients left unsaid. Of the clients, 46% had secrets (often sexual), primarily because of shame or insecurity. Clients had a match rate of .50 for therapist intentions, with therapists rating match on exploratory and restructuring intentions as helpful and both clients and therapists rating match on assessment intentions as not helpful. Thus, awareness of the other's covert processes had an effect on therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

More on Harlow.

Comments on "Nature of love--simplified" by Harlow and Suomi (see record 1970-15730-001). The comment notes that Harlow and Suomi omit a reference to Karl Bühler (1930), who discovered that very young crying infants could be quieted as well by contacts with a hot water bottle or soft cushion as by the mother's caresses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How Two Share a Task: Corepresenting Stimulus-Response Mappings.

Previous research has shown that individuals unintentionally adjust their behavior to others by mimicking others' actions and by synchronizing their actions with others. This study investigated whether individuals form a representation of a coactor's task when the context does not require interpersonal coordination. Pairs of participants performed a reaction time (RT) task alongside each other, responding to 2 different dimensions of the same stimulus. Results showed that each actor's performance was influenced by the other's task. RTs on trials that required a response from both participants were slowed compared with trials that required only a response from 1 actor. Similar results were observed when each participant knew the other's task but could not observe the other's actions. These findings provide evidence that shared task representations are formed in social settings that do not require interpersonal coordination and emerge as a consequence of how a social situation is conceptualized (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Scented surrogates?

Research into olfaction and chemical communication in both higher and lower organisms suggests that olfaction may have played a significant role in H. F. Harlow and S. J. Suomi's (see record 1970-15730-001) classical work on attachment behavior shown by infant monkeys to surrogates. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distinguished Scientific Contribution Awards: 1960.

A citation, biography, photograph, and scientific publications list are presented for each of the 3 recipients: Harry Frederick Harlow, Charles Egerton Osgood, and Stanley Smith Stevens. From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2AC89A. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comment on the "Social Science Reporter".

Inotice in the Psychological Notes and News section of the April American Psychologist an announcement of a publication (Social Science Reporter) which presents abstracts of research significant for management, published by a Mr. Harlow. In view of the high value which Mr. Harlow apparently sets on his publication by charging $250 a year for a four-page newsletter which appears twice a month, and in view of the fact that the social scientists who do the research which provides his material receive little or no compensation for its use, it seems to me that psychologists should consider whether or not they wish to allow the use of their material for the profit of Mr. Harlow. I would very much like to see a committee of the APA investigate this enterprise, and report whether or not it deserves our cooperation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The ancestry of the surrogate mother.

Comments on the awarding of the American Psychological Foundation's Gold Medal Award for 1973 to H. F. Harlow. This well-deserved honor is based in part on Harlow's contributions (e.g., Harlow et al, 1971) to developmental psychology and primatology, including the use of the surrogate mother technique. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Forming impressions from stereotypes, traits, and behaviors: A parallel-constraint-satisfaction theory.

The authors propose a parallel-constraint-satisfaction theory of impression formation that assumes that social stereotypes and individuating information such as traits or behaviors constrain each other's meaning and jointly influence impressions of individuals. Building on models of text comprehension (W. Kintsch, see record 1988-28529-001), the authors describe a connectionist model that can account for the major findings on how stereotypes affect impressions of individuals in the presence of different kinds of individuating information; how stereotypes, behaviors, and traits affect each other's meaning; and how multiple stereotypes jointly affect impressions. Most of these findings can be modeled by constraint networks, which suggests that they may be due to relatively automatic processes that require little conscious inference. The authors also point to a small number of phenomena that involve more controlled processes. The advantages of the authors' parallel model over serial models are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparison of a written feedback procedure, group brainstorming, and individual brainstorming.

Compared the productivity of a written feedback procedure with that of group and individual brainstorming in 48 undergraduates divided into 4-member groups. The written feedback procedure consisted of group members generating ideas independently, receiving written copies of each other's ideas, and then resuming to work independently. Each group generated solutions to 2 brainstorming problems. The productivity of both the written feedback procedure and individual brainstorming exceeded that of group brainstorming. The productivity of the written feedback procedure did not differ significantly from that of individual brainstorming. Results suggest that, as presently applied, the utility of the written feedback procedure does not exceed that of individual brainstorming. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

National Medal of Science Award.

Announcement that former APA President Harry F. Harlow was named a 1967 recipient of the National Medal of Science--the Federal Government's highest award for distinguished achievement in science, mathematics, and engineering. The Medal was established in 1959 to be awarded by the President to individuals "deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to knowledge in the physical, biological, mathematical, or engineering sciences." The Medal was awarded to Harlow and 11 others at a special ceremony at the White House. A summary of Harlow's career is provided in this announcement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Employee Commitment and Motivation: A Conceptual Analysis and Integrative Model.

Theorists and researchers interested in employee commitment and motivation have not made optimal use of each other's work. Commitment researchers seldom address the motivational processes through which commitment affects behavior, and motivation researchers have not recognized important distinctions in the forms, foci, and bases of commitment. To encourage greater cross-fertilization, the authors present an integrative framework in which commitment is presented as one of several energizing forces for motivated behavior. E. A. Locke's (1997) model of the work motivation process and J. P. Meyer and L. Herscovitch's (2001) model of workplace commitments serve as the foundation for the development of this new framework. To facilitate the merger, a new concept, goal regulation, is derived from self-determination theory (E. L. Deci & R. M. Ryan, 1985) and regulatory focus theory (E. I. Higgins, 1997). By including goal regulation, it is acknowledged that motivated behavior can be accompanied by different mindsets that have particularly important implications for the explanation and prediction of discretionary work behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mutual relevance of mainstream and cross-cultural psychology.

Mainstream and cross-cultural psychologists have shared one salient characteristic: a general disinterest in each other's work. However, despite this mutual neglect, the two subdisciplines actually address many of the same basic issues. If culture is seen as a complex, multidimensional structure rather than as a simple categorical variable, cross-cultural studies can be viewed as a direct and logical extension of our search for the causes of variation in human psychology and psychopathology. More important, the search for culturally correlated factors is necessary for any comprehensive psychological theory. Differences in theoretical orientation and methodological approach that serve to divide the field are seen as complementary when such a framework is adopted. Barriers to communication, such as stereotyping and the use of specialized terminology, are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Empathic accuracy in the interactions of male friends versus male strangers.

In unstructured interactions, male friends were found to be more accurate than male strangers in inferring each other's thoughts and feelings. Plausible reasons for this difference were that friends (1) interacted more and exchanged more information, (2) had more similar personalities and therefore more rapport with each other, and (3) had more detailed knowledge of each other's lives. Data confirmed that the friends did indeed interact more and were more similar in their sociability than the strangers; however, these differences did not account for the friends' greater empathic accuracy. Instead, this was primarily attributable to a difference in knowledge structures, namely, the friends' ability to accurately read their partners' thoughts and feelings about imagined events in another place or time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experimental validity: Brunswik, Campbell, Cronbach, and enduring issues.

Donald Campbell and Lee Cronbach had a long history of mutual respect for and fundamental disagreement with each other's ideas about experimental validity. Issues that Campbell labeled as external validity, Cronbach labeled internal validity. Issues that Campbell labeled internal validity, Cronbach suggested are trivial. Nevertheless, these methodological pioneers share much common ground, in part because of their alliance with Egon Brunswik. As science moved from a deterministic to a probabilistic paradigm, all 3 endeavored to protect behavioral science from validity-threatening practices that could result from naive use of the Fisherian approach to scientific investigation. This review shows that issues concerning the prioritization of types of validity still need to be resolved and that most social scientists do not understand internal validity. Several empirical practices for enhancing validity are suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of PGE2 and PGF2alpha on the response of guinea pig myometrium to adenine nucleotides in vitro

Prostaglandins E2 and F2alpha potentiate contractile effect induced by adenine nucleotides ATP, ADP and AMP in guinea pig myometrium in vitro. Prostaglandins and nucleotides were added to the organ bath in minute concentrations which have been proved ineffective or slightly contractile when both groups of substances were administered separately. The data of the present work, together with our previously published studies (9, 10, 13), where the action of exogenous adenine nucleotides, NAD and adenosine on rabbit's jejunum in vitro has been proved antagonistic to the contractile effect of various prostaglandins, suggest that prostaglandins and adenine nucleotides appear to block selectively or augment each other's action on various organs. The initial hypothesis that there is a regulatory correlation between endogenous prostaglandins and the function of purinergic nerves also is reinforced.     

Reliability and validity of scales for assessing behavior in epilepsy.

Behavior Rating Scales for Epilepsy (BRSE), developed to assess 8 characteristics that have been attributed to patients with epilepsy, were rated from a semistructured interview with 79 outpatients (aged 19–69 yrs) with epilepsy and from an independent interview with a friend or relative of each patient. Patients and observers also completed the Bear and Fedio Inventory (BFI) for assessing behavior change in epilepsy. Interrater reliability estimates exceeded .75 for 5 BRSE scales. Convergent and discriminant validity were demonstrated for all but 2 BRSE scales when comparing patient with observer-based rating. BRSE results showed correspondence with BFI-Observer scores for most scales but not with BFI-Patient scales. BFI-Observer scores also showed little association with BFI-Patient scores. The BRSE shows promise as a time-efficient, psychometrically sound assessment instrument for further research on behavioral aspects of epilepsy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)