In search of the benefits of learning Latin.

The authors studied whether Latin or French as a foreign curricular language is a better preparation for learning Spanish. Fifty native German speakers who took a university Spanish course concluded their course with a translation test. English was the 1st foreign language for all students, whereas half of them had learned French and the other half had learned Latin as their 2nd foreign language at school. Participants who had learned French at school made markedly fewer grammar errors and slightly fewer vocabulary errors in the Spanish test than participants who had learned Latin. Knowledge of Latin is probably not an optimal preparation for modern language learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A motion picture test of achievement in psychology.

It is concluded from the results of an investigation into "… the advantages and disadvantages of motion pictures for measuring achievement in a beginning psychology course" that "… performance on the motion picture test is not greatly improved by the beginning psychology course." Scores on multiple choice items relating to the motion picture were obtained as part of the final examination for one proup of students and during the first week of class for another. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality adjustment and the study of abnormal psychology.

Rorschach story-completion test and autobiographical data were obtained from 21 students in an abnormal psychology class and 22 students in a history class, both at the beginning and the end of the semester. Comparisons of the pre- and post-test data "support the belief that, (a) as a group, students studying abnormal psychology differ in personality from those not enrolled in the course, and (b) while the study of abnormal psychology has little immediate effect on personality ad ustment, measurable changes occur which appear to be related to course experience." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

University Psychology Students Having Had Psychology in High School.

Does a high school course in psychology influence students to take further work in the subject? Is high school psychology of assistance to those who take psychology in a university? In an attempt to answer these questions, 13 university departments of psychology (Denver, Florida State, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Purdue, Southern California, Texas, Vermont) were contacted and asked to administer a very short questionnaire to students in their introductory courses who had had a course in psychology in high school. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology as a general social science course.

Acourse entitled "An Introduction to the Sciences of Human Behavior" which "… represents a serious effort to coordinate and integrate the data of… " psychology, anthropology, and sociology is described. "The orientation is toward problem solving in a scientific sense, but not in the sense of applied science." Research indicates that "… freshmen in the inter-disciplinary course learn as much psychology as sophomores in the traditional course." The course is organized around three lectures and one discussion session a week. A brief resumé of the major psychology topics considered in the course is presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Another Course in Human Engineering.

We at the University of Detroit agree basically with the notions expressed by Coyer, in his article on a human engineering course (Amer. Psychologist, 1956, 11, 241-243). Certainly our courses in industrial psychology did not fulfill the need for more specifically trained persons in this area of psychology. Thus, we offered, during the second semester of the 1955-56 year, a course called, Applied Experimental Psychology. The course was given at the advanced undergraduate level with the option of additional requirements for graduate credit. It was our hope that the college of engineering would be interested. The ultimate population of the class consisted of seven seniors majoring in psychology, one graduate student in psychology, and one graduate engineer. Advantages and disadvantages of the course are discussed, and and expansion of the course into two semesters of general indoctrination and technical practicum are recommended. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stability of expressed emotion in relatives of those with schizophrenia and its relationship with burden of care and perception of patients' social functioning

BACKGROUND: There is evidence that high expressed emotion (EE) in relatives of patients with schizophrenia is associated with higher levels of burden of care, and with worse perception of patient's social functioning. However, it is not clear whether changes in EE levels over time are associated with changes in relatives' burden of care and their perception of patients' social functioning. METHODS: Fifty patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and 50 relatives were included in the study soon after patients' admission to hospital. Thirty-six relatives and 31 patients were re-assessed 9 months after patients' discharge. Both assessments included patients' symptomatology and relatives' EE levels, burden of care, and perception of patients' social functioning. RESULTS: Twenty-three relatives (64%) had the same EE level in both assessments, nine (25%) had changed from high to low EE, and four (11%) from low to high EE. Improvement in burden and perception of patients' social role performance were significantly more accentuated among relatives who changed from high to low EE than among relatives who had a stable EE level. Variables that best predicted changes in EE levels were changes in burden scores and number of hours of contact between patients and relatives at follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Change in EE is associated with change in circumstances and burden. Findings support the idea that EE is better understood in an integrative model.     

Teaching psychology by telephone.

2 groups of 10—matched for education, intelligence, and sex—participated. A special 8-weeks course in elementary psychology was presented. 1 of the 2 groups had face-to-face class meetings; the other group was taught by telephone. For the latter group: "In each home, an Executone speaker-microphone had been installed permitting everyone in the class to talk to everyone else as soon as the instructor turned on the switch… . Some lessons were straight lecture; others were conducted by discussion. Role playing was used twice." Both groups showed significant gains in knowledge as measured by examination. Both groups changed significantly in direction of more democratic attitudes as measured by the California F Scale. The "authors are now convinced that teaching by telephone is practical… . Telephone teaching might also be useful in areas of highly specialized instruction at the graduate level or in business or industry." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An examination of students' attitudes toward television as a medium of instruction in a psychology course.

74 students enrolled in an elementary psychology course taught through 2 weekly television sessions and 2 weekly discussion-group sessions were asked (1) whether they would take another course using television and (2) whether the on-campus discussion added anything. 70% of the Ss answered YES to the first question, and 42% answered YES to the second. Open-ended responses revealed reasons for the answers given. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Immigration and the psychodynamics of class.

Numerous psychoanalytic contributors have theorized about the substantive role played by cultural factors in organizing individual identity. In addition to individual and family dynamics, issues related to class, race, religion, and other cultural themes also exert a vital presence in the treatment setting. These social forces define experience in profound ways from which it is impossible that form an inextricable part of an individual's psychology. Societal values, norms, and forces are carried and represented, forming an ever-present backdrop to our psychological lives. They thus become, perforce, part of the treatment process whether or not the therapist or analyst is aware of their presence. In prior work I have explored the topic of the immigrant's construction of self as it relates to social class (Ainslie, 2009). I argue that one of the variables that shape an immigrant's psychology is his or her social class position in his or her country of origin. In the present contribution, I seek to extend this exploration of the topic of social class and the psychology of immigration through three vignettes that capture aspects of how social class becomes represented in the experience and therapeutic treatment of immigrants. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The time course of grief reactions to spousal loss: Evidence from a national probability sample.

Most studies of widowhood have focused on reactions during the first few years postloss. The authors investigated whether widowhood had more enduring effects using a nationally representative U.S. sample. Participants were 768 individuals who had lost their spouse (from a few months to 64 years) prior to data collection. Results indicated that the widowed continued to talk, think, and feel emotions about their lost spouse decades later. Twenty years postloss, the widowed thought about their spouse once every week or 2 and had a conversation about their spouse once a month on average. About 12.6 years postloss, the widowed reported feeling upset between sometimes and rarely when they thought about their spouse. These findings add to an understanding of the time course of grief. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical psychology graduate students and personal psychotherapy: Results of an exploratory survey.

Graduate students in American Psychological Association-certified clinical psychology programs (N?=?1,018) were surveyed about the experience of personal therapy. Students who had never been in therapy were surveyed about their views of personal therapy. Of the 50% of those surveyed who responded, 75% indicated that they had been in personal therapy. Given the response rate, the estimated prevalence of therapy among clinical psychology graduate students is between 38% and 75%. Personal growth was the most frequently cited reason for seeking therapy. Students who had not been in therapy reported lack of need and finances as reasons for not seeking treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of attendance, note-taking, and review on memory for a lecture: Encoding vs. external storage functions of notes.

Assessed the importance of note taking (an encoding function) and note reviewing (an external storage function) on memory for a lecture. One week following various conditions of film-viewing, note taking, and review of notes, 144 psychology students (aged 17–19 yrs) completed a quiz based on the contents of a videotaped lecture dealing with an unfamiliar but relevant topic. Ss who reviewed a thorough set of lecturer notes prior to the test performed better than those who had no notes to review, irrespective of whether they had taken personal notes, simply viewed and listened, or had attended the film at all. The latter 3 activities had no significant effect on test scores. Ss who reviewed their own notes performed at an intermediate level, scoring generally lower than those who reviewed lecturer notes but higher than those who did not review. Results are interpreted as support for an external storage rather than an encoding function of note taking. (French abstract) (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Research in industrial and organizational psychology from 1963 to 2007: Changes, choices, and trends.

The authors conducted a content analysis of all articles published in the Journal of Applied Psychology and Personnel Psychology from January 1963 to May 2007 (N = 5,780) to identify the relative attention devoted to each of 15 broad topical areas and 50 more specific subareas in the field of industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology. Results revealed that (a) some areas have become more (or less) popular over time, whereas others have not changed much, and (b) there are some lagged relationships between important societal issues that involve people and work settings (i.e., human-capital trends) and I-O psychology research that addresses them. Also, much I-O psychology research does not address human-capital trends. Extrapolating results from the past 45 years to the next decade suggests that the field of I-O psychology is not likely to become more visible or more relevant to society at large or to achieve the lofty goals it has set for itself unless researchers, practitioners, universities, and professional organizations implement significant changes. In the aggregate, the changes address the broad challenge of how to narrow the academic-practitioner divide. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology in Michigan's high schools.

This is a comment regarding psychology courses in Michigan High Schools. A survey of 57 secondary schools in Michigan reporting psychology as one of their course offerings was conducted in the spring of 1963. Thirty-seven schools (65%) responded to the request for information about the nature of the course, the characteristics of the pupils involved, and the qualifications of the teacher. The results from the survey are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Approaches to psychology.

Reviews the book, Approaches to Psychology by John Medcof and John Roth (Eds.) (1979). The preface of Approaches to Psychology states that standard psychology texts do not meet the needs of instructors teaching one-semester courses to students taking psychology as an adjunct to their own field of study. According to Medcof and Roth, standard texts do not fill these needs because they are too long and students often perceive the information as a disjointed collection of conflicting theories and findings. In addition, they claim that students who are taking Psychology as an adjunct to their own field are not interested in rats and other non-human organisms. To correct what they perceived as deficiencies in standard texts they chose to write this book as a text that was brief, stressed human behavior and was coherent. Although the individual chapters are well written, the reviewer feels that Approaches to Psychology fails to meet its goals. It is not necessarily brief nor does it present a coherent picture of psychology. He recommends that professors who are selecting a text for a one semester course in general psychology would be wise to consider some of the short versions of standard texts. These texts, in spite of their difficulties, would provide students with a better overall picture of the field of psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stability and change of personality across the life course: The impact of age and major life events on mean-level and rank-order stability of the Big Five.

Does personality change across the entire life course, and are those changes due to intrinsic maturation or major life experiences? This longitudinal study investigated changes in the mean levels and rank order of the Big Five personality traits in a heterogeneous sample of 14,718 Germans across all of adulthood. Latent change and latent moderated regression models provided 4 main findings: First, age had a complex curvilinear influence on mean levels of personality. Second, the rank-order stability of Emotional Stability, Extraversion, Openness, and Agreeableness all followed an inverted U-shaped function, reaching a peak between the ages of 40 and 60 and decreasing afterward, whereas Conscientiousness showed a continuously increasing rank-order stability across adulthood. Third, personality predicted the occurrence of several objective major life events (selection effects) and changed in reaction to experiencing these events (socialization effects), suggesting that personality can change due to factors other than intrinsic maturation. Fourth, when events were clustered according to their valence, as is commonly done, effects of the environment on changes in personality were either overlooked or overgeneralized. In sum, our analyses show that personality changes throughout the life span, but with more pronounced changes in young and old ages, and that this change is partly attributable to social demands and experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Existential—phenomenological perspectives in psychology.

Reviews the book, Existential — phenomenological perspectives in psychology edited by Ronald S. Valle and Steen Hailing (1989). This collection shows careful selection and editing by the two editors. Each of the articles is well-written, admirably clear, and articulate. The authors have succeeded in making the tenants of phenomenology accessible to those who do not have prior knowledge, however, the content is also of interest to people who are already familiar with the basics, but who wish to see phenomenological research in action. As such, the book could well serve as a text for an undergraduate or graduate level course entitled "existential-phenomenological perspectives in psychology", or as an adjunct text for a course which looks more broadly at various theoretical and methodological positions within the discipline. The editors have thoughtfully compiled the index with a view to the use of the book as a reference. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sexual attitudes and experience: Attitude and personality correlates and changes produced by a course in sexuality.

Administered a battery of personality and sexual experience and attitude tests (e.g., the Suppression of Sex scale from the Parental Attitude Research Instrument, M. Zuckerman's Heterosexual and Homosexual Experience scales, I. L. Reiss's Social and Emotional Relationship scales, the Sensation-seeking Scale, the Personality Research Form, and the Personal Orientation Inventory) to 224 male and 331 female undergraduates enrolled in either a human sexuality or a personality psychology course (control). Males were more permissive in attitudes and had experience with a greater number of partners than females. Attitudes and experience were more highly related in females. Ss in the sex course were more permissive and experienced that Ss in the control course. The sexuality course appeared to have changed attitudes in both sexes, but changed behavior only in males, relative to changes in the control group. Religious attitudes and personality correlates of sexual attitudes and experience are reported; in general, sexual permissiveness and expression correlated with self-actualizing tendencies, particularly in females. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)