Cognitive mediators of aggression in adolescent offenders: II. Intervention.

A 12-session intervention program, based on a model of social–cognitive development, was designed to remediate cognitive factors identified as correlates of aggression (R. G. Slaby and N. G. Guerra; see record 1989-01839-001). 120 male and female adolescents incarcerated for aggression offenses participated in either the cognitive mediation training program, an attention control group, or a no-treatment group. Compared with Ss in both control groups, Ss in the treatment group showed increased skills in solving social problems, decreased endorsement of beliefs supporting aggression, and decreased aggressive, impulsive, and inflexible behaviors, as rated by staff. Posttest aggression was directly related to change in cognitive factors. No group differences were detected for number of parole violators up to 24 months after release. The ways in which changes in cognitive skills and beliefs may mediate changes in aggressive behavior are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-administration cues as signals: Drug self-administration and tolerance.

There is evidence that drug-associated exteroceptive cues elicit compensatory conditional responses (CCRs) that contribute to tolerance. The authors evaluated whether interoceptive, self-administration cues (SACs) similarly contribute to tolerance. In Experiments 1 and 2, the ataxic effect of ethanol was measured in rats that self-administered (SA) ethanol—by either oral consumption or intragastric infusion—and in rats that were yoked (Y) to these self-administrators. In both experiments, the ataxic effect of ethanol was more pronounced in Y than in SA rats. In addition, SA rats failed to display usual levels of tolerance when ethanol was administered in the absence of SACs and displayed a CCR of hypertaxia in response to SACs not followed by ethanol. The results of Experiment 3 indicate that the ataxic effect of intravenous heroin also was greater in Y than in SA rats. The findings suggest that SACs contribute to drug tolerance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Drug-onset cues as signals: Intraadministration associations and tolerance.

On the basis of a conditioning analysis of drug tolerance, drug-associated cues become associated with the drug effect. These cues elicit conditional compensatory responses and modulate the expression of tolerance. Although there are many findings consistent with the conditioning analysis of tolerance, there also are contrary findings. The results of these experiments suggest that some of the apparently contradictory findings result because interoceptive pharmacological cues, as well as exteroceptive environmental cues, are paired with a drug effect. That is, within each administration, early drug-onset cues may become associated with the later, larger drug effect, and these pharmacological cues may overshadow simultaneously present environmental cues. We demonstrate the contribution of such intraadministration associations to tolerance to the analgesic effect of morphine and to the expression of conditional compensatory hyperalgesia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Four-stage model for group dream work.

Presents a group dream work model consisting of segments for re-experiencing, observing, interacting with, and sharing dream content. The model is described, its historical roots are noted, and results from groups using the model are explained. The model evolved as the leaders adapted the approach to meet the needs of the participants and of the groups themselves. Group leaders observed that the clients increased in self-respect, in trust for their own intuition, in awareness of the continuity of their lives, and in patience with their own rates of development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Context, time, and memory retrieval in the interference paradigms of Pavlovian learning.

Reviews research and theory on the "interference paradigms" in Pavlovian learning. In these situations (e.g., extinction, counterconditioning, and latent inhibition), a CS is associated with different unconditioned stimulus/stimuli (UCS) or outcomes in different phases of the experiment; retroactive interference, proactive interference, or both are often observed. In all of the paradigms, contextual stimuli influence performance, and when information is available, so does the passage of time. Memories of both phases are retained, and performance may depend on which is retrieved. Despite the similarity of the paradigms, conditioning theories tend to explain them with separate mechanisms. They also do not provide an adequate account of the context's role, fail to predict the effects of time, and overemphasize the role of learning or storage deficits. By accepting 4 propositions about animal memory (i.e., contextual stimuli guide retrieval, time is a context, different memories are differentially dependent on context, and interference occurs at performance output), a memory retrieval framework can provide an integrated account of context, time, and performance in the various paradigms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychosocial factors as mediators of acupuncture therapy.

Investigated a number a psychosocial variables that have been suggested as possible mediating factors in acupuncture therapy. 42 patients (mean age 46.7 yrs) with bursitis and/or tendonitis of the shoulder served as Ss. All were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 treatment groups: acupuncture-positive milieu, acupuncture-negative milieu, placebo acupuncture-positive milieu, and placebo acupuncture-negative milieu. Pretreatment and posttreatment subjective pain reports and shoulder motion studies, as well as pretreatment assessments of hypnotic susceptibility and suggestibility, were determined for each S. Results indicate that (a) acupuncture and placebo acupuncture were equally effective in producing highly significant reductions in subjective pain reports; (c) Ss treated in the positive milieu reported more improvement than those in the negative milieu; and (d) hypnotic susceptibility, suggestibility, belief in the treatment, and the satisfaction of expectations showed no relationship to treatment outcome. It is concluded that acupuncture therapy provides a powerful placebo. Treatment milieu variables warrant future study in the attempt to understand the acupuncture phenomena. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Outcome expectancies as mediators for discriminative responding.

Attempted to identify the mechanism that underlies the differential outcome effect in acquisition and working memory in pigeons. Different outcomes were cued by 2 pairs of colors that also served as initial stimuli in 2 delayed conditional discriminations. The test stimuli were vertical and horizontal lines. Ss were 22 White Carneaux pigeons. The outcomes were arranged so that expectancies based on them would cue the same response patterns to the 2 test stimuli in both problems (consistent conditions) or opposite response patterns (inconsistent conditions). In Exp I, the 2 problems were trained concurrently; acquisition was faster and reached a higher level in the consistent conditions. In Exp II, transfer of a discrimination between pairs of initial stimuli was studied. Transfer based on consistent expectancies was almost perfect, but there was no transfer with inconsistent expectancies. Shifts from inconsistent to consistent training conditions improved performance, and those in the opposite direction worsened performance. It is concluded that expectancies act as mediating cues and control discriminative behavior directly, strengthening or replacing the cues provided by initial stimuli. (French abstract) (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Subtle cues as a way of life.

The author briefly describes his upbringing in Germany and a few of the problems he has encountered as a Jew. After immigration to the US and graduation from Amherst College, he joined the US Army, served in Europe, and was captured by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge. He survived the camp by using subtle cues, largely without his awareness, to positively change the emotional climate in a conversation with the Gestapo agent. He chose the career of clinical psychologist to discover how the use of subtle cues can have a significant impact on the respondent, which he believes is also the basic question in the psychotherapeutic treatment process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acquired equivalence and distinctiveness of cues: II. Neural manipulations and their implications.

Neural manipulations were used to examine the mechanisms that underlie the acquired equivalence and distinctiveness of cues in rats. Control rats and those with excitotoxic lesions of either the hippocampus (BPC) or entorhinal cortex (EC) acquired the following conditional discrimination: In Contexts A and B, Stimulus X --3- food and Stimulus Y --* no food, and in Contexts C and D, Y - food and X ---> no food. Rats then received many food pellets in A but not in C. After this treatment, control rats showed more magazine activity in B than in D-an acquired equivalence- distinctiveness effect. This effect was also evident in BPC rats but not in EC rats. These results indicate that changes in stimulus distinctiveness are dissociable from the process of conditional leaming. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Two unconscious fantasies as mediators of successful psychotherapy.

Describes the role that the concept of the unconscious fantasy—an organized configuration of unconscious ideas and images—has played in psychoanalytic theory. A series of laboratory experiments that demonstrated under controlled "double blind" conditions how the activitation of 2 unconscious fantasies could serve an adaptation enhancing function are described. How they served the same function when they were inadvertently activated in various types of psychotherapy is also discussed. One of the fantasies—the "symbiotic gratification fantasy"—is cited as particularly apt to be activated in systematic desensitization, client-centered therapy, and meditation. The other—the "sanctioned oedipal gratification fantasy"—is cited as most apt to be activated in Masters and Johnson type sex therapy, touching and other body contact therapies, behavior assertiveness training, and encounter treatment. (66 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attachment and mental and physical health: Self-compassion and mattering as mediators.

Research shows a strong link between adult attachment and mental and physical health, but little is known about the mechanisms that underlie these relationships. The present study examined self-compassion and mattering, two constructs from positive psychology literature, as potential mediators. Using survey data from a sample of 208 college students, relationships among attachment, self-compassion, mattering, and functional health were explored. Correlational analyses indicated that attachment anxiety and avoidance were strongly related to the mental health component of functional health. Mediation analyses indicated that mattering and self-compassion mediated the relationships between attachment orientation (i.e., levels of avoidance and anxiety) and mental health. These findings suggest that individuals' abilities to be kind toward themselves and their sense of belonging and being important to others are pathways through which attachment orientation relates to mental health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The self as a mnemonic device: The role of internal cues.

Two studies with 48 undergraduates examined the contention that the self-reference effect occurs because the self provides a set of organized internal cues in the form of personal experiences that can mediate recall. The 2 properties—constructibility and associability of internal cues—are also important to the self-reference effect. S-generated cues composed of personal experiences representing the internal self were compared with cues composed of names of body parts representing the external self (Exp I). The body-part cues were more easily reconstructed by Ss at recall than were personal-experience cues. Nevertheless, trait words were better recalled after being related to personal experiences, because trait words and personal experiences were easily associated. In Exp II, concrete nouns were presented rather than trait words, and no difference in recall using the 2 types of cues was found. This occurred because concrete nouns can be easily associated with either personal experiences or body parts. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-persuasion and self-presentation as mediators of anticipatory attitude change.

Three experiments with 197 undergraduates determined when anticipatory attitude change occurs via self-persuasion or self-presentation and identified the implications for attitude persistence of a shift by either process. In Exp I, Ss' thoughts and attitudes were assessed while they expected either a counterattitudinal or a proattitudinal message. Ss generated thoughts and reported attitudes consistent with the direction of the anticipated message, even though their responses were anonymous. In the final 2 experiments, the publicness of Ss' attitudes was varied to examine the impact of self-presentational concerns on thoughts and attitudes. In Exp II, Ss in the private condition spontaneously generated more thoughts relevant to the anticipated counterattitudinal message than did Ss in the public condition. In Exp III, some Ss were told that the anticipated counterattitudinal message was not forthcoming. When the message was canceled in the public condition, Ss failed to show an anticipatory shift in attitude; in the private condition, however, anticipatory attitude change was obtained. It is concluded that when self-presentation concerns are manifest, temporary changes in attitude occur in response to these concerns. In contrast, when pressures to self-present are low, anticipatory changes reflect genuine shifts in attitude resulting from an active consideration of the merits of the counterattitudinal position. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Potency of food deprivation intensity cues as discriminative stimuli.

Rats were trained to use stimuli arising from 0 and 24 hrs without food as discriminative signals for shock. In Exp 1, one group was shocked under 0-hr food deprivation and not shocked under 24-hr food deprivation. Another group received the reverse contingency. The groups received only 3 training trials under each deprivation level. Learning was revealed in a test phase when greater extinction of freezing was observed under the nonshocked than under the shocked deprivation level for both groups. A similar pattern of results was obtained in Exp 2 when auditory cues were also relevant throughout training. Furthermore, prior training with food deprivation cues seemed to reduce learning about auditory cues subsequently trained in compound with deprivation stimuli. The results indicate that food deprivation intensity cues can be potent discriminative stimuli. The idea that deprivation cues function as conditioned modulatory stimuli cues is also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental study of praise and blame as attributional cues.

Meyer et al. (1979) documented that praise following success and the absence of blame following failure are used by adults to infer low ability. In the present study, the Meyer et al. methodology was modified for examining developmental differences in the use of praise and blame as attributional cues. Children ages 4 to 12 years were presented with videotaped scenarios depicting two students who either succeeded or failed at an achievement task. The feedback to these students was either praise versus neutral feedback following success or blame versus neutral feedback following failure. Participants then judged the effort and ability of each target child. All children inferred that the praised student was higher in effort and that the blamed student was lower in effort than were their neutral-feedback counterparts. A developmental pattern in ability judgments, however, indicated that only the oldest children inferred lower ability given praise and the absence of blame, as in the Meyer et al. study. The data for the youngest children were opposite to this pattern, with higher ability inferred given praise and lower ability reported given blame. These findings were interpreted as evidence of children's emerging understanding of a compensatory relation between effort and ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Environments as cues to smoke: Implications for human extinction-based research and treatment.

Animal research has shown that the environments, or contexts, in which drug use occurs can play a key role in how animals respond to drug-related cues. Less is known about the role of environmental contexts in human drug-dependence research. Traditionally, cue-based studies and treatments focus on conditioned cues most proximal to drug administration (e.g., lit cigarettes, pictorial stimuli of drug paraphernalia). However, there is reason to believe that more distal cues, such as the environments in which drugs were previously used, might similarly gain associative control over human responding. This article describes a body of systematic research aimed at identifying and studying the impact of environmental contexts on smokers' cue reactivity in the laboratory. Overall, results of this program of research demonstrate that exposure to environments associated with smoking, but completely devoid of proximal smoking cues, can function as conditioned stimuli capable of evoking strong subjective responding from abstinent smokers. Furthermore, more robust reactivity can be achieved if environmental context cues are personalized using novel techniques described in this article. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Health practices and hardiness as mediators in the stress-illness relationship.

Two stress and illness models that included the joint mediating effects of health practices and hardiness were tested prospectively over a 2-mo period. 86 undergraduates completed 5 subscales indexing hardiness. Stress, health practices, and illness for the prior month were assessed at this time as well as 1 and 2 mo later. In the 1st model, illness was measured by the severity of physical symptoms. In the 2nd model, it was measured by the number of symptoms reported. In both models, path analyses revealed that stress acted directly to affect illness as well as indirectly by changing health practices. Hardiness also had a direct effect on illness as well as an indirect effect through health practices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Metamemory and attributions as mediators of strategy use and recall.

The process by which metamemory and academic causal attributions relate to recall was examined with hierarchical multiple regression analyses. Several alternative conceptualizations of metamemory were used: general metamemory unrelated to the specific task; task-specific metamemory; memory monitoring; and both general and task-specific attributions. In order to examine the additive benefits of strategy and monitoring instructions, 81 4th graders were assigned to 1 of 4 instructional conditions: Strategy Only, Process Monitoring Only, Strategy Plus Process Monitoring, or Practice-Control group. Regression analyses indicated that the relationships between metamemory and recall depended on how metamemory was assessed and on the timing of the child's engagement with the recall task. Whereas general metamemory was significantly related to recall on the posttest and near-transfer tasks, task-specific metamemory became more relevant for transfer. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Students' cognitions as mediators of the effectiveness of small-group learning.

Examined 43 2nd- and 3rd-grade students' conceptions of student explanations as possible mediators of the relation of instructional stimuli (i.e., a mathematics seatwork task and observed helping in a small group) to seatwork achievement. Ss were taught a 10-day mathematics unit by their regular teachers. During the last half of each period, Ss worked on seatwork in small groups. Later, Ss were shown videotaped segments of explaining in their particular small group to elicit information on students' cognitions. Results indicate a significant positive relation among cognitions about explaining, small-group behavior, and seatwork achievement. Ss' conceptions of a good explanation as one that provides specific content were significantly positively related to achievement as well as to effective explaining behavior in the small group. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Peers as mediators of television food advertisements aimed at children.

Past research on the effects of TV has focused primarily on it as a unitary force rather than as 1 source of influence in a network of cross-pressures. The present study attempted to determine how peer-modeled food preferences combined with TV food commercials to influence the food preferences of school-aged children. 40 Black and 40 White 4th graders were assigned randomly to 1 of 4 conditions: TV control, TV advertisements with similar peer-modeled food preferences, and TV advertisements with dissimilar peer-modeled food preferences. An additional 40 children served as peer models. Ss in the TV advertisement condition preferred foods in the same class as the advertised foods more frequently than did Ss in the TV control condition. Ss in the TV advertisement/peer-similar condition preferred foods like the advertised food more often than Ss in the TV advertisement condition, whereas Ss in the TV/peer-dissimilar condition preferred foods like the advertised food less frequently than did Ss in the TV advertisement condition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)