The role of categorization and in-group norms in judgments of groups and their members.

Four minimal group experiments tested the prediction that judgments of groups and their members reflect evaluations made simultaneously but independently at the within-group and intergroup levels. On the basis of self-categorization theory and social identity theory, it was predicted that group members seek both intergroup distinctiveness and legitimization of in-group norms. In Experiments 1–3, membership (in-group, out-group), status of group members (modal, deviant), and either accountability to in-group or to out-group or salience of group norms were varied. Accountability and norm salience increased derogation of out-group normative (in-group deviant, out-group modal) and upgrading of in-group normative (in-group modal, out-group deviant) members. In Experiment 4, within-group differentiation reinforced in-group identification. These findings suggest that subjective group dynamics operate to bolster social identity when people judge modal and deviant in-group and out-group members. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quality of care in intensive care units. Retrospective study on long-term patients]

Nursing care must be evaluated in order to determine its effectiveness and identify deficiencies, which makes it possible to introduce corrective measures to optimize quality. The quality of care given to patients in our unit was evaluated with a retrospective analysis of 915 records in the Nursing Care Plan corresponding to 59 patients with a mean ICU stay of 15.5 days. Six areas of care and indicators of deficient practice were identified: orotracheal intubation: accidental disconnection, displacement, obstruction, and pressure sores on lips; arterial catheterization: accidental disconnection and obstruction; central venous catheterization: accidental disconnection and contamination; urinary catheterization: accidental disconnection and urinary bacteriology; nasogastric intubation: accidental disconnection, obstruction, and nasal pressure sores; conservation of skin integrity: presence of pressure sores, and prevention of falls from the bed or chair. The reference standards were taken from the published literature. The results show that airway care was adequate, although the frequency of pressure sores on the lip produced by orotracheal tubes was high. The indicators for following up the care of vascular and urinary catheters showed results similar to established standards. There was a high rate of nasogastric tube obstruction due to the administration of medication. Finally, the frequency of pressure sores was well below established standards and there were no accidental falls. It is concluded that the detection of areas in which care is deficient requires an analysis of relevant nursing activities so that corrective measures can be taken. This study is a useful baseline for future quality control.     

Responses to an in-basket activity: the role of work stress, behavioral control, and informational control

This study was undertaken to examine the main and interactive effects of work stress and work control on levels of adjustment. Work stress, behavioral control, and informational control were manipulated in an experimental setting in which participants (N = 192) completed an in-basket activity. Although minimal support was found for the main and interactive effects of objective work stress, behavioral control, and informational control on adjustment, analyses involving the subjective measures of these variables revealed strong support for the proposal that work stress, behavioral control, and informational control would exert main effects on adjustment. There was also evidence that subjective levels of behavioral control buffered the negative effects of subjective work stress on positive mood, subjective task performance, and task satisfaction.     

Relative contributions of modeling, informational influences, and physical contact in extinction of phobic behavior.

Treated 1 member of a matched triad of adult snake phobics with a participant modeling procedure in which he received the benefits of modeling, verbal information, and direct contact with the feared object. 1 of the 2 other Ss, who observed the treatment, listened to the persuasive communications of E, thus receiving the joint benefits of modeling and verbal information. The 2nd O received only the benefits of modeling. Relative to an untreated control group, all treated Ss showed significant increases in approach behavior, reduction in approach-related fear, and positive changes in attitudes toward snakes. Between-condition analyses revealed that modeling accounted for the majority of the change variance, with direct contact contributing significant increments to approach behavior and fear reduction but not to attitude change. Verbal information made no significant contribution to the positive changes; in fact, indirect evidence indicated that it had a negative influence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Serial recall by schizophrenic and affective patients during and after psychotic episodes.

Eight schizophrenics (mean age 27.3 yrs), 8 depressed patients (mean age 33.1 yrs), and 8 normal controls (mean age 27 yrs) completed the MMPI and were asked to recall short word strings in both the presence and absence of distraction. Results show a differential cognitive deficit among schizophrenics both before and after a general improvement in their level of adjustment. That is, despite an overall improvement in their accuracy of recall prior to discharge, their performance continued to be impaired relative to depressed and normal Ss on the words presented in the 1st serial position. A tendency toward greater distractibility among schizophrenics failed to reach statistical significance at both points of assessment. Further substantiation of such stable forms of cognitive impairment may facilitate the identification of individuals who are vulnerable to the development of schizophrenia and may shed light on the adjustment problems that many chronic patients continue to experience after discharge from the hospital. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety level of schizophrenic and control patients and their parents.

Rated 24 good and 24 poor male schizophrenic patients, 24 nonschizophrenic male psychiatric patients, and the parents of each for anxiety prior to and during a difficult family interaction. 2 techniques to measure anxiety on the basis of speech were employed. Some results, such as that the poor schizophrenics were the most anxious of the patients, are consistent with general beliefs and prior research. However, most results present a picture of the schizophrenic patient and his parents that is dramatically different from what most theories and research suggest. Parents did not appear to be upsetting to the patient, even when their behavior was very noxious. If the family plays a role in schizophrenia, findings suggest this role is quite different from what is widely believed. (33 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of topic label repetition and importance on reading time and recall of text.

College students read one of 2 versions of a chapter of text in which target topic labels appeared either with high frequency or low frequency. In 2 experiments, frequent repetition of a token in the passage increased the likelihood that the token was listed as a main topic, regardless of the importance of the topic. Also, in Experiment 2, readers with lower verbal ability spent more time reading high-frequency/low-importance material than did high-verbal-ability readers. These experiments show that readers with low prior knowledge are more likely to make use of surface cues to identify important elements of text. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Text recall in adulthood: The role of intellectual abilities.

This study examined age-related predictive relationships between an array of psychometric intellectual ability markers and text recall performance in adulthood. One hundred and fifty women from three age groups (21–39 years, 40–58 years, 60–78 years) read and recalled four narrative stories at three delay intervals and completed a battery of 12 factor-analytically defined intellectual ability tests. The results indicated (a) that text memory performance in adulthood is predicted by multiple abilities; (b) that age differences in text memory performance overlap highly with age differences in multiple abilities, although the latter do not fully account for the former; (c) that modest Age?×?Ability interactions exist but are not consistent with previous reports, suggesting that age differences decrease with increasing ability levels; and (d) that the pattern of intelligence-text recall relationships differs by age group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processing time and the recall of inconsistent and consistent behaviors of individuals and groups.

Conducted 2 experiments with 138 undergraduates to demonstrate that individual–group distinction is important in obtaining a recall superiority of schema-inconsistent behaviors (Exp I) and to investigate a mechanism hypothesized to underlie these effects that attribute the recall enhancement to extra processing given to inconsistent items (Exp II). It is noted that researchers who have investigated the effect of expectancy on memory for behavioral information have found a recall superiority for schema-inconsistent information; however, this finding occurred most clearly only when an individual, rather than a group, was seen as performing the behaviors. Results of Exp I indicate that, when an observer believed that behaviors were all performed by a single individual, the memory advantage for impression-inconsistent actions was more pronounced than when the observer believed the behaviors were performed by group members. Results of Exp II support the hypothesized mechanism. The relevance of these findings to recent experiments is discussed. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affective content and contextual constraint in recall by paranoid, nonparanoid, and nonpsychiatric patients.

Asked each of 16 patients in 3 groups-paranoid schizophrenic, nonparanoid schizophrenic, and nonpsychiatric-for verbatim recall after listening to each of 4 tape-recorded passages of verbal material representing 4 levels of constraint and 2 types of affect. 3 hypotheses were tested regarding the differential influence of affectivity and constraint on 3 types of patients. Results do not indicate that recall performance improved with each increase in contextual constraint. However, increasing affectivity of the material did influence the utilization of constraint. When an ordered recall scoring method was employed, recall was found to be significantly better for neutral as opposed to affective material, leading to the conclusion that affect disrupted the semantic meaningfulness of the material while not influencing the total number of words recalled. For paranoids only, recall of neutral material was better than that for affective material at every level of constraint. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The importance of dietary control in metabolic studies of manic-depressive patients

Diet control of electrolyte intake appears to diminish day to day variation of urinary electrolyte output. Urine sodium concentration is more affected by diet control than potassium, possibly due to the greater variation in sodium ingestion on uncontrolled diets. The coefficient of variation of urinary sodium excretion on the controlled diet was not significantly greater than the variation in sodium ingestion. These experimental results suggest that controlled diets reduce random variation in sodium and potassium excretion and therefore enhance the possibility of observing illness-related biological changes.     

Loss and recovery of long-term memories after ECS in rats: Evidence for state-dependent recall.

Trained 24 male albino Sprague-Dawley rats on 3 2-choice discriminations. The 1st and 3rd problems were learned to avoid shock (S1 and S3), and the 2nd problem to obtain food (F2). Immediately after reaching criterion on S3, Ss were given ECS, and retention of S1 and F2 was assessed. Under normal conditions, retention of F2 was good but retention of S1 was poor, replicating earlier findings of M. Robbins and D. Meyer (see record 1970-11961-001). However, retention of S1 was significantly improved, and retention of F2 disrupted, if a 2nd ECS was administered 15 min. before testing. A state-dependent hypothesis proposed to explain these data also accounts for a number of other ECS phenomena. A novel aspect of the hypothesis is that ECS produces retrograde dissociative effects, and that administration of a 2nd ECS creates conditions favorable to the recall of dissociated information. (25 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relative importance of personality and general mental ability in managers' judgments of applicant qualifications.

Eighty-four managers who make hiring decisions in 1 of 6 occupations representative of J. L. Holland's (1973) 6 job typologies (medical technologist, insurance sales agent, carpenter, licensed practical nurse, reporter, and secretary) rated 39 hypothetical job applicants on 2 dependent variables, hirability and counterproductivity. Applicants were described on the Big Five personality factors (Emotional Stability, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness) and on general mental ability. Results showed that general mental ability and conscientiousness were the most important attributes related to applicants' hirability and that Emotional Stability, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness were the most important attributes related to counterproductivity. In most respects, these results mirror meta-analytic reviews of validity studies, thereby confirming hypotheses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relative importance of prior and immediate events: A causal primacy effect.

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that prior causes in a chain of events are attributed greater relative importance than later, more immediate causes. In Exp I, 170 undergraduates judged the relative contributions to success or failure made by members of a team who initiated a problem-solution process vs team members who terminated it. In Exp II, 206 undergraduates rated the importance of prior and immediate causes of 4 life events. In both experiments, prior events in a causal chain were perceived to be more important than were immediate events. In addition, Exp II showed that this primacy effect was due to the causal rather than temporal sequencing of events and that it was limited to situations in which the events were of approximately equal relevance to the final outcome. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

APA internship selection criteria: Relative importance of academic and clinical preparation.

Surveyed American Psychological Association (APA)-approved internships to assess what criteria are important to internship selection committees and to determine how much clinical experience is desired to make an applicant competitive. The survey also assessed the number of courses and amount of hours of supervised experience in both diagnostics and treatment that internships look for in preferred applicants. A brief questionnaire was sent to 120 APA-approved internships, which resulted in a response rate of 75%, or 90 respondents. Results show that internship training centers emphasize clinical training experience and personal qualifications over traditional academic achievements. In addition, internships look for substantially more hours of supervised clinical experience than the amount the minimum APA-accreditation criteria require. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Metamemory in older adults: The role of monitoring in serial recall.

Older and younger adults were asked to think aloud while studying sets of pictures matched in difficulty for immediate serial recall. When instructed only to remember, young adults tended to study longer, rehearse more, and recall better than did older adults on the most difficult lists. Young adults were also much more likely to spontaneously test themselves during study in the most difficult condition. Older adult groups instructed either to study longer or to self-test, both showed improved recall. Only the older adults who had been instructed to self-monitor, however, recalled better on tests of short-term maintenance and generalization; overt rehearsal data showed that these older adults continued to test themselves. Metamemory deficits may be present with older adults when a strategy, like self-testing, is needed to generate metamemorial knowledge. Strategies such as self-testing can be easily taught, however, and they hold promise of being useful across situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relative importance of face, body, and speech in judgments of personality and affect.

Three experiments correlated judgments made from observing single channels (face, body, or speech) with multiple channel judgments (face, body, and speech together; or face and speech together). Judges observed the spontaneous behavior of videotaped student nurses in 2 types of interview situations, "deceptive" and "honest," and rated the nurses on 14 bipolar adjective scales (e.g., awkward–natural). The single channel judgments that correlated most highly with the multiple channel judgments depended on the type of attribute being judged and the situation in which the behavior occurred (e.g., in the deception condition, judgments made from speech had the highest correlation with whole-person judgments). (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eyewitness recall: Regulation of grain size and the role of confidence.

Eyewitness testimony plays a critical role in Western legal systems. Three experiments extended M. Goldsmith, A. Koriat, and A. Weinberg-Eliezer's (2002) framework of the regulation of grain size (precision vs. coarseness) of memory reports to eyewitness memory. In 2 experiments, the grain size of responses had a large impact on memory accuracy. Further, participants achieved a compromise between the accuracy and informativeness of their testimony by volunteering precise answers only when likely to be correct. The level of detail reported was strongly, positively related to confidence in the accuracy of the response. This highlights the importance of considering the level of detail, not just the accuracy, of eyewitness testimony. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relative importance of aptitude and prior domain knowledge on immediate and delayed posttests.

Two groups of college students were given a pretest covering basketball knowledge and asked to read a passage about basketball history. One group (IDP) took an immediate posttest of 27 items and a delayed posttest 1 wk later of the original items and 27 new items. The 2nd group (DPO) took only the delayed posttest of 54 items. Finally, a control group simply took the pretest and the 54-item posttest and scored at chance level on the posttest. Correlational analyses determined that, for the IDP group, pretest scores were significantly related to the immediate posttest. For the delayed posttest, both Scholastic Aptitude Test—Verbal subtest and pretest scores accounted for significant and unique portions of the variance. The latter results were replicated for the DPO group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relative importance of quantifying area and vascular patterns in uveal melanomas

PURPOSE: To test whether the cross-sectional area of choroidal and ciliary body melanomas and quantification of microcirculatory networks and parallel vessels with cross-linking are features associated with death from metastatic melanoma, and to compare new with conventional histologic prognostic features. METHODS: The cross-sectional area of 234 ciliary body or choroidal melanomas was measured from digitized images of histologic sections. The percentage of cross-sectional area occupied by two microcirculatory patterns-networks and parallel vessels with cross-linking-was calculated for the 152 tumors containing at least one focus of either pattern. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were generated based on cross-sectional and percentage of cross-sectional areas of these patterns. Cox proportional hazard regression methods related time to death from melanoma with sets of predictor variables. For each model, percent variation explained was computed. RESULTS: Patient survival differs significantly when tumors are classified based on cross-sectional area: small (<16 mm2), medium (> or =16 mm2 but <61.4 mm2), and large (> or =61.4 mm2). Patients with tumors containing networks and parallel vessels with cross-linking microcirculation patterns that occupy 2% of cross-sectional area have a significantly worse prognosis than do those patients with tumors containing a smaller percentage of these patterns. CONCLUSIONS: Quantifying cross-sectional tumor area and the percentage area occupied by networks and parallel vessels with cross-linking microcirculatory patterns in ciliary body and cho. roidal melanomas provides significant prognostic information. Compared with more conventional prognostic characteristics, the most dramatic increase in prognostic information is provided by determination of the presence or absence of microvascular patterns.