Social comparison, multiple reference groups, and the self-concepts of academically handicapped children before and after mainstreaming.

Predictions adduced from social comparison theory and group reference theory were tested in 2 experiments that assessed the impact of half-day integration into the educational mainstream on the self-concepts of academically handicapped children. In Exp I (50 Ss, 6 yrs 2 mo to 10 yrs 10 mo old), mainstreamed Ss exhibited significantly augmented self-concepts, a result attributed to the availability of multiple comparative reference groups. In Exp II (20 Ss, 8 yrs 3 mo to 11 yrs), a manipulation designed to restrict self-concept-relevant social comparisons to Ss in the academic mainstream produced decreased self-regard, while unrestricted utilization of multiple comparative reference groups produced increased self-regard. Results are interpreted as supportive of the theoretical viability of social comparison theory and group reference theory in educational settings. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hemispheric changes in information processing during development.

Hemispheric processing of visually presented words and pictures was examined in 3 groups of Ss with mean ages of 8 yrs 8 mo, 12 yrs 3 mo, and 27 yrs 9 mo (154 Ss). Pictorial or symbolic stimuli were presented singly to either the right or left visual hemifield. Ss had to decide whether the 1st stimulus in a pair matched the 2nd stimulus. The major results were that (a) age groups differed in the strength of lateral differences, and (b) for all age groups, the right hemisphere was significantly faster in processing unmatched stimuli. Results suggest that lateral specialization of the left hemisphere is not complete until adolescence and that over the age range tested, the left hemisphere becomes progressively more specialized for the processing of matched data. (52 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory and metamemory: A study of the feeling-of-knowing phenomenon in amnesic patients.

Tested accuracy of the feeling of knowing in 2 experiments, using 8 patients with Korsakoff's syndrome (mean age 54 yrs), 8 electroconvulsive shock therapy (ECT) patients (mean age 46.5 yrs), 4 Ss (mean age 47 yrs) with other causes of amnesia, 2 alcoholic control groups (7 Ss with a mean age of 47.6 yrs and 19 Ss with a mean age of 48.5 yrs), and 18 healthy controls (mean age 49 yrs). In Exp I, feeling-of-knowing accuracy for the answers to general information questions that could not be recalled was tested. Ss were asked to rank nonrecalled questions in terms of how likely they thought they would be to recognize the answers and were then given a recognition test for these items. Only Korsakoff's syndrome Ss were impaired in making feeling-of-knowing predictions. The other amnesic Ss were as accurate as control Ss in their feeling-of-knowing predictions. In Exp II, these findings were replicated in a sentence memory paradigm that tested newly learned information. Results show that impaired metamemory is not an obligatory feature of amnesia, because amnesia can occur without detectable metamemory deficits. The impaired metamemory exhibited by patients with Korsakoff's syndrome reflects a cognitive impairment that is not typically observed in other forms of amnesia. (50 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age segregation in children's social interactions.

436 children, aged 1–12 yrs, were observed at home or outdoors in a middle-income neighborhood. Across all age groups, strict age segregation was less common than was expected. Ss were with same-age peers in only 6% of the observations, with child companions who differed from them in age by at least 1 yr in 55% of the observations, with adult companions in 28% of the observations (including observations in which child companions were also present), and alone 26% of the time. Companionship with same-age peers increased with age, whereas contact with children within 2 yrs of the S's age did not vary significantly between age groups. Companionship with children more than 2 yrs younger or older than S increased until ages 7–8 yrs and then declined. Contact with adults decreased across age groups. Contrary to expectation, information obtained from adult-organized summer programs did not show more segregation by age than did that from children's spontaneous groups. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

La réputation sociale de l'enfant en milieu scolaire.

Studied the social reputations of elementary school children. Ss were 76 2nd-grade (mean age 7.5 yrs), 71 3rd-grade (mean age 8.5 yrs), and 83 4th-grade students (mean age 9.7 yrs). Using the peer nomination technique, Ss were assessed collectively on 8 dimensions requiring both social and academic judgments. A cluster analysis was performed to identify groups with different sociometric profiles. Correlations between peer evaluations and teacher evaluations of Ss' social reputations were determined. (English abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neuroticism and extraversion in Turner's Syndrome.

Administered the Maudsley Personality Inventory to 5 groups of female Ss: (a) 13 Turner Syndrome Ss (mean age 19 yrs 2 mo) with karyotype 45X, (b) 18 Turner Syndrome (TS) Ss (mean age 26 yrs 11 mo) with other types of sex chromosomal abnormalities, (c) 16 sisters of Ss (mean age 24 yrs 2 mo), (d) 9 Ss with growth retardation and primary amenorrhea (mean age 22 yrs 4 mo), and (e) 19 nurses (mean age 22 yrs 8 mo). The results are compared to English and American normative values. The total group of TS Ss obtained a low Neuroticism (N) score compared to the control groups. When the total group was divided on the basis of their karyotypes, the low N score could be referred solely to Ss with karyotype 45X, who scored significantly lower than any other group tested so far with the MPI. TS Ss with chromosomal abnormalities other than 45X scored within normal limits. No variables other than karyotype 45X were related to an extremely low N score. It is concluded that exceptional emotional stability, as reflected in a very low N score on the MPI, is concomitant with the total absence of one sex chromosome, which is probably due to a developmental abnormality of the CNS. (7 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do supervisors modify psychotherapy supervision according to supervisees' levels of experience?

Administered a questionnaire concerning goals, expectations, and procedures of supervision to 10 supervisors who had 1st-yr practicum students, 13 supervisors with 2nd-yr externship students, and 8 supervisors with interns who had at least 2 yrs prior clinical experience as psychotherapists. All Ss had an average of 10 yrs clinical experience and 5 yrs experience as supervisors. Results show no significant differences among the 3 groups of Ss who were supervising trainees with different levels of clinical development and skill, suggesting that supervisors may not modify their manner of providing supervision in accordance with supervisees' levels of experience. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Grammatical awareness in the spoken and written language of language-disabled children.

Two experiments examined judgment, revision, and error-identification deficits in relation to expressive language skills and morphemic errors in writing. 12 language-disabled (LND) children (aged 8 yrs 2 mo to 12 yrs 4 mo) and 11 controls (aged 6 yrs 3 mo to 6 yrs 11 mo) matched for language ability participated in Exp 1. 11 LND children (aged 9 yrs 1 mo to 12 yrs 2 mo), 11 age-matched children with no language disability, and 11 children (aged 6 yrs 2 mo to 8 yrs 0 mo) matched to LND Ss for language ability participated in Exp 2. LND Ss who did not lack expressive use of target morphemes also did not differ from language-matched Ss in their ability to (1) judge the grammaticality of spoken sentences, (2) revise them, and (3) identify errors. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Facilitation of sociomoral reasoning in delinquents.

An intervention involving 60 incarcerated juvenile delinquents (ages 14–18 yrs) yielded significant gains in sociomoral reasoning that were attributable to a dilemma-discussions treatment. The treatment consisted of 8 weekly small-group discussions of sociomoral dilemmas. Ss were pretested on the Sociomoral Reflection Measure (SRM) and the Dilemma Decisions Survey and were assigned to either consensus dilemma-discussion, nonconsensus dilemma-discussion, or no-discussion groups. Pretest results show that Ss initially differed in both sociomoral stage and dilemma opinion. Of the dilemma-discussions Ss, 87.5% were pretested at Modal Stage 2 on the SRM and shifted to Modal Stage 3 on the posttest, whereas only 14.3% of the Modal Stage 2 control Ss did so. Pretest Modal Stage 3 Ss remained at Stage 3 on the posttest. Across the experimental groups, no difference was found between groups where a consensus was required for the discussion and groups having no consensus requirement. Investigations of the possible in-program and postrelease behavioral ramifications of the dilemma-discussions treatment are recommended. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and the development of automaticity in visual search.

The rate of short-term memory search has previously been reported to be slower for older individuals than for college-age Ss (F. I. Craik, 1977). Current research has suggested that after extensive practice with the same population of stimuli, performance in memory-search and visual-search tasks can become "automatic," or independent of memory load. The present experiment examined age differences in the development of automatic processing in a hybrid memory-search/visual-search paradigm; 8 young (18–25 yrs old) and 8 older (61–74 yrs old) Ss participated. Although older Ss demonstrated a significantly slower rate of search, the 2 age groups shifted toward automatic processing, over practice, at equivalent rates. The slower rate of search thus represents an age-related increase in the time required to compare the memory-set items against those in a visual array, rather than a change in the mode of processing available. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Concomitant eyeblink and heart rate classical conditioning in young, middle-aged, and elderly human subjects.

Pavlovian heart rate (HR) and eyeblink (EB) conditioning were assessed in 4 groups of Ss who differed in age: young?=?19–33 yrs, young middle-aged?=?35–48 yrs, old middle-aged?=?50–63 yrs, and old?=?66–78 yrs. A 100-msec corneal airpuff was the unconditioned stimulus/stimuli (UCS) and a 600-msec tone was the CS. A nonassociative control group received explicitly unpaired tone and airpuff presentations. All Ss were studied for 2 100-trial sessions separated by approximately 7 days. An impairment in acquisition of both the EB and HR responses occurred in the old and middle-age Ss, but all age groups showed significantly greater conditioning than did the control group. Slight increases in performance resulted from a 2nd session of training. These findings suggest and age-related impairment in a general associative process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A developmental study of balance theory in four cultural groups.

Canadian White and native Indian Ss and New Zealand White and Maori Ss from 5 age groups ranging from 5 to 14 yrs, provided missing sentiment relations for 8 hypothetical interpersonal triads. Ss' explanations for their responses were also systematically obtained. The 2 White groups and Maori Ss showed a steady increase in balanced responses and in balance-type explanations with increasing age, reaching high levels in the older groups. Balanced responses were less frequent among Indian Ss, and there was no clear developmental trend in tendency towards balance. These latter findings may be partly attributable to small Indian samples and a truncated age range. With the exception of the Indians, differences among cultural groups were small. Coherent principles of social reasoning other than balance were rare and did not differentiate among cultural groups. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Pessimistic noise effects": The perception of reaction times in noise.

Used a between-group design to examine the effect of loud noise on a 2-choice discrete reaction task and the judgments Ss made about self-produced RTs under these conditions. In Exp I, 70 Ss (aged 26–39 yrs) completed a 2-choice RT task and a concurrent RT rating task of speed. White noise was presented to Ss in the experimental groups. RTs were unexpectedly faster in noise, but Ss used more "slow" categories in describing them. The effect was not apparent when the same RTs were rerated a 2nd time under instructions that indicated that they were random time intervals. Also, the effect was not apparent when a new group of 14 undergraduates in Exp II rated the original RT data, again in noise. Exp III showed that when asked to predict average RTs produced by a hypothetical S in noise, 30 uniformed Ss (aged 26–39 yrs) predicted slow RTs. Results are considered in the light of the hypothesis that pessimistic expectancies about likely effects of noise may be a factor influencing performance. (French abstract) (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What state hospital psychiatric patients want more of and less of in treatment.

Compared the treatment preferences of 104 male and 101 female psychiatric patients, analyzing their response data according to sex, age, educational level, and length of hospitalization subgroups. Results show that male Ss, Ss under 40 yrs of age, those with more than 8 yrs of education, and those hospitalized less than 6 mo from 1-2 yrs desired increased activity across all modalities. Females, Ss over 50, and those hospitalized 7-12 mo were status-quo oriented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Développement des stratégies cognitives et des habiletés d'autocontr?le chez les enfants de 8 à 14 ans.

Studied interactions between cognitive development and self-monitoring abilities. Human Ss: 19 normal male and female Canadian school-age children (aged 8 yrs). 20 normal male and female Canadian school-age children (aged 10 yrs). 21 normal male and female Canadian school-age children (aged 12 yrs). 21 normal male and female Canadian adolescents (aged 14 yrs). Ss were asked to solve 8 proportionality problems, using a balance scale. Cognitive development was determined by the strategy used and performance on each problem. Indicators of self-monitoring included amount of time spent on strategy planning, self-evaluation of expected performance, persistence, changes in strategies following failure, and verbal explanations of failure. Interactions between cognitive level and indicators of self-monitoring were analyzed, and the influence of task complexity was determined. (English abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parenting behavior and emotional status of physically abusive mothers.

Administered the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and Cornell Medical Index (CMI) to 8 physically abusive mothers (mean age 27.5 yrs) from low-SES families, 8 matched low-SES control mothers (mean age 26.5 yrs), and 8 matched middle-SES control mothers (mean age 32.9 yrs). Results show that abusive Ss differed from both control groups on the BDI and the Emotional Distress and Physical Symptoms scales of the CMI. Marginally significant differences were found on the Trait Anxiety scale of the STAI. No significant differences were found between control groups. Although direct observation in the home revealed no significant differences among the 3 groups on any measure of child behavior, the abusive Ss engaged in a far higher percentage of negative physical behaviors and a lower percentage of positive behaviors toward their children than did either of the control groups. A model of child abuse is suggested that proposes that parents who are in greater emotional and somatic distress may have a lower threshold for child misbehavior and may react more punitively to it. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Work values of the chronically unemployed.

Constructed and administered a scale of specific work values, the Work Requirements Rating Scale, to 23 supervisors employed for over 10 yrs, 52 hourly wage workers employed for over 2 yrs, and 50 chronically unemployed individuals. Ss also completed a social access questionnaire measuring components of the sociocultural environment and personality which has been shown to be predictive of vocational adjustment. Supervisors differed from the other 2 groups in the high value they placed on basic work behaviors. Chronically unemployed Ss and wage workers did not differ on work values. Results suggest that the scale has considerable promise in the assessment of work values. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neuropsychological impairment, depression, and Parkinson's disease.

Examined the nature of cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease (PD) and its relation to depression in 89 nondemented (mean age 69.35 yrs) and 19 demented (mean age 79.94 yrs) PD patients and 64 control Ss (mean age 66.44 yrs). PD Ss were significantly more depressed than controls on the Beck Depression Inventory and the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). There were significant, negative associations between scores on the GDS and performance on 8 neuropsychological test variables. Both PD groups were significantly impaired on 7 neuropsychologial test variables, including measures of visuomotor, memory, and executive functions. The demented PD group was more impaired than the nondemented PD and control groups on 9 neuropsychological test variables. Cognitive impairments in the nondemented PD group were relatively subtle and not apparent on the Mini-Mental State Examination. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)