Some aspects of the executive personality.

The responses of 44 top-level executives to the Tomkins-Horn Picture Arrangement Test were compared with the responses of 41 college professors and with those of a group of 25 males comparable to the executives in age, education, and intelligence level. Two characteristics were associated with executives' responses (as distinguished from the responses of the control groups): a generalized fear of illness and a tendency to react to problem situations with a feeling of some degree of helplessness and a sense of being dependent on others for a solution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Helping the suicidal client: Some aspects of assessment and treatment.

All manifestations of suicidal intent need to be taken seriously by the clinician, who must make an assessment of the level of suicidal risk and implement an active suicide prevention plan when risk is judged to be substantial. Suicidal behavior is more difficult to predict in schizophrenic compared with depressed people; factors correlated with increased risk of suicide in both contexts are elaborated. Hospitalization is indicated when acute suicidal risk is assessed to be high; its length is ideally limited to the period of acute risk, which may be as short as several days. During hospitalization, there should be active intervention to change real-life conditions, such as lack of social support, which may be central to the person's motivation to commit suicide. Antipsychotic medication may be introduced and the person helped to continue with it as an outpatient. For those at lesser levels of acute risk, outpatient treatment is seen as appropriate and effective. An important feature of such a plan is the involvement of the person's family and associates. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychosemantics: Some cognitive aspects of structural meaning.

Discusses aspects of semantic structure that have significance for cognitive psychology: (a) developments within the framework of transformational grammar that provide a semantic conception of syntactic relations, and (b) the structure of lexical meaning, especially the idea of semantic features as components of lexical meaning. While the theoretical status of semantic features is presently weak, there is some evidence that such components function in long-term memory. However, in addition to methodological problems, limitations on semantic features, as they have been previously conceived, are suggested by the possibility of semantic deep structure and the requirements of referential processes. (97 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some cognitive aspects of motivation.

Consider the possibility that "what we call motives are really a particular kind of perceptual or cognitive event… . We desperately need to discover the dimensions of motivated behavior." Factors discussed relating to motivated behavior include difficulty and novelty (encompassing change, unpredictability, and surprise). The cognitive approach to motivation is most promising in esthetics. The "cognitive contribution to why we do what we do is an important one. It is also one that we know very little about." Behavioral facts and relationships must precede a physiological theory of motivation. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3CC03P. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Divorce: A child's perspective.

There has been a marked rise in the rate of divorces involving children and in the number of children living in single parent homes. It is contended that much of the confusion in studying the impact of divorce on children has been a result of a failure to view divorce as a process involving a series of events and changes in life circumstances rather than as a single event. At different points in this sequence children are confronted with different adaptive tasks and will use different coping strategies. The diversity in children's responses to divorce in part are attributable to temperamental variables, past experience, and the child's sex and developmental status. In understanding the child's adjustment to divorce it is important to look not only at changes in family structure but also at changes in family functioning and at stresses and support systems in the child's extrafamilial social environment. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Imitation and expansions: Some developmental aspects of mother-child communications.

Videotaped 2 groups each of 9 children (age ranges = 18-26 mo and 48-61 mo, respectively) in a free-play setting with their mothers. Interactions were analyzed for relationships between mothers' and children's speech with regard to complexity and usage of selected speech types. Mothers' expansions of child utterances were positively related to the younger, but not the older, children's imitations of mothers' speech. Mothers' sentence complexity was positively related to younger, but not older, children's frequency of responding to questions. Child speech that is responsive to mothers' speech seems to provide a gauge by which mothers tailor their language complexity, allowing the child to exert an influence on his language environment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some defensive and cognitive aspects of phobias.

Divided phobias into 2 nonexhaustive groupings—animal phobias and situation phobias. Three hypotheses were tested: (a) animal phobics will use more obsessional defenses, whereas situation phobics will use more hysterical defenses; (b) animal phobics will show greater psychological differentiation than situation phobics, and (c) situation phobics will show greater physiognomic sensitivity than animal phobics. Ss consisted of 36 severely phobic adults, 18 of each type. Both the Defense Mechanism Inventory and the Holtzman Inkblot Technique were used to measure defenses. The Hidden Figures Test was used to measure psychological differentiation and the Physiognomic Cue Test was used to measure physiognomic sensitivity. The results confirm 2 of the 3 hypotheses. Phobic types showed significant differences in the use of ego defense mechanisms, as predicted. Animal phobics were significantly more field independent than situation phobics, as predicted. Factor analysis yielded 4 nameable factors, 2 of which differentiated the 2 phobic groups. Results suggest that phobias cannot be viewed as a single neurotic entity. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Family experience and the child's development.

Discusses the evidence for 3 premises implicit in theories of human development: (a) the assumption that a particular set of conditions is inevitably associated with a fixed set of consequences for all children, (b) the continuation of psychological structures established early in life, and (c) the importance of the mother–infant bond. Data are presented that question the validity of these presuppositions. It is suggested that the form of early care that is best for the child—in the adaptive sense—is the one that leads to, or is productive of, the culture's favored qualities, and therefore, no regimen of early care is best for all psychological qualities. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gestalt therapy: Some aspects of self-support, independence and responsibility.

Administered tests devised to measure self-concept, expressed value system, and fantasy production (e.g., Leary Interpersonal Check List and TAT) to 7 college students before and after Gestalt awareness training and to 7 Ss who received no treatment. Experimental Ss showed increased positive self-concepts, but their personal values remained unaffected, and their fantasy productions reflected significantly less independence, self-support, and responsibility. Results are interpreted in 2 ways: (1) Training may affect individuals beneficially on only a superficial and mutable level of personality—self concept—while personal values remain unaltered; fantasy production may even contraindicate training. (2) Training may have the desired effect on all levels, but insufficient time prevented Ss from moving beyond the "impasse," the crucial time when resistance sets in and people "prevent" themselves from using their resources. (47 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A longitudinal study of form–function relations in a mother's questions and her child's responses.

The relationship between semantic and syntactic aspects of linguistic form and conversational meaning was assessed in a longitudinal study of a mother's questions to her daughter from age 6 mo to 2? yrs. The number of questions accounted for by statistically reliable form–function pairings was significantly greater in the early stages of the child's language acquisition (through R. Brown's, 1973, Stage I) than in later stages (Stages III–V). During the 1-word stage and early Stage I the child was more likely to produce a correct verbal response to questions within semantic form–function pairings than to questions of the same form or function outside the pairings. Heightened incidence of correct response to questions in syntactic form–function pairings appeared to be largely due to the frequency of correctly answered requests for labels. After early Stage I, form–function relations did not affect the probability of the child's correct verbal responses. Implications of the role of the linguistic environment in early language acquisition are discussed in terms of various ways of characterizing form–function relations. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some dynamic aspects of posthypnotic compliance.

"Within the context of a general, psychoanalytically oriented theory of hypnosis there were presented 2 hypotheses on the nature of compliance with posthypnotic suggestions. According to the first, such compliance is viewed as facilitated by the Ss being able to interpret the posthypnotic suggestion in a manner consistent with the mechanisms and affective reactions that, for him, characterize and maintain the hypnotic relationship. In the second, compliance with a posthypnotic suggestion is viewed as facilitated if that suggestion permits the S safely to express and indulge a previously warded-off and conflicted drive. Case record data drawn from a recent experimental study were presented which tend to confirm these 2 hypotheses." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital transitions: A child's perspective.

Despite a recent leveling off of the divorce rate, almost half of the children born in the last decade will experience the divorce of their parents, and most of these children will also experience the remarriage of their parents. Most children initially experience their parents' marital rearrangements as stressful; however, children's responses to their parents marital transitions are diverse. Whereas some exhibit remarkable resiliency and in the long term may actually be enhanced by coping with these transitions, others suffer sustained developmental delays or disruptions. Others appear to adapt well in the early stages of family reorganizations but show delayed effects that emerge at a later time, especially in adolescence. The long-term effects are related more to the child's developmental status, sex, and temperament; the qualities of the home and parenting environments; and to the resources and support systems available to the parents and child than they are to divorce or remarriage per se. In recent years, researchers have begun to move away from the view that single-parent and remarried families are atypical or pathogenic families and are focusing on the diversity of children's responses and to the factors that facilitate or disrupt the development and adjustment of children experiencing their parents' marital transitions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Theodor Reik: An appreciation.

Theodore Reik (1888-1969) is important and this appreciative symposium will tell why. His life and work are truly relevant to the history of the Division of Psychoanalysis. This appreciative symposium of seven papers by six distinguished authors pays tribute to Reik's special place in psychoanalytic history. The late historian of psychoanalysis writes of two interviews with Reik in 1965 and 1967 (see record 2006-20697-009). Dany Nobus, from London, who is at work on a biography of Reik, wonders what happened to Reikian psychoanalysis (see record 2006-20697-010). Martin Schulman, the former editor of The Psychoanalytic Review, reconsiders the question of lay analysis (see record 2006-20697-011). Zvi Lothane, a noted scholar, continues his interest in free association with an examination of Listening With The Third Ear (see record 2006-20697-012). Morton Israel, who has worked to reestablish Reik's reputation, writes about Reik's compulsion to confess (see record 2006-20697-013). Kyle Arnold, a graduate student, offers another view of The Compulsion to Confess (see record 2006-20697-014). Arnold's paper won the Stephen A. Mitchell Award for an outstanding paper by a psychology student. The final paper, by Kyle Arnold was also submitted independently of the symposium and is included (see record 2006-20697-015). It covers Reik's theory of listening. All of the contributors including myself, as a former student of Reik, have been touched in different ways by his genius. It is hoped that these appreciative papers will reintroduce Reik's ideas to a new generation of psychologist/psychoanalysts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The child's perception of the parent.

"Interviews were held with 217 children of both sexes whose ages ranged from 6-0 to 10-2. Their answers to questions related to their perception of their parents were obtained. Both girls and boys stated that fathers were less friendly and more dominant, punitive, and threatening than mothers. There was, however, a consistent tendency for the older children to be more likely than the younger children to view the parent of the same sex as more dominant and punitive. It was suggested that differential handling of boys and girls might partially account for this latter finding." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

James J. Gibson: An appreciation.

J. J. Gibson (see PA, Vol 29:5103; see also PA, Vol 81:28168) conceived of a perceptual psychology very different from that taken by mainstream research work in vision over the past 30 yrs. Placing psychology in a biological and physical context and avoiding traditional disciplinary definitions, Gibson outlined a physics relevant to animate life. From this flowed his theory of affordances, his preoccupation with surfaces, and his interest in animal locomotion. Visual motion played a decisive role in rounding out these views. His work here was prophetic, anticipating neurophysiological discoveries on motion sensitivity and directly inspiring more recent studies on higher order aspects of motion encoding. Gibson scrupulously avoided mention of internal representation. Yet, those researchers interested in such internal processes remain deeply indebted to his enduring contributions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some aspects of the massive transformation

A number of issues of current importance to achieving a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of the massive transformation at the atomic level are identified and further considered. Re-analysis of published growth kinetics data for the massive transformation in six different alloy systems indicates that growth by the ledge mechanism is a reasonable possibility in all of them. Variations in the ratio of the inter-ledge spacing to the ledge height with boundary orientation and in the temperature-dependence of growth kinetics with boundary orientation also seem likely. Plateaux in plots of thermal arrest temperature vs a function of cooling rate are suggested to arise from changes in massive morphology with decreasing transformation temperature, derived from variations with boundary orientation of temperature-dependent growth kinetics. Solute “burial” during the massive transformation is concluded usually to be feasible only when the driving force for transfer back to the matrix of the atoms undergoing burial is much less than that for solvent atoms diffusing from the matrix to the product phase. Invariant plane strain surface reliefs can be generated during massive transformations when reaction occurs at sufficiently large undercoolings so that markedly anisotropic growth, involving comparatively large areas of partially coherent interphase boundary with a constant boundary orientation, is feasible. Massive transformation in a two-phase field below T₀ is probably viable when the volume diffusivity in the matrix is too low relative to the trans-interphase boundary diffusivity to permit appreciable solute partition during growth.     

Some aspects of impotence

The fine structure of human nasal sero-mucinous glands was studied in 15 chronic allergic patient. There was total absence of the mucous glands, and proliferation of seroud elements, with hugely dilated lumina containing large numbers of intact zymogen granules, and absence of microvilli. The relation between the goblet cells and the nasal glands was discussed. An interchange between the serous and mucous elements was deduced.     

The child's understanding of commitment.

We investigated 5- to 10-year-old children's understanding of the conditions under which a person becomes committed to carrying out an intended action in a series of three experiments. We asked subjects to pass moral judgment on story protagonists for not carrying out an action that, if it were carried out, would have prevented a friend's misfortune. In a commitment story the protagonist agreed to act, whereas in a no-commitment story the protagonist only predicted that he would act without understanding that his friend would later rely on this action. Up to the age of 9 years children thought both protagonists equally reprehensible for not acting. By varying the no-commitment story, a developmental sequence emerged in the understanding of when failure to act need not be reprehensible. Even the youngest children did not blame the protagonist if he never had the intention to act or if he was prevented from acting by external force. By the age of 7 years, they did blame the protagonist if he kept his intention to act a secret. Although children from a very early age have the concept of commitment, the understanding of the interpersonal conditions for becoming committed develops later. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some theoretical & philosophical aspects of educational psychology.

The author was invited to discuss "the extent and character of the theoretical and philosophical aspects" of educational psychology. His own work in educational psychology, however, is concerned primarily with research methodology, measurement, and statistical analyses as applied in educational research methods, and his major tie to philosophy has been in the philosophy of science. Therefore, he touches on topics such as behaviorism, logical positivism, cause-and-effect relationships, objectivity and subjectivity, relationships among variables, and Evolutionary Critical-Realism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)