Ritualistic evocation of antiquated paradigms.

Comments on J. J. Magnavita's (see record 1993-42219-001) assertion that Freud's purported discovery of unconscious processes and psychic structures "laid the groundwork for the scientific investigation of emotional disorders and techniques for their amelioration." Freud fabricated an architectonic structure from hypothetical constructs that were developed over 150 yrs of psychophilosophical and clinical investigations of psychotherapy. The concepts popularized by Freud are often seen as increasingly antiquated or as impediments to a contemporary science of the mind. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Time course of movement planning: Selection of handgrips for object manipulation.

A goal of research on the cognitive control of movement is to determine how movements are chosen when many movements are possible. The authors addressed this issue by studying how Ss reached for a bar to be moved as quickly as possible from a home location to a target location. Ss generally grabbed the bar in a way that afforded a comfortable posture at the target location (the end-state comfort effect) and with the thumb toward the end of the bar that would be aligned with the target (the thumb-toward bias). The data suggest that Ss chose handgrips by retrieving instances of previous reaches, not by carrying out computations that treated candidate reaches as new behavioral events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conflict between the sexes: Strategic interference and the evocation of anger and upset.

Advances an evolution-based model of strategic conflict between men and women. Conflict is predicted to occur whenever the reproductive strategy adopted by one sex interferes with that adopted by the opposite sex. Three empirical studies tested hypotheses based on this model. Study 1 (N?=?528) examined sex differences in sources of anger and upset (e.g., about sexual aggressiveness or withholding) among 2 samples of Ss differing in age and marital status. Study 2 (N?=?60) assessed the perceived magnitude of upset each sex would experience when confronted by each source. Study 3 (N?=?214) tested predictions within married couples about sex differences in sources of marital and sexual dissatisfaction. These studies provide modest support for the strategic conflict model and implicate the negative emotions of anger and upset as proximate mechanisms that alert men and women to strategic interference. The diversity of upset elicitors discovered here, such as being condescending, possessive, neglecting, abusive, inconsiderate, moody, and self-centered, point to the limitations of this evolutionary model and the need to develop more comprehensive models of conflict between the sexes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tactics of manipulation.

Manipulation is one means by which environments are altered to correspond to characteristics of individuals. We conducted two studies to identify the manipulation tactics that people use to elicit and terminate the actions of others. Factor analyses of four instruments revealed six types of tactics: charm, silent treatment, coercion, reason, regression, and debasement. Tactics of manipulation showed strong individual difference consistency across contexts. The charm tactic, however, was used more frequently for behavioral elicitation, whereas the coercion and silent treatment tactics were used more frequently for behavioral termination. Manipulation tactics covaried significantly across self-based and observer-based data sources with personality scales of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Ambitious–Lazy, Arrogant–Unassuming, Quarrelsome–Agreeable, and Calculating and with characteristics of subjects' social environments. We draw implications for an interactionist framework of person–environment correspondence, for an expansion of the taxonomic task that faces personality psychology, and for identifying links between personality and other scientific disciplines. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sensorimotor prediction and memory in object manipulation.

Notes that when people lift objects of different size but equal weight, they initially employ too much force for the large object and too little force for the small object. However, over repeated lifts of the two objects, they learn to suppress the size–weight association used to estimate force requirements and appropriately scale their lifting forces to the true and equal weights of the objects. Thus, sensorimotor memory from previous lifts comes to dominate visual size information in terms of force prediction. Here the authors ask whether this sensorimotor memory is transient, preserved only long enough to perform the task, or more stable. After completing an initial lift series in which they lifted equally weighted large and small objects in alternation, 24 18–28 yr olds then repeated the lift series after delays of 15 min or 24 hrs. In both cases, participants retained information about the weights of the objects and used this information to predict the appropriate fingertip forces. This preserved sensorimotor memory suggests that participants acquired internal models of the size–weight stimuli that could be used for later prediction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transfer among phonological manipulation skills.

Skills that require the manipulations of sounds that make up words are closely associated with the process of learning to read. This study involved an experimental analysis of the relations among phonological manipulation skills. Several skills were taught to 35 Head Start preschool children (mean age 5.2 yrs), and the degree to which learning 1 of these skills resulted in improved skill performance and accelerated learning of a 2nd skill was investigated. Instruction produced robust gains in skill performance and generalization of skills to novel instances. Posttest scores and data on students' efficiency of learning, however, offered no evidence of transfer across phonological manipulation skills. These results imply that the class of phonological manipulation skills does not have a simple structure and suggest that task and subject characteristics must be considered in predicting transfer among such skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinicians' theoretical orientations: Selection, utilization, and efficacy.

479 clinical psychologists were surveyed regarding their use of and satisfaction with their theoretical orientations, reasons for the selection of their orientations, and the relative influence of their chosen orientations on psychotherapy practice. Contrary to suggestions that clinicians select an orientation largely on inexplicable or accidental grounds, adoption of an orientation was attributed to personal, deliberate choices primarily predicated on clinical experience, personal values, and graduate training. Of 18 possible influences on therapeutic practice, theoretical orientation was rated the most influential and theory of pathology/personality the 2nd most influential, which suggests that clinical psychologists perceive their orientations as pervasive and efficacious therapeutic variables. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experimental manipulation of therapeutic conditions.

The authors explore the heretofore vague "something more" attributed to the therapeutic relationship by experimentally demonstrating the effect of just 2 almost universally posited therapist-offered conditions which make for a "meaningful" interpersonal relationship, warmth and empathic understanding, upon 1 critical aspect of patient behavior in therapy, patient intrapersonal exploration. The authors characterize the therapeutic relationship as a stimulus complex within which the relearning process takes place most deeply and most efficaciously. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory and age differences in spatial manipulation ability.

Young and old adults were asked, in 3 experiments, to make decisions about the identity of line segment patterns after either adding or subtracting line segments from the original pattern. On some of the trials, the line segments from the initial display were presented again in the second display to minimize the necessity of remembering early information during the processing of later information. Although this manipulation presumably reduced the importance of memory in the tasks, it had little effect on the magnitude of the age differences in any of the experiments. Because the 2 groups were equivalent in accuracy of simple recognition judgments, but older adults were less accurate when the same types of decisions were required in the context of an ongoing task, the results suggested that older adults may be impaired in the ability to retain information while simultaneously processing the same or other information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Strategy manipulation and the Stroop effect in hypnosis.

When asked to name the ink color of an incompatible color word (e.g., the word red printed in green ink), people show strong interference from the word. This phenomenon—the Stroop effect—has become a benchmark measure of attention, and is notoriously difficult to modulate. This study examined Stroop interference in subjects who were either high or low in susceptibility to hypnosis. Compared with performance in the waking state, the Stroop effect actually increased under hypnosis, a result particularly evident in the high-susceptible subjects. This contradicts the notion that high-susceptible subjects freely select appropriate strategies when hypnotized, a conclusion strengthened by an analysis of reported strategies in the two states. However, when provided with an attentional focusing instruction under hypnosis, high-susceptible subjects sharply reduced the Stroop effect, whereas low-susceptible subjects decreased it only slightly. One role of hypnosis may be to assist the subject in tuning attention, but only when an appropriate strategy is provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reducing Voluntary, Avoidable Turnover Through Selection.

The authors investigated the efficacy of several variables used to predict voluntary, organizationally avoidable turnover even before the employee is hired. Analyses conducted on applicant data collected in 2 separate organizations (N = 445) confirmed that biodata, clear-purpose attitudes and intentions, and disguised-purpose dispositional retention scales predicted voluntary, avoidable turnover (rs ranged from -.16 to -.22, R = .37, adjusted R = .33). Results also revealed that biodata scales and disguised-purpose retention scales added incremental validity, whereas clear-purpose retention scales did not explain significant incremental variance in turnover beyond what was explained by biodata and disguised-purpose scales. Furthermore, disparate impact (subgroup differences on race, sex, and age) was consistently small (average d = 0.12 when the majority group scored higher than the minority group). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of pleasant-activities manipulation on depression.

Examined the effects on mood of increasing pleasant activities in a series of 4 withdrawal designs with 4 clinically depressed females, aged 19–46 yrs. (Depression was confirmed through instruments including the MMPI Depression scale and Beck Depression Inventory). Ss were taught daily goal setting and self-reward strategies for increasing pleasant activities. Goal setting had no impact on self-monitored pleasant-activity rate. Self-reward was associated with a modest increase in activity rate when it was first introduced, and it produced a substantial increase in pleasant activities when it was reinstated following a 10-day withdrawal. However, these increases produced no improvement in self-monitored mood. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experimental manipulation of the halo effect.

To test the hypothesis that halo effect is a judgmental error rather than the effect of objective correlation of traits, one group (N = 18) rated 5 noted individuals, one individual per day on all of 5 traits, while another group (N = 18) rated all 5 individuals on one trait per day. The authors state that the results prove that halo is in part a phenomenon of judgment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experimental manipulation of authoritarianism and its effect on creativity.

Examined the hypothesis that authoritarianism and creativity may be opposite poles of the same continuum. 500 undergraduates were administered the California F Scale and the Personal Opinion Survey measure of creativity. A total of 80 Ss were chosen to fit 4 groups: males high in authoritarianism and low in creativity, females high in authoritarianism and low in creativity, males high in creativity and low in authoritarianism, and females high in creativity and low in authoritarianism. A modified Asch-type conformity situation was used to see if changing authoritarianism would affect creativity scores. All 4 groups had their authoritarianism manipulated in the predicted direction, and this resulted in changed creativity scores for all groups except the high-authoritarian males. Results support the hypothesis. (24 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cervical manipulation and stroke

Three patients are described who experienced vertebro-basilar distribution infarctions associated with neck manipulation. Two of the manipulations were chiropractic. Twenty-two previously reported cases are reviewed. Evidence favoring the use of anticoagulation in these patients is discussed along with the relative risk of such therapy.     

Role of expectancy manipulation in systematic desensitization.

Manipulated expectancy, relaxation, and hierarchy content in a 2 * 2 design with 2 additional control groups. Ss were 76 spider-phobic undergraduates. It was hypothesized that a major portion of therapeutic change following desensitization could be accounted for by the Ss' responses to positive feedback inherent in the paradigm. Ss saw either photographs of spiders or blank slides that they believed to be tachistoscopically-presented pictures of spiders. One-half of the Ss believed their progress through the hierarchy to be contingent on autonomic responses; the others believed rate of progress to be random. Findings did not support the hypothesis that expectancy is the only factor in desensitization, but they did clarify the role of expectancy vis-a-vis the counterconditioning elements typically discussed in the literature. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hormonal manipulation of carrageenin-induced pyresis in rats,

The intensity of the hyperthermic response in rats promoted by subplantar injections of 1 mg of carrageenin is directly related to the irritant properties of the type of carrageenin. The overall pyretic response is more dramatic in female rats than in male rats. Subtle changes in the time-course hyperthermic profiles are seen after hormonal modifications.     

Chiropractic manipulation

A unique case of aortic atresia and tricuspid atresia associated with transposition of the great vessels is described in a newborn infant. The clinical, echocardiographic, and heart catheterization data are presented. The embryological and surgical implications are discussed.     

Transport, manipulation, and reaction of biological cells on-chip using electrokinetic effects

A microfluidic system was fabricated on a glass chip to study mobilization of biological cells on-chip. Electroosmotic and/or electrophoretic pumping were used to drive the cell transport within a network of capillary channels. Whole cells such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, canine erythrocyte, and Escherichia coli were employed in this work. Photographs are presented to illustrate how cells are selected and transported from one location to another within the capillary network, with velocities up to about 0.5 mm/s in capillaries with a 15- x 55-microns cross section. The mixing of canine erythrocytes with the lysing agent sodium dodecyl sulfate, at an intersection within the chip, was performed to demonstrate that cell selection and subsequent reaction can be accomplished within the microchip.