Some irreverent comments.

Contends, in this response to E.S. Epstein and V. E. Loos (see record 1989-40685-001), that it is morally correct to operate from an amoral position as a family therapist because (1) families give (some) permission to tinker with their way of doing things by the act of seeking treatment and (2) therapists have limited power to impose anything on families that does not work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessment of diagnostic procedures. Some comments about classical indices (author's transl)

The assessment of diagnostic technologies, concerns today both clinicians and health care administrators. This assessment is based upon calculation of various indices measuring the informative value of diagnostic test: sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, predictive value. Despite their extreme semplicity, these indices can be misinterpreted and misused; in addition they are often calculated from very particular patients sample, especially when retrospective data are used. The main points which influence the value confered to a diagnostic test, the major bias to avoid designing such studies are pointed out this paper. The likeness between controlled therapeutic trial and comparative assessment of diagnostic technologies is particularly emphasized.     

Some comments on psychology and psychophysics.

Historically the development of psychophysical procedures was instrumental in fostering the growth of psychology and its emergence as a discipline separate from philosophy. At the present time, while psychophysical studies are still performed extensively, there has been a diminution of interest in them among psychologists and a misunderstanding of them among some other disciplines. The article discusses some of the problems faced by the psychologist engaged in psychophysical research. It is argued that there are two major areas of difficulty that are apparent. The first is the trend away from a psychological framework for psychophysics and the second is ignorance about sensory psychology and the methods it uses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some comments on empirically supported treatments.

A number of developments have occurred in the field of psychotherapy in recent years. One pertains to the emphasis on empirically supported or validated therapies for specific psychiatric disorders. Although this emphasis on empirical support is a positive one, the creation of numerous forms of therapy for specific psychiatric categories, and the possible implication that training in such therapies becomes the basis for accreditation of university programs, is viewed critically. A focus on forms of psychotherapy also tends to diminish the importance of patient and therapist characteristics in producing positive outcomes. Future research needs to ascertain the variables that actually produce positive patient change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adolescent mothers' cognitions and behaviors as at-risk indicators.

Examined how qualities of adolescent mothers (AMs) are related to their child's socioemotional development and the relationship between maternal characteristics and the AM's ratings of her child's behavior. Ss included 39 AMs (mean age 17.9 yrs) and their children (aged 4–22 mo). Multiple measures of parental characteristics were used, including self-report measures of parenting expectations and mood orientation, and a qualitative behavioral measure of involvement. Analyses compared these measures with ratings of the child's coping behavior by trained observers and mothers' ratings of their child using the Parenting Stress Index (PSI). Findings indicate that parenting expectations had a unique and differential power in explaining both objective child observation ratings and the mothers' PSI ratings of their children. Interactions involving maternal positive behavior were related significantly to mothers' PSI ratings of the child's acceptability or reinforcement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affective variables and school achievement: A study of possible causal influences.

Studied the predictive and causal relationship of affective variables and academic achievement (376 Ss in Grades 3–6), both concurrently and 1 yr later. Affective characteristics studied were general and academic self-concept, academic locus of control, and expectations for future academic achievement (Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale, Student's Perception of Ability Scale, Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire, and the Projected Academic Performance Scale) whereas levels of achievement were ascertained by end-of-year grades. The findings indicate that affective variables, especially academic self-concept, made a small but significant contribution to school grades. The data suggest a possible reciprocal interaction between affective characteristics and school achievement. Implications for children experiencing learning difficulties are discussed. (French abstract) (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some comments on a Viennese school of psychiatry.

The author comments on a school of psychotherapy called Logotherapy or Existential Analysis, which was originated by Victor E. Frankl of the Department of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Vienna. This school of analysis reflects the culture of the Hitler era and post-war Europe. Frankl states that neurosis is caused by repression of the patient's sense of responsibility and the function of psychotherapy is to bring this sense of responsibility back to the patient's awareness. Happiness, he postulates, is a byproduct of the realization of other values. Fear of death, aging, and discomfort are the principal causes of anxiety. The author feels that this school of psychotherapy, which has arisen from an experiential background so different from ours is worthy of careful study. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some comments on the EPPS Ego Disjunction Score.

Trehub (see 34: 1064) had derived an Ego Disjunction Score (EDS) from the Edwards PPS, and had found EDS to be linearly related to degree of psychopathology. Koponen (1957) had demonstrated the effect of demographic variables (age, sex, education) upon EPPS scores. A reanalysis of Koponen's data indicated that these same variables affected EDS scores. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4HF58G. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some comments on the use of untrained therapists.

A study by Poser, where chronic schizophrenics received group psychotherapy from both untrained and trained therapists, is discussed. The experimental design of the study is questioned: the time factor, male patients treated by female untrained therapists, dropouts, and selection of untrained therapists. The term "group psychotherapy" is poorly defined in this study, since the term covers a variety of therapeutic goals and orientations. The question of criteria becomes obscured. There is no clarification of the motives that bring psychotherapists to work with patients. The lack of clarity confuses workers in the field of psychotherapy since "help" is an ambiguous term which represents everything from compassion to personality change. Motivations and value systems of both patients and therapists must be considered in the type of study Poser has conducted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some comments on the use of magnitude-of-effect estimates.

In a recent article Murray and Dosser (1987) discussed the interpretation and potential misuse of magnitude-of-effect (ME) estimates. In this article I expand on two issues discussed by Murray and Dosser. First, it is demonstrated that ME estimates vary in their susceptibility to sample-size bias depending on whether they are directional or nondirectional estimates. Second, it is demonstrated that study characteristics that influence the size of ME estimates can be explicitly taken into account when comparing studies. Both issues underscore the need to consider very carefully the many study features that can distort ME estimates and make study comparison hazardous. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some data and comments regarding educational set theory.

Educational set theory has suggested that some students prefer to learn concepts before facts while others prefer to learn facts before concepts, and that academic performance can be enhanced by making content presentation sensitive to such individual differences. The Educational Set Scale (ESS), developed to measure this hypothesized construct, has been used to produce support for the theory. However, the reliability and validity of the ESS and its relationships with other indices of performance have not been sufficiently established to support such theorizing. The present investigation provided empirical data, collected from 117 students enrolled in various university psychology classes. Experimental and analytical procedures are described in detail. Theoretical issues regarding the scale and the theory are discussed. Because results indicate possible errors resulting from use of the ESS, an expanded model is proposed, and directions for future research are suggested. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beyond social cognitions.

Reviews the book, Social motivation: Understanding children's school adjustment edited by J. Juvonen and K. R. Wentzel (see record 1997-97006-000). In general, research has paid little attention to the possibility that children's social motivation is intertwined with their academic motivation. Affiliation and achievement have been regarded as two distinct motivations. This book is an attempt to redress this imbalance and misconception. The book argues that children's social and academic development are intertwined. Contributors to the book discuss specific ways in which children are motivated to achieve socially and academically at school. The book's social motivation perspective has successfully extended the reader's attention from intrapsychological processes to interpersonal relationships and social concerns as motivators of behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some comments on the failure of behavior therapy as a technique for modifying cigarette smoking.

Attributes the failure of behavior therapy for smokers to 2 factors: 1st, the inadequacy of external contingencies, and 2nd, the lack of effect of aversive control. Smokers find it easy to return to smoking once they are outside the therapeutic situation. Data from a role-playing experiment are interpreted to signify that positive reinforcements for refraining from smoking might be more successful than aversive controls in changing smoking behavior. Neither of A. R. Marston and R. M. McFall's (see PA, Vol. 46:Issue 2) experimental groups showed greater reduction in smoking than their control groups. This was attributed to the weakness of aversive control for the "stimulus satiation" group which was instructed to smoke 3 cigarettes in rapid succession each time a cigarette was desired. For a "hierarchical reduction" condition in which cigarettes desired least were eliminated, it was proposed that cutting down by eliminating undesired cigarettes might strengthen rather than weaken smoking, since its rewards are, if anything, increased. (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)     

Analysis of multiplicative combination rules when the causal variables are measured with error.

Evaluates the validity of the observational method used to test multiplicative combination rules with respect to 2 measurement issues: measurement level (i.e., the effects produced by allowing monotonic transformations of the measures) and measurement error (i.e., the effects produced by using unreliable measures of the causal variables). The evaluation is based on a theoretical distinction between the structural model (the set of equations relating theoretical constructs to each other) and the measurement model (the set of equations relating the theoretical constructs to the observed measures). It is concluded that hierarchical regression analysis is inadequate for determining whether the structural model is additive or multiplicative for 2 reasons: First, an additive structural model may produce multiplicative effects through a nonlinear measurement model. Second, a multiplicative structural model may produce nondetectable multiplicative effects because of multiplicative measurement error. Some alternatives to hierarchical regression analysis are described. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some further comments on evaluation of outcome in psychotherapy.

Replies briefly to comments by R. M. Leve (see PA, Vol 52:Issue 4) on a previous article concerning the evaluation of outcome in psychotherapy. While acknowledging that the matter of agreement and disagreement among Os is of some significance, the importance of using a variety of different criteria in assessing outcome in psychotherapy is particularly emphasized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some comments on the urethral syndrome

Studies were made on the mechanism by which livers of ethanol-treated rats take up an increased fraction of the total flux of unesterified fatty acid in serum. It was found that ethanol (0.7g/kg) causes a twofold rise in the serum content of liver, and that this serum is in rapid equilibrium with the general circulation. The fractional hepatic uptake from serum of group of compounds with varying uptake mechanisms and metabolic fates was studied in control and ethanol-treated animals. All the compounds tested, including unesterified fatty acid, showed an enhanced uptake when ethanol was given. For one of the compounds, carbon tetrachloride, a dose/response relationship was established between the amount administered, the amount taken up by liver, and the amount metabolized. These findings were interpreted to mean that this dose of ethanol causes the liver to receive an increased flow of blood, and as a result all compounds present and capable of being taken by liver are taken up at an increased rate. Hepatic blood flow was measured by a technique that monitors the rate of clearance of a colloidal lipid emulsion. It was found that ethanol increased hepatic blood flow by about 60%. This effect of ethanol on hepatic blood flow provides an explanation for the fatty liver and the synergistic effect between an acute dose of ethanol and carbon tetrachloride. A hypothesis to explain why a moderate dose of ethanol causes triglyceride to accumulate in liver is presented.     

Causal judgments about relations between multilevel variables.

Three experiments presented stimulus information about cause and effect variables taking 3 quantitative values. Judgments tended to vary in accordance with considerations of conditions affecting the validity of causal inference from correlational data: whether causal candidates were presented simultaneously or in a temporal order such that one could affect the other and whether candidates were confounded with each other. The results supported a general hypothesis that causal judgments are moderated in accordance with acquired methodological intuitions. The 4th experiment showed that tendencies in correlation judgment were different from those in causal judgment, further supporting the hypothesis that causal judgment from multilevel variable information is, to some extent, determined by processes or conceptual frameworks specific to the domain of causal cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some variables affecting dentists' assessment of patients' distress.

43 2nd-yr dental students estimated the pain, anxiety, and distress of 43 patients who received a simple filling. Measures included a dental experience questionnaire and the Self-Monitoring Scale. Dentist's estimates of patient pain accounted for 36% of the variance in patient self-report responses. Dentist accuracy was unaffected by patients' degree of self-monitoring. Dentists' accuracy in assessing overall patient discomfort was significantly lower in that segment of the treatment that was most stressful for the dentists. This finding was interpreted as an attentional overload on processing ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)