Teaching ethical principles by means of value confrontations.

Presents an approach to teaching ethical standards and principles to graduate psychology students. Students are asked to respond to critical incidents involving ethical dilemmas. Existing values and beliefs are confronted and the student is challenged to seek solutions to the dilemmas. Topics range from ethical issues in psychotherapy research to values inherent in major theories of personality. Sample discussions from several topics are presented. The position is taken that the teaching of ethical principles is facilitated by value confrontations. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The facilitating effects of money and moral set on the moral judgment of adolescent delinquents.

Previous research with normal elementary school children and adolescent delinquents had demonstrated the effectiveness of modeling procedures in promoting their level of intentionality (i.e., the developmentally more mature judgment of a misdeed in terms of intent rather than consequent material damages). The present study with 20 male juvenile delinquents (mean age = 12 yrs) investigated the extent to which such increases in intentionality reflect the appearance of previously acquired responses, rather than the learning of new behaviors as a consequence of modeling. Following establishment of a baseline, Ss were exposed to a manipulation in which money and adult moral set maximized the operation of old moral response styles but precluded the learning of new ones. Posttest evaluation revealed significant increases of 20% in level of intentionality in experimental Ss in comparison with controls. Alternative interpretations of these effects are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Schools and psychology.

In response to J. Barclay's (see record 1971-31604-001) article on school psychologists (SPs), the authors propose that SPs develop more options for nonconforming students, rather than attempting to make them conform to the range of normal behaviors required for school success. Such a shift in emphasis has implications for greater tolerance for individual differences and for an increase in SP effectiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Integration of triangular finite elements containing corrective rational functions

Rational corrective functions are often supplemented to complete polynomials in order to create conforming triangular finite elements for plate bending. Although such elements containing complete polynomials of degree 3 or 4 have long been known, conforming triangular elements for plate bending, which contain complete polynomials of arbitrary degree p ? 5 and new corrective rational functions, have been given only recently. Integration of rational functions usually requires numerical quadrature. It is shown here that these new corrective rational functions fall into two classes. For those in one class, explicit closed form integration formulas are available. For those in the other class, integration can be performed very efficiently by summing series whose general term is O(k^d) for large k, where d ? 5. These formulas also apply to the older third and fourth order elements.     

Warm-up decrement as failure in memory retrieval in the rat.

Results of 5 experiments with female (n = 206) and male (n = 32) albino Sprague-Dawley rats show that warm-up decrement 24 hrs after learning free-operant or discrete-trial active avoidance was reduced by certain pretest warm-up treatments. When retention was measured in terms of performance on opposing passive-avoidance tasks, these warm-up treatments impaired rather than facilitated performance. Control conditions indicate that these effects were not due to increased motivation or additional learning caused by the warm-up treatment, but probably reflected enhancement of memory retrieval. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dynamic studies of zirconia crystallization

Zirconium hydroxide is a precursor material of zirconia. Variations in both chemical and physical properties of this precursor affect the properties of the final product. One of these variations is that of the pH of the liquid in contact with the final hydroxide precipitate. We show here, using advanced dynamic diffraction techniques, how pH affects the kinetic aspects of synthesis: In particular we investigate the effect of pH on the temperature of onset of crystallization, the rate of crystallization and crystal growth during calcination, as well as the temperature and rate of transformation, on cooling, of the tetragonal to monoclinic form of zirconia.     

Reports of elapsed time: Bounding and rounding processes in estimation.

The present article concerns the way temporal information is represented in memory and the processes used in estimating when events occurred. In particular, we examine the sources of bias in reports of the time that has elapsed since a target event occurred. We find that reported times are less than actual times. Evidence is presented that this forward bias is not a result of misrepresentation of elapsed time in memory, but rather reflects two factors that arise in constructing reports from inexact information in memory. One factor is subjects' imposition of an upper boundary on reports, reflecting their notion of what would constitute reasonable answers to the question asked. This boundary truncates the distribution of reports, producing forward bias. The other factor is subjects' use of rounded (prototypic) values; these values, although stated in days, actually represent larger temporal categories (e.g., 14, 21, 30, 60 days ago). The distance between rounded values increases as the temporal categories become larger. Because of decreasing precision in memory and this increase in the distance between rounded values, a broader range of values is rounded down than up, thus producing forward bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Slow elastic modulus changes in plasticised poly (vinyl chloride)

The Young's Modulus of PVC plasticised with various dialkylphthalates at concentrations from 40–120 phr that has been subject to a short heat treatment at 100°C, increases linearly with the logarithm of the time of storing at temperatures from 20–100°C. Both the Young's Modulus and its rats of increase with time is found to increase with increasing size of plasticiser to increase with decreasing concentration of plasticiser and to pass through a maximum with changing temperature of storage at a temperature of about 38°C. These effects can be explained if it is assumed that the elasticity results from a network linked by crystallites that can be melted on heating and reformed on storing at a lower temperature. The density of the plasticiser compositions is found to increase with time and this together with the development of endothermic DSC peaks support the hypothesis that changes in rigidity result from changes in crystallinity. The endothermic peak occurs at an almost constant temperature independent of plasticiser concentration or the size of the plasticiser molecule. It is suggested that the effect of these variables on the the melting point is nullified by the changes they also produce in crystallite size.     

Review of The works of Jacques Lacan: An introduction.

Reviews the book, The works of Jacques Lacan: An introduction by Bice Benvenuto and Roger Kennedy (1986). Thanks to its clarity, this is a book that allows us to raise the whole issue of Lacan's version of psychoanalysis. "The aim of this book," its first sentence says, "is to give a clear introduction to the work of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan". In this, Benvenuto and Kennedy have succeeded admirably. If you are looking for a book to guide your students or yourself through Lacan's version of psychoanalysis, I know of none I would recommend more highly. Lacan's writing is witty and playful, but notoriously difficult. Benvenuto and Kennedy include just enough quotations from Lacan to make one grateful one is reading a summary and not the original. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Where the 'Stars' are: The 25 most cited psychologists in Canada": Corrections.

Reports an error in "Where the "stars" are: The 25 most cited psychologists in Canada (1972–1976)" by Norman S. Endler (Canadian Psychological Review, 1979[Jan], Vol 20[1], 12-21). Several corrections should be noted. The corrections are as follows: 1) in Table 1, the subheadings "1975 1974 1973 1972" were improperly aligned with the columns, and Kimura's 1976 citation rank should have been 3 instead of 2; 2) in Table 2, the number 1 calling attention to footnote 1 was omitted from the title; 3) in Table 3, an additional heading "Citations" should have appeared over the columns "1975 1974 1973 1972" on the same line as "Publications;" 4) in Table 3, the probability levels should have read '*p 1980-01842-001) and Endler et al's 1978 American Psychologist article (Vol. 33, pages 1064-1082). CPR also extends apologies to Professors Endler, Melzack and Tulving for typographical errors in the spelling of their names as follows: on the front cover, Professor Endler's middle initial should have been listed as S; on page 16, in the last paragraph, in the left hand column, Melzack's name was misspelled; on page 19, in the second paragraph in the right column, Tulving's name was misspelled. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1980-28686-001.) The Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) for 1972-1976 was used as a data source for citation counts, which reflect scholarly impact, and publication counts reflecting productivity, for the 25 most cited psychologists ("stars") for 1972-1976. These 25 "stars" are located primarily at Ontario Universities and McGill and received their graduate training primarily at McGill, Yale, Harvard or the big 10 mid-western universities. Their major research areas appear to be cognitive processes, memory and verbal learning, personality theory and assessment, social processes and physiological psychology. Most of them are in their 40s or 50s, five of them are past presidents of CPA, three of them are currently departmental chairmen, and two are former departmental chairmen. Despite the limitations of the SSCI citation count, it appears to be the best single indicator of research quality and scholarly impact on the field of academic psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)