Two hundred and fifty-three subjects were used in an experiment to try to determine how differences in news media presentations affect the reader's view of terrorism. Two stories about a terrorist attack were used, one describing a bombing, the other a hijacking. Both stories had two versions using no one injured or eight innocent people injured. One group of subjects was given no additional information about terrorism. The second group was given information after the description that emphasized the salience of terrorism. The third group received information that de-emphasized the seriousness of terrorism. Subjects were also given a questionnaire designed to measure authoritarianism and one to measure conservatism. It was found that subjects scoring high on authoritarianism or conservativism favored more severe punishment for terrorists than did those scoring lower on the two scales. Findings did not support the hypothesis that providing people with information about terrorism could lessen the impact of terrorist events.

Research has demonstrated that the general public accepts many rape myths and that rape attitudes are strongly connected to other deeply held and pervasive attitudes. However, it has not been clear whether police officers reflected similar attitudes. This research attempted to ascertain if police share the same antecedents of rape myth acceptance as the general public. Using officers from two police departments, it was demonstrated that attidudes regarding sex role stereotyping, sexual conservatism, acceptance of interpersonal violence, and adversarial sexual beliefs were significantly correlated with acceptance of rape myths. However, police were more pro-victim (p < .01) in their attitudes as compared to the general public. Officers who received specialized rape-related training were not significantly different in rape attitudes from those officers who had not received training.

In a statistical comparison of orthogonal normalized varimax factor analytic solutions for the MMPI-168 including and excluding invalid protocols of psychiatric inpatients, at least one factor reflection was observed. Factors identified were Psychotic Distortion (Absence of Distress), Somaticism, Depression, Extroversion, Masculinity-Femininity, and Low Morale. Factors obtained, and representative clinical scales, were consistent with those obtained by others in investigations of both abbreviated and standard MMPI forms. Statistical comparison of factors identified by the two analyses indicated congruence. Possible sources of factor distortion were discussed.

Little research has addressed the degree to which domestic violence is mutual and whether patterns are stable across women's relationships. Studies that exist have conflicting results. This study addressed these issues and the effects of sustaining past violence on women's expressions of violence in their current relationship. Archival data from a sample of severely psychologically abused community women (N = 92) and a sample of low-income community women (N = 836) were analyzed. Results showed the presence of mutual violence in women's current relationships which was not related to past partners' violence. Results regarding the stability of violence are weak, but indicate that the frequency and severity of violence across relationships sustained by women does not decrease across relationships. Overall, results supported the hypothesis that violence is mutual in the relationships of community women, although specific patterns may differ by ethnicity.

Descriptions of obesity, cerebral palsy, and scoliosis were rank-ordered (from one to twenty) and rated on a five-point scale by 75 college students. The descriptions were of two types: with the appearance of an individual on five levels of severity of a disorder and with the appearance and level of functioning of an individual on five levels of severity of a disorder. The ranking data indicated males rank-ordered descriptions of obese individuals different from cerebral palsy (p < 0.01) and scoliosis (p < 0.05) . The ratings of the descriptions were analyzed in two studies with 2 x 2 x 2 x 5 ANOVA's. Three-way interactions of the level of severity, complexity of description, and type of disorder rated were discussed in terms of likeability of handicapped individuals .

Although research has linked the central nervous system with changes in immunoresponsivity, research on the possible role of the central nervous system in altering reticuloendothelial activity is lacking. This study investigated the possible relationship between hypothalamic structures and changes in responsivity of the reticuloendothelial system. Eight male albino rats received bilateral electrode implants in the ventromedial area of the hypothalamus and, following brain stimulation, reticuloendothelial activity was assessed 3, 6, 12, 24, and 96 hours after stimulation. Brain stimulation decreased phagocytic activity of the reticuloendothelial system. These findings may increase our understanding of a possible neural mechanism underlying relationships between stress and resistance to disease states.

Sixteen Nerodia rhombifera were used in each of two experiments investigating operant conditioning of the tongue flicker response. A yoked pair design was utilized throughout phases of baseline, continuous reinforcement, partial reinforcement, and extinction. During partial reinforcement, one-half of the experimental animals were reinforced FR-4 and the other half were reinforced continuously. Control subjects were treated as were their experimental partners, with the exception of noncontingent reinforcement. Statistical comparisons between means for groups during the CRF phase, partial reinforcement phase, and extinction phase were nonsignificant. However, because some snakes in the experimental groups appeared to show increases in response rate during CRF and FR conditions, the possibility exists that modification of task parameters will produce positive results in future research.

Traditional two-process theory predicts that a conditioned stimulus (CS) paired with shock offset on Pavlovian trials will inhibit operant avoidance responding. Two explanations of the inhibitory mechanism involved were compared: contemporaneous pairing of CS with a hedonic relief reaction versus the predictive, discriminative relationship of CS to the non-shock interval. The pattern of avoidance inhibition associated with cessation CSs paired with electric shocks of constant duration was expected to be different from the pattern accompanying cessation CSs paired with shocks of variable duration. Mean rates of responding by the two groups were compared by analysis of covariance using baseline as the covariate. Neither CS displayed any reliably observable effects on avoidance rates. Possible procedural flaws and compatible improvements are discussed.

Behavioral and cognitive skills training for increasing assertive behavior in college students were compared to an equally credible expectancy-control. One significant multivariate function successfully discriminated between the behavioral and control groups, and between the cognitive and control groups. This function was interpreted as showing enhanced behavioral/cognitive construction competencies in the behavioral and cognitive groups. A second function, though not significant, suggested that the cognitive training resulted in more aggressive behavior.

The patient's failure to cooperate effectively in the patient/physician (patient and physician) interaction has been shown to be a problem of significant magnitude. In the present study, an attempt was made to identify specific, patient behaviors which might be related to physician judgment of a good patient and progress of treatment. A checklist of 37 behaviors was compiled. A series of 100 patients was observed during their interaction with physicians and occurrences of behaviors from the checklist were noted by an experimenter. Physicians also indicated whether the patient was considered to be a good patient and whether treatment was progressing as expected. For every third patient, physicians noted the occurrence of behaviors from the checklist. An association was found between some behaviors from the checklist and the physicians' judgment. There was also shown to be a difference in the ability of the experimenter and the physicians involved to detect these behaviors.

Previous research demonstrates expectations predict actual performance. These studies evaluated the influence of other variables, specifically task sex orientation, biological gender, and sex-role identification, on performance expectancies. Two studies investigated sex differences in performance expectancies: Study 1 used a task normatively favoring males; Study 2 used a task normatively unbiased by gender. Subjects were 207 undergraduates, approximately equal numbers of males and females. Experimenter sex was controlled. Performance expectancies were influenced by interactions of task sex orientation with biological gender and task sex orientation with sex-role identification, but these variables became secondary to personal experience. These findings were interpreted as having implications on initial choice and consequent involvement in novel activities and situations.

In order to aid in the understanding of the personality components that contribute to the symptoms of depression, the learning process of persons labeled as depressed was examined. Twenty female subjects who were either receiving or being evaluated for psychotherapy participated in this study. Based on MMPI and DACL scores, 10 depressed and 10 nondepressed subjects were placed in avoidance learning situations. An active avoidance situation required making the correct button press to avoid a sounding buzzer; the absence of the button-pressing response constituted a passive avoidance situation, There was no significant difference between the two groups in learning across avoidance conditions, Depressives were found 'to be less persistent in responding than were nondepressives. Results were explained as supporting a learned helplessness model of depression.

The proposed interaction between race and sex on achievement orientation has not been adequately demonstrated when cognitive measures are used. Therefore, the present study examined the effects of sex and race on attributions for achievement., Elementary level students made attributions to ability, effort, task-difficulty, or luck for 16 academic successes or failures described in a questionnaire. Girls made significantly (p < .001) fewer ability and significantly (p < .001) more effort attributions on success items than boys, regardless of their race. Six success items that had been sex-typed (3 girl, 3 boy) provided similar results. Sex-typing data indicated these subjects exhibited strong sex-role stereotypy. Results were discussed in terms of sex-typing of the individual and not the task.

Research has demonstrated the efficacy of attitudinal-motivational counseling in conjunction with study skills training. However, it has not been clear whether group or individual counseling was most beneficial. This research attempted to evaluate the usefulness of peer counselors in group and individual counseling sessions. Using students voluntarily enrolled in a study skills program, it was demonstrated that all students improved in study habit scores. However, only individual-peer counseling was effective in changing academic attitudes (p < . 05), as compared to group-peer counseling, no-counseling, and no-treatment conditions. Grade-point-average change scores were not differentially effected by the treatment conditions.

The study reviews the structural and psychometric underpinnings of Loevinger's theory of ego development. It is noted that the current literature investigating the validity of Loevinger's model has not adequately addressed the structural assumptions of the theory. "Process" variables are hypothesized to vary depending on the process of structural change. Two such variables, cognitive complexity and the organization of cognitive constructs, were measured in 73 college students, staff, and faculty members in three North Texas institutions. Level of ego development, measured by the Washington University Sentence Completion Test, was assessed in each subject and the pattern of cognitive complexity and construct organization was evaluated across ego levels. Results offer only limited support for the stage model's structural assumptions. Discussion highlights several inadequacies in Loevinger's instrument and offers a direction for possible revision. Implications of the results are examined in terms of current theoretical issues.

Only circumscribed aspects of highway aggression have been investigated. The upsurge of abuse and violence transpiring between motorists necessitated a more definitive depiction of the actual events, participants, and relevant contextual features. A questionnaire administered to 120 motorists, aged 18 to 68, solicited a recountal of incidents occurring within 12 months and a description of their most recent encounter. Based on severity of experience, subjects were relegated to distal threat, direct threat, and nonvictim groups. Although most events involved unreported distal threats lasting less than three minutes, men and non-college graduates were more often directly threatened, while non-victims were predominantly women and college graduates. Perpetrators were primarily unknown Caucasian males who generally aggressed in populated areas during afternoon hours.

To determine if learned helplessness treatment debilitates human working memory and fluid intelligence, 60 university students, classified as high or low self-monitors, were assigned to one of three treatments: intermittent (50%) controllable positive feedback, uncontrollable (yoked) negative feedback, and no treatment. Test tasks included backward digit and backward spatial span (representing working memory), matrices (representing fluid intelligence), vocabulary (representing crystallized intelligence), and forward digit and forward spatial span (representing immediate span of apprehension). Results generally were not significant and were discussed as possibly due to ineffective treatment procedure. Further research on this topic is needed.

The behavior role-playing task (BRPT) has become a popular method of assessing assertive behavior. However, current research suggests that situational factors can affect the outcome of such assessments, independently of the subject's level of assertiveness. The present study investigated the effects of one such factor: the type of prompt delivered during the BRPT. It was hypothesized that subjects would respond more assertively to provocatively prompted scenes than to neutral scenes. Twenty nursing students were exposed to BRPTs involving both provocative and neutral role-player prompts. The results revealed that while provocative BRPTs generated significantly greater amounts of self-reported anger and anxiety than did the neutral BRPTs, there were no significant differences in response latency, duration, or assertive content between the two conditions.

This investigation explored relationships between four determinants of first-semester undergraduate academic achievement derived from Holland's (1973) theory of vocational development. Groups of 438 male and 468 female students completed the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory and were categorized in terms of congruency, consistency, differentiation, and modal personality type. Undergraduates with congruent college-major choices enjoyed greater academic success than students with incongruent choices. Students with high- and low-consistency personal orientation codes outperformed students with moderately consistent codes. Freshman with clearly differentiated personality profiles outperformed students with nondifferentiated profiles. The order of mean gradepoint averages for the modal personality types was not significantly correlated with Holland's predicted ordering.

One area which may be expected to play an important role in a married woman's decision to return to school. as well as in determining the magnitude of the difficulties she will be confronted with, which is marital satisfaction. The present study explored the roles of sex-role identification, sex-role stereotypy were found to exert a significant influence on marital satisfaction. The present study explored the roles of sex-role identification, ex-role stereotypy, self-esteem, maternal employment, and number of years married as predictors of marital satisfaction in returning female students. Masculine sex-role identification, feminine sex-role identification, number of years married, and sex-role stereotypy were found to exert a significant influence on marital satisfaction. These findings are discussed in terms of the introduction of role-strain into the marriage of these.

The present study compares the performance of volunteers and nonvolunteers in a 10-hour integrated series of management simulation exercises. It was hypothesized that there would be no performance differences in these two groups. Subjects were business students. Dependent measures were global ratings of management level and potential, as well as a behavioral checklist score. The results partially support the hypothesis. Volunteers performed significantly better on the global measures but not on the behavioral checklist. Differences on global measures were attributed to demand characteristics, whereas the behavioral checklist was not susceptible to this artifact. This finding raises doubts as to the usefulness of global measures and the validity of research based on them. Studies designed to upgrade and validate the behavioral checklist are needed.

The occurrence of custodial grandparents is increasing greatly. These grandparents face added stress and many adversities that arise from caregiving. Findings of current research tends to be mixed on the effects of grandparents raising grandchildren experience. Much research concludes that grandparent caregivers experience negative declines in overall health and well-being, while other research points out that the caregiving role may actually be a positive experience for the grandparent. The current study hypothesizes that mixed research may be a result of varying levels of resilience in the custodial grandparent population. The model proposed in this study looks at resilience as a mediator between several variables that effect custodial grandparenting. The current sample consisted of 239 custodial grandparents. A regression/correlation analysis was conducted on the data, and it was found that resilience levels were significant in mediating the effects of grandparent caregiving.

Forty Ss from introductory psychology classes participated in a study to determine whether or not the investigator's group Social Expectations Scale (SES) was a useful research instrument and to determine whether or not intelligence was a factor determining the fit of a particular cognitive model, the BSE, to the social expectations of Ss as measured by the SES.

The results of the study showed that D-Amphetamine had a significant effect on the acquisition of the active avoidance conditioning (CAR).