The purpose of the present study was to objectively verify psychological and behavioral changes in a group of identifiably susceptible patients who were treated for environmental sensitivities in a highly controlled environment. The subjects were 71 Environmental Control Unit (ECU) patient volunteers and 16 nonpatient volunteers for a total of 87. The patients were divided into a short-treatment (fasting 3-4 days) group (n = 35) and a long-treatment (fasting 5-7 days) group (n = 36). A third group, consisting of the 16 nonpatients, formed a nonpatient/no-treatment control group. All subjects were administered tests for assessment of intellectual/cognitive functioning, neurological/cerebral functioning, perceptual-motor skills, mood states, and general psychopathology.

The incidence of bulimia has been increasingly documented in recent years. Treatments have focused on one behavior in the Binge-Purge chain or have combined several treatment components. This study was designed to assess the effect of teaching bulimics alternative responses for dealing with stressful events.

This study investigated the role of reinforcement schedule and instructional set in frontalis EMG training. The experiment consisted of four groups participating in 30 minute sessions on three consecutive days. Group conditions were intermittent feedback (alternating 100 second trials), continuous feedback, motivated control and no-treatment control. Excepting the no-treatment controls, each subject was instructed that extra credit points were available contingent on the number of seconds in criterion. An individual criterion based on each subject's initial baseline microvolt level was utilized.

Previous research with college students had supported that light and heavy smokers differentially imitate smoking models. Light smokers' smoking rates seemed to vary with the rates presented by a model, while heavy smokers' rates tended to remain relatively consistent. This study examined the effects of a smoking and nonsmoking physician model on 54 older, more chronic, in-patient smokers and extended the scope of research in this area by attempting to evaluate whether immediate modeling influences generalize behaviorally and/or attitudinally. A second part of the experiment investigated the effects of the smoking patients' exposure to a nonsmoking physician model who advised quitting, a smoking physician model who advised quitting, and a smoking physician model who did not comment on smoking relative to patient behavior and attitudes.

Stress has long been reported to play a prominent role in the onset and course of diabetes mellitus. The present study first reviews the literature addressing the impact of stress on this disease, the physiological mechanisms and pathways the stress response might utilize, and psychotherapeutic tacts taken to date to ameliorate this response. A stress management package was then assembled, comprised of relaxation training, hypnosis, stress inoculation training, and imagery induction.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the psychophysiological effects of exercise on measures of cardiovascular fitness, depression, self-esteem, and anxiety. The 1.5 mile run (Cooper, 1972) was used to determine changes in cardiovascular fitness. The Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale was used to measure varying levels of depression. The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was used to measure self-esteem. The Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was used to measure state anxiety. An Electromyographic Assay and Digital Skin Temperature were performed on the Experimental and Corrective Therapy Groups in order to measure physiological concomitants of anxiety. A Body Composition Assay was performed in order to measure changes in body composition.

The present study addresses questions regarding the cognitive functioning of recently detoxified male alcoholics during increasing time periods of abstinence. Such questions relate to whether alcoholic males between the ages of 30 and 55 demonstrate a recovery to normal cognitive functioning within a six week abstinence period.

The present research investigated the relationship between separation-individuation issues and the motoric activity of running in adult female development. Literature on sex roles and sociocultural factors was presented. Previous research on physical activity and mental health was reviewed. Psychodynamic formulations provided the framework for exploring and understanding a woman's involvement in running. Measuring instruments tapped concepts related to independence and separateness.

Maslow (1956) suggested that self-actualization in an important determinant of the type of love experienced in heterosexual relationships. Recent work has suggested that the self-actualization of each member of a couple may also be important in determining the level of self-disclosure intimacy which occurs in the couple, and also that self-disclosure itself is an important determinant of interpersonal attraction. The present study employed the technique of path analysis (Wright, 1960) to determine 1) the direct and indirect contribution of each partner's self-actualization to his experience of five love components identified by Critelli, Myers, Ellington, and Bissett (1981), 2) the contribution of each partner's self-actualization to his self-disclosure intimacy, and 3) the contribution of the partner's self-disclosure intimacy to their experience of the five love components.

This study evaluated the efficacy of a cognitive behavioral treatment for insomnia among inpatients who met the diagnostic criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The cognitive behavioral treatment consisted of progressive relaxation, stimulus control, and thought stopping with cognitive restructuring.

The purposes of this study are a) to explore the construct of "marital commitment" in order to achieve a more clear definition of it; b) to identify the component factors involved in the construct; and c) to design and develop an instrument for assessing the construct.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of counselor profanity on subjects' perceptions of counselor credibility and client satisfaction.

Employed and non-employed stepmothers were compared on four psychological dimensions: stress, adjustment, needs, and values. Employed stepmothers were hypothesized to experience greater stress, lower adjustment, different needs, and different values. Racial and race by employment status differences along these four dimensions were also addressed.

This study compared the differential influence of reframing, self-control, and neutral counselor interventions on high and low trait-anxious subjects' self -descriptions as measured by the Adjective Check List. Reframing was predicted to be superior to self-control and neutral interventions in eliciting more favorable self-descriptions. An interaction was also predicted between counselor intervention and trait anxiety such that, in the reframing condition, low trait-anxious subjects would describe themselves more positively than high trait-anxious subjects.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes and treatment knowledge of medical student professionals regarding rape victims. In addition to generating normative data for a population which, as a function of their vocation may come in contact with victims, comparisons were made between a sample of those beginning their medical education process and those at the end of training in order to measure change in treatment knowledge and attitudes towards rape victims which occur during medical school. Also investigated were differences which exist in the attitude and treatment knowledge measures for rape victims compared to other emergency room patient populations, and the effect of gender of the physician upon those measures. A final element investigated the physicians' perceptions of a "real" rape as it relates to those measures.

Attempts to measure self concept in the elderly have been characterized by a variety of differing definitions of self concept, and differing methodological procedures. Previous investigations have used instruments which are stereotypic and not ecologically valid for elderly, test formats which make excessive demands on some elderly persons' cognitive and sensory-motor abilities, and administration procedures which penalize the less psychologically sophisticated older person, factors precluding adequate assessment of self concept in the elderly. In order to address the limitations of previous research, the present investigation developed and tested the Ecological Q-sort, a self concept instrument designed especially for use with the elderly. Items for the Ecological Q-sort were life situations which were ecologically representative and meaningful for older persons as self-defined by them. Two forms of the Ecological Q-sort were developed: the pictorial form consisting of pictorial representations of situations plus one sentence descriptions of situations; another form consisted of only one sentence written descriptions of situations.

Vaginal photoplethysmography was utilized in combination with standardized sleep-recording procedures to investigate changes in vaginal pulse amplitude (VPA) during both waking and sleeping conditions in low- and high-arousability females (n = 10 per group), as classified by the Sexual Arousability Inventory. Based upon previous research, it was predicted that both groups would exhibit similar mean levels of VPA during waking exposure to erotic stimuli and during various stages of sleep. Despite hypothesized physiological similarities between groups, the low-arousability group was expected to subjectively report less arousal during the waking erotic conditions.