Contingency management has been utilized to improve treatment compliance and attendance in a medical setting. A related question involves the effect of contingency management on attendance in outpatient psychotherapy. Sixty-nine individuals ranging in age from 8 to 50 years agreed to participate in such a study. These individuals agreed to sign a contract specifying consequation for failure to notify the centers 24 hours in advance of an impending absence. Data on attendance and notification of impending absences were collected weekly for five sessions. After five sessions, dropouts and remainers were interviewed and the course of treatment was discussed. For the purpose of this study, a "dropout" occurred whenever an individual terminated therapy by missing an appointment and not rescheduling, or whenever an individual missed three consecutive appointments.

Mental health professionals have observed that children who witness interparental violence frequently display either an affrontive, demanding personality style, or a passive, compliant style. The prevalence of these personality types and their relation to identification, stress, and other variables was evaluated in a sample of 40 children (age range = 6 - 12 years old) who have witnessed parental spouse abuse. Children completed the Children's Personality Questionnaire and the Parental Identification Questionnaire. Mothers completed the Life Experiences Survey. Independent ratings of the children's personality were made. The results validated the existence of these two personality styles among both male and female witnesses, and supplied evidence for their relation to paternal identification, familial instability, and parental ineffectualness. The implications of these findings for assessment and intervention are discussed.

The non-victimized siblings in incestuous families have often been ignored in research, literature, and treatment. This study explored these siblings' 1) relationship to the victim, 2) attribution of blame, and 3) adjustment. Participants were 30 non-victimized siblings of incest victims, between the ages of 8 and 14. They completed the Sibling Relationship Questionnaire, the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale, the Self-perception Profile for Children, the Children's Depression Inventory, and a questionnaire developed for this research. Participants' scores were compared with the normative sample scores on several measures. Siblings perceived little warmth and closeness in their relationships to their victimized sisters. Rivalry and conflict were within normal limits. Siblings blamed victims and other family members less than expected, with the greatest amount of blame attributed to perpetrators. Adjustment was impaired. Males demonstrated less athletic competence, less global self-worth, more worry and oversensitivity than normative samples. Females showed a tendency toward less global self-worth and heightened general anxiety. Siblings' overall level of emotional distress was higher than most of the normative samples.

The effects of taking a third person role on self disclosure, self sympatheticness and several nonverbal parameters of task involvement were examined in a psychotherapy analogue study. Subjects were classified as high or low in ego strength using previously established norms for college students. In the third person role subjects were instructed to describe themselves from the perspective of an "intimate and sympathetic best friend." An encouragement to talk format was used to facilitate self description from the first person. Support was not found for the hypotheses that altering the perspective used in self description would increase self disclosure and that high ego strength subjects would be better able to use a perspective taking intervention. Theoretical and methodological issues are discussed. Recommendations for future research are made.

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 investigation examines how knowledge of a researcher's intent, as well as gender, influences the clinical judgments of mental health professionals in sex role research. Conscious awareness of the study's aim was manipulated by varying experimental instructions to minimize (not salient) or maximize (salient) sex role awareness. Subjects were mental health professionals who rated a protocol of a female or male pseudopatient exhibiting masculine, and lacking feminine, stereotyped behaviors. It was hypothesized that if sex biases affect judgments, more negative ratings should be assigned to a female with cross sex role behavior than to male-appropriate role behavior. Differences should be greater when subjects were unaware of the nature of the study.

The purpose of the present study was to determine the degree of relationship between neurotoxic chemicals in the blood of chemically sensitive patients and psychoneurological functioning. Blood samples were drawn from 30 patients being treated for environmental illness. All patients were administered a standardized intermediate psychoneurological examination. Results indicate a significant positive relationship between psychoneurological (cognitive neurobehavioral) functioning and the number of and total parts per billion of certain environmental toxins (solvents) in the blood of the subjects. The symptoms most commonly exhibited included deficits in short-term memory, problems with coordination and motor sequencing, somatosensory deficits, and cognitive dysfunction.

Recent research into sex roles has been heavily influenced by androgyny theory, and by the development of the Bern Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI; Bern, 1974). Psychological androgyny is the combination, in one individual, of both culturally defined masculine and feminine personality traits. The Sex-Rep, a new instrument for assessing sex role which is aimed at rectifying certain problems associated with the BSRI, was then described. The Sex-Rep, the BSRI (Bern, 19 34), the Texas Social Behavior Inventory (TSBI; Spence & Stapp, 1974), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI, Beck, 1967), and a self-concept thermometer, were given to 100 male and 108 female undergraduates. Results indicated that the BSRI and the Sex-Rep are both valid sex-role instruments, insofar as they both discriminate between males and females. They tend to measure nonredundant components of sex role as indicated by a lack of overlap between their sex-role classifications. The present study did not find any support for the balance model of androgyny which suggests that high masculinity and high femininity interact by balancing each other to produce a healthier, more behaviorally flexible individual. BSRI masculinity (M) was strongly related to adjustment in both sexes, but BSRI femininity (F) had little impact. This relationship between BSRI …

Drug-induced tardive dyskinesia, an irreversible involuntary movement disorder caused by neuroleptic drugs, may reflect cholinergic hypofunction in the corpus striatum. Therapeutic results have been reported in trials of choline and lecithin, nutritional substrates which may enhance cholinergic neurotransmission. Lecithin's effects on dyskinetic symptoms were examined in 50 male patients in a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Patients were randomly assigned to treatment or control groups; 31 patients were retained in the analytic cohort. Experimental patients were treated with 60 gm/day lecithin (55% phosphatidyl choline) for 11 days. Symptom frequency was rated from videotapes made at baseline, 3 and 11 days of treatment, and 1 week follow-up.

An experiment was conducted to contrast the effectiveness of Behavior Therapy administered in self, individual, or group therapy versus a no-treatment control condition. The therapy conditions were administered to two subgroups, high and low self reinforcers, as defined by Rosensky and Bellack (1976). The general hypothesis was that high self reinforcers would engage in countercontrol and therefore do poorly in group and individual therapy, but would lose weight in self therapy. Individual behavior therapy showed the best long term results, but self and group therapies also showed significant weight loss. It was also found that low self reinforcers as a group lost more weight than did high self reinforcers.

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.

During the past 80 years, similar descriptions of a hyperactive behavior pattern in children have appeared in medical, educational, and psychological literature. Hyperactivity has been conceptualized as a character disorder, an organic disorder, and, most recently, as a behavior disorder. In this study, hyperactivity was explained in interactional terms, using Rotter's social learning theory of personality. Little consideration has been given in research to the influence of an abnormally high activity level upon personality development during childhood. The purpose of this study was to investigate the general influence of negative interactions associated with hyperactivity upon the organization of four personality constructs: locus of control, self-esteem, trait anxiety, and state anxiety.

Blood pressure biofeedback at home was compared with relaxation training and a combination of the two procedures for the treatment of essential hypertension, Ten subjects were taught to monitor blood pressure (BP) at home with electronic sphygmomanometers designed for self-use. Although situational factors appeared to have rather potent effects on BP levels, results suggested that training to control BP did generalize across situations. Although pretreatment BP level seemed to be related to the amount of reduction obtained, there was some evidence to indicate that subjects trained in behavioral methods of control could maintain BP in the average range after medication was discontinued, even if no significant reductions were obtained during treatment . Home practice of BP biofeedback was found to be the most successful single treatment for reducing systolic BP in the practice setting.

The purpose of this study was to examine the differences between the traditional global rating scale and a new behavioral rating scale in a university-based assessment center. It was hypothesized that personality factors, as measured by the 16PF and associated with the global ratings of performance would differ from those associated with the behavioral ratings of performance. It was further hypothesized that the associated personality factors would also differ for males and females. These hypotheses were ^confirmed. Pearson correlations were computed for ratings of males, females, and all subjects combined on both global and behavioral rating scales.

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.

This study was directed toward investigating effects of menstrual cycle stages and caffein ingestion on various physiological and psychological processes. Subjects maintained a daily log of basal waking temperature (BWT), occurrence of menstruation, and consumption of caffein containing beverages and medications. At each session, visuo-spatial discrimination, depth perception, and time estimation (15 and 30 sec) were assessed. The Menstrual Distress Questionnaire (MDQ), The Measurement of Depression (MOD), and a self-report scale were completed.Multiple linear discriminant analyses were conducted on menstrual cycle and caffein ingestion data. Variables that contributed significantly to the discrimination of level of caffein ingestion were visuo-spatial discrimination; MDQ Water Retention and Control; cervical, lumbar, and saccral temperatures; time required to reach baseline; and total daily consumption of caffein-containing beverages.

The present study was designed to evaluate the efficacy of utilizing an avoidance conditioning paradigm in EMG biofeedback training and to compare this method to the standard biofeedback training paradigm. Frontalis EMG levels of 20 college students were monitored during non-stress and stress conditions. Half then received standard EMG biofeedback training. The other half received biofeedback with contingent aversive stimulation. Both groups received training to a relaxation criterion of 3 microvolts for 100 seconds or, for a maximum of two 20 minute sessions. Subjects were then monitored again during non-stress and stress conditions. Both groups obtained significant EMG reductions due to training with no significant differences between them. Standard biofeedback training required less time for subjects to achieve the relaxation criterion than did biofeedback with a shock-avoidance contingency. Possible applications of avoidance contingent biofeedback were suggested.

The present study tested the hypothesis that contiguity, regarding time of administration of the Tellegen Absorption Scale (TAS), differentially influences hypnotic susceptibility. Forty-eight subjects were administered the TAS immediately prior to assessment of hypnotic susceptibility versus 43 subjects who received the TAS one to three days before assessment of hypnotic susceptibility. Absorption, when measured in the temporally versus nontemporally contiguous context did not appear to affect hypnotic susceptibility. Absorption did, however, correlate significantly with hypnotic susceptibility in the temporally contiguous group as compared to a non-significant correlation in the nontemporally contiguous group. This finding suggests is a relationship between differential administration of the TAS with regard to time of administration and hypnotic susceptibility.

Since the advent of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (Bem, 1974) two models, the Androgyny and Masculinity model, have been advanced to explain the sex role literature. This study attempts to rectify several methodological issues by experimentally controlling for the effects of self-esteem and using a quartile-split procedure for sex role type assignment. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate interpersonal problem solving ability among sex role types and to compare the predictions of the Androgyny model and the Masculinity model. The results of both experiments implicate the crucial role of self-esteem in sex role research. Self-esteem, rather than sex role type, appears to be more predictive of adequate psychological adjustment.

Relationships between MMPI subscale scores and premature resignations among Southern Baptist foreign missionaries appointed in 1964 were investigated in an effort to develop a predictive model for attrition. Unsuccessful attempts were made at cross-validating the results of a previous related study, and two separate discriminant function analyses were undertaken. The first sorted subjects into three groups, defined by subjects' length of service before resignation. The second classified them according to the reason stated for their termination, if applicable. Both procedures failed to establish a statistically reliable classification system for relating MMPI scores with premature resignations. Although consistent success has been achieved with the MMPI as a screening instrument for psychopathology, it is suggested that the instrument is not adequately sensitive as a screening device for groups lying predominantly within the normal range of variability.

There have been various approaches to the treatment of nonorgasmic women, including psychoanalysis, desensitization, relaxation, masturbation, and group therapy. The present study was conducted to examine the efficacy of group therapy combined with home-based training in the treatment of primary nonorgasmic women. A no-treatment control group was also employed. Treatment consisted of two weekly 1- hour group sessions for 5 weeks. Educative processes were employed, such as detailed information on physiology of female sexual response. Structured homework exercises were also utilized, such as mastubatory techniques, role-playing orgasm, strengthening vaginal muscles, and assertiveness training in sexual and nonsexual situations. Results indicated an 88% success rate in the treatment group and no change in the control group.

This study investigated the relationship between the degree of involvement with video games of 72 male university students with performance on pilot screening tests of psychomotor abilities, perceptual abilities, and cognitive style, and also with several personological variables, school performance, locus of control, sociability, and social presence. Additionally, the effects of experience with a video game on the learning of perceptual and psychomotor skills was examined for different levels of previous computer game involvement. It was found that those students who began playing at earlier ages and who more recently played the most demonstrated increased psychomotor abilities, and those abilities appeared to be enhanced by video game play. Greater amounts of time per week spent with computer games were found to correlate with increased facility in learning perceptual skills on computerized instrumentation, and with relative underachievement in school. No systematic relationship was found between degree of video game involvement and measures of sociability, social presence, and field dependence-independence. The study concluded that computer games may have effects upon those individuals who play them, but the effects may not be as negative as many people believe.

The present study examined the existence of unrealistic expectations in abusive parents. It was hypothesized that abusive parents would have higher expectations of their children's social-emotional and self-help skills than nonabusive parents. It was also hypothesized that abusive parents would have higher expectations of their children's social-emotional skills than nonabusive parents when both groups compared their children to average children. Abusive and nonabusive parents were administered the Social Competence Scales of the Child Behavior Checklist and the Daily Living Skills domain of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. The results contradict previous studies in this area and raise questions about present conceptualizations of expectations in abusive parents and the importance of this factor in child abuse.

Depression received much attention in the professional literature as a stimulus both for experimental as well as applied research. It continued to be the subject of much controversy in respect to its definition, identification, and classification. Attempts were made to objectify the assessment of depression using self-report scales to tap various aspects though to be related to its etiology as well as its symptomology. Two of the most popular and reportedly well-validated self-report scales identified in the literature for determining and quantifying depressive symptoms were the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck) and the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (Zung).The present study was designed to determine if there were factors in common between the Beck and the Zung scales and, in addition, to test whether these factors would differentiate subjects by sex class membership, diagnostic category, and by some linear combination of biographical or life-history information. The major purpose was the identification of outstanding charactersitics of depression predicted from biographical data and the determination of the relationship of these data to self-rating psychometric measures of depression. This study makes it clear that the Beck and Zung scales are measuring different aspects of depression and thus are likely based on separate constructs. The need …