Showing papers in "Journal of Abnormal Psychology in 1973"

Short-term Behavioral Intervention with Delinquent Families: Impact on Family Process and Recidivism

Abstract: Throughout the history of psychotherapy, evaluation of the effects of intervention have been notoriously absent. When evaluation has been attempted, most studies have failed to utilize control groups that really controlled for such major alternative hypotheses as attention placebo, maturation, and other intervening experiences. The intervention program involved a set of clearly defined therapist interventions with delinquent families designed to: assess the family behaviors that maintain delinquent behavior; modify the family communication patterns in the direction of greater clarity and precision, increased reciprocity, and presentation of alternative solutions; all in order to institute a pattern of contingency contracting in the family designed to modify the maladaptive patterns and institute more adaptive behaviors. Reflecting the adaptive changes in family process, it was hypothesized that families receiving the program would demonstrate significantly lower recidivism rates than comparison groups on follow-up.

Loss of control drinking in alcoholics: an experimental analogue

Abstract: W this landmark article was published in 1973, the domi­ nant model of alcoholism considered it a dispositional dis­ ease, the cardinal symptom of which is inevitable loss of control whenever alcohol is consumed. The reasons for this loss of con­ trol over drinking were generally assumed to be physiological, an automatic and irreversible reaction to the chemical ethanol (pure alcohol). A few controversial voices in the alcohol field, including Jellinek (as expressed in his book The Disease Concept of Alcoholism, 1960), had questioned the scientific accuracy of the disease model as a universal description of alcoholism. Nevertheless, it was widely believed that the essence of alcoholism was a biomedical abnor­ mality, inexorably rooted in the alco­ holic’s physical constitution. This innovative experiment by Marlatt and his colleagues put this assumption about alcoholism to the test by studying whether behavior changes resulted from the actual presence of alcohol or from the be­ lief that alcohol was present. The au­ thors introduced two novel research methods in this study, both of which inspired many subsequent studies. The first of these was the taste­rating task, in which subjects, made up of both alcoholics and social drinkers, were asked to taste and compare three ostensibly different beverages by rating them on a variety of de­ scriptive adjectives such as “sweet” and “strong.” The actual purpose of the task was to study the amount and manner of drinking the subjects did without making them self­conscious that their drinking was being moni­ tored. Later research has shown that this clever procedure does, in fact, mirror a person’s real­life drinking habits. It also is clear from two dec­ ades of subsequent studies that this unobtrusive measure is useful in gauging how a person’s drinking is affected by social and environ­ mental factors. The second innovative method in­ troduced in this study was the bal­ anced placebo design, which was made up of four groups of both alco­ holics and social drinkers: Subjects in two groups were told that they were drinking alcohol, and subjects in two groups were informed that there was no alcohol in the beverage. Under these conditions, one­half of the subjects received alcohol and one­half did not. Marlatt devised an effective method to disguise the presence of alcohol so that the subjects could be convinced they were drink­ ing alcohol when they were not (placebo group) or could be given alcohol without their being aware of it (balanced placebo group). This study’s central finding was that the subject’s belief that he was drinking alcohol, rather than its actual presence, deter­ mined the amount he consumed on the taste­rating task. This ef­ fect was found for both alcoholics and social drinkers, although the difference was greater for alcoholics. As a result of Marlatt and colleagues’ demonstration, the balanced placebo design be­ came a common research tool in the alcohol field. Dozens of subsequent studies have shown that it is the subject’s expectation

An opponent-process theory of motivation. II. Cigarette addiction.

Abstract: Presents 6 examples of affective, hedonic, or motivational phenomena based on behavioral, experimental, and observational studies. The behavioral, EKG, and emotional responses of dogs in Pavlov harnesses receiving shocks, parachutists, opiate addicts, and lovers show changes over time. During the 1st few stimulations, when the input is present (State A), the organism expresses one reaction (e.g., terror or pleasure); when the input is gone, the organism expresses a different reaction (State B-e.g., caution or loneliness) which more or less slowly dissipates to the base-line state. After repeated stimulations, the reaction during input (State A‘) is substantially reduced (e.g., tenseness and contentment) while that after input (State B’) increases (e.g, joy and grief). An opponent-process control for affect model is proposed to explain these findings. A CNS feedback loop is postulated which serves to oppose stimulus-aroused, affective states. The application of this model to addiction, particularly nicotine, research is discussed. The failure of smoking control programs is explained in terms of the model. It is suggested that no quick cure for addiction will be found until both opponent processes can be simultaneously suppressed (e.g., through drugs). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

Covert modeling and the reduction of avoidance behavior.

Abstract: Summary The present study investigated the effect of covert modeling in reducing snake avoidance. Covert modeling entails the modeling paradigm without live or film models. A model who executed behaviors which would be anxiety provoking for the subject was imagined by the subject. Different model descriptions were used: a coping model who was depicted as initially anxious but eventually fearless in fear-relevant scenes and a mastery model who was depicted as performing fearlessly throughout the scenes. A scene control group received similar scenes as modeling groups without the presence of the model. A delayed-treatment control group was used to assess the effects of repeated testing at pretreatment and posttreatment assessments and received no intervening treatment. Subsequently, this group received convert modeling without specification of affective cues of the model. In two sessions, all covert modeling groups showed significant increases in approach behavior and reductions in emotional arousal and anxiety ratings. Changes in attitudes were less consistent across treatments. No-treatment and scene control groups did not improve on any of the measures. As predicted from previous work on attributes of the model, a coping model led to greater change at postest than the mastery model. The effect of both treatment conditions was maintained at a 3-week follow-up assessment.

Posthypnotic amnesia as disrupted retrieval.

Abstract: '1'he process of remembering during post-hypnotic amnesia was investigated by exploring the organization of recalled material in subjects displaying only partial amnesia. During three standardized hypnosis scales, suggestions of posthypnotic amnesia were administered to 112 subjects. Hypnolizahle subjects tended to recall the scale items in random chronological order, compared to the relatively sequential recall of insusceptible subjects. The difference in temporal sequencing of recall during amnesia indicates that, for the hypnotizable subject, posthypnotic amnesia is characterized primarily by a disruption or disorganization of part of the recall process, leaving other aspects of memory processing relatively unimpaired. These results suggest a resolution of the apparent paradox between the subjective reports of amnesic subjects and the objective evidence that the apparently forgotten memories remain available for other cognitive operations.