George Saslow

Interviewer influence on durations of interviewee speech

Summary Two experiments are described in which the interviewer, using open-ended non-directive questions, controlled the durations of each of his own comments throughout an interview in order to study his influence on the durations of the interviewees responses. Two durations of interviewers utterance (5 sec versus 10 sec) were employed in counter-balanced designs. Although the interviews seemed to be typical non-directive ones, the results show the striking influence of changes in the interviewers speaking durations on corresponding durations of speech of interviewees. For the two durations employed by E in the present study, a change in his own single units of speech from 5 sec to 10 sec was associated with a similar increase in the duration of single units of speech he elicited from S (i.e., a change from roughly 25 sec to 50 sec). Comparable changes were obtained in Ss speech behavior when E changed his own interviewing style from 10-sec utterances to 5-sec utterances.

Evaluation of a new psychiatric screening test.

A. LN EFFECTIVE brief psychiatric screening test has a number of uses in medical and other settings. Such uses have been described by Wolff et al. (14) in their work on the Cornell tests. Our own evaluation of Cornell Word Form-1 in a civilian medical setting was that the test was disappointing. For example, it missed 50 per cent of a sample of known psychiatrically ill patients in clinic and hospital, identified over 30 per cent of a sample of healthy clinic, hospital, and university student patients as having psychiatric illness, and failed to identify as psychiatrically ill 97 per cent of a group of medical students with severe personality disorder, either before or during intensive psychotherapy (7).

Experimentation in the teaching and learning of psychotherapy skills

“Considering the fact that one-third of present-day psychologists have a special interest in the field of psychotherapy, we would expect that a great deal of attention might be given to the problem of training individuals to engage in the therapeutic process. . . . For the most part this field is characterized by a rarity of research and a plenitude of platitudes” (Rogers, 1957). While there have been numerous attempts by psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts to improve the teaching of psychotherapy, only a handful of these could be called research efforts designed to answer the question whether particular student behaviors were altered.

Speech Durations of Astronaut and Ground Communicator

Laboratory studies suggest that an interviewer can influence the speech duration of an interviewee by modifications in his own speech duration. What appears to be a related association between the speech duration of communicators on the ground and an astronaut in orbital flight was found.

The measurement of red cell volume

RECENTLY it has become increasingly clear that some discrepancy exists between the value for the average volume of the red cell as calculated from its various dimensions and the value yielded by the hsematocrite method and other methods of measuring volume directly. In the case of the human red cell, for example, these latter methods give values of from about 70z3 to about 100u3, whereas the average computed value lies between 90u3 and 95p3. It is obviously impossible to attach any meaning to this difference of result, unless the methods for estimating volume directly are at least as accurate as the method of computing volume from measurements of the various dimensions. This paper, ,accordingly, is concerned with an investigation of the possibility of obtaining consistent and accurate values for volume by a direct method.

A Psychiatric Service in a General Hospital: a Setting for Social Learning

even though they are neither in acute distress nor overtly markedly impaired in general functioning. The changes in the hospital patient population and the consequent opportunity for physicians to respond to factors in a patient’s situation other than immediate threats to life have brought about an awareness that a number of general hospital patients, no matter why admitted, present at some point in their stay problems that are not effectively dealt with by the approaches traditional for the services.

A Psychiatric Service in a General Hospital: Ten Years' Experience in a Setting for Social Learning

new insight to new behaviour, and of his newly learned behaviour in one setting to other important settings more or less similar, the diagnostic and treatment procedures depart considerably from those of conventional psychiatric services. These departures, in turn, determine noticeably different roles for patients and for all the participating types of professional and hospital personnel, including administration.&dquo;

Osmotic Pressure of Gum Acacia Solutions

Summary 1. The colloid osmotic pressure of several samples of 6% acacia in 0.9% NaCl has been determined to be 246 to 260 mm H2O at 20° C. 2. This value is approximately the same as the average colloid osmotic pressure of human sera ranging in protein concentration from 6 to 8%, namely, 276 mm H2O. 3. Acacia solution processed by the procedure of the Lilly Research Laboratories appears to be a stable and uniform product.

Medicine and Anthropology (Lectures to the Laity, No. XXI, New York Academy of Medicine)

tropical climate leads to blood pressure declines in permanent residents as well as in unacdimatized persons. This is seen in the low, below-average blood pressure values and the rareness of hypertension in the area. During personal investigations, increased hypertension occurred in former prisoners in certain areas of the Soviet subarctic region. This had a distinct connection with climate conditions and certain weather processes, and they are therefore understood to be climaticometeorologically induced complaints of passing nature, which die away after the specific climate area is left. A permanent effect of the subarctic climate on the blood pressure, transcending a change in climate, could not be shown. Psychic factors could not be shown to initiate hypertension at Vorkuta.