John L. Craft

Family Dynamics of Incest: A New Perspective

A study of protective workers was designed to explore their perceptions of the relationship between incest and other forms of familial abuse and the role of the mother in an incestuous relationship. Overall, the workers believe that there is a lack of literature on and available training for work with incest cases.

Child abuse by adolescent caregivers

The purpose of this analysis was to estimate the frequency and severity of child abuse committed by adolescents who were in nonparental caregiving roles. The sample was composed of cases in which either physical or sexual abuse was substantiated through child welfare investigation. The main comparisons were between adolescent and adult caregivers. While caregiver age did not appear to have a consistent effect on the occurrence of physical abuse, notable differences between adolescents and adults were found in the area of sexual abuse. Not only were adolescents observed to commit substantially more sexual abuse than older caregiver cohorts, but the sexual abuse they committed was more likely to involve intercourse and physical assault. These findings have implications for future research and practice.

The effect of prediction accuracy on choice reaction time

In this study, we examined the effect of prediction accuracy on reaction time (RT). Subjects performed on three blocks of choice RT trials, all of which involved the mapping of four stimuli (red, green, 1, or 0) onto two response keys. The subjects were told that the four stimuli were equally probable and that their task was to respond to each stimulus onset by pressing the correct key. In one block (stimulus-prediction), the subjects predicted, prior to each trial, the precise stimulus that would appear. In a second block (category-prediction), the subjects predicted the category of the stimulus (i.e., color or digit) that would appear. In a third block (no-prediction), the subjects simply responded to each stimulus without making a prior prediction. In the stimulus-prediction block, RT was faster for correct predictions than for incorrect predictions. In addition, RT was faster on trials in which an incorrect prediction involved the correct category than on trials in which it involved the incorrect category: that is, a “half-wrong” prediction was better than an “all-wrong” prediction. In the category-prediction block, RT was faster when the stimulus category was predicted correctly than when it was not. There was little evidence of a response-facilitation contribution to the correct-prediction effect. These results permit inferences concerning the encoding and organization of information in memory.

Social Work Faculty in Retirement: A National Study

Abstract This article reports a study that explored the retirement experiences of a national sample of retired social work educators. A total of 267 educators responded to a mailed questionnaire that addressed five areas: (1) general characteristics of the subjects, (2) their preretirement experiences, (3) their postretirement experiences, (4) current social and health status, and (5) their perspectives on changes in social work education and practice. The sample was found to be relatively young, healthy, moderately professionally active, financially secure, and relatively satisfied with their retirement experiences. Critical differences were found on the five variables by gender, terminal degree, and institutional affiliation.

Effects of changing compatibility relationships on reaction time to the first stimulus in a double-stimulation task.

This study investigated the effects of manipulating the response requirement to the second stimulus (S2) on reaction time (RT) to the first stimulus (S1) in a double-stimulation choice RT task. Forty subjects responded to the 100 msec presentation of a left or right light by pressing the key on the same or opposite side as the light. Treatment conditions included a single-stimulation control (no S2 presented), and two double-stimulation conditions each requiring two responses (R1 and R2) in close succession, in one of these latter conditions, the rule governing R2 was the same as that governing R1 while, in the other, the rule governing R2 changed. Results showed the typical double-stimulation effect; i.e., increased latency of R1 when it was followed by S2 - R2. More importantly, R1 latency was increased further when the rules governing R1 and R2 were different. Results are discussed in terms of divided preparation capacity as well as other theories of the psychological refractory period.

Human learned helplessness as a function of sex and degree of control over aversive events

The effect of partial control over aversive auditory stimuli was examined in a learned helplessness paradigm. During a pretreatment phase, three groups of female and three groups of male subjects were allowed control over the termination of an aversive tone on 0%, 50%, or 100% of the trials. In a second phase, they performed an escape-avoidance task using an apparatus different from that used in pretreatment. During this phase, the subject was allowed complete control over the termination or prevention of the tone on each trial. Partial control over aversive stimuli during pretreatment produced responding levels on the escape-avoidance task that were intermediate to those of subjects who had complete control or complete lack of control, but only for female subjects. These findings were taken as evidence that different degrees of learned helplessness may be produced by varying the degree of prior control and also that males and females differ in their susceptibility to learned helplessness treatments, a fact that may be related to differences in perceived lack of control.