Stephen L. Bieber

Parental abusive versus supportive behaviors and their relation to hostility and aggression in young adults

The relation of parental support to abuse has rarely been considered in research on the sequelae of childhood abuse in adulthood. In this study, using the Exposure to Abusive and Supportive Environments Parenting Inventory (EASE-PI), young adults who reported higher emotionally abusive parenting (EA) consistently reported significantly lower love and support from both parents. The relation between physically abusive parenting (PA) and love/support depended upon gender of parent and child. EA was significantly related to higher hostility and higher aggression, as measured by the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory, for both men and women, and to reports of physical fights within the family, for women only. PA was significantly related to higher aggression but not higher hostility. Lower support by fathers, but not by mothers, was significantly related to higher hostility. However, lower support of daughters by mothers was significantly related to increased physical fights in the family. Results indicate that less severe abusive behaviors, especially EA, may have detrimental outcomes of hostility and aggression and that supportive behaviors by both mothers and fathers may be important factors in the outcome.

Predicting criminal recidivism of insanity acquittees

At a time when the public media, legislators, and professionals express intense concern regarding the subsequent antisocial behavior of persons adjudicated insane, it is surprising that few studies exist that address this problem. Of these, some report a relatively high rate of criminal recidivism following the insanity adjudication. Others report a low rate. In a follow-up study of 44 Missouri acquittees, Morrow and Peterson (1966) found that 37% had been convicted of at least one felony 3 years subsequent to hospital discharge. This rate was comparable to the 35% recidivism found for a federal prison sample. All new offenses were serious enough to be classified as felonies. Most recidivists were found to repeat their original offense. The new offenses included assaults, child molestations, and “economic” offenses. Spodak, Silver, & Wright (1984) in a report upon 86 males adjudicated “not guilty by reason of insanity” (NGRI) and hospitalized in Maryland from August, 1967-June, 1976, and followed until mid 1982, noted that 48 (56%) experienced a subsequent arrest. Of 130 arrests, 47% resulted in convictions. The actual number of subjects convicted is not reported. Only the charges leading to conviction were reported, which included both misdemeanor’s (e.g., disorderly conduct, breaking and entering) and felonies (e.g., assault, rape, burglary, murder). In New York, Pasewark and associates conducted two studies that compared posthospitalization arrests of insanity acquittees with those of felons who had pled guilty to the same criminal charge and were imprisoned. The initial study (Pantle, Pasewark, & Steadman, 1980) comprised 46 individuals found insane from 1965-1971 and matched felons. During this period, acquittees were hospitalized in a facility administered by the Department of Corrections. At the time of study termination in 1976, 30 male and 4 female acquittees had been discharged from hospital. Nine (24%) had incurred a total of 30 posthospitalization arrests. Most of these arrests were for felonies, such as assault, rape, robbery, and murder. Of the 37 matched felons who had been released from imprisonment, 10 (27%) incurred 15 subsequent arrests. All arrestees in both

Assessment of Perceived Parenting Behaviors: The Exposure to Abusive and Supportive Environments Parenting Inventory (EASE-PI)

Due to an awareness of the frequency of child abuse and lack of a single instrument to assess the extent of exposure to both the abusive and supportive environments provided by parents, a 70 item inventory (the EASE-PI) was developed that is a self-report on how both mother and father treated the respondent. A factor analysis, which was subsequently replicated, revealed three abusive factors (representing emotional, physical, and sexual abusiveness) and three supportive factors (love/support, promotion of independence, and positive modeling/fairness). The same factors emerged regardless of gender of respondent and gender of parent. The inventory provides a means to investigate the differential and interactive effects of exposure to emotional, physical, and sexual abusiveness and the possible mitigating effects of different types of supportive behaviors by each parent.

Continuity and Change in Women's Characteristics over Four Decades

Fifty-three mothers of participants in the Guidance Study of the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, Berkeley, were rated on 21 cognitive and personality-social characteristics at approximately 30 years of age and again at age 70. As judged by the interage correlations, all 5 of the cognitive variables and 10 of the 16 personality variables, proved to be relatively stable over the 40-year period. Ratings of intelligence, mental alertness, speed of mental processes, use of language, and accuracy in thinking were relatively consistent and the following personality-social characteristics also showed continuity over the 40-year interval: talkativeness, cheerfulness, frankness in discussion, tendency to criticize, excitability, energy level and self-esteem. Ratings of self-assurance, attitude toward child and satisfaction with life showed little stability over this long interval. A new factor analytic method was used to extract 3 factors common to both ages, together with 2 factors specific to age 30 and 3 factors specific to age 70.

Repeatability of measurements of small mammalian fossils with an industrial measuring microscope

ABSTRACT Five small (<2.5 mm), morphologically complex mammalian teeth were measured repeatedly (10 measurers, 2 dimensions per tooth, 1 daily measuring session repeated over 10 days, to accuracy of 0.01 mm) using a “Shopscope” measuring microscope. The experiment was designed to show, within and among measurers: (1) the ranges of variation that may be expected; and (2) the primary components of observed variation. Variations in repeated measurements consistently were very low (for lumped samples, N = 100: 80% of time SEX was 0.002 mm or less; mean of SD = 0.019 mm), even though specimens were reoriented before each trial and several participants had no prior experience with the instrument. A randomized, complete block design (with repeated measures on blocks) analysis of variance showed that, in 8 of the 10 required length and width measurements, the component of intrameasurer variation explained a larger part of total variance than did the component of intermeasurer variation. Assuming that unambiguous ...

Hospitalization length of insanity acquittees.

Used step-wise multiple regression procedures to predict length of hospitalization of 225 defendants acquitted by reason of insanity in New York state. Of the 21 variables considered, only 9 (severity of offense, sex, marital status, days prior imprisonment, homicide offense, days previous civil hospitalization, educational level, race, number of victims) contributed to the significance of the regression equation. However, these accounted for but 11% of the observed variance.

Differential effects of intraventricular injections of tachykinin NK1 and NK3 receptor agonists on normal and sham drinking of NaCl by sodium-deficient rats.

The effects of lateral ventricular injections of succinyl-[Asp6, N-Me-Phe8]-substance P (SENK; 25, 100, 200 ng), a tachykinin NK3 receptor agonist, and [Sar9, Met(O2)11]-substance P (Sar Met; 100, 200 ng), an NK1 receptor agonist, on normal (gastric fistula closed) and sham drinking (gastric fistula open) of hypertonic NaCl by sodium-deficient rats were compared. Intraventricular injections of Sar Met had no effect on NaCl intake in either condition. Injections of 100 ng and 200 ng SENK caused an equal suppression of NaCl intake in the 2 fistula conditions. The latency to drink was not affected, but the initial lick rate was significantly lower and decayed more rapidly after 100 ng SENK than after saline or 25 ng SENK. The results show that (a) the tachykinin subtypes are not equally involved in the control of need-induced salt intake; (b) negative feedback from the stomach and distal gastrointestinal tract is not required for intraventricular injections of SENK to suppress sodium appetite; (c) the activation of NK3 receptors decreases the oral excitatory influence of hypertonic NaCl in sodium-deficient rats.

Operationalizing Pattern Approaches to Consciousness: An Analysis of Phenomenological Patterns of Consciousness among Individuals of Differing Susceptibility

Pattern differences in subjective experience, as assessed by a self-report inventory, the Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory (PCI), were compared across low, low-medium, high-medium, and high hypnotically susceptible individuals during hypnosis and eyes-closed. A hierarchical factor analytic approach was utilized that allowed for the determination of pattern differences among PCI dimensions as a function of hypnotic susceptibility. The factor analyses found that the four suspectibility groups were “pattern equivalent” during eyes-closed, partially pattern dissimilar during hypnosis, and partially pattern dissimilar when comparing hypnosis against eyes-closed. The nature of these results support previous analyses [1] which compared pattern structure differences as a function of correlational matrices. The results suggest the complementarity of Biebers [2] and Pekalas [3] approaches for assessing pattern differences in consciousness and are congruent with the theorizing of Tart [4], Izard [5], and the PDP researchers on the importance of pattern structure changes in understanding states of consciousness.

Differentiating Successful and Unsuccessful Insanity Plea Defendants in Colorado

Of 133 Colorado male defendants employing the insanity plea from 1980 to 1983, 36 were adjudicated insane and 97 found guilty. Considering all defendants, they were found to be primarily single, Caucasian, somewhat older and better educated than the usual defendant group, unemployed at the time of the insane offense, and with a history characterized by chronic unemployment, prior psychiatric treatment, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and previous arrests. Acquittees differed significantly from convicted defendants in being older and better educated. They were more likely to have been diagnosed as schizophrenic and less likely to have had a history of drug abuse. No difference was found between the groups with respect to all other variables examined, including severity of instant offense, ethnicity, and number of prior arrests.

Multiple regression and its alternatives

Abstract Although multiple regression is popular with social and behavioral scientists, the technique is not appropriate in most cases due to the level of variable measurement or multicollinearity. This article examines seven methods: multiple regression, discriminant analysis, logistic regression, analysis of variance, logit analysis, factor analysis, and multidimensional scaling. It then compares them using computer-generated data for a hypothetical election.