The present study examined 12 abnormal psychology textbooks to determine whether Rosenhan's classic study, "Being sane in insane places," was covered, and if so, the nature of that coverage. Only 50% covered the study, with all describing the study as demonstrating the biasing power of psychiatric labels. Two key aspects of the study…

Desensitization or assertive training or both were applied to hospitalized schizophrenics who displayed phobias, lack of interpersonal assertiveness, or both. In none of the patients did desensitization produce any reduction of avoidance of the feared object. The assertive training produces minimal improvement in two patients. (Author)

Research supported by a National Institute of Mental Health predoctoral research fellowship (1-F1-MH-36960-01).

The present study explored a method of altering the reinforcing properties of the verbal event good in chronic, process, nonparanoid schizophrenics. When good was repeatedly paired with the termination of censure in the reaction time task, it became an effective reinforcer on a subsequent verbal conditioning task. (Author)