It has been discovered that dreams and daydreams can be productive states in the process of scientific innovation. An attempt is made to provide some typical examples of insights which have come to scientists during dream-like states and in sleep. (Author/MA)

Discusses behaviors which culminate in suicide attempts and relates these to the biological concept of conservation-withdrawal. Clinical advantages to this conceptualization are presented. (Author/JMF)

Research shows that people comply more frequently to threats when the credibility of the source is high rather than low and that compliance is directly related to punishment magnitude. To examine the impact of an advisor on a target of threats, male college students (N=74) participated in an experiment that included high or low threatner…

Depression in a college population was found to be correlated with small changes in many activities rather than with the large reductions in overt behavior reported for clinically depressed individuals. Results of the study suggest the possibility of an operant component in maintaining depressive behavior. (Author)

Theoretical interpretations of cooperation and competition are discussed in relation to motivational and situational determinants. It is suggested that the degree of competition exhibited in an interaction is an inverse function of the quantity of resources available, and that the effect of situational characteristics on cooperative behavior is…

The existence of extrasensory perception (ESP) among volunteer college students was investigated in numerous studies, under hypnotic and non-hypnotic conditions. Study results indicate that: (1) some types of suggestions administered in a hypnotic context appear to facilitate extrasensory perception; (2) strong ESP suggestions administered without…

If we define irrationality as thought, emotion, or behavior that leads to self-defeating consequences or that significantly interferes with the survival and happiness of the organism, we find that literally hundreds of major irrationalities exist in all societies and in virtually all humans in those societies. These irrationalities persist despite…

Subjects judged the behavior of a target person who had helped or not helped a person in distress while the target person was either alone or with confederates who also had helped or not helped. In addition, subjects were told that either (1) 80 percent of all persons tested had helped, (2) 20 percent had helped, or (3) nothing about the…

This article reviews empirical literature on psychological vulnerability to completed suicide. Five constructs have been consistently associated with completed suicide: impulsivity/aggression; depression; anxiety; hopelessness; and self-consciousness/social disengagement. Current knowledge of psychological vulnerability could inform social…

This paper discusses a study undertaken to examine the reaction of others to the behavior of depressed persons. The general hypotheses of the study are that (1) normal subjects respond differentially to the behavior of depressed patients; (2) this differential response is due to the fact that the target individuals are depressed, and not that they…

Subjects in five stress groups were threatened with electric shock while subjects in a sixth group were not. In one of the stress groups subjects were encouraged to misattribute (i.e., project) their feelings from the threat of shock to the experimenter instead of to the shock, while subjects in the remaining stress groups were not encouraged to…

Viewing personality as the ability to elicit consistent reactions from others, individuals classified on Moltola's History of Interpersonal Distance questionnaire were expected to elicit different amounts of nodding and smiling from an interviewer. As predicted, low distance individuals elicited more smiling from one of two interviewers, but no…

Presents six major methods by which characteristics of environments have been related to indexes of human functioning: (1) ecological dimensions; (2) behavior settings; (3) dimensions of organizational structure; and, (4) dimensions identifying the collective personal and/or behavioral characteristics of the milieu inhabitants; and two others.…

Forty-eight black men and women living and/or attending school in the St. Louis and Washington, D.C. areas responded to questionnaires concerning feelings, attitudes, emotions, etc. towards death and dying. It is concluded that blacks see death as a very significant happening; and that although in some areas blacks have become Americanized in…

Critiques recent research on the social evaluation of assertive speech. Proposes an alternative theoretical framework, based on speech act theory. Assertiveness is viewed as a style of conversation occurring in complex interpersonal contexts. (Author/BJV)