Elders exposed to either progressive or imaginal relaxation procedures reported significant relaxation effects and showed improvement on measures of personal functioning. The results of the Physical Assessment Scale of the Relaxation Inventory indicated that relaxation responses were acquired within and across sessions. Large, consistent changes in relaxation occurred in all 4 sessions. The Symptom Checklist-90-R, which measures self-reported personal adjustment, showed significant positive changes following relaxation training and at 1-month follow-up. Elders who imagined muscle tension release profited as much as those engaged in actual muscle tension-release activities. This finding is of importance for older adults who may experience physical limitations that contraindicate muscle-tension-release procedures.
The retention of introductory psychology course content 4 months after the end of a semester was compared to the performance of a group of undergraduates who had not taken a psychology course. Instructed students performed significantly better on a multiple-choice test of general psychology content than those who received no instruction, but the differences were disappointingly small in educational terms. Similar retention scores were obtained for both a traditional lecture approach and a teaching strategy that focused on concept learning. Further research preceded by the development of a more adequate test to measure retention is needed to clarify and expand these tentative findings.
The development of a self-report measure to assess the effects of relaxation training was examined. A rigorous statistical method of scale construction consisting of a modification of the scale discrimination technique was employed, resulting in a 45-item questionnaire representing three orthogonally derived scales. The three scales, Physiological Tension, Physical Assessment, and Cognitive Tension, demonstrated adequate internal consistency with KR20 reliability coefficients of .89, .95, and .81, respectively. In a second study of predictive validity, 40 individuals were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: relaxation training, tension inducement, pre-postcontrol, or postcontrol. Univariate analysis of variance indicated significant findings for each of the three dimensions of the inventory. The Physiological Tension Scale detected significant increases in tension following tension inducement, whereas the Physical Assessment Scale and Cognitive Tension Scale detected increases in relaxation following relaxation training. Recommendations were made for future research on the inventory.
DISCUSSIONIt is apparent from the results that a patient's performance on the PCM is related to those characteristics which the ward staff consider important in the granting of privileges. It should also be noted that the mean standard score for the maze in both samples was approximately 40, or one standard deviation below that of normals, a finding consistent with that of Peters('). These results suggest that the use of mazes as a measure of social-psychological functioning may have general applicability. Traditional intelligence tests are not likely to be as sensitive measures of this functioning, as demonstrated by our finding that vocabulary performance was not consistently related to progress.It was noted that the psychotics who earned scores over 60 ( Table 3) failed to progress at the expected rate. Examination of the records of these seven individuals revealed that three of them were transferred to a privileged ward several days after the thirty-day cutting criterion. The remaining cases had records of aggressive behavior. As shown in Table 1 there was a lack of significant differences on the data for patients on privileged wards and those discharged. One possible reason for this is that given a certain degree of emotional stability, environmental factors such as family acceptance or the availability of employment may become more important with respect to discharge than the individual's psychiatric condition. SUMMARYThis study investigated the relationship between a patient's ability to make adequate choices between alternatives as measured by a maze test and the granting of privileges by the hospital staff. Data were collected for two groups of NP patients totaling 227 cases on: Peters' Circular Pencil Maze Scores, vocabulary test score, diagnosis, and place of residence a t the end of thirty days. Maze perform. a : i ce was found to be related to progress at the .001 level. The mazes appear to be a useful technique for screening patients for early discharge from an institution. REFERENCES 1. PETERS, H. N. Circular maze performance in chronic schizophrenics. J . din. Psychol. PROBLEMNumerous verbal conditioning studies have been reported in the literature and excellent reviews of the area are available(2. 3 ) . The writers have been unable to locate, however, a single study reporting verbal conditioning in an actual therapeutic treatment case. This paper reports the manipulation of verbal behavior in a 60 year old male who has been hospitalized continuously for over twenty years. The patient was verbose, expressing freely delusions of grandeur and persecution. It was decided that rational speech would be designated as the dependent variable to be 1Appreciation is extended to Dr. M. Dinoff and Dr. E. 0. Timmons for critical readings of the "ow at Florida State Hospital, Hollywood, Florida. manuscript.
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