The current status of the generalizability (i.e., application across situations) and specificity (i.e., differentiation from other deviant behavior stigmas) of the mental illness stigma was re‐examined 25 years after delineation by Lamy (1966). College undergraduate students completed 30 forced‐choice items measuring deep‐level attitudes toward ex‐mental patients vis‐à‐vis ex‐convicts or ex‐drug addicts. Etiological factors and various areas of functioning (i.e., psychological and social functioning, dating and romantic relationships, family, children, work, and rehabilitation and recidivism) were considered. An attitudinal hierarchy was found for the three deviant social roles, with the ex‐drug addict role eliciting the least negative attitudes and the ex‐convict role eliciting the most negative attitudes. The current results indicate that the stigma associated with the ex‐mental patient role continues to be specific to that deviant social role; however, as compared to the results of Lamy, attitudes toward this deviant social role have evolved in a positive direction. The generalizability of the stigma reported by Lamy has diminished in relation to negative attitudes but remains somewhat stable for positive attitudes. Although college students were the participants in Lamy's study, their use in this study may restrict the generalizability of these deep‐level attitude findings.

Mental health professionals have become involved in child custody litigation by serving as custody evaluators. This article, which gives specific attention to the roles of custody evaluators and the method and content of evaluations, proposes that mental health professionals serve as strictly impartial evaluators. Ethical dilemmas associated with the professional as eualuator and the limitations of evaluative conclusions due to the paucity of research on custody arrangements is also discussed.Increasingly, mental health professionals are being asked to assist in the settlement of contested child custody disputes. Two factors are responsible for this growing demand. First, with the nation's divorce rate increasing, judges are able to make custody decisions more expeditiously if they rely on mental health professionals as custody evaluators. Second, judges are readily acknowledging that their area of expertise does not equip them to determine which social, psychological, and physical conditions are necessary for adequate child development. The expertise of those knowledgeable about mental health issues can be invaluable to judges who must make custody decisions that are in the child's best interests (Derdeyn, 1983).Acting as custody evaluator, the mental health professional seeks information that can help the judge determine which custody arrangement will serve the best interests of the child. After a series of family interviews, evaluators write a formal report, which is presented to the court. Description of family member relationships, interactions, and each member's psychological adjustment is often included in this report. In addition, most evaluators customarily make a specific custody arrangement recommendation. It is at this stage that the custody evaluator's role changes from one of diagnostician to quasi decision maker.There has been a growing body of literature on custody evaluation. The articles and books published during the past decade range from the "how to ..." types of work to a limited amount of research into the issues and variables involved in custody cases.Concomitantly, several ethical issues have arisen due to the increasing interest, demand, and monetary rewards associated with custody evaluations. In this article, the role of the evaluator and the method and content of the custody evaluation are examined.In addition, the ethical dilemmas involved are discussed, and some recommendations are made.

The present experiment demonstrates that the effects of delay of knowledge of results (KR) in a line drawing task depend upon the dependent variable which is considered and the original response tendency of the subjects. Delay of KR interfered with the acquisition of the correct response when number of correct responses is the dependent variable. When KR was omitted the immediate-KR group continued to make more correct responses than the delayed-KR group. However, there was a significant reduction in correct responses for both groups. When absolute error was the response measure there were no significant differences between immediate-and delayed-KR groups either during acquisition or extinction. Analysis of the type of response made during extinction suggested that the overshooting effect obtained by previous investigators may be typical of short responders trained under conditions of immediate reinforcement but not of those trained under delayed-KR. Greenspoon and Foreman (1956) obtained clear cut evidence that the effectiveness of knowledge of results (KR) in a line drawing task varies inversely with the time delay between the response and KR. On the other hand, Bilodeau and Bilodeau (1958) were unable to demonstrate a similar effect in five different experiments. Bilodeau and Ryan (1960) hypothesized that the Greenspoon and Foreman findings could not be replicated and they did in fact obtain null results. However, Dyal (1965) has recently replicated the Greenspoon and Foreman results for the case of a 30 sec. delay interval. The purpose of the present experiment is twofold: (a) to provide replication of Green-spoon and Foreman's study at the 20 sec. delay interval used by Bilodeau and Ryan, and (b) to determine the effect of elimination of KR on a simple motor response which has been formed on the basis of KR.

Although anatomically detailed dolls are becoming the most commonly used tool in the validation of sexual abuse allegations, their use is not without significant problems. This evaluation of the psychometric properties of the dolls using the existing empirical literature reveals that there is considerable difficulty in the standardization of the dolls, administration and scoring procedures, and training in the dolls' use. Furthermore, appropriate norms have not been developed. Although good interobserver reliability has been reported, the construct and criterion-related validity has not been demonstrated consistently. The current lack of an empirically based psychometric foundation does not support the use of the dolls in validation interviews, nor the admissibility of doll-based evidence in legal proceedings.* The authors greatly appreciate the critical reviews offered by Walter J. Danforth, Ph.D. and the anonymous reviewers and the editorial assistance of Melissa Giles. An earlier version of this paper, entitled "Play or Reality: Anatomical Dolls in Child Sexual Molestation Investigations," was presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in New Orleans on August 13, 1989. Requests for reprints should be sent to

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