Inducing Thought Processes: Bringing Process Measures and Cognitive Processes Closer Together

The challenge in inferring cognitive processes from observational data is to correctly align overt behavior with its covert cognitive process. To improve our understanding of this overt–covert mapping in the domain of decision making, we collected eye‐movement data during decisions between gamble‐problems. Participants were either free to choose or instructed to use a specific choice strategy (maximizing expected value or a choice heuristic). We found large differences in looking patterns between free and instructed choices. Looking patterns provided no support for the common assumption that attention is equally distributed between outcomes and probabilities, even when participants were instructed to maximize expected value. Eye‐movement data are to some extent ambiguous with respect to underlying cognitive processes. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Making the Parents as Partners Principle a Reality: The Role of the Alliance

We explore the dimensions of the Parents as Partners principle, the widely touted, but somewhat elusive construct in the literature on treating children with serious mental illness, whose poorly defined boundaries, lack of empirical grounding, and overemphasis on instrumental dimensions attenuates its usefulness as a guide for practice and research. Four major barriers to the realization of this principle are outlined, all of which may impede actualizing partnership in practice and may also inhibit the early formation of a positive clinician/parent alliance, a neglected, though key dimension of true partnership practice. The alliance, which has a long clinical and research history in psychotherapy and behavioral research, and more recently, in a variety of community-based interventions, is a precursor to active client partnership with helpers and to treatment participation, as well as therapeutic in its own right. After reviewing relevant alliance research, we close with a beginning research agenda to incorporate the alliance as an integral component of future conceptualization and research about the Parents as Partners principle.     

Bringing the Social into Genetics: The Psychosocial Genetics Risk Assessment and Management Framework (PG-RAM)

As increasing numbers of people are identified at risk for multi-factorial diseases, questions of how to assess, communicate and manage genetic risk will be critical from health services and policy perspectives. However, there is currently no evidence-based genetic risk assessment and management framework to assist policy makers, clinicians and other stakeholders. A comprehensive psychosocial framework for risk assessment and management has been developed in the context of security hazards or threats. In an adaptation of that model, we present the Psychosocial Genetics Risk Assessment and Management framework (PG-RAM). It offers principles to enhance the integration of evidence-based best practices into genetics health services, as well as to identify issues, knowledge and gaps. The framework identifies the core elements of the situation, effects, population and interventions, all spanning several phases of genetic disorders. The framework provides an excellent starting point for knowledge syntheses in the context of genetic risk and could serve as the conceptual basis for practical tool development to guide healthcare professionals and decision makers in preparing for and responding to the psychosocial aspects of genetic risk.     

A Closer Look at the Role of Applicant Age in Selection Decisions

Participants evaluated hypothetical applicants recruited from a younger (university students) or older (American Association of Retired Persons) population for 2 young-typed jobs, one more strongly young-typed than the other. Participants were given applicant information, including age and personal characteristics, that varied in the extent to which it was consistent with raters' job stereotypes. Results indicated that younger applicants were evaluated more favorably than older applicants. However, an Applicant Age × Job interaction effect indicated that the older applicant was evaluated less favorably for the more strongly compared with the less strongly young-typed job. In addition. applicants whose personal characteristics (other than age) were more consistent with raters' job stereotypes were evaluated more favorably than applicants whose characteristics were less consistent. Results also indicated that applicant age and personal characteristics interacted to influence applicant evaluations. The implications of these and other study results are discussed.     

The Development and Role of the Therapeutic Alliance in Supportive Psychotherapy with Adolescents

The formation of a therapeutic alliance is considered a central issue in therapy, and particularly crucial and challenging in work with adolescents. The relational and technical components of the therapeutic alliance were examined from the perspective of the adolescent client. 40 emotionally disturbed adolescent girls, aged 13 to 16 years, received brief supportive psychotherapy in the school setting. The alliance was assessed at sessions 3, 6 and 9, and outcome was evaluated on measures of internalizing problems, self-esteem, adjustment and client satisfaction. The results indicated the stability of the alliance between sessions 3 and 6, followed by significant linear increases between sessions 6 and 9. The strength of the alliance was most consistently related to reductions in internalising problems and client estimates of change. The implications for training and clinical practice with adolescent clients are discussed and future research avenues outlined.     

Spanish Adaptation of the Working Alliance Inventory-Short (WAI-S)

The goal of our research was to adapt the short forms of the Working Alliance Inventory into the Spanish language for patients and therapists (WAI-S-P and WAI-S-T). The psychometric properties of scores from these measurement instruments were evaluated in Spanish outpatients with depressive disorders and their therapists. The scores of both measures exhibited excellent reliability in terms of internal consistency and excellent convergent validity. Their discriminant validity exhibited some limitations, particularly when the scores of both short measures correlated with those of two empathy measures. Regarding predictive validity, the scores of the overall WAI-S-P and WAI-S-T significantly correlated with residual gain scores of patients in the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) after the tenth psychotherapy session. Additionally, the overall WAI-S-T scores explained a moderate percentage of the variance in patient BDI score changes. These results are satisfactory and similar to those found in the studies that have utilized the respective original versions of WAI-S in English.     

When Good Things Feel Closer and Bad Things Feel Farther: The Role of Perceived Control on Psychological Distance Perception

Prior research has found that people perceive positive objects and locations as physically closer than negative ones. Yet, other work has found the opposite to be true for perceptions of temporal distance, where negative future events feel closer than positive ones. Motivated by this seeming discrepancy, we propose that (a) feelings of control can differentially influence how far away valenced (i.e., positive or negative) targets feel in space and time and that (b) the difference in perceived control over space versus time can account for these opposite findings. First, across four studies, we show that high (vs. low) control makes positive targets feel closer and negative targets feel more distant in both physical space (Studies 1 and 1a) and time (Studies 2 and 2a). Then, in Studies 3 and 4, we simultaneously examine perceptions of spatial and temporal distance and show that baseline differences in perceived control between these domains can explain the prior discrepant findings. Finally, a within‐paper meta‐analysis offers further support to these findings.     

The Communities That Care (CTC) Family Attachment Scale: Measurement Invariance Across Family Structures

Familial protective factors are an integral part of prevention approaches aimed at problematic behaviour in adolescents. However, there is scarce evidence on the role of familial protective factors in families deviating from the two-parent family configuration. For evaluating targeted (preventive) interventions, a reliable and valid measurement of familial protective factors is crucial. We investigated the factor structure of the Communities That Care (CTC) Family Attachment Scale and tested its measurement invariance in different family structures. Adolescents (n?=?2.459, grades 6–11) from Lower Saxony, Germany filled in the German version of the CTC Youth Survey. Our analyses focused on the CTC Family Attachment Scale measuring the adolescent’s attachment to the mother and the father with six items. We evaluated the postulated unidimensional structure of the scale by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and tested the measurement invariance using multigroup factor analyses across different family structures (two-parent family/single-parent family). We used SPSS V.23 and the R packages lavaan and semTools. The two-factor solution for the CTC Family Attachment Scale with one factor representing attachment to the mother and one indicating attachment to the father had an adequate model fit in the total sample (χ²(5)?=?29.938; p?<?.001; CFI?=?.996; TLI?=?.988; RMSEA?=?.050, SRMR?=?.019). This two-factor solution of the CTC Family Attachment Scale showed strong measurement invariance regarding adolescents living in a two-parent family vs. those living with a single parent. The two-factor CTC Family Attachment Scale appears to be a suitable measure to assess family attachment in both two-parent and single-parent families with German adolescents.     

Bringing the script to life: The case of Flannery O'Connor

Journal of Medical Humanities -     

(Inter)personal Computing: The Role of the Therapeutic Relationship in E-mental Health

E-mental health technologies are rapidly expanding the reach of psychological interventions around the globe. There is a growing evidence base supporting the potential benefits of these new technologies for psychological and behavioural health. Most of this evidence to date has focused on evaluating the feasibility and outcomes from such interventions, whilst limited research has begun to explore the change processes associated with their impact. In traditional psychological therapies the quality of common factors, including the therapeutic relationship, are widely held to be important for engagement and outcomes. E-mental health interventions present a challenge to the importance of these factors, as therapeutic interactions are typically remote, limited, or even absent in the case of fully automated e-mental health programmes. This paper explores the role of the therapeutic relationship in e-mental health. Where measured, it appears that the relationship is fairly robust to distance and limited contact, but may be less intimately associated with therapy outcomes than in traditional therapies. Where the intervention comprises little or no therapeutic contact, we explore how some of the variance in engagement and outcomes may still be accounted for by common and relational factors offered through a supportive frame or embedded within the technologies themselves. Implications for theory, research and practice are presented.     

Bringing life into the group experience: The power of immediacy

One of the great advantages of group treatment is the potential for immediacy. It is possible to charge interpersonal exchanges with a therapeutic power rarely achieved in other modalities. Members responses to one another occur in front of the group as a whole, which makes the dynamics more available and comprehensive than if such interchanges were merely reported. The art of group treatment may be said to consist of fostering this immediacy. It calls for systematically removing blocks to the living moment. This paper presents four techniques for resolving impediments to immediacy: 1. Translating the remote past into the living present; 2. Resolving tendencies of members to fixate rather than to engage in progressive interchanges; 3. Converting oblique communications into their true interpersonal messages; 4. Resolving any tendency to construe oneself as a victim, in order to ward off meaningful and immediate give- and-take.     

Changes in Attitudes and Self-Confidence in the Women's and Gender Studies Classroom: The Role of Teacher Alliance and Student Cohesion

Previous research provides evidence that women's and gender studies (WGS) classes are successful in helping students to develop more egalitarian gender role attitudes, appreciation and acceptance of diversity, awareness of sexism and other social inequities, and agentic self-confidence in both women and men. The mechanisms by which these changes take place were the focus of this study. WGS students (n = 328) from 23 classes on four college campuses participated. Results indicated that (a) student readiness (positive WGS class expectations and capacity for positive interpersonal relationships) predicted the development of alliances with teachers and cohesion with classmates, (b) alliance and cohesion were associated with changes toward more egalitarian attitudes, (c) cohesion was associated with increases in confidence, and (d) links between student readiness and change were mediated by alliance and cohesion developed within the WGS classroom.     

The importance of problem-driven research: Bringing Wachtel's argument into the present

There is no one best way to do psychological research. Rather, the “best” way depends on the fit to the problem. Research should be problem-driven rather than method-driven. Psychologists sometimes envy certain natural scientists, and over-reward those who do research with a surface structure more like that of research in the natural sciences, leading to sub-optimal progress in the field.