Clinical child and developmental-clinical programs: perhaps necessary but not sufficient?

Takes the position that, when considering the science component of clinical psychology, both clinical child and developmental-clinical approaches to training may be too narrow or limiting and that perhaps we should consider broader alternatives, such as an ecological training model. However, I also propose that the type of training program selected is not the only factor to consider, as the working relationship between the individual faculty member and graduate student exerts considerable influence on what a student learns in a graduate program.     

Is knowledge base development a necessary and sufficient condition for memory development?

The hypothesis that knowledge base development is an important condition for memory development was tested in two experiments. In Experiment 1 subjects from grades K, 6, and college participated in an incidental learning task where they analyzed words according to one of four featural systems: physical, acoustic, semantic, and imagery. Large developmental differences in recall were found in the imagery and semantic conditions, small differences were observed in the acoustic conditions, and no developmental differences were found in the physical condition. Experiment 2 involved presenting college students and third graders words either from categories highly salient to third graders, e.g., cartoons, games, etc., or from corresponding Battig and Montague categories generated by college students. Free recall and clustering performances showed significant interactions, with third graders superior on the third-grade salient items, and college students superior on Battig and Montague items.     

The toy salesperson: A voice for change in sex-role stereotypes?

A field experiment was designed in which students approached sales personnel in 31 different retail settings, asking for help in selecting toys for a twin niece and nephew, 5 years of age. A majority of salesperson suggestions involved a sex-stereotypic selection of toys for both the male and the female child. Limited support was found for hypotheses that the responses of sales personnel would vary by retail setting (specialized toystore, department store, dimestore/discount store) and by sex of salesperson; responses did not vary by salesperson's age, however. Because more different toys are available for boys than for girls, female role expansion in children's play activities is a more likely outcome than sex-role convergence.This article is a revision of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, New York, August 1976.     

Is exposure a necessary condition for fear-reduction?

In most of the effective techniques for reducing fear, exposure to the fear-provoking stimulus is a prominent feature. It is argued that in many circumstances, engaged exposure to the fear stimuli is a sufficient condition for fear-reduction, but there is no good reason for supposing that such exposure is a necessary condition for fear-reduction. Seven examples of fear-reduction apparently taking place in the absence of exposure are used to illustrate the argument. Some theoretical and practical consequences of the argument are introduced.     

Is neutralization necessary for criminal behavior?

Criminological theories currently place much emphasis on neutralization of norms, i.e., extension or distortion of norms to allow guilt‐free infraction, as a key element in criminal behavior. This paper examines the major assumptions underlying the neutralization thesis and a critical alternative thesis, which argues that criminal beliefs rather than neutralizations permit criminal actions. Analysis of data from a sample of college students calls into question the neutralization theory assumption of homogeneity of moral values in this society. The alternative thesis is supported by the finding of variation in moral values and its link to differential criminal involvement. It is argued that this evidence precludes the need for a concept such as neutralization to account for criminal behavior.     

The dissemination and use of research knowledge in teacher education programs: A nonevent?

Teaching, like other professions, has a developing knowledge base that serves to guide practitioners (Shulman, 1986). Knowledge generated by research is an important component of this knowledge. What are some avenues for dissemination of such research? What are the main impediments to the success of this endeavor? What is a possible link between dissemination efforts and the use of research knowledge by teachers? These questions will be dealt with in this paper.     

Is retrieval success a necessary condition for retrieval-induced forgetting?

When information is retrieved from memory, it becomes more recallable than it would have been otherwise. Other information associated with the same cue or configuration of cues, however, becomes less recallable. Such retrieval-induced forgetting (Anderson, Bjork, &; Bjork, 1994) appears to reflect the suppression of competing nontarget information, with this suppression facilitating the selection of target information. But is success at such selection a necessary condition for retrieval-induced forgetting? Using a procedure in which some cues posed an impossible retrieval task for participants, we report evidence that the attempt to retrieve, even if unsuccessful, can produce retrieval-induced forgetting. This finding, we believe, supports and refines a suppression/inhibitory account of retrieval-induced forgetting.     

Contingency awareness in a symptom learning paradigm: necessary but not sufficient?

In previous studies, we found that bodily symptoms can be learned in a differential conditioning paradigm, using odors as conditioned stimuli (CSs) and CO2-enriched air as unconditioned stimulus (US). However, this only occurred when the odor CS had a negative valence (a selective conditioning effect), and tended to be more pronounced in persons scoring high for Negative Affectivity (NA). This paper considers the necessity and/or sufficiency of awareness of the CS-US contingency in three studies using this paradigm. The relation between contingency awareness and the selective conditioning effect, and between contingency awareness and NA was also considered. Both self reported symptoms and respiratory physiology served as dependent variables. A learning effect on symptoms was found only for participants aware of the CS-US contingency, but not all participants reporting contingency awareness showed a learning effect. No conditioning effects appeared on the physiological measures. Also contingency awareness did not account for the selective conditioning effect, and did not interact with NA. Overall, the necessity but insufficiency hypotheses can only be withhold for group data and not for individual data.     

Recording supervision: Educational,therapeutic, and enhances the supervisory working alliance?

Aims: To explore the impact of listening to an audio‐recording of their latest supervision session on supervisees. Method: Participants recorded a supervision session, listened to it and were interviewed about this experience of listening to it within seven days of listening to the recording. The phenomenological interviews informed by the researcher's knowledge were analysed using grounded theory. Participants: Fifteen participants with 0–20 years’ experience, representing person‐centred, CBT, psychodynamic and integrative approaches, and qualifications ranging from student to doctorate formed the theoretical sample. Findings: Listening to the audio‐recording allowed participants to re‐experience their thoughts and emotions. Participants recalled and re‐experienced events which had been forgotten, unnoticed or (arguably) repressed. This re‐experiencing was usually less emotive than in real‐time; but suppressed emotions could be more intense. As participants integrated both these noticed and unnoticed events, they were able to accept what had been unacceptable, gaining self‐awareness, which was potentially therapeutic. Noticing what had been unnoticed permitted insights into many aspects of therapy and supervision, which was more than just ‘reflection‐on‐action’. Conclusion: Listening to an audio‐recording of the latest supervision may be educational for any supervisee; it may be therapeutic by facilitating challenge of maladaptive beliefs and behaviours; and it also seems to strengthen the supervisory working alliance.     

Septohippocampal acetylcholine: involved in but not necessary for learning and memory?

The neurotransmitter acetylcholine (ACh) has been accorded an important role in supporting learning and memory processes in the hippocampus. Cholinergic activity in the hippocampus is correlated with memory, and restoration of ACh in the hippocampus after disruption of the septohippocampal pathway is sufficient to rescue memory. However, selective ablation of cholinergic septohippocampal projections is largely without effect on hippocampal-dependent learning and memory processes. We consider the evidence underlying each of these statements, and the contradictions they pose for understanding the functional role of hippocampal ACh in memory. We suggest that although hippocampal ACh is involved in memory in the intact brain, it is not necessary for many aspects of hippocampal memory function.     

What is both necessary and sufficient to maintain avoidance responding in the shuttle box?

To learn what maintains the frequency of shuttle box avoidance responses, male rats from the Berkeley S₁ strain, after 200 trials of standard discriminative avoidance training, were given 100 additional trials under one of four different conditions. Responding at the maximum rate was maintained when animals performed under the training conditions or when responses continued to terminate the warning signal immediately, even though shock was never given for failing to respond. In contrast, avoidance responding was reduced markedly if, and only if, trials were given in which the signal ceased to terminate immediately (i.e. it shut off either well before or well after a response). This decrement occurred even though avoidance responses continued to avert shock. Thus, under the conditions of this experiment prompt signal offset was both necessary and sufficient to maintain the occurrence of well-established shuttle box avoidance responses.     

Focus on "cognition" in cognitive behavior therapy for ocd: is it really necessary?

The past decade has witnessed a significant shift toward a more cognitive emphasis in our understanding and treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD). This article discusses the shortcomings in more standard behavioral treatment of OCD, which despite its demonstrated efficacy, led to the recent cognitive-behavioral approaches to the disorder. Current cognitive behavior therapy for OCD is described and a short critical review of the comparative treatment outcome literature on cognitive behavior therapy vs exposure and response prevention is provided. The article concludes that although the clinical utility of a more cognitive approach to OCD has not been consistently demonstrated, it would be premature to abandon cognitive formulations until some key research questions have been addressed.     

Does neuroscience hold promise for the further development of behavior therapy? The case of emotional change after exposure in anxiety and depression

Over the last few years, the integration of biological and psychological models has become increasingly important in clinical psychology. This paper presents a neurobiological framework for exploring how neuroscience research may be valuable in the context of new developments in behavior therapy. The importance of the cortical-subcortical circuitry of emotion processing for investigating the working mechanisms of exposure therapy is illustrated by current neuroimaging research. The implication is that during exposure therapy the focus of attention must be fully directed towards the emotional content of the threatening situation to facilitate prefrontal control over the amygdala and that new contextual information, of emotional salience, must be added to create inhibitory projections from the hippocampus. In addition, some possible mechanisms of action for different therapeutic approaches to both anxiety and depression and the role of neuroimaging techniques in predicting treatment outcome are discussed.     

How should “acceptance of responsibility” be addressed in sexual offending treatment programs?

Sexual offenders in treatment programs are usually expected to take responsibility for their offending—which we define, on the basis of a literature review, as giving a detailed and precise disclosure of events which avoids external attributions of cause and matches the official/victim's account of the offense. However, research has not established that a failure to take responsibility for offending is a risk factor for future recidivism. In this paper, we critically review and evaluate the literature on taking responsibility for offending, to determine the rationale for the popularity of this treatment target. We consider the reasons why sex offenders fail to take responsibility for their offending and examine some potential problems with focusing on this goal in treatment programs. We also describe alternative treatment strategies for taking responsibility and conclude that there is less need for offenders to take responsibility for their past offending than there is for them to take responsibility for their future actions.     

Climate change and social order: Knowledge for action?

This article is a critical, sociological examination of policy advice aimed at reducing or limiting CO₂ emissions. The policy proposals are taken from various sources directed to governmental or economic institutions and targeted to cope with the natural and social consequences of global warming. We ask, based on a sociological understanding of features constitutive of practical social science knowledge, how feasible and practical are various policy proposals. Our assessment, in turn, is based on a theoretical model of the characteristics ofpractical scientific knowledge, which is discussed in conjunction with the current field of climate change knowledge. He is currently the editor of theCanadian Journal of Sociology. This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the 27th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association, Learned Societies Conference, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, June 1992.     

A procedure for evaluating sensitivity to within-person change: can mood measures in diary studies detect change reliably?

The recent growth in diary and experience sampling research has increased research attention on how people change over time in natural settings. Often however, the measures in these studies were originally developed for studying between-person differences, and their sensitivity to within-person changes is usually unknown. Using a Generalizability Theory framework, the authors illustrate a procedure for developing reliable measures of change using a version of the Profile of Mood States (POMS; McNair, Lorr, & Droppleman, 1992) shortened for diary studies. Analyzing two data sets, one composed of 35 daily reports from 68 persons experiencing a stressful examination and another composed of daily reports from 164 persons over a typical 28-day period, we demonstrate that three-item measures of anxious mood, depressed mood, anger, fatigue, and vigor have appropriate reliability to detect within-person change processes.     

Student clinicians’ and clients’ perceptions of the therapeutic alliance and outcomes in stuttering treatment

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to examine how the therapeutic alliances (TA) of graduate student clinicians and adult clients who stutter relate to perceived treatment outcomes.MethodsStudent clinicians (N = 42) and adult clients who stutter (N = 22) completed a survey assessing their TA strength and perception of treatment outcomes. Responses were analyzed to determine similarities and differences in how clinicians and clients relate the TA to perceptions of treatment effectiveness, progress, and outcome satisfaction.ResultsResults suggest that clinicians and clients who stutter both relate the TA to treatment outcome, but in different ways. While clinicians associate the TA most with treatment effectiveness and client progress, clients relate the TA most to outcome satisfaction.ConclusionClinicians should be aware that for adult clients who stutter, outcome satisfaction is related to the degree of shared understanding, agreement on daily tasks, and bond they experience with their clinician. To ensure a strong TA and client satisfaction, clinicians should actively seek their clients’ perspective regarding TA status.