The effects of a microcounselling programme with social work students: A preliminary look at cognitive issues

Microcounselling has featured widely as a systematic approach to improving the interviewing and counselling skills of a range of professional groups (Dickson, 1981). Reviews of research largely attest to its effectiveness in this regard (Baker & Daniels, 1989). The outcome criteria upon which such conclusions have been based have, however, been essentially behavioral and proximal. In an earlier study (Dickson & Mullan, 1990), only limited evidence for the generalisability of outcomes was forthcoming. This paper extends that work by presenting a preliminary investigation of the impact of microcounselling on some of the cognitive processes which are thought to mediate skilled performance. As part of a more extensive evaluation (Dickson & Mullan, 1990), a pre-experimental single group pretest-posttest design was used to assess the extent to which measures of locus of control (Rotter, 1966), evinced by a group of social work students, would change following a microcounselling intervention. Despite predictions of a move towards greater internality of control, no significant pre-post training differences emerged. This result is discussed within the context of the limitations of the design and, in keeping with the preliminary nature of the study, a number of areas for further investigation are indicated.     

The give-or-take-some dilemma: An empirical investigation of a hybrid social dilemma

We describe and empirically investigate a hybrid social dilemma that merges give-some and take-some dilemmas by allowing individuals to choose to either give or to take resources from a shared resource pool. Study 1 finds that (a) group size increases the inequality among group members and the likelihood of creating the public good, while reducing the amount of wasted resources; (b) larger bonuses increase provision rates; and (c) asymmetry in the wealth distribution of the group members induces higher levels of inequality of the final outcomes. Following the logic of appropriateness, players with high (low) endowments were more likely to give toward (take from) the shared resource. Study 2 finds that the tendency of the players with high (low) endowments to give (take) is amplified as the difference between endowment levels increased, and the players’ behavior is correlated with, and predictable from, independent judgments of what is perceived as appropriate.     

Social skills and social phobia: An investigation of DSM-IV subtypes

Social phobia is characterized as pervasive social timidity in social settings. Although much is known about this disorder, aspects of its clinical presentation remain unexplored, in particular characteristics that distinguish the generalized and non-generalized subtypes. For example, it remains unclear whether patients with the non-generalized subtype display social skills deficits in social interactions, and if so, are these deficits clinically, as well as statistically, significant? In this study, adults with either the non-generalized (NGSP; n = 60) or generalized (GSP; n = 119) subtype of social phobia and adults with no psychological disorder (n = 200) completed an extensive behavioral assessment of social skill and social anxiety. As expected, adults with NGSP and GSP reported equal distress and displayed similar rates of avoidance during an Impromptu Speech Task when compared to adults with no disorder. In contrast, the three groups were distinctly different when interacting with another person in various social situations. Adults with NGSP displayed social skill deficits when compared to individuals with no disorder, but they had fewer deficits than the GSP subtype. However, the identified skill deficits were clinically as well as statistically significant only for the GSP subtype. The results are discussed in terms of the contribution of skill deficits to the conceptualization and treatment of social phobia.     

The effects of a short-term social problem solving programme with children

This study examined the effectiveness of a short-term training programme for improving children's interpersonal cognitive problem solving ability and social status. Subjects were twenty primary school children aged seven-to eight-years old. Children in the training condition participated in a four week programme aimed at improving their ability to think of alternative strategies to problematic social situations and recognize the consequences of interpersonal actions. Children in the intervention condition showed significant improvements in their levels of alternative solutions thinking (p <0.005) and consequential thinking (p < 0.05) but not sociometric status (p > 0.05).     

Relating social skills and social media use to consumer behavior: An investigation across the autism spectrum

In this study, we focus on the role of social functioning on consumer behavior, exploring social media use as a mediating factor. In order to facilitate our identification of social functioning competence as a factor, we increased the range by including a subgroup of respondents who identified themselves as being on the autism spectrum. Indeed, this group stood out as having difficulties in getting along with persons they interact with at school, at work and at home. We used these measures to define an individual differences index of social functioning that we call Quality of Social Functioning (QoSF). In a preliminary report, we showed that this index was predictive of social media use and its influence, with those scoring higher reacting more favorably and utilizing more of its features. In the main study, we focused on the content of social media posts by providing photos of posts that depicted either group activities or individual activities. Those scoring lower on our index gave lower ratings of posts in general, but especially for those posts depicting group activities. Results are discussed in terms of the important role of social functioning in the use of social media and its content as a vehicle for informing consumer behavior. We describe how the results of our study and related studies can be used by marketers to improve the lives of especially vulnerable consumers.     

The pleasures of sex: An empirical investigation

This study examined associations between the pleasurability of various sexual activities and behavioural experience with these activities. Participants were 145 female and 78 male undergraduates. Participants rated the pleasurability of various sexual activities (vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, receiving oral sex, performing oral sex, masturbation by a partner, and self-masturbation) and answered questions about their experience with these sexual activities. Vaginal intercourse, receiving oral sex, and being masturbated by a partner received the highest,pleasure ratings. For behaviours other than vaginal intercourse and receiving oral sex, pleasure ratings were significantly higher among respondents who had engaged in the activity. Pleasure ratings for several different sexual behaviours were intercorrelated. Participants who scored high on a pleasure index were more sexually experienced, engaged in more frequent sexual activity, and reported having more sex partners. Results are interpreted within the context of an evolutionary theory which suggests that pleasure motivates sexual behaviour.     

An investigation of the matrix training approach to teach social play skills

Matrix training is a conceptual model inspired by the generative learning approach to program development. This investigation used matrix training to facilitate a generative repertoire of two‐component solitary and social play skills in a child diagnosed with autism and cerebral palsy. Play‐related actions and corresponding toys were aligned on perpendicular axes of a standard matrix. The learner was trained on the skills that intersected along the diagonal of the matrix. The learner acquired both appropriate solitary and social play skills. The participant also began requesting items from a peer despite not having been directly trained to do so. The untrained combinations accounted for 86% of the matrix responses acquired.     

The moderating effects of purchase importance in customer satisfaction process: An empirical investigation

Customer satisfaction continues to draw the interest of researchers and practitioners because it can lead to long term benefits including customer loyalty. Purchase importance plays a role in pre‐purchase process, yet little is known about how it may influence customer satisfaction formation process and loyalty intentions. This study examines the moderating effect of purchase importance in the customer satisfaction formation process and in loyalty intentions. A survey was conducted with customers in a restaurant setting, and structural equation analysis via LISREL was performed. The results show that perceived performance has a stronger influence on satisfaction when purchase importance is low, whereas satisfaction seems to be influenced both by disconfirmation and perceived performance when purchase importance is high. Post‐consumption expectations were found to influence on loyalty intentions under both high and low importance purchase conditions. The implications of these findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are made. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An evaluation of progressively increasing intertrial intervals on the acquisition and generalization of three social skills

We evaluated the effects of different intertrial intervals (ITIs; time between programmed learning opportunities) on the acquisition and generalization of 2 preschoolers' social skills. Independent and generalized skills were observed only when the daily ITI was gradually increased from short to progressively longer intervals.     

The effects of paired kinesthetic movements on literacy skills acquisition with preschoolers

Students who fail to acquire foundational literacy skills during preschool are more likely to read below grade level average in elementary school and are at a heightened risk for future school failure, poverty, early mortality, and crime. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects and maintenance of and preference for paired kinesthetic movements (KM) to a traditional drill (TD) procedure on letter–sound correspondence and word recognition with 6 preschool children. In 6 of 11 evaluations, participants mastered the KM set in substantially fewer intervention sessions than the TD set. In 5 of 11 evaluations, participants mastered the KM and TD sets with little differentiation between the number of intervention sessions. No participant mastered the control set. Maintenance data demonstrate a higher number of correct responses for the KM condition across all weeks. Preference varied across participants and was not always consistent with the more effective intervention.     

The lottery of life and moral desert: An empirical investigation

As John Rawls makes clear in A Theory of Justice, there is a popular and influential strand of political thought for which brute luck – that is, being lucky (or unlucky) in the so-called “lottery of life” – ought to have no place in a theory of distributive justice. Yet the debate about luck, desert, and fairness in contemporary political philosophy has recently been rekindled by a handful of philosophers who claim that desert should play a bigger role in theories of distributive justice. In the present paper, we present the results of our attempts to fill in some of the missing empirical details of this debate. Our findings provide some preliminary evidence that, contrary to what most contemporary political philosophers have assumed, people are not as worried by natural luck as previously thought. Instead, people’s worries seem to be focused exclusively on inequalities generated by social luck.     

The effect of social skills training procedures on the acquisition of appropriate interpersonal skills for mentally retarded adults

A pretest/posttest control group design was utilized to examine the effect of social skills training on social interactions with peers, conversational interactions with a novel partner, and ratings of overall social functioning. The results failed to support the hypothesis that social skills training could increase the generalization of overall conversational responding of mentally retarded adults. The results showed that social skills training augmented with self-monitored videotape feedback could not optimize the effects of social skills training alone. The subjects did demonstrate acquisition of the targeted behaviors during training by meeting preestablished criteria for all of the training sessions. However, the subjects failed to generalize those behaviors across settings to in vivosocial situations.     

心理健康双因素模型在大学生及其心理素质中的有效性研究

采用大学生心理素质量表、一般健康量表、生活满意度量表、快乐感量表进行问卷调查,检验西方学者提出的心理健康双因素模型(DFM)在中国大学生及其心理素质中的有效性。结果发现： ⑴心理健康两维结构的拟合指数优于单维结构;⑵DFM成功地将中国大学生划分为了完全心理健康、部分心理健康、部分病态、完全病态四种类型,并在年级的分布上存在显著差异;⑶心理素质水平在四种心理健康状态上存在显著差异;⑷心理素质对积极心理健康的发展性功能相比对消极心理健康的治疗性功能更为突出。研究表明,DFM与中国学者提出的心理素质与心理健康关系模型理论存在相互支持。     

Personality traits and critical thinking skills in college students: empirical tests of a two-factor theory

The two-factor theory defines critical thinking skills as a combined effect of cognitive abilities and personality dispositions. Although the available research supports the association between critical thinking and measures of cognitive ability, the specific traits contained in the dispositional factor have not been clearly identified through empirical research. In Study 1,101 undergraduate students completed the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA), three subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition, and the revised NEO Personality Inventory. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that Openness to Experience scores accounted for significant incremental variance in WGCTA scores beyond that accounted for by Similarities subtest scores. In Study 2, similar analyses of data from 105 students also showed significant incremental effects for Openness to Experience, even after more variance in the cognitive factor was accounted for by the Verbal Comprehension Index. Implications of these findings for the enhancement of critical thinking skills in college students are discussed.     

Generalization effects of social skills training in chronic schizophrenics: An experimental analysis

Social skills training was administered to three (one male and two female) chronic schizophrenic patients in a Partial Hospitalization Service. Treatment consisted of instructions. feedback and modeling, and was administered in 25. 26 and 31 sessions, respectively, for the three patients. Target behaviors were identified for each patient based on his/her responses to role-played interactions involving male and female partners in situations requiring commendatory or hostile assertion. Five to seven target behaviors were selected for each subject and were treated sequentially in a multiple baseline format. Skills training was highly successful for the two female patients but was only partially effective for the male patient. Two forms of generalization measures were included, indicating that the effects of training generalized from trained to untrained, and trained to novel role-played interactions. Follow-up assessments for the two female patients indicated that most of the effects persisted over 8–10-week post-treatment periods.     

The problem of empirical redundancy of constructs in organizational research: An empirical investigation

Construct empirical redundancy may be a major problem in organizational research today. In this paper, we explain and empirically illustrate a method for investigating this potential problem. We applied the method to examine the empirical redundancy of job satisfaction (JS) and organizational commitment (OC), two well-established organizational constructs. Analysis based on responses from a sample of 292 employees collected at two occasions showed that: (a) the construct-level correlation between JS and OC was very high (.91) and (b) both JS and OC are similarly related to positive affectivity and negative affectivity. These results suggest that the constructs may be empirically indistinguishable, despite their well-established conceptual distinction. These findings illustrate the problem of empirical redundancy of organizational constructs and provide a basis for a possible movement towards parsimony in the realm of constructs that could open the way to more rapid advances in knowledge in organizational research.     

Evaluation of a social problem-solving skills program for third- and fourth-grade students

The effects of a social problem-solving (SPS) training program for entire classrooms of third- and fourth-grade children were examined in two studies. In the first study, experimental children showed significantly greater improvement in knowledge and performance of SPS skills than control children. However, both positive and negative effects of the intervention (varying by classroom) were found on measures of behavioral adjustment, self-efficacy, and peer acceptance at a 6-month follow-up. The second study compared two different intervention strategies: (a) SPS training with teacher-student dialoguing, peer pairing, and self-monitoring, and (b) SPS training with dialoguing only. It was found that children in both the experimental and control groups improved significantly in performance of SPS skills but no differences between the groups were found for changes in behavioral adjustment, self-efficacy, and peer acceptance. The limitations of cognitively mediated interventions for young children were discussed.     

The effects of token procedures on a teacher's social contacts with her students

The effects of a token system on a teacher's rate of social contacts with her students were investigated in a public school kindergarten. A group of six children were observed daily during a 20-min handwriting lesson. The children were divided into two groups (A and B) of three children each. Five conditions were imposed sequentially: (1) baseline without tokens, (2) contingent tokens for Group A, noncontingent tokens for Group B, (3) contingent tokens for Group B, noncontingent tokens for Group A, (4) reinstatement of condition 2, and (5) contingent tokens for both groups. It was consistently observed that the teacher's rate of social contact was higher with the children receiving the contingent tokens than with those who received noncontingent tokens.     

The acquisition and maintenance of behavioral skills: a response to Michael

A response to Michael's (1980) presidential address to the Association for Behavior Analysis is presented. The position is taken that in many instances we have failed to adopt a behavioral approach to dealing with problems within our field concomitant with the shift from an emphasis on behaviorism and a science of behavior to technology. It is argued that we need to be sensitive to the data and consider the contingencies that are operating within the culture. A general strategy and some tactics are presented to acquire and maintain behavioral skills.     

The significance of occupations in work careers: An empirical and theoretical review

The central position of occupations in work careers has been a widely accepted position in the study of careers. Furthermore, it has also been commonly believed that most work careers follow the temporal sequence of occupational choice, occupational preparation and training, and occupational entry and retention. An analysis of research findings, however, shows that most individuals do not make stable occupational choices as the first step in their work careers, nor do they show a strong commitment to a particular occupation during their work careers. On the contrary, occupational mobility is far more characteristic of most work careers than occupational stability. One possible explanation of the high rates of occupational mobility is that individuals are responding to opportunities that develop during the course of their careers. As opportunities unfold during work careers, individuals use those opportunities to make future career and occupational choices. Thus, careers may be more accurately considered as a series of responses to a succession of opportunity situations than the effort to realize a predetermined occupational goal.