Some findings on prospect and refuge: I

Prospect and refuge theory suggests that preferences for environments are based on prospect (the unimpeded opportunity to see) and refuge (the opportunity to hide). This article reports two experiments on how well four factors derived from prospect and refuge theory predicted responses of comfort or liking. The factors were prospect (depth of view), refuge (presence of protective regions in front of the observer or occluding edges that might indicate possibilities of escape), direction of light (either front lighting or back lighting), and venue (natural or built environments). Exp. 1 had 16 landscape scenes and 29 participants; Exp. 2 had 16 landscapes, 14 rooms, and 18 participants. Empirical support was obtained for the claim that people will like gazing out over scenes of distant mountains. For venue, built scenes were preferred over scenes of nature. Results for refuge were ambiguous, and those for di rection of light were nill.     

Some findings on prospect and refuge theory: II

This article presents four new studies on the efficacy of predictions based on prospect and refuge theory and summarizes the results over eight studies. New data covered 49 participants and 36 environments. The eight studies included in the summary covered 144 participants and 80 widely diverse environments (Japanese Tatami rooms, Western rooms, porch, meadow, neighborhood commercial, shopping mall, vacation landscapes). Data were available for hypotheses about five factors: prospect, refuge, light, venue, and spatial transition. Efficacy was represented by correlations for the levels of the factors with responses of preference or comfort. Overall, venue was the most efficacious factor (r = .42, 95% CI = .14, .64). Efficacies for the other factors were very near zero. It is suggested that a considerable amount of additional formal inquiry be conducted before assuming the utility of prospect and refuge theory.     

The emotional geographies of neoliberal school reforms: Spaces of refuge and containment

This paper draws from a larger research project about the post high school transitions of young people who were at school during New Zealand’s neoliberal reforms. Our participants included a group of four young men excluded from school and redirected to an Alternative Education programme. Their accounts of their experiences at school differed starkly from what they said about their Alternative Education programme. The emotional content of their accounts reveals how the social and material practices of these respective education sites are constituted differently. Alternative Education operated as a space of refuge from alienation experienced in mainstream schooling as well as a site of containment, separating Alternative Education students from their mainstream peers. Focusing on the emotional geography of one Alternative Education programme offers insight into the emotional geographies of mainstream schooling and, more broadly, of neoliberal education reforms. Drawing on ideas from Massey and Bondi, we demonstrate how alienation is produced and manifested on different scales: teacher–student interactions, school exclusions and policies establishing Alternative Education. The Alternative Education programme discussed here provides a barometer of the broader emotional geographies of New Zealand’s neoliberal education reforms.     

Interior experience within analytic process

In this paper, I consider the feeling of interiority as it evolves within the treatment relationship. A capacity to access and sustain one's interiority reflects a sense of personal solidity within which the validity of subjective process and privacy is taken for granted. When this capacity is relatively undeveloped, individuals rely on the “other”; (including the analyst) to help them contact, elaborate, or manage their affective experience. Quite paradoxically, the analyst's active investigation of dynamic or intersubjective process may obfuscate rather than clarify this core difficulty. I suggest two alternative approaches to the treatment situation that stand in some tension and yet also complement each other. One emphasizes the “active”; investigation of dynamic and dyadic process, wherein the analyst works interpretively and/or around relational issues. The other is organized around the “interior”; dimension of the treatment experience, emphasizing the patient's need to develop or manage her affective process in the relative absence of input from the analyst. Two clinical situations are described, the first illustrating the use of silence with a patient whose difficulties involved affect articulation, and the second involving a patient whose need for affect regulation made her highly dependent on the analyst for soothing.     

Behavioral assessment: review and prospect

In this article I review the history and publication trends of the behavioral assessment (BA) section of the journal, outline future directions for the BA section and suggest avenues for future assessment research. BA began as a stand-alone journal in 1978 and was incorporated as a regular section of Behaviour Research and Therapy (BRT) in 1992. Throughout this article I will use 'BA' to refer to both the stand-alone assessment journal and the assessment section of BRT. Since its inception, the scope of BA has been broad, with behavioral assessment defined to include the assessment of motoric, cognitive, emotional and physiological responses. Several publication trends are identified, including a declining frequency in the number of submitted and published articles on behavioural assessment. This parallels the declining number of assessment articles published elsewhere. Despite these trends, assessment research continues to form a vital foundation for other types of psychological research (e.g. treatment outcome studies), and there is a continued need for assessment-related research. A number of potentially fruitful directions for assessment research are suggested.     

Academic decision making and prospect theory

Two studies are reported that investigate the applicability of prospect theory to college students' academic decision making. Exp. 1 failed to provide support for the risk-seeking portion of the fourfold pattern predicted by prospect theory but did find the greater weighting of losses over gains. Using a more sensitive dependent measure, in Exp. 2 the results of the first experiment were replicated in terms of the gain-loss effect and also found some support for the fourfold pattern in the interaction between probabilities and gain versus loss. The greatest risk-seeking was found in the high probability loss condition.     

Augustinian Anthropology: Interior intimo meo

Our appreciation and appropriation of Augustine's thought is hindered by assumptions which serious engagement with his thought makes both visible and dubious. His account of the dynamics of human knowing seems, at first glance, a jumble of confusions, but, once better understood, it helps transform both the terms and the framework of our epistemology. His account of human agency seems similarly confused, but also works, once rightly understood, to transform our vision of what agency is. Furthermore, Augustine's different anthropological and metaphysical assumptions provide not only a platform for criticizing what modernity takes for granted but also resources for reconstructing three important issues in Christian ethics. A proper appreciation of Augustinian anthropology offers benefits, then, beyond the merely exegetical.     

Causal report accuracy: Retrospect and prospect

The paper by M. Sprangers, W. van den Brink, J. van Heerden, and J. Hoogstraten (1987, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 23, 302–310) shows that my experiment (P. White, 1980, Psychological Review, 87, 105–112) cannot be interpreted as evidence against the proposal by R. Nisbett and T. Wilson (1977, Psychological Review, 84, 231–259) that accuracy of causal reports cannot be improved by information about internal events. However, the state of all existing literature on this topic is inconclusive because of the failure so far to run an internally valid test. It is suggested that further progress on this topic may depend upon theoretical innovation concentrating on social and practical factors in verbal report generation.     

自我解释的研究现状与展望

自我解释(self-explanation)是指学习者在学习过程中通过自己向自己解释学习内容而获得知识的过程。文章主要阐述了自我解释的含义、分类、三种自我解释效果的认知机制,并且提出自我解释研究中尚待解决的问题及对其进行展望。     

未来取向研究回顾与展望

未来取向作为个体对于未来的思考和规划过程,近年来受到研究界日益广泛的关注并展开大量研究。笔者澄清了未来取向的含义,回顾了未来取向研究的沿革历程,梳理了近二十年在各研究领域取得的成果,并在此基础上提出当前该领域的未来发展趋向,即突破心理机制的瓶颈,拓展研究范围;扩展研究对象,进行纵向研究;强调社会文化的影响,进行跨文化的研究。     

Research in pastoral counselling: Retrospect and prospect

The emergence of counselling as a specialism practised by a number of different professions has had a marked effect on the understanding of the pastoral role of the clergy. Attention has been focussed on the nature of pastoral counsel-ling and a wide range of courses in 'clinical pastoral education' have been developed in Britain and in the USA. Examination of research to date suggests that boundaries between pastoral counselling and other areas of counselling are ill-defined, that personality variables may be a potent influence on the clergyman's understanding of his counselling role, and that training courses in counselling result in modified personality change. Suggestions about priorities in research in this area in Britain are offered, with a view to clarifying the relevance of pastoral counselling to the counselling services in the community as a whole.     

Career guidance in Scotland: retrospect and prospect

Devolution of powers to Scotland has accentuated pre-existing divergence from the rest of the UK with respect to education, training and career guidance provision. Scotland now has an all-age national careers service—Careers Scotland. It is suggested that it is unlikely that a national, publicly-funded careers agency would have been established in the absence of devolution. The article outlines the development of career guidance in Scotland over the last 25 years and how the pre-existing Scottish context and the new context of devolution have impacted upon it. The role of Careers Scotland and its relationship with other providers of career guidance in Scotland are examined. Other key issues considered include: the allocation of resources based on need; relationships with local authorities and schools; and training and professional identities in an increasingly diverse UK guidance context.     

Career guidance in Wales: retrospect and prospect

Deregulation of the LEA Careers Service followed by the establishment of the National Assembly for Wales in 1999 led, through consultation, to the establishment of a bi-lingual all-age career guidance service under the banner of Careers Wales. The article traces the history of career guidance in Wales from 1974, showing how it has taken a very different path to England, gaining a positive outcome from an independent review of Careers Wales in 2004 and an accolade from the OECD. Current strengths, especially the innovative use of technology, are explored, and challenges for the future are investigated, including the contributions of other guidance providers. Priority is currently being given to the development of common pan-Wales standards. The need for a stronger research culture is recognised. Most crucial of all, in the authors' opinion, is the maintenance of client entitlement in the face of financial restrictions.     

Career guidance in England: retrospect and prospect

This paper tackles three challenges: first, to sketch the history of career guidance provision in England over the last 25 years; second, to identify what the current structure of career guidance in England is; and finally, to analyse the key issues and challenges which career guidance in England now faces. Whilst its earlier history in this field was in step with the other constituent countries of the United Kingdom, the path taken by England in more recent times (notably the last decade) has diverged; this divergence being exacerbated by a relentless quest for target achievement. England now stands alone in eschewing an all-age guidance service. It is argued that the current situation in England is a fretwork of polarities across which policy is stretched, leading to tension and incoherence.