Who benefits from memory training?

Cognitive training programs can have significant benefits. However, their efficacy is often reduced for individuals of advanced age or lower cognitive ability. Using older adult subjects, we examined the role of self-initiation of cognitive control in a training program that targets recollection memory. Relative time spent on an open-ended, intentional encoding task that requires the self-initiation of cognitive control was highly predictive of improvement in the training task, and fully accounted for individual differences related to age and crystallized intelligence. Analyzing training programs from the perspective of cognitive theory may help clarify how these programs have their effects and suggest ways to optimize such programs for the individuals who need them most.     

Who benefits from independent careers? Employees,organizations, or both?

The traditional organizational career has been depicted as the classic example of how employers and employees can develop a mutually beneficial relationship; but changes in the competitive landscape and in individual work values have challenged its viability. Commentators have argued that a ‘new career’ deal, encapsulated by the notions of the protean and the boundaryless career, has emerged suggesting a shift in control of careers from organizations to individuals. Research has explored the implications for individuals' careers while largely neglecting consequences for organizations. Our paper seeks to remedy this by exploring both the individual and the organizational outcomes of independent career orientations and the extent to which organizations can manage these through high commitment human resource management (HRM) practices. Our study, conducted with 655 employee–supervisor dyads, indicates that a protean career orientation results in gains for both employees and organizations, whereas a boundaryless career orientation is associated with mutual losses. In addition, our findings suggest that high commitment HR practices play an important role in managing the outcomes of employees seeking traditional careers but have only a limited impact on those with a boundaryless career orientation.     

Is alcoholism a disease?

Commentators have repeatedly attacked the traditional view that alcoholism is a disease. Their arguments that alcoholism is a central aspect of life, a deviant life style, or a form of learned behavior are examined in the light of the history and philosophy of medicine as well as current bio-behavioral research. Our conclusion is that alcoholism, as a lawful pattern of observable signs and symptoms that deviate significantly from a norm of health, is a bio-psychosocial disease.     

Teaching a rational approach to career decision making: Who benefits most?

Who benefits most from rational decision-making training? Rational, intuitive, fatalistic, and dependent decision makers were compared on how much they learned from a rational decision-making training intervention. A Decision-Making Questionnaire was administered to 255 community college students to determine which style each used predominantly in three past career-related decisions. Subjects were randomly assigned to instruction in rational decision making or to a placebo intervention and later completed the Career Decision-Making Skills Assessment Exercise, a paper and pencil test on the application of rational decision-making principles. Individuals who had been highly impulsive, dependent, or fatalistic in prior course selections and those who exhibited dependency in prior job choices appeared to learn most from the rational training curriculum. Implications for when rational decision-making training should be prescribed are discussed.     

Who benefits from psychotherapies for adult depression? A meta-analytic update of the evidence

It is not clear whether specific target groups for psychotherapies in adult depression benefit as much from these treatments as other patients. We examined target groups that have been examined in randomized trials, including women, older adults, students, minorities, patients with general medical disorders, and specific types of depression, and we examined where patients were recruited. We conducted subgroup and multivariate metaregression analyses in a sample of 256 trials (with 332 comparisons) comparing psychotherapy with an inactive control condition. Only 22% of the studies had low risk of bias (RoB), heterogeneity was high and there was a considerable risk of publication bias. A meta-regression analysis among low RoB studies showed that effect sizes found for studies among women, older adults, patients with general medical disorders, patients recruited from primary care, and patients scoring above a cut-off on a self-rating depression scale, did not differ significantly from effect sizes from other studies. For other target groups, the number of low RoB studies was too small to draw any conclusion. We found few indications that psychotherapies for adult depression are more or less effective in women, older adults, patients with comorbid general medical disorders, and primary care patients.     

Who speaks? Who looks? Who feels? Point of view in autobiographical narratives1

In this paper, the author aims to substantiate Freud's claim that neurotic illness creates gaps in autobiographical narratives in terms of the narrator's stating and inducing perspectives. He sketches out the role of narrative perspective and the joint taking of a shared perspective by analyst and patient in psychoanalytic therapy. He introduces four ways of representing perspectives in narratives. Three degrees of narrative distortion are exemplifi ed by three excerpts from life narratives and explored in terms of narrative perspective representation. The most comprehensive perspective representation is achieved in the fi rst example by explicitly stating the present perspective of the narrator as well as the past perspective of the story's protagonist by use of mental verbs. In the second narrative, exclusive use of linguistic forms for inducing the protagonist's perspective both overwhelms the narrator and gives the listener an incomplete picture of what happened. Inconsistent motives, denial of responsibility and omission of detail render the third narrative even more diffi cult to follow. The author discusses the clinical signifi cance of this exploratory analysis of perspectives in narratives in terms of claiming responsibility for one's past action and of level of defence mechanisms, and by highlighting the emotional impact on listeners, which the author suggests is the stronger the more perspectives are left out. He discusses analogies to countertransference. The analysis of narrative perspectives offers an approach for systematic research in psychoanalytic practice.     

Who Is I?

Whilst it may seem strange to ask to whom I refers, we show that there are occasionswhen it is not always obvious. In demonstratingthis we challenge Kaplan's assumptionthat the utterer, agent and referent of I arealways the same person.We begin by presenting what weregard to be the received view about indexicalreference popularized by David Kaplan in hisinfluential 1972 Demonstratives before goingon, in section 2, to discuss Sidelle'sanswering machine paradox which may be thoughtto threaten this view, and his deferredutterance method of resolving this puzzle. Insection 3 we introduce a novel version of theanswering machine paradox which suggests that,in certain cases, Kaplan's identification ofutterer, agent and referent of I breaks down.In the fourth section we go on to consider arecent revision of Kaplan's picture by Predelliwhich appeals to the intentions of the utterer,before arguing that this picture is committedto unacceptable consequences and, therefore,should be avoided if possible. Finally, insection 5, we present a new revision ofKaplan's account which retains much of thespirit of his original proposal whilst offeringa intuitively acceptable way to explain all ofthe apparently problematic data. In doing so,we also show how this picture is able toexplain the scenario which motivated Predelli'saccount without appealing to speakerintentions.     

Who Calls Friend?

Friend is a countrywide voluntary gay counselling and befriending agency. The information logged on telephone-call record sheets by Manchester Friend workers over the period May to July 1981 is analysed (a) to obtain a profile of callers, (b) to devise measures of the success of the service, (c) to explore whether the service could be improved by matching characteristics of telephone operators to those of callers, and (d) to examine whether the record-keeping system is satisfactory for its purposes within the agency.     

Who is approachable?

The consequences of social interaction can be variable, sometimes harmful, but often rewarding. The adaptive social perceiver must therefore determine which interactions are worthwhile pursuing and which are not. The present research investigated whether subtle but meaningful differences in facial expressions are perceived in terms of the affordance of approachability. Participants engaged in simulated social encounters with targets displaying enjoyment smiles, non-enjoyment smiles or neutral expressions while fluctuations in their posture were measured. The results indicated systematic differences in perceived approachability as a function of facial expression and target sex. These findings are discussed in terms of the functional coupling between social perception and action with respect to the information that specifies the affordance of approachability.