Social Pressures in Informal Groups by L. S. Festinger,S. Schacter and K. Back

The rising cost of health care within the private and public sectors has created an increased demand for the management of benefit dollars. This trend has significant implications for group psychotherapists, as group modalities offer cost-effective ways of delivering services to traditional outpatient and inpatient populations. Continued cosl-containment pressures and increasing attention to outcome studies will fitel trends toward briefer, manualized group treatments and intensive group outpatient programs as alternatives to hospitalization. Quality-based demands will challenge payors to (a) address biases against group psychotherapy among providers and patients and (b) integrate recent process-and-outcome research in determining the appropriateness of group versus individual modalities for particular patients and presenting problems.     

美国经济: 现状分析、走势研判及影响预测

根据美国目前的实际经济状况和美国经济进入衰退期的几个特征 ,以及反恐怖斗争等特殊因素 ,我们认为 ,可以把美国的此次经济衰退看成是一种经济体系的战略性调整。这种调整既是美国经济周期性发展的必然结果 ,也是进行反恐怖斗争等特殊需要使然 ,在调整期内 ,经济低速增长甚至负增长 ,呈衰退疲软状 ;调整的持续时间将长达 3- 5年。而美国个人消费的萎缩、美元强势地位的动摇以及美国政府干预经济的强化等新动向将对美国经济乃至整个世界经济都将产生深远的影响。对此 ,中国应及早作出有效的因应对策     

Assertiveness among Japanese, Malaysian, Filipino, and U.S. white-collar workers

The author investigated modes of self-expression as they reflect the quality of assertiveness among Japanese, Malaysian, Filipino, and U.S. white-collar workers. The author collected respondents' answers to a questionnaire consisting of 33 items involving assertiveness related to modes of expression typical of the Japanese people. Several modes of expression considered specific to the Japanese people--styles of group-oriented behavior, younger people's courtesy toward older people, and the deference of the individual to group consensus--were also found among the Malaysian and the Filipino respondents. These behaviors were in contrast to those observed among the U.S. respondents.     

Death,Myth and Reality in C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis's life and writings were profoundly shaped by his childhood experience of his mother's death. It is significant that the young hero's dying mother is mentioned at the very beginning of the first book of the Narnia sequence (seeThe Magician's Nephew.)., which in more general terms offers a mythopoeic version of the Christian interpretation of death. Lewis had a keen awareness of the power of myth (he would not have denied that the Christian gospel is myth). However, it was in the experience of the death of his wife (recounted inA Grief Observed) that he felt confronted by reality in a way that shook his faith to its foundations. This article will explore the tension between myth and reality in Lewis's attempts to write, as a Christian, of the experience of death.     

U.S. antitrust policy,interface compatibility standards,and information technology

To be a player in the international standards-setting arena of network industries, such as those dealing with information technology, reaching an early domestic consensus for a critical interoperable technology design is often essential. While in most cases efficient outcomes emerge through the market-driven, U.S. technology standards system, there have been situations where a timely consensus has failed to be attained with negative consequences for the international competitiveness of the U.S. economy (e.g., second generation of cellular telephony). An anticipatory policy approach, based on a standards competition which takes into consideration antitrust and intellectual property rights, is proposed as a solution.     

Race, income, and perceptions of the U.S. court system

This article reports on the effect of income within race on African Americans' perception of the courts. Our findings are somewhat consistent with the previous research on black middle-class relative dissatisfaction with various American institutions. That is, unlike whites and Latirios in our study, we find that higher-income African Americans are more skeptical of the notion that blacks receive equal treatment in the courts. This same group also reported less confidence in the court's handling of specific types of cases (e.g., civil, criminal and juvenile delinquency cases.) However, better off blacks were more likely than poor blacks to have confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court and community courts. These findings point a more complex account of African American perceptions of the courts, an account that draws a distinction between diffused and specific support of the courts.     

Notes for S. P. S. S. I. Members

Summary

It is argued that Levin (1) has answered a question Schneider (3) did not ask. Logically, then Levin's procedure does not question the answer Schneider reported, but is appropriate for answering the question he raises.