Multicultural Training and Interdependent and Independent Self‐Construal as Predictors of Universal‐Diverse Orientation Among School Counselors

The study investigated 159 school counselors' previous multicultural workshop experiences and interdependent and independent self‐construal (T. M. Singelis, 1994) as predictors of universal‐diverse orientation (M. L. Miville et al., 1999). Prior workshops in multicultural counseling and interdependent self‐construal were significantly related to universal‐diverse orientation (acceptance and awareness of similarities and differences). Implications for counseling, research, and training are discussed.     

Vantage perspective in analogue trauma memories: an experimental study

Vantage perspective during recall is thought to affect the emotionality and accessibility of distressing memories. This study aimed to test the effects of vantage perspective during recall on memory associated distress and intrusion development. An adapted version of the trauma film paradigm was used in an experimental design with three conditions. Participants were asked to listen to eyewitness reports of car accidents (e.g. Trauma Analogue Induction) and imagine the scenes vividly using mental imagery. Afterwards, they were asked to recall the most distressing scene from field perspective, observer perspective, or to recall a neutral image from observer perspective (control condition) (e.g. Trauma Analogue Recall). Recall from field perspective resulted in higher negative mood, state-anxiety, and a higher number of short-term intrusions compared to the observer perspective condition and control condition. Negative mood and state-anxiety were mediators in the relationship between vantage perspective and intrusions. In comparison to observer perspective, field perspective increased the amount of short-term intrusions as a result of higher levels of negative mood and state-anxiety after memory retrieval. Future research on the interaction between vantage perspective at recall and negative mood and anxiety effects is warranted.     

Novels as Social Media: How Literature Helped Shape Notions of Sexual Liberation

In the historiography of sexual liberation, the role of cultural artefacts like novels and films has either been taken for granted or not received much attention at all. This article discusses these cultural dimensions of sexual liberation, using the Netherlands as a case study, arguing that these dimensions are important to research in order to better understand the (self-)fashioning of a sexually liberated subject. The seemingly close ties between literature and societal transformations in the sixties is remarkable and points to the function of literature in the 1945–1980 period, when novels functioned as an important social platform for broaching moral controversies and articulated seminal cultural repertoires for identity construction. The article analyses the ways literature functions in Dutch cultural memory of the sexual revolution nowadays, and looks at the specific historical constellation and literary culture that provided important channels for the spreading of new ideas in the 1960s. Guiding questions to investigate the specificities of this literary culture and its function in articulating and disseminating notions of sexual liberation are: what are the functions ascribed to writers and their works in sexual transformations of the 1960s/70s? To what extent are these transformations captured in terms of national identity, or do they travel across national borders? What role do they play in cultural memory, nationally and internationally?     

Offline and online automatic number comparison

This paper focuses on automatic number processing as instantiated in the size congruity effect. It was recently argued that long-term "associations between individual digits and the attributes 'small' and 'large' create the size congruity effect" (Choplin and Logan 2003, abstract, p. 17). Moreover, these authors proposed the additional assumption that the relevant connections are acquired over a lifetime of experience with numbers. We show that at least one of these assumptions is not true: either the size congruity effect derives from an (online) comparison effect between two numbers at the time of stimulus presentation (violating the first assumption) or the relevant connections flexibly change (offline) between trials during the course of one experimental session (violating the second assumption).     

Manipulation of thinness and restricting expectancies: further evidence for a causal role of thinness and restricting expectancies in the etiology of eating disorders.

To test the eating disorder expectancy theory contention that expectancies for reinforcement from thinness play a causal role in body dissatisfaction and eating disorder symptoms, the authors manipulated expectancies in 2 studies. Participants were exposed to either a psychoeducational intervention or an experimental manipulation of thinness and restricting expectancies. Study 1 participants were symptomatic college women who attended 3 experimental sessions and 1 follow-up session, each 1 week apart. Study 2 participants were high school girls who received the 3 experimental sessions clustered into 2 meetings; they completed symptom measures at baseline and at follow-up. In both samples, the thinness expectancy manipulation produced greater declines in thinness expectancies and body dissatisfaction than did the psychoeducational intervention. For high school girls, the thinness expectancy manipulation also produced a greater decline in overall eating-disordered attitudes. These results provide further support for the role of expectancies in the etiology of eating-disordered behaviors.     

Prenatal attachment in future parents of twins

The present study aims at contributing to a better understanding of prenatal attachment in parents expecting twins. In particular, the relationship between prenatal attachment (measured with the Questionnaire for Antenatal Emotional Attachment) and three other psychosocial factors—the parents' psychosocial well-being and the quality of the marital relationship (respectively assessed with the General Health Questionnaire and the Relational Interactional Satisfaction Scale) and the presence of older children in the family—was investigated in both future mothers and fathers at 27 weeks of gestation. Multiple regression analysis revealed no significant relationship between the intensity of prenatal attachment and either of the three variables. For the mothers, a significant positive relationship was found between the quality of attachment on the one hand and psychosocial well-being and quality of the marital relationship on the other hand. For the fathers, the quality of attachment was only significantly predicted by the quality of the marital relationship. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of dissociation and depression on the efficacy of prolonged exposure treatment for PTSD

This study investigates the impact of dissociative phenomena and depression on the efficacy of prolonged exposure treatment in 71 patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Diagnoses, comorbidity, pretreatment depressive symptoms, PTSD symptom severity, and dissociative phenomena (trait dissociation, numbing, and depersonalization) were assessed at pretreatment using semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. In a pretreatment behavioral exposure test, patients were imaginally exposed to (part of) their trauma memory for 9 min, during which subjective fear was assessed. At posttreatment and 6 months follow-up PTSD, depressive and dissociative symptoms were again assessed in the completers (n = 60). Pretreatment levels of dissociative and depressive symptoms were similar in dropouts and completers and none of the dissociative phenomena nor depression predicted improvement. Against expectations, dissociative phenomena and depression were associated with enhanced rather than impeded fear activation during the behavioral exposure test. However, these effects disappeared after controlling for initial PTSD severity. Hence, rather than supporting contraindication, the current results imply that patients presenting with even severe dissociative or depressive symptoms may profit similarly from exposure treatment as do patients with minimal dissociative or depressive symptoms.     

Undergraduates' perceptions and evaluations of career guidance activities: A Hong Kong study

There have been several research studies in Britain and Australia into the usefulness of different career guidance activities. Similar issues are examined in a study of 493 undergraduates at City University of Hong Kong. The results demonstrate that the uses of counselling services have been perceived rather narrowly and instrumentally. Career guidance activities which are perceived as 'tools' for practical or immediate help have been under-utilised. The five most popular career guidance activities are characterised as being specific in content, information-based, externally focused, and structured in process. In examining the results within the context of Chinese culture, it is suggested that counselling processes which help the students engage in more self-exploration and self-discovery can be encouraged.