Family Therapy With Irish-Americans

This paper presents a paradigm for understanding the cultural values and family patterns of Irish-American families and offers suggestions for clinical intervention. Families' correspondence to the model described will depend upon their level of acculturation, socioeconomic status, and other contextual factors. The paradigm suggests a number of issues that may create difficulties for the therapist and for the family in therapy. In general, behavioral techniques, Bowen systems therapy, and strategic interventions may be more useful than techniques emphasizing expression of emotions in therapy or direct attempts to alter communication or family behavior in therapy sessions, as used in structural therapy.     

The mapping of Spanish social psychology through its conferences: a bibliometric perspective

This study of papers gathered from the proceedings presented at Spanish social psychology conferences explores the use of bibliometrics for studying scientific disciplines. A reference database of all the papers included in the conference proceedings of events held from 1983 to 2000 was generated and classified by thematic area, paper type and author institutional affiliation. The references were laid out on contingency tables and mapped with correspondence analysis. The results show that there is a growing number of co-authored papers and a predominance of empirical over theoretical paper types. Some institutions have a higher concentration of theoretical papers while others work mostly in the areas of organizational and health psychology. In terms of empirical papers, there is a tendency towards generating more qualitative-based studies over the span of time captured by this work. There are also a number of papers written about such areas as cultural psychology that points to the emergence of an interest in critical social psychology. Concluding remarks underline the role of conferences and scientific meetings as an important indicator of the dynamic development of a scientific discipline.     

Parent,teacher, and peer ratings of physically abused and nonmaltreated Children's behavior

Behavior ratings by parents, teachers, and classmates of physically abused fourth to sixth graders, identified from the New York City Maltreatment Register, and case-matched classroom controls, showed substantial concurrence among informants: Parents and teachers both rated significantly more behavioral disturbance in the abused children, and peers' ratings were significantly correlated with adults' ratings, especially those by teachers. Children's exposure to spouse or partner physical abuse, which had a substantial prevalence among both child-abusing and control families, reduced the difference in disturbance ratings between children who were themselves physically abused and those who were not. Overall, we conclude that physically abused children show pervasive behavioral disturbance, in that parents, teachers, and classmates all see higher levels of behavior problems and lower levels of socially desirable behavior in them compared to their nonmaltreated peers.This research was supported in part by research grant R01MH38814 and Clinical Research Center grant MH30906 from the National Institute of Mental Health. The authors thank the New York City Child Welfare Administration, especially Terry Weiss, for facilitating access to the Maltreatment Register; the NYC Board of Education for access to schools; and the many participating superintendents, principals, and teachers. Some preliminary data were presented as a poster at the Meetings of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, New York, 1989.     

MEASUREMENT ERROR IN RESEARCH ON HUMAN RESOURCES and FIRM PERFORMANCE: HOW MUCH ERROR IS THERE AND HOW DOES IT INFLUENCE EFFECT SIZE ESTIMATES?

Studies of the relationship between human resource (HR) practices and firm performance typically use a single respondent to assess firm level HR practices or HR effectiveness. However, previous research in other substantive areas suggests that rater differences are a potentially important source of measurement error. We demonstrate analytically the potential consequences of both random and systematic measurement error in research on HR and firm performance. However, our main focus is on random error and we show how generalizability theory can be applied to obtain better estimates of reliability by simultaneously recognizing multiple sources (e.g., items, raters) of random measurement error. These more inclusive reliability estimates, in turn, offer the possibility of more precisely quantifying substantive relationships in the HR and firm performance literature. In our sample, reliabilities (as estimated by generalizability coefficients) for single-rater assessments of HR variables were generally below .50. This degree of measurement error, if present in substantive studies on HR and firm performance, could lead to considerable bias, given that an unstandardized regression coefficient is corrected for measurement error in the independent variable by dividing by its reliability coefficient (not its square root). We also found only limited convergent validity between HR and line managers ratings of a second type of HR measure, HR effectiveness. In general, our findings suggest that future researchers need to devote greater attention to measurement error and construct validity issues. Our study provides an example of how generalizability theory can be useful in this pursuit.     

The utility of written numerals for preschool children when solving additive problems / La utilidad de los numerales escritos en la resolución de problemas aditivos en niños preescolares

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact the presence conventional written numerals has on solving additives problems. We asked 45 children (aged four and five) to solve ten different 5 + 3 type problems by adding tokens that were placed into an opaque box in view of the children. The participants’ performance in counting, recognizing written numerals and solving a number conservation task were assessed. The results suggest that the presence of written numerals facilitated children’s ability to perform additive operations: they were able to use these numerals as a reference to calculate the amount of tokens added, even those who had not shown good quantitative judgement in the number conservation task. Identifying preschoolers’ possible reliance on written numerals could eventually influence formal teaching conditions.     

Teaching children with autism to tell socially appropriate lies

This study used a nonconcurrent multiple baseline across participants design to evaluate the use of rules, role‐play, and feedback for teaching 3 children with autism spectrum disorder to tell socially appropriate lies when (a) presented with an undesired gift and (b) someone's appearance changed in an undesired way. The intervention was effective in teaching use of socially appropriate lies, and generalization to untrained people and gifts or appearances was observed.