A Research Program Testing the Effectiveness of a Preventive Intervention for Couples with a Newborn

Noxious family environments are associated with a wide range of adverse child outcomes. In order to prevent couple and parent–child relationship problems, a number of programs have been developed for couples with newborns. The current paper describes a program of research evaluating the American version of couple CARE for parents of newborns. This version of CCP was administered to low‐income, unmarried couples with a new baby in an uncontrolled demonstration project (Study 1), compared with a waitlist control condition in a randomized controlled trial (Study 2), and evaluated with low‐income parents recruited from urban hospitals in two major metropolitan areas of the United States (Study 3 and Study 4). Despite participant satisfaction with CCP, preventive effects of the program were limited and there was one potential iatrogenic effect. Results were likely impacted by major challenges with recruiting participants and maintaining their engagement in CCP for the duration of the program. We discuss methodological differences between this series of studies and previous trials of prevention programs and make recommendations for improving service delivery to at‐risk new parents. These results have implications for public policies that aim to benefit children and families.     

A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition

Stereotype research emphasizes systematic processes over seemingly arbitrary contents, but content also may prove systematic. On the basis of stereotypes' intergroup functions, the stereotype content model hypothesizes that (a) 2 primary dimensions are competence and warmth, (b) frequent mixed clusters combine high warmth with low competence (paternalistic) or high competence with low warmth (envious), and (c) distinct emotions (pity, envy, admiration, contempt) differentiate the 4 competence-warmth combinations. Stereotypically, (d) status predicts high competence, and competition predicts low warmth. Nine varied samples rated gender, ethnicity, race, class, age, and disability out-groups. Contrary to antipathy models, 2 dimensions mattered, and many stereotypes were mixed, either pitying (low competence, high warmth subordinates) or envying (high competence, low warmth competitors). Stereotypically, status predicted competence, and competition predicted low warmth.     

Social norms and the expression and suppression of prejudice: the struggle for internalization

The authors studied social norms and prejudice using M. Sherif and C. W. Sherif's (1953) group norm theory of attitudes. In 7 studies (N = 1,504), social norms were measured and manipulated to examine their effects on prejudice; both normatively proscribed and normatively prescribed forms of prejudice were included. The public expression of prejudice toward 105 social groups was very highly correlated with social approval of that expression. Participants closely adhere to social norms when expressing prejudice, evaluating scenarios of discrimination, and reacting to hostile jokes. The authors reconceptualized the source of motivation to suppress prejudice in terms of identifying with new reference groups and adapting oneself to fit new norms. Suppression scales seem to measure patterns of concern about group norms rather than personal commitments to reducing prejudice; high suppressors are strong norm followers. Compared with low suppressors, high suppressors follow normative rules more closely and are more strongly influenced by shifts in local social norms. There is much value in continuing the study of normative influence and self-adaptation to social norms, particularly in terms of the group norm theory of attitudes.     

Clinicians' fidelity to a manual-based family treatment as a predictor of the one-year course of bipolar disorder

This study assessed whether therapist adherence to the family focused treatment model for patients with bipolar disorder and their relatives was associated with patient outcomes at one year after treatment entry. A total of 78 videotaped sessions of FFT consisting of 26 families with a member with bipolar disorder (3 sessions/family) were rated on fidelity using the Therapist Competence/Adherence Scale (TCAS; see Endnote 1, p. 130). Patients' outcomes (relapse status) were assessed using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and selected items from the Schedule of Affective Disorders and the Schizophrenia-Change (SADS-C) scale (measured at 3-month intervals for 12 months). Contrary to expectations, therapist fidelity was not related to overall outcome as assessed by the BPRS and the SADS-C. Among patients who did relapse, higher levels of cooperation among therapists predicted a later date for relapse than did lower levels of cooperation. Surprisingly, and in opposition to the study's hypotheses, patients who were hospitalized because of relapses had therapists who were rated as more competent in their ability to conduct the problem-solving module of FFT. Study implications are discussed.     

Children's coping strategies: moderators of the effects of peer victimization?

Coping strategies were examined as potential moderators of the effects of peer victimization on children's adjustment. Self-report data on victimization experiences, coping strategies, and loneliness were collected on ethnically diverse 9-10-year-old children (177 girls, 179 boys). Teacher ratings of children's anxious-depressed and social problems and peer nominations of social preference were also obtained. Findings revealed that strategies such as problem solving that were beneficial for nonvictimized children exacerbated difficulties for victimized children. The effects of specific forms of coping were dependent on gender: social support seeking buffered victimized girls from social problems but was associated with lower peer preference for victimized boys. Data also revealed the need to examine the effects of coping on multiple adjustment outcomes.     

Descartes and the Primacy of Practice: The Role of the Passions in the Search for Truth

This paper argues that Descartes conceives of theoretical reason in terms derived from practical reason, particularly in the role he gives to the passions. That the passions serve — under normal circumstances — to preserve the union of mind and body is a well-known feature of Descartes's defense of our native make-up. But they are equally important in our more purely theoretical endeavors. Some passions, most notably wonder, provide a crucial source of motivation in the search after truth, and also serve to reinforce memory. Our cognitive successes and failure scan also be tracked by passions and trains of passions.     

The role of defensive confidence in preference for proattitudinal information: how believing that one is strong can sometimes be a defensive weakness

This series of studies identified individuals who chronically believe that they can successfully defend their attitudes from external attack and investigated the consequences of this individual difference for selective exposure to attitude-incongruent information and, ultimately, attitude change. Studies 1 and 2 validated a measure of defensive confidence as an individual difference that is unidimensional, distinct from other personality measures, reliable over a 2-week interval, and organized as a trait that generalizes across various personal and social issues. Studies 3 and 4 provided evidence that defensive confidence decreases preference for proattitudinal information, therefore inducing greater reception of counterattitudinal materials. Study 5 demonstrated that people who are high in defensive confidence are more likely to change their attitudes as a result of exposure to counterattitudinal information and examined the perceptions that mediate this important phenomenon.     

Jitter and size effects on vection are immune to experimental instructions and demands

Both coherent perspective jitter and explicit changing-size cues have been shown to improve the vection induced by radially expanding optic flow. We examined whether these stimulus-based vection advantages could be modified by altering cognitions and/or expectations about both the likelihood of self-motion perception and the purpose of the experiment. In the main experiment, participants were randomly assigned into two groups-one where the cognitive conditions biased participants towards self-motion perception and another where the cognitive conditions biased them towards object-motion perception. Contrary to earlier findings by Lepecq et al (1995 Perception 24 435-449), we found that identical visual displays were less likely to induce vection in 'object-motion-bias' conditions than in 'self-motion bias' conditions. However, significant jitter and size advantages for vection were still found in both cognitive conditions (cognitive bias effects were greatest for non-jittering same-size control displays). The current results suggest that if a sufficiently large vection advantage can be produced when participants are expecting to experience self-motion, it is likely to persist in object-motion-bias conditions.     

Systems psychodynamics: the formative years of an interdisciplinary field at the Tavistock Institute

Systems psychodynamics is an interdisciplinary field amalgamating a triad of influences -the practice of psychoanalysis, the theories and methods of the field of group relations, and the task and boundary awareness of open systems perspectives. Although systems psychodynamics is not a new field of study, there has been a general lack of awareness of its roots, how its formative elements have become intertwined over the years, and the role of the Tavistock Institute in developments in the field. This article provides a synthesis of this history and focuses, in particular,on the intellectual foundations of the Tavistock method of working experientially with groups and the application of this method to the study of organizations.