Alfred Adler's individual psychology and pastoral care

Pastoral Psychology -     

Effect of age on dual-task performance in children and adults

Age effects on dual-task costs were examined in healthy adults (Exp. 1) and in typically developing children (Exp. 2). In both experiments, individual differences in performance on the single-task components were titrated so that any age differences in dual-task costs could not be attributed to differences in single-task performance. Dual-task costs were found, but there were no age-related differences in these costs in older relative to younger adults, in 7-year-old relative to 9-year-old children, or across all four age groups. The results from these experiments suggest that previously reported age differences in dual-task costs, in both healthy ageing and child development, may be due to a failure to adequately equate single-task difficulty.     

Latent growth curve analysis of fear during a speech task before and after treatment for social phobia

Models of social phobia highlight the importance of anticipatory anxiety in the experience of fear during a social situation. Anticipatory anxiety has been shown to be highly correlated with performance anxiety for a variety of social situations. A few studies show that average ratings of anxiety during the anticipation and performance phases of a social situation decline following treatment. Evidence also suggests that the point of confrontation with the feared stimulus is the peak level of fear. No study to date has evaluated the pattern of anxious responding across the anticipation, confrontation, and performance phases before and after treatment, which is the focus of the current study. Socially phobic individuals (N = 51) completed a behavioral avoidance task before and after two types of manualized cognitive behavioral therapy, and gave ratings of fear during the anticipation and performance phases.Results from latent growth curve analysis were the same for the two treatments and suggested that before treatment, anxiety sharply increased during the anticipation phase, was highly elevated at the confrontation, and gradually increased during the performance phase. After treatment, anxiety increased during the anticipation phase, although at a much slower rate than at pretreatment, peaked at confrontation, and declined during the performance phase. The findings suggest that anticipatory experiences are critical to the experience of fear for public speaking and should be incorporated into exposures.     

Body image and psychological well-being in adolescents: the relationship between gender and school type

Adolescents (N=1281; M age = 15.2 years, SD = 0.51 years) from a state-wide sample of schools provided information about their psychological well-being, family functioning, extraversion, and perceived physical attractiveness and weight, using a questionnaire completed at school. Consistent with previous research, girls were significantly more likely than boys to be dissatisfied with their weight and physical appearance, and these factors explained significantly more variation in self-esteem than in life satisfaction or other measures of psychological well-being. The strong relationship between body dissatisfaction and self-esteem for adolescent girls was not moderated by school type (single sex or educational). However, girls who were dissatisfied but psychologically well adjusted tended to be more extraverted, have more close friends and receive greater family support.     

Social Cognition and the So-Called Conjunction Fallacy

The so-called ‘conjunction effect’, in which participants incorrectly assert that an instance from the conjunction of two sets is more probable than an instance from one of the two conjoining sets alone, has been a source of debate as to whether it is a genuine fallacy of individual thinking or not. We argue that reasoning about individuals follows a different process than reasoning about sets. 35 participants took part in 3 tasks: a) one involving blocks of different sizes and colours designed to evoke set-based reasoning, b) one where a particular block was ‘individuated’ by stating that it represented a particular person, and c) the original Tversky and Kahneman (Psychological Review 90(4):293–315, 1983) ‘Linda’ problem. As predicted, set-based reasoning was significantly more prevalent for the blocks task than for the other two tasks. Participants’ reasons for their choices suggest that some individuals correctly use set-based logic in one task and a social reasoning process for the other tasks.     

Is the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program Acceptable to Parents from Culturally Diverse Backgrounds?

Behavioural parenting programs are an effective intervention for behavioural and emotional problems in children, however these programs have low utilisation rates by culturally diverse parents. We examined the cultural acceptability of program materials, preferences for delivery methods, and barriers to use of the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program. One hundred and thirty seven parents watched a video outlining the 17 strategies in Triple P and read through a tip sheet before completing a series of questionnaires. Results revealed that parents found the strategies highly acceptable, highly useful, were very likely to use the strategies and reported currently using the strategies often. They also rated the program materials as very culturally appropriate and identified group, seminar, television, and individual as the most preferred delivery methods. Parents identified location and timing of services, financial cost, and competing work commitments as the most frequently cited barriers to accessing a parenting intervention. The findings of this study suggest that elements of parenting programs may not be contributing to the low rates of access among culturally diverse parents. These findings highlight the need for more research addressing variables that may contribute to increasing culturally diverse parents’ access of behavioural parenting programs.     

Cognitive vulnerability to depression: a comparison of the weakest link, keystone and additive models

Multiple theories of cognitive vulnerability to depression have been proposed, each focusing on different aspects of negative cognition and utilising different measures of risk. Various methods of integrating such multiple indices of risk have been examined in the literature, and each demonstrates some promise. Yet little is known about the interrelations among these methods, or their incremental validity in predicting changes in depression. The present study compared three integrative models of cognitive vulnerability: the additive, weakest link, and keystone models. Support was found for each model as predictive of depression over time, but only the weakest link model demonstrated incremental utility in predicting changes in depression over the other models. We also explore the correlation between these models and each model's unique contribution to predicting onset of depressive symptoms.