Understanding the foot‐in‐the‐door effect as a pseudo‐effect from the perspective of the Campbell paradigm

Compliance with a small request (a metaphorical foot‐in‐the‐door) promotes compliance with a subsequent big request. Whereas some explanations expect a drop in the behavioural costs of the big request, others suspect that the effect comes from boosting the underlying attitude. However, evidence for both explanations is equivocal and circumstantial, at best. Drawing on what Kaiser et al. (2010) call the Campbell paradigm, we present an integrative account: Compliance with any request demands a corresponding attitude to counterbalance the costs of the request. In our research, 229 participants were randomly assigned to either a foot‐in‐the‐door (i.e., initially asked to sign a pro‐environmental petition) or a control condition. Small‐request‐compliant participants were more likely than control participants to also comply with the big request and to continue filling out environmental‐issues‐related questionnaires. However, this foot‐in‐the‐door effect occurred without diminishing behavioural costs or increasing attitude levels. Accordingly, the greater likelihood of small‐request‐compliant participants to also comply with the big request can be parsimoniously explained by baseline variability in people's attitude levels that manifests in their compliance with the initial request. We conclude that several of the foot‐in‐the‐door effects reported in the literature carry the risk of representing mere pseudo‐effects.     

Does Strengths Use Mean Better Focus? Well-being and Attentional Performance at the Episodic Level

Journal of Happiness Studies - Positive psychology postulates that using one’s strengths can facilitate employee well-being and performance at work. However, whether strengths use is...     

To Hook Up or Date: Which Gender Benefits?

Hooking up on college campuses has become more frequent than dating in heterosexual sexual interaction. Analysis of the relative benefits and costs associated with dating and hooking up suggest that women benefit more from dating while men benefit more from hooking up. U.S students (150 women, 71 men) at a midsized southeastern university indicated preferences for dating and hooking up across a number of situations and indicated the perceived benefits and risks associated with each. As hypothesized, in most situations women more than men preferred dating and men more than women preferred hooking up. Both genders perceived similar benefits and risks to dating and hooking up; differences provided insight into the sexual motives of college women and men.     

Role resources and work–family enrichment: The role of work engagement

This article proposes a theoretical model of work-family enrichment and tests the mediating role of work engagement. The inclusion of work engagement extends prior research on work-family interface, and allows for examination of the effects of role resources (job resources, family support) on work-family enrichment. A two-wave survey was conducted among a matched sample of 786 employees in China. The model was tested with structural equation modeling techniques. The results showed that work engagement was the most proximal predictor of work-family enrichment. Work engagement fully mediated the relationship between family-friendly organizational policies and work-family enrichment, and also between job autonomy and family-work enrichment. Further, work engagement partially mediated the relationships between two job resources (supervisor support, job autonomy) and work-family enrichment, and also between family support and family-work enrichment. No difference was found in gender and marital status in the proposed model. Implications for future research and practices are discussed.     

Recruitment Strategies for a Home-Based Physical Activity Intervention for Breast Cancer Patients

Recruiting cancer patients for randomized trials investigating psychosocial interventions presents several unique challenges. This paper describes the challenges and yields for different recruitment methods used in Moving Forward, a randomized trial of a home-based moderate-intensity physical activity program for early-stage breast cancer survivors. Recruitment methods included letters sent to patients by their oncologists, direct referrals from oncologists, in-person recruitment in oncology clinics, referrals from nurses and medical assistants, passive recruitment, other mailings, and community outreach strategies. Of the 424 screenings completed, 86 (20.3%) participants were randomized. Physician letters yielded the greatest number of initial screenings (147; 34.7%) and participants randomized (28; 32.5%). In-person recruitment also proved to be a productive recruitment strategy; 14 (16.3%) of the participants were recruited via this strategy. Community outreach efforts did not provide as great a yield and were labor intensive. We discuss suggestions for recruitment of cancer patients in future trials.     

Maternal sensitivity in interactions with three‐ and 12‐month‐old infants: Stability,structural composition,and developmental consequences

This study addresses three topics related to the structural components of maternal sensitivity: (a) The stability of sensitivity over a nine‐month period, (b) the predictability of maternal sensitivity assessed at 12 months from early parameters of parenting and (c) the relation between maternal sensitivity and developmental outcomes assessed at 12 months. Maternal sensitivity and its components (signal perception, correct interpretation, prompt, and appropriate reaction) were evaluated for 60 mother–infant‐dyads when their infants were aged three and 12 months. Additional parameters of early parenting were maternal emotional warmth and behavioural contingency. Developmental outcome measures were the amount of infant crying and the quality of attachment at twelve months. The results showed close correlations between the sensitivity components suggesting a unidimensional structure for maternal sensitivity. The sensitivity assessments were significantly related to measures of maternal warmth. Stability of maternal sensitivity over time was, however, quite low. There was no relation between the early sensitivity assessments and later developmental outcomes, whereas there was a significant relation between the sensitivity parameters assessed at twelve months and developmental outcomes. The results indicate changes in the meaning of maternal sensitivity during infants' development. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Psychoanalysis Between Sándor Ferenczi and Elizabeth Severn: Mutuality,Unconscious Communication,and the Development of Countertransference Analysis

ABSTRACT

The psychoanalysis between Sándor Ferenczi and Elizabeth Severn was characterized by a controversial counterference analysis, in which the analysand, Severn, took an active lead. She can be seen as the co-creator of the Countertransference Analysis. In the two-person analytic dialogue that Severn and Ferenczi created to resolve the intractable therapeutic impasse in their analytic relationship, a dialogue of the unconscious emerged. Severn believed she was attuned to Ferenczi’s unanalyzed countertransference reaction to her. They had a special kind of relationship where attunement was at an unconscious level. In a sustained analytic encounter, she helped Ferenczi retrieve the experience of being sexually abused, which was the unconscious derivation of his negative countertransference to Severn.