Pseudo-Subjectivity in Counseling

Leaders in the field of counseling have stressed an integration of objective and subjective attitudes as being essential to the counselor. Yet, a review of the literature concerning the ideal characteristics of counselors shows a heavy emphasis on subjective traits, such as warmth, acceptance, and understanding. The authors are critical of such an overemphasis and point to studies of effective people which demonstrate the importance of objective traits and attitudes as well. A recommendation is made for the recognition of individual differences in the selection of counselors and for the strengthening of objective attitudes and skills in the training of counselors.     

Audio analgesia: Lack of a cross-masking effect on taste

The effects of intense acoustic stimulation on the sense of taste were examined in two experiments. In the first, a yes-no psychophysical method was used to obtain psychometric functions for the discriminability of weak solutions of NaCl or sucrose from distilled water. The functions for NaCl were about 10 times steeper than those for sucrose. In the second experiment, suprathreshold concentrations of these substances were used in conjunction with a magnitude-estimation technique. With neither technique were there any systematic differences in the data taken with and without audio analgesia.     

Male-female differences and the influence of neonatal and adult testosterone on intraspecies aggression in rats.

Male and female albino rats were tested for intraspecies aggression without the use of shock. In the first experiment, male pairs showed more biting attacks, offensive sideways movements, and self-grooming than did female pairs; male pairs also showed more stereotyped defensive/submissive behaviors and were wounded more frequently. The second experiment examined the effects of neonatal castration and testosterone propionate (TP) administration on fighting. Males castrated at birth attacked other males less frequently than did controls when tested with TP treatment as adults. The TP given at birth to neonatally castrated males restored attacks to control levels. Females given TP as neonates did not differ from either male or female controls. Other aggressive/defensive behaviors, however, did not show this pattern. The results suggest that while the presence of testosterone during a brief postnatal period and during adulthood is necessary for attack behavior to occur, other related behaviors may not be affected in a similar manner.     

Short-term homogeneous group therapy for schizophrenic inpatients: A questionnaire evaluation

Traditional, insightoriented group therapy with a heterogeneous patient population has not been effective in the short-term inpatient setting. We have experimented with a homogeneous group therapy format where all of the patients have been acutely psychotic schizophrenics. Clinically, this approach has been found to be useful. Questionnaires filled out by the patients at the time of discharge have supported this conclusion. The patients valued the group more as a place to express their feelings and learn ways of interacting with others than as a place to test reality or receive advice on practical issues.     

Outpatient alcoholics view group therapy

Eight chronic alcoholic outpatients who completed six months of a biweekly therapy group returned questionnaires based on Yalom's concepts of group therapy curative factors. The questionnaire data revealed that the most helpful factors were instillation of hope, altruism, group cohesiveness, interpersonal output and universality. These results are discussed with reference to other studies using Yalom's technique.Supported by Biomedical Research Support Grant Number 2-0570260-30102, Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, San Francisco, California.     

Antidepressant medication in the treatment of agoraphobia: A critical review

The present article critically examines research on the use of antidepressants in treating agoraphobia. A number of studies have shown certain classes of antidepressant medication, namely tricyclic antidepressants and MAO inhibitors, to have beneficial effects on certain aspects of the agoraphobic syndrome. However, these studies must be interpreted with caution in light of two major methodological shortcomings, i.e. sole reliance on paper and pencil outcome indices and the confounding of the pharmacological effects of the drug with exposure to feared situations. Recent research, aimed at correcting for these methodological problems, seriously question the efficacy of antidepressant pharmacotherapy by itself as a treatment for agoraphobia. Moreover, it is argued that the disadvantages of drug treatments namely agoraphobics' reluctance to take medication, physical side effects and relapse upon withdrawal of the medication, caution against their routine use in clinical practice.     

On people’s understanding of the diagnostic implications of probabilistic data

Two lines of prior research into the conditions under which people seek information are examined in light of two statistical definitions of diagnosticity. Five experiments are reported. In two, subjects selected information in order to test a hypothesis. In the remaining three, they selected information in order to convince someone else of the truth of a known hypothesis. A total of 567 university students served as subjects. The two primary conclusions were as follows: (1) When the task is highly structured by the environment, subjects select information diagnostically, and (2) when the task is less structured, so that subjects must seek relevant information not manifest, they select information pseudodiagnostically. Possible relations to other laboratory inference tasks and to clinical judgment are discussed.     

The search for verbal fingerprints

Many scholars have attempted to detect patterns in speech or in writingwhich might identify the author as surely as a fingerprint does. The articleconsiders a problem in taking statements which is becoming common at thepresent time. It reviews some of the features which scholars have used inattempting to discriminate between the works of different authors and findsthat they fail to produce a verbal fingerprint. Finally, scale-relatedpatterns are introduced which link different works in a way which has onlyrecently been detected. These patterns may be significant in some instancesof authorship determination and take the matter one step further in thesearch for the elusive verbal fingerprint.     

Application of the verbal transformation effect with learning-disabled children

Verbal Transformations (VTs) are an illusory effect which results from hearing a tape recording consisting of one word repeated twice per second. VTs have been employed to ascertain auditory perceptual differences in normal subjects relative to chronological age. This research tested two groups of 10 male children (normal and learning disabled). Results showed a significant difference (p < .01) between the reported number of VTs per group, with normal subjects verbalizing more different words. LD results are compared to VT studies with geriatrics. A theory is presented to explain our findings based upon a defect in short-term memory.