Valence focus and the perception of facial affect

Individuals differ in the extent to which they emphasize feelings of pleasure or displeasure in their verbal reports of emotional experience, an individual difference termed valence focus (VF). This multimethod study indicates that VF is linked to heightened efficiency in perceptual processing of affective stimuli. Individuals higher in VF (i.e., who emphasized feelings of pleasure/displeasure in reports of emotional experiences) were more sensitive to changes in negative facial expressions than individuals lower in VF. The effect was not accounted for by current affective state or other personality characteristics. Implications for the validity of self-reported experienced emotion are discussed.     

Service Delivery and High School Peer Counseling Systems

Earlier rationales supporting peer counseling systems have emphasized possibilities of increased service delivery and innovative counseling models. An ongoing peer counseling program was studied through questionnaires administered to clients, teachers, the general student body, and peer counselors themselves. Specific attention was directed to numbers of students served. Distinctions between formal and informal counseling relationships and problem content areas are discussed. Results suggested the existence of two distinct service delivery systems. An informal system served large numbers of self-referred students and dealt primarily with personal-social problems. A formal system reached fewer students, relied upon staff referral, and addressed academic difficulties. Implications for the design of peer counselor programs with varying goals were discussed.     

A measure of interpersonal dependency

Interpersonal dependency refers to a complex of thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and behaviors revolving around needs to associate closely with valued other people. Its conceptual sources include the psychoanalytic theory of object relations, social learning theories of dependency, and the ethological theory of attachment. A review of existing self-report inventories revealed none that adequately assessed interpersonal dependency. A new 48-item self-report inventory which assesses interpersonal dependency in adults was developed using a sample of 220 normals and 180 psychiatric patients. It was cross-validated on two additional samples. Three components of interpersonal dependency emerged: emotional reliance on another person, lack of social self-confidence, and assertion of autonomy. The relationship of these components with normals and patients was discussed, as well as with the concepts of attachment and dependency.     

Counseling those who care for a relative with Alzheimer's disease

Seventy percent of an estimated four million Americans suffering from Alzheimer's disease remain at home, cared for by a family member. Because of the stress involved in this role, these caregivers are vulnerable to financial, physical, and emotional losses. Some caregivers cope well under the stress; others do not. This paper is aimed at how pastoral counselors might enhance the coping strategies of these caregivers.     

The development of perceived structure and attention: evidence from divided and selective attention tasks

Three experiments provide converging evidence for the view that both perceived structure and attention change during the elementary school years. Kindergarteners, second graders, and adults performed three speeded tasks: divided attention to conjunctions of features, selective attention to orthogonal dimensions and selective attention to correlated dimensions. The tasks were performed with sizes and shapes that were either spatially integrated or spatially separated. In the divided attention task, conjunctions were identified as quickly as single features with integrated stimuli at all ages, but conjunctions were identified more slowly than single features with separated stimuli by all age group. In the orthogonal dimensions task, interference was observed with integrated stimuli across ages, but the interference in adult performance was asymmetric. With separated stimuli, interference was gradually eliminated with increasing age. In correlated dimensions tasks, younger children showed a redundancy gain with integrated stimuli, but no gain was observed in the performances of the older subjects. With separated stimuli there was no redundancy gain at any age. These results were interpreted to mean that integrated stimuli are initially perceived as wholes by all subjects, but that features become more accessible with increasing age. Even so, attention remains constrained by stimulus structure. In contrast, separated stimuli are initially perceived as features at all ages, and the improvement in performance with increasing age is attributable to the increasing command of attentional resources that accompanies development. Our discussion of these findings focuses on three issues: multiple trends in perceptual development, the characteristics of an adequate theory of perceptual representation and processing, and a comparison of the separability hypothesis and other developmental accounts of perceptual development.     

Predicting emotional concomitants of learned helplessness: The role of motivational orientation

Previous theoretical and empirical analyses indicate that an extrinsic motivational orientation, i.e., performing activities to please others or concern with criticism, predicts the cognitive and behavioral deficits associated with learned helplessness. Conversely, intrinsically motivated students, who perform activities for the inherent pleasure of mastery over challenge, have been shown to be virtually resilient to successive failure experiences and even show a facilitation effect. However, research has not yet addressed the extent to which motivational orientation predicts the emotional deficits associated with helplessness—namely, depression and a maladaptive attributional style. Furthermore, no research has examined the relative predictability of these variables to investigate subjects' feelings after an experimental manipulation of failure. The present research found support for the proposition that an extrinsic motivational orientation predicts depression and the Expanded Attributional Style Questionnaire. More importantly, our findings demonstrated that an extrinsic motivational orientation was a more reliable predictor of subjects' feelings after a failure manipulation than either depression or a maladaptive attributional style. These findings are discussed in light of intervention strategies to attenuate the development of an extrinsic motivational orientation in students.